[transcriber's note: a small number of typographical errors found in the original, printed book have been corrected; neither the language nor the spelling has been modernized. there are two chapters numbered thirteen; they have been labeled xiiia and xiiib.] [illustration: queen elizabeth in the dress in which she went to st pauls, to return thanks for the defeat of the spanish armada. engraved by bond, from the extremely rare print by crispin de passe, after a drawing by isaac oliver.] memoirs of the court of queen elizabeth by lucy aikin in two volumes. (combined) london: printed for longman, hurst, rees, orme, and brown, paternoster row. . printed by richard and arthur taylor, shoe-lane. preface. in the literature of our country, however copious, the eye of the curious student may still detect important deficiencies. we possess, for example, many and excellent histories, embracing every period of our domestic annals;--biographies, general and particular, which appear to have placed on record the name of every private individual justly entitled to such commemoration;--and numerous and extensive collections of original letters, state-papers and other historical and antiquarian documents;--whilst our comparative penury is remarkable in royal lives, in court histories, and especially in that class which forms the glory of french literature,--memoir. to supply in some degree this want, as it affects the person and reign of one of the most illustrious of female and of european sovereigns, is the intention of the work now offered with much diffidence to the public. its plan comprehends a detailed view of the private life of elizabeth from the period of her birth; a view of the domestic history of her reign; memoirs of the principal families of the nobility and biographical anecdotes of the celebrated characters who composed her court; besides notices of the manners, opinions and literature of the reign. such persons as may have made it their business or their entertainment to study very much in detail the history of the age of elizabeth, will doubtless be aware that in the voluminous collections of strype, in the edited burleigh, sidney, and talbot papers, in the memoirs of birch, in various collections of letters, in the chronicles of the times,--so valuable for those vivid pictures of manners which the pen of a contemporary unconsciously traces,--in the annals of camden, the progresses of nichols, and other large and laborious works which it would be tedious here to enumerate, a vast repertory existed of curious and interesting facts seldom recurred to for the composition of books of lighter literature, and possessing with respect to a great majority of readers the grace of novelty. of these and similar works of reference, as well as of a variety of others, treating directly or indirectly on the biography, the literature, and the manners of the period, a large collection has been placed under the eyes of the author, partly by the liberality of her publishers, partly by the kindness of friends. in availing herself of their contents, she has had to encounter in full force the difficulties attendant on such a task; those of weighing and comparing authorities, of reconciling discordant statements, of bringing insulated facts to bear upon each other, and of forming out of materials irregular in their nature and abundant almost to excess, a compact and well-proportioned structure. how far her abilities and her diligence may have proved themselves adequate to the undertaking, it remains with a candid public to decide. respecting the selection of topics it seems necessary however to remark, that it has been the constant endeavour of the writer to preserve to her work the genuine character of memoirs, by avoiding as much as possible all encroachments on the peculiar province of history;--that amusement, of a not illiberal kind, has been consulted at least equally with instruction:--and that on subjects of graver moment, a correct sketch has alone been attempted. by a still more extensive course of reading and research, an additional store of anecdotes and observations might unquestionably have been amassed; but it is hoped that of those assembled in the following pages, few will be found to rest on dubious or inadequate authority; and that a copious choice of materials, relatively to the intended compass of the work, will appear to have superseded the temptation to useless digression, or to prolix and trivial detail. the orthography of all extracts from the elder writers has been modernized, and their punctuation rendered more distinct; in other respects reliance may be placed on their entire fidelity. memoirs of the court of queen elizabeth. vol. i. chapter i. to . birth of elizabeth.--circumstances attending the marriage of her parents.--public entry of anne boleyn into london.--pageants exhibited.--baptism of elizabeth.--eminent persons present.--proposal of marriage between elizabeth and a french prince.--progress of the reformation.--henry persecutes both parties.--death of catherine of arragon.--disgrace of anne boleyn.--her death.--confesses an obstacle to her marriage.--particulars on this subject.--elizabeth declared illegitimate.--letter of lady bryan respecting her.--the king marries jane seymour. on the th of september , at the royal palace of greenwich in kent, was born, under circumstances as peculiar as her after-life proved eventful and illustrious, elizabeth daughter of king henry viii. and his queen anne boleyn. delays and difficulties equally grievous to the impetuous temper of the man and the despotic habits of the prince, had for years obstructed henry in the execution of his favourite project of repudiating, on the plea of their too near alliance, a wife who had ceased to find favor in his sight, and substituting on her throne the youthful beauty who had captivated his imagination. at length his passion and his impatience had arrived at a pitch capable of bearing down every obstacle. with that contempt of decorum which he displayed so remarkably in some former, and many later transactions of his life, he caused his private marriage with anne boleyn to precede the sentence of divorce which he had resolved that his clergy should pronounce against catherine of arragon; and no sooner had this judicial ceremony taken place, than the new queen was openly exhibited as such in the face of the court and the nation. an unusual ostentation of magnificence appears to have attended the celebration of these august nuptials. the fondness of the king for pomp and pageantry was at all times excessive, and on this occasion his love and his pride would equally conspire to prompt an extraordinary display. anne, too, a vain, ambitious, and light-minded woman, was probably greedy of this kind of homage from her princely lover; and the very consciousness of the dubious, inauspicious, or disgraceful circumstances attending their union, might secretly augment the anxiety of the royal pair to dazzle and impose by the magnificence of their public appearance. only once before, since the norman conquest, had a king of england stooped from his dignity to elevate a private gentlewoman and a subject to a partnership of his bed and throne; and the bitter animosities between the queen's relations on one side, and the princes of the blood and great nobles on the other, which had agitated the reign of edward iv., and contributed to bring destruction on the heads of his helpless orphans, stood as a strong warning against a repetition of the experiment. the unblemished reputation and amiable character of henry's "some-time wife," had long procured for her the love and respect of the people; her late misfortunes had engaged their sympathy, and it might be feared that several unfavorable points of comparison would suggest themselves between the high-born and high-minded catherine and her present rival--once her humble attendant--whose long-known favor with the king, whose open association with him at calais, whither she had attended him, whose private marriage of uncertain date, and already advanced pregnancy, afforded so much ground for whispered censures. on the other hand, the personal qualities of the king gave him great power over popular opinion. the manly beauty of his countenance, the strength and agility which in the chivalrous exercises of the time rendered him victorious over all competitors; the splendor with which he surrounded himself; his bounty; the popular frankness of his manners, all conspired to render him, at this period of his life, an object of admiration rather than of dread to his subjects; while the respect entertained for his talents and learning, and for the conscientious scruples respecting his first marriage which he felt or feigned, mingled so much of deference in their feelings towards him, as to check all hasty censures of his conduct. the protestant party, now considerable by zeal and numbers, foresaw too many happy results to their cause from the circumstances of his present union, to scrutinize with severity the motives which had produced it. the nation at large, justly dreading a disputed succession, with all its long-experienced evils, in the event of henry's leaving behind him no offspring but a daughter whom he had lately set aside on the ground of illegitimacy, rejoiced in the prospect of a male heir to the crown. the populace of london, captivated, as usual, by the splendors of a coronation, were also delighted with the youth, beauty, and affability of the new queen. the solemn entry therefore of anne into the city of london was greeted by the applause of the multitude; and it was probably the genuine voice of public feeling, which, in saluting her queen of england, wished her, how much in vain! a long and prosperous life. the pageants displayed in the streets of london on this joyful occasion, are described with much minuteness by our chroniclers, and afford ample indications that the barbarism of taste which permitted an incongruous mixture of classical mythology with scriptural allusions, was at its height in the learned reign of our eighth henry. helicon and mount parnassus appeared on one side; st. anne, and mary the wife of cleophas with her children, were represented on the other. here the three graces presented the queen with a golden apple by the hands of their orator mercury; there the four cardinal virtues promised, in set speeches, that they would always be aiding and comforting to her. on the sunday after her public entry, a day not at this period regarded as improper for the performance of such a ceremonial, henry caused his queen to be crowned at westminster with great solemnity; an honor which he never thought proper to confer on any of her successors. in the sex of the child born to them a few months afterwards, the hopes of the royal pair must doubtless have sustained a severe disappointment: but of this sentiment nothing was suffered to appear in the treatment of the infant, whom her father was anxious to mark out as his only legitimate offspring and undoubted heir to the crown. she was destined to bear the auspicious name of elizabeth, in memory of her grandmother, that heiress of the house of york whose marriage with the earl of richmond, then henry vii., had united the roses, and given lasting peace to a country so long rent by civil discord. the unfortunate mary, now in her sixteenth year, was stripped of the title of princess of wales, which she had borne from her childhood, that it might adorn a younger sister; one too whose birth her interest, her religion, and her filial affection for an injured mother, alike taught her to regard as base and infamous. a public and princely christening served still further to attest the importance attached to this new member of the royal family. by the king's special command, cranmer archbishop of canterbury stood godfather to the princess; and shakespeare, by a fiction equally poetical and courtly, has represented him as breaking forth on this memorable occasion into an animated vaticination of the glories of the "maiden reign." happy was it for the peace of mind of the noble personages there assembled, that no prophet was empowered at the same time to declare how few of them should live to share its splendors; how awfully large a proportion of their number should fall, or behold their nearest connexions falling, untimely victims of the jealous tyranny of henry himself, or of the convulsions and persecutions of the two troubled reigns destined to intervene before those halcyon days which they were taught to anticipate! for the purpose of illustrating the truth of this remark, and at the same time of introducing to the reader the most distinguished personages of henry's court, several of whom will afterwards be found exerting different degrees of influence on the character or fortunes of the illustrious subject of this work, it may be worth while to enumerate in regular order the performers in this august ceremonial. the circumstantial holinshed, to whom we are indebted for their names and offices, will at the same time furnish some of those minute particulars which serve to bring the whole pompous scene before the eye of fancy. early in the afternoon, the lord-mayor and corporation of london, who had been summoned to attend, took boat for greenwich, where they found many lords, knights, and gentlemen assembled. the whole way from the palace to the friery was strown with green rushes, and the walls were hung with tapestry, as was the friers' church in which the ceremony was performed. a silver font with a crimson canopy was placed in the middle of the church; and the child being brought into the hall, the long procession set forward. it began with citizens walking two-and-two, and ended with barons, bishops, and earls. then came, bearing the gilt basins, henry earl of essex, the last of the ancient name of bourchier who bore the title. he was a splendid nobleman, distinguished in the martial games and gorgeous pageantries which then amused the court: he also boasted of a royal lineage, being sprung from thomas of woodstock, youngest son of edward iii.; and perhaps he was apprehensive lest this distinction might hereafter become as fatal to himself as it had lately proved to the unfortunate duke of buckingham. but he perished a few years after by a fall from his horse; and leaving no male issue, the king, to the disgust of this great family, conferred the title on the low-bred cromwel, then his favorite minister. the salt was borne by henry marquis of dorset, the unfortunate father of lady jane grey; who, after receiving the royal pardon for his share in the criminal plot for setting the crown on the head of his daughter, again took up arms in the rebellion of wyat, and was brought to expiate this treason on the scaffold. william courtney marquis of exeter followed with the taper of virgin wax; a nobleman who had the misfortune to be very nearly allied to the english throne; his mother being a daughter of edward iv. he was at this time in high favor with the king his cousin, who, after setting aside his daughter mary, had even declared him heir-apparent, to the prejudice of his own sisters: but three years after he fell a victim to the jealousy of the king, on a charge of corresponding with his proscribed kinsman cardinal pole: his honors and estates were forfeited; and his son, though still a child, was detained in close custody. the chrism was borne by lady mary howard, the beautiful daughter of the duke of norfolk; who lived not only to behold, but, by the evidence which she gave on his trial, to assist in the most unmerited condemnation of her brother, the gallant and accomplished earl of surry. the king, by a trait of royal arrogance, selected this lady, descended from our saxon monarchs and allied to all the first nobility, for the wife of his base-born son created duke of richmond; but it does not appear that the spirit of the howards was high enough in this reign to feel the insult as it deserved. the royal infant, wrapped in a mantle of purple velvet, having a long train furred with ermine, was carried by one of her godmothers, the dowager-duchess of norfolk. anne boleyn was this lady's step-grand-daughter: but in this alliance with royalty she had little cause to exult; still less in the closer one which was afterwards formed for her by the elevation of her own grand-daughter catherine howard. on discovery of the ill conduct of this queen, the aged duchess was overwhelmed with disgrace; she was even declared guilty of misprision of treason, and committed to custody, but was released by the king after the blood of catherine and her paramours had quenched his fury. the dowager-marchioness of dorset was the other godmother at the font:--of the four sons of this lady, three perished on the scaffold; her grand-daughter lady jane grey shared the same fate; and the surviving son died a prisoner during the reign of elizabeth, for the offence of distributing a pamphlet asserting the title of the suffolk line to the crown. the marchioness of exeter was the godmother at the confirmation, who had not only the affliction to see her husband brought to an untimely end, and her only son wasting his youth in captivity, but, being herself attainted of high treason some time afterwards, underwent a long and arbitrary imprisonment. on either hand of the duchess of norfolk walked the dukes of norfolk and suffolk, the only nobles of that rank then existing in england. their names occur in conjunction on every public occasion, and in almost every important transaction, civil and military, of the reign of henry viii., but the termination of their respective careers was strongly contrasted. the duke of suffolk had the extraordinary good fortune never to lose that favor with his master which he had gained as charles brandon, the partner of his youthful pleasures. what was a still more extraordinary instance of felicity, his marriage with the king's sister brought to him neither misfortunes nor perils, and he did not live to witness those which overtook his grand-daughters. he died in peace, lamented by a sovereign who knew his worth. the duke of norfolk, on the contrary, was powerful enough by birth and connexions to impress henry with fears for the tranquillity of his son's reign. the memory of former services was sacrificed to present alarm. almost with his last breath he ordered his old and faithful servant to the scaffold; but even henry was no longer absolute on his death-bed. for once he was disobeyed, and norfolk survived him; but the long years of his succeeding captivity were poorly compensated by a brief and tardy restoration to liberty and honors under mary. one of the child's train-bearers was the countess of kent. this was probably the widow of the second earl of that title and of the name of grey: she must therefore have been the daughter of the earl of pembroke, a zealous yorkist who was slain fighting in the cause of edward iv. henry viii. was doubtless aware that his best hereditary title to the crown was derived from his mother, and during his reign the yorkist families enjoyed at least an equal share of favor with the lancastrians, whom his father had almost exclusively countenanced. thomas boleyn earl of wiltshire, the proud and happy grandfather of the princely infant, supported the train on one side. it is not true that he afterwards, in his capacity of a privy councillor, pronounced sentence of death on his own son and daughter; even henry was not inhuman enough to exact this of him; but he lived to witness their cruel and disgraceful end, and died long before the prosperous days of his illustrious grandchild. on the other side the train was borne by edward stanley third earl of derby. this young nobleman had been a ward of wolsey, and was carefully educated by that splendid patron of learning in his house and under his own eye. he proved himself a faithful and loyal subject to four successive sovereigns; stood unshaken by the tempests of the most turbulent times; and died full of days in the possession of great riches, high hereditary honors, and universal esteem, in . a splendid canopy was supported over the infant by four lords, three of them destined to disastrous fates. one was her uncle, the elegant, accomplished, viscount rochford, whom the impartial suffrage of posterity has fully acquitted of the odious crime for which he suffered by the mandate of a jealous tyrant. another was lord hussey; whom a rash rebellion brought to the scaffold a few years afterwards. the two others were brothers of that illustrious family of howard, which furnished in this age alone more subjects for tragedy than "thebes or pelops' line" of old. lord william, uncle to catherine howard, was arbitrarily adjudged to perpetual imprisonment and forfeiture of goods for concealing her misconduct; but henry was pleased soon after to remit the sentence: he lived to be eminent in the state under the title of lord howard of effingham, and died peacefully in a good old age. lord thomas suffered by the ambition so frequent in his house, of matching with the blood royal. he formed a secret marriage with the lady margaret douglas, niece to the king; on discovery of which, he was committed to a close imprisonment, whence he was only released by death. after the ceremony of baptism had been performed by stokesly bishop of london, a solemn benediction was pronounced upon the future queen by cranmer, that learned and distinguished prelate, who may indeed be reproached with some too courtly condescensions to the will of an imperious master, and what is worse, with several cruel acts of religious persecution; but whose virtues were many, whose general character was mild and benevolent, and whose errors and weaknesses were finally expiated by the flames of martyrdom. in the return from church, the gifts of the sponsors, consisting of cups and bowls, some gilded, and others of massy gold, were carried by four persons of quality: henry somerset second earl of worcester, whose father, notwithstanding his illegitimacy, had been acknowledged as a kinsman by henry vii., and advanced to the peerage; lord thomas howard the younger, a son of the duke of norfolk who was restored in blood after his father's attainder, and created lord howard of bindon; thomas ratcliffe lord fitzwalter, afterwards earl of sussex; and sir john dudley, son of the detested associate of empson, and afterwards the notorious duke of northumberland, whose crimes received at length their due recompense in that ignominious death to which his guilty and extravagant projects had conducted so many comparatively innocent victims. we are told, that on the same day and hour which gave birth to the princess elizabeth, a son was born to this "bold bad man," who received the name of robert, and was known in after-times as earl of leicester. it was believed by the superstition of the age, that this coincidence of their nativities produced a secret and invincible sympathy which secured to dudley, during life, the affections of his sovereign lady. it may without superstition be admitted, that this circumstance, seizing on the romantic imagination of the princess, might produce a first impression, which leicester's personal advantages, his insinuating manners, and consummate art of feigning, all contributed to render deep and permanent. the personal history of elizabeth may truly be said to begin with her birth; for she had scarcely entered her second year when her marriage--that never-accomplished project, which for half a century afterwards inspired so many vain hopes and was the subject of so many fruitless negotiations, was already proposed as an article of a treaty between france and england. henry had caused an act of succession to be passed, by which his divorce was confirmed, the authority of the pope disclaimed, and the crown settled on his issue by anne boleyn. but, as if half-repenting the boldness of his measures, he opened a negotiation almost immediately with francis i., for the purpose of obtaining a declaration by that king and his nobility in favor of his present marriage, and the intercession of francis for the revocation of the papal censures fulminated against him. and in consideration of these acts of friendship, he offered to engage the hand of elizabeth to the duke d'angoulême, third son of the french king. but francis was unable to prevail upon the new pope to annul the acts of his predecessor; and probably not wishing to connect himself more closely with a prince already regarded as a heretic, he suffered the proposal of marriage to fall to the ground. the doctrines of zwingle and of luther had at this time made considerable progress among henry's subjects, and the great work of reformation was begun in england. several smaller monasteries had been suppressed; the pope's supremacy was preached against by public authority; and the parliament, desirous of widening the breach between the king and the pontiff, declared the former, head of the english church. after some hesitation, henry accepted the office, and wrote a book in defence of his conduct. the queen was attached, possibly by principle, and certainly by interest, to the antipapal party, which alone admitted the validity of the royal divorce, and consequently of her marriage; and she had already engaged her chaplain dr. parker, a learned and zealous reformist, to keep a watchful eye over the childhood of her daughter, and early to imbue her mind with the true principles of religious knowledge. but henry, whose passions and interests alone, not his theological convictions, had set him in opposition to the old church establishment, to the ceremonies and doctrines of which he was even zealously attached, began to be apprehensive that the whole fabric would be swept away by the strong tide of popular opinion which was now turned against it, and he hastened to interpose in its defence. he brought to the stake several persons who denied the real presence, as a terror to the reformers; whilst at the same time he showed his resolution to quell the adherents of popery, by causing bishop fisher and sir thomas more to be attainted of treason, for refusing such part of the oath of succession as implied the invalidity of the king's first marriage, and thus, in effect, disallowed the authority of the papal dispensation in virtue of which it had been celebrated. thus were opened those dismal scenes of religious persecution and political cruelty from which the mind of elizabeth was to receive its early and indelible impressions. the year , which proved even more fertile than its predecessor in melancholy incidents and tragical catastrophes, opened with the death of catherine of arragon; an event equally welcome, in all probability, both to the sufferer herself, whom tedious years of trouble and mortification must have rendered weary of a world which had no longer a hope to flatter her; and to the ungenerous woman who still beheld her, discarded as she was, with the sentiments of an enemy and a rival. it is impossible to contemplate the life and character of this royal lady, without feelings of the deepest commiseration. as a wife, the bitter humiliations which she was doomed to undergo were entirely unmerited; for not only was her modesty unquestioned, but her whole conduct towards the king was a perfect model of conjugal love and duty. as a queen and a mother, her firmness, her dignity, and her tenderness, deserved a far other recompense than to see herself degraded, on the infamous plea of incest, from the rank of royalty, and her daughter, so long heiress to the english throne, branded with illegitimacy, and cast out alike from the inheritance and the affections of her father. but the memory of this unhappy princess has been embalmed by the genius of shakespeare, in the noble drama of which he has made her the touching and majestic heroine; and let not the praise of magnanimity be denied to the daughter of anne boleyn, in permitting those wrongs and those sufferings which were the price of her glory, nay of her very existence, to be thus impressively offered to the compassion of her people. henry was moved to tears on reading the tender and pious letter addressed to him by the dying hand of catherine; and he marked by several small but expressive acts, the respect, or rather the compunction, with which the recollection of her could not fail to inspire him. anne boleyn paid to the memory of the princess-dowager of wales--such was the title now given to catherine--the unmeaning compliment of putting on yellow mourning; the color assigned to queens by the fashion of france: but neither humanity nor discretion restrained her from open demonstrations of the satisfaction afforded her by the melancholy event. short was her unfeeling triumph. she brought into the world a few days afterwards, a dead son; and this second disappointment of his hopes completed that disgust to his queen which satiety, and perhaps also a growing passion for another object, was already beginning to produce in the mind of the king. it is traditionally related, that at jane seymour's first coming to court, the queen, espying a jewel hung round her neck, wished to look at it; and struck with the young lady's reluctance to submit it to her inspection, snatched it from her with violence, when she found it to contain the king's picture, presented by himself to the wearer. from this day she dated her own decline in the affections of her husband, and the ascendancy of her rival. however this might be, it is certain that the king about this time began to regard the conduct of his once idolized anne boleyn with an altered eye. that easy gaiety of manner which he had once remarked with delight, as an indication of the innocence of her heart and the artlessness of her disposition, was now beheld by him as a culpable levity which offended his pride and alarmed his jealousy. his impetuous temper, with which "once to suspect was once to be resolved," disdained to investigate proofs or to fathom motives; a pretext alone was wanting to his rising fury, and this he was not long in finding. on may-day, then observed at court as a high festival, solemn justs were held at greenwich, before the king and queen, in which viscount rochford, the queen's brother, was chief challenger, and henry norris principal defender. in the midst of the entertainment, the king suddenly rose and quitted the place in anger; but on what particular provocation is not certainly known. saunders the jesuit, the great calumniator of anne boleyn, says that it was on seeing his consort drop her handkerchief, which norris picked up and wiped his face with. the queen immediately retired, and the next day was committed to custody. her earnest entreaties to be permitted to see the king were disregarded, and she was sent to the tower on a charge of treason and adultery. lord rochford, norris, one smeton a musician, and brereton and another gentleman of the bed-chamber, were likewise apprehended, and brought to trial on the accusation of criminal intercourse with the queen. they were all convicted; but from the few particulars which have come down to us, it seems to be justly inferred, that the evidence produced against some at least of these unhappy gentlemen, was slight and inconclusive. lord rochford is universally believed to have fallen a victim to the atrocious perjuries of his wife, who was very improperly admitted as a witness against him, and whose infamous conduct was afterwards fully brought to light. no absolute criminality appears to have been proved against weston and brereton; but smeton confessed the fact. norris died much more generously: he protested that he would rather perish a thousand times than accuse an innocent person; that he believed the queen to be perfectly guiltless; he, at least, could accuse her of nothing; and in this declaration he persisted to the last. his expressions, if truly reported, seem to imply that he might have saved himself by criminating the queen: but besides the extreme improbability that the king would have shown or promised any mercy to such a delinquent, we know in fact that the confession of smeton did not obtain for him even a reprieve: it is therefore absurd to represent norris as having died in vindication of the honor of the queen; and the favor afterwards shown to his son by elizabeth, had probably little connexion with any tenderness for the memory of her mother, a sentiment which she certainly exhibited in no other circumstance. the trial and condemnation of the queen followed. the process was conducted with that open disregard of the first principles of justice and equity then universal in all cases of high treason: no counsel were assigned her, no witnesses confronted with her, and it does not appear that she was even informed of smeton's confession: but whether, after all, she died innocent, is a problem which there now exist no means of solving, and which it is somewhat foreign from the purpose of this work to discuss. one part of this subject, however, on account of the intimate relation which it bears to the history of elizabeth, and the influence which it may be presumed to have exercised in the formation of her character, must be treated somewhat at large. the common law of england, by an anomaly truly barbarous, denounced, against females only, who should be found guilty of high treason, the punishment of burning. by menaces of putting into execution this horrible sentence, instead of commuting it for decapitation, anne boleyn was induced to acknowledge some legal impediment to her marriage with the king; and on this confession alone, cranmer, with his usual subserviency, gratified his royal master by pronouncing that union null and void, and its offspring illegitimate. what this impediment, real or pretended, might be, we only learn from a public declaration made immediately afterwards by the earl of northumberland, stating, that whereas it had been pretended, that a precontract had subsisted between himself and the late queen, he has declared upon oath before the lords of the council, and taken the sacrament upon it, that no such contract had ever passed between them. in explanation of this protest, the noble historian of henry viii.[ ] furnishes us with the following particulars. that the earl of northumberland, when lord percy, had made proposals of marriage to anne boleyn, which she had accepted, being yet a stranger to the passion of the king; that henry, unable to bear the idea of losing her, but averse as yet to a declaration of his sentiments, employed wolsey to dissuade the father of lord percy from giving his consent to their union, in which he succeeded; the earl of northumberland probably becoming aware how deeply the personal feelings of the king were concerned: that lord percy, however, refused to give up the lady, alleging in the first instance that he had gone too far to recede with honor; but was afterwards compelled by his father to form another matrimonial connexion. it should appear by this statement, that some engagement had in fact subsisted between northumberland and anne; but there is no necessity for supposing it to have been a contract of that solemn nature which, according to the law as it then stood, would have rendered null the subsequent marriage of either party. the protestation of the earl was confirmed by the most solemn sanctions; which there is no ground for supposing him capable of violating, especially as on this occasion, so far from gaining any advantage by it, he was likely to give high offence to the king. if then, as appears most probable, the confession by which anne boleyn disinherited and illegitimatised her daughter was false; a perjury so wicked and cowardly must brand her memory with everlasting infamy:--even should the contrary have been the fact, the transaction does her little honor; in either case it affords ample justification to that daughter in leaving, as she did, her remains without a monument and her conduct without an apology. [note : lord herbert of chirbury.] the precarious and equivocal condition to which the little elizabeth was reduced by the divorce and death of her mother, will be best illustrated by the following extracts of a letter addressed soon after the event, by lady bryan her governess, to lord cromwel. it may at the same time amuse the modern reader to remark the minute details on which, in that day, the first minister of state was expected to bestow his personal attention. * * * * * "...my lord, when your lordship was last here, it pleased you to say, that i should not mistrust the king's grace, nor your lordship. which word was more comfort to me than i can write, as god knoweth. and now it boldeneth me to show you my poor mind. my lord, when my lady mary's grace was born, it pleased the king's grace to [appoint] me lady mistress, and made me a baroness. and so i have been to the children his grace have had since. "now, so it is, my lady elizabeth is put from that degree she was afore; and what degree she is at now, i know not but by hearsay. therefore i know not how to order her, nor myself, nor none of hers that i have the rule of; that is, her women and her grooms. beseeching you to be good lord to my lady and to all hers; and that she may have some rayment. for she hath neither gown, nor kirtle, nor petticoat, nor no manner of linen, nor foresmocks, nor kerchiefs, nor sleeves, nor rails, nor body-stitchets, nor mufflers, nor biggins. all these, her grace's _mostake_[ ], i have driven off as long as i can, that, by my troth, i cannot drive it no lenger. beseeching you, my lord, that you will see that her grace may have that is needful for her, as my trust is ye will do--that i may know from you by writing how i shall order myself; and what is the king's grace's pleasure and yours, that i shall do in every thing. "my lord, mr. shelton saith he is the master of this house: what fashion that shall be, i cannot tell; for i have not seen it before.--i trust your lordship will see the house honourably ordered, howsomever it hath been ordered aforetime. "my lord, mr. shelton would have my lady elizabeth to dine and sup every day at the board of estate. alas! my lord, it is not meet for a child of her age to keep such rule yet. i promise you, my lord, i dare not take it upon me to keep her in health and she keep that rule. for there she shall see divers meats and fruits, and wine: which would be hard for me to restrain her grace from it. ye know, my lord, there is no place of correction there. and she is yet too young to correct greatly. i know well, and she be there, i shall nother bring her up to the king's grace's honour, nor hers; nor to her health, nor my poor honesty. wherefore i show your lordship this my desire. beseeching you, my lord, that my lady may have a mess of meat to her own lodging, with a good dish or two, that is meet for her grace to eat of. "god knoweth my lady hath great pain with her great teeth, and they come very slowly forth: and causeth me to suffer her grace to have her will, more than i would. i trust to god and her teeth were well graft, to have her grace after another fashion than she is yet: so as i trust the king's grace shall have great comfort in her grace. for she is as toward a child, and as gentle of conditions, as ever i knew any in my life. jesu preserve her grace! as for a day or two at a hey time, or whensomever it shall please the king's grace to have her set abroad, i trust so to endeavour me, that she shall so do, as shall be to the king's honour and hers; and then after to take her ease again. "good my lord, have my lady's grace, and us that be her poor servants in your remembrance. "_from hunsdon_." (no date of time.) [note : this is a word which i am utterly unable to explain; but it is thus printed in strype's "memorials," whence the letter is copied.] * * * * * on the day immediately following the death of the unfortunate anne boleyn, the king was publicly united in marriage to jane seymour; and an act of parliament soon after passed by which the lady elizabeth was declared incapable of succeeding to the crown, which was now settled on the offspring of henry by his present queen. chapter ii. to . vague notions of hereditary succession to the english throne.--henry's jealousy of the royal family.--imprisonment of lord t. howard and lady m. douglas.--after-fortunes of this lady.--princess mary reconciled with her father.--dissolution of monasteries proceeds.--insurrections in lincolnshire and yorkshire.--remarkable trait of the power of the nobles.--rebellion of t. fitzgerald.--romantic adventures of gerald fitzgerald.--birth of prince edward.--death of the queen.--rise of the two seymours.--henry's views in their advancement.--his enmity to cardinal pole.--causes of it.--geffrey pole discloses a plot.--trial and death of lord montacute, the marquis of exeter, sir edward nevil, and sir n. carew.--particulars of these persons.--attainder of the marchioness of exeter and countess of salisbury.--application of these circumstances to the history of elizabeth.--decline of the protestant party.--its causes.--cromwel proposes the king's marriage with anne of cleves.--accomplishments of this lady.--royal marriage.--cromwel made earl of essex.--anger of the bourchier family.--justs at westminster.--the king determines to dissolve his marriage.--permits the fall of cromwel.--is divorced.--behaviour of the queen.--marriage of the king to catherine howard.--ascendency of the papists.--execution of the countess of salisbury--of lord leonard grey.--discovery of the queen's ill-conduct.--attainders passed against her and several others. nothing could be more opposite to the strict principles of hereditary succession than the ideas entertained, even by the first lawyers of the time of henry viii., concerning the manner in which a title to the crown was to be established and recognised. when rich, the king's solicitor, was sent by his master to argue with sir thomas more on the lawfulness of acknowledging the royal supremacy; he inquired in the course of his argument, whether sir thomas would not own for king any person whatever,--himself for example,--who should have been declared so by parliament? he answered, that he would. rich then demanded, why he refused to acknowledge a head of the church so appointed? "because," replied more, "a parliament can make a king and depose him, and that every parliament-man may give his consent thereunto, but a subject cannot be bound so in case of supremacy[ ]." bold as such doctrine respecting the power of parliaments would now be thought, it could not well be controverted at a time when examples were still recent of kings of the line of york or lancaster alternately elevated or degraded by a vote of the two houses, and when the father of the reigning sovereign had occupied the throne in virtue of such a nomination more than by right of birth. [note : see herbert's henry viii.] but the obvious inconveniences and dangers attending the exercise of this power of choice, had induced the parliaments of henry viii. to join with him in various acts for the regulation of the succession. it was probably with the concurrence of this body, that in he had declared his cousin, the marquis of exeter, heir to the crown; yet this very act, by which the king excluded not only his daughter mary, but his two sisters and their children, every one of whom had a prior right according to the rules at present received, must have caused the sovereignty to be regarded rather as elective in the royal family than properly hereditary--a fatal idea, which converted every member of that family possessed of wealth, talents, or popularity, into a formidable rival, if not to the sovereign on the throne, at least to his next heir, if a woman or a minor, and which may be regarded as the immediate occasion of those cruel proscriptions which stained with kindred blood the closing years of the reign of henry, and have stamped upon him to all posterity the odious character of a tyrant. the first sufferer by the suspicions of the king was lord thomas howard, half-brother to the duke of norfolk, who was attainted of high treason in the parliament of , for having secretly entered into a contract of marriage with lady margaret douglas, the king's niece, through which alliance he was accused of aiming at the crown. for this offence he was confined in the tower till his death; but on what evidence of traitorous designs, or by what law, except the arbitrary mandate of the monarch confirmed by a subservient parliament, it would be difficult to say. that his marriage was forbidden by no law, is evident from the passing of an act immediately afterwards, making it penal to marry any female standing in the first degree of relationship to the king, without his knowledge and consent. the lady margaret was daughter to henry's eldest sister, the queen-dowager of scotland, by her second husband the earl of angus. she was born in england, whither her mother had been compelled to fly for refuge by the turbulent state of her son's kingdom, and the ill success of her own and her husband's struggles for the acquisition of political power. in the english court the lady margaret had likewise been educated, and had formed connexions of friendship; whilst her brother james v. laboured under the antipathy with which the english then regarded those northern neighbours, with whom they were involved in almost perpetual hostilities. it might easily therefore have happened, in case of the king's death without male heirs, that in spite of the power recently bestowed on him by parliament of disposing of the crown by will, which it is very uncertain how he would have employed, a connexion with the potent house of howard might have given the title of lady margaret a preference over that of any other competitor. henry was struck with this danger, however distant and contingent: he caused his niece, as well as her spouse, to be imprisoned; and though he restored her to liberty in a few months, and the death of howard, not long afterwards, set her free from this ill-starred engagement, she ventured not to form another, till the king himself, at the end of several years, gave her in marriage to the earl of lenox; by whom she became the mother of lord darnley, and through him the progenitrix of a line of princes destined to unite another crown to the ancient inheritance of the plantagenets and the tudors. the princess mary, after the removal of anne boleyn, who had exercised towards her the utmost insolence and harshness, ventured upon some overtures towards a reconciliation with her father; but he would accept them on no other conditions than her adopting his religious creed, acknowledging his supremacy, denying the authority of the pope, and confessing the unlawfulness of her mother's marriage. it was long before motives of expediency, and the persuasion of friends, could wring from mary a reluctant assent to these cruel articles: her compliance was rewarded by the return of her father's affection, but not immediately by her reinstatement in the order of succession. she saw the child of anne boleyn still a distinguished object of the king's paternal tenderness; the new queen was likely to give another heir to the crown; and whatever hopes she, with the catholic party in general, had founded on the disgrace of his late spouse, became frustrated by succeeding events. the death of catherine of arragon seemed to have removed the principal obstacles to an agreement between the king and the pope; and the holy father now deigned to make some advances towards a son whom he hoped to find disposed to penitence: but they were absolutely rejected by henry, who had ceased to dread his spiritual thunders. the parliament and the convocation showed themselves prepared to adopt, without hesitation, the numerous changes suggested by the king in the ancient ritual; and cromwel, with influence not apparently diminished by the fall of the late patroness of the protestant party, presided in the latter assembly with the title of vicegerent, and with powers unlimited. the suppression of monasteries was now carried on with increasing rigor, and thousands of their unfortunate inhabitants were mercilessly turned out to beg or starve. these, dispersing themselves over the country, in which their former hospitalities had rendered them generally popular, worked strongly on the passions of the many, already discontented at the imposition of new taxes, which served to convince them that the king and his courtiers would be the only gainers by the plunder of the church; and formidable insurrections were in some counties the result. in lincolnshire the commotions were speedily suppressed by the interposition of the earl of shrewsbury and other loyal noblemen; but it was necessary to send into yorkshire a considerable army under the duke of norfolk. through the dexterous management of this leader, who was judged to favor the cause of the revolters as much as his duty to his sovereign and a regard to his own safety would permit, little blood was shed in the field; but much flowed afterwards on the scaffold, where the lords darcy and hussey, sir thomas percy, brother to the earl of northumberland, and several private gentlemen, suffered as traitors. the suppression of these risings strengthened, as usual, the hands of government, but at the expense of converting into an object of dread, a monarch who in the earlier and brighter period of his reign had been regarded with sentiments of admiration and love. in lord herbert's narrative of this insurrection, we meet with a passage too remarkable to be omitted. "but the king, who was informed from divers parts, but chiefly from yorkshire, that the people began there also to take arms, and knowing of what great consequence it might be if the great persons in those parts, though the rumour were false, should be said to join with him, had commanded george earl of shrewsbury, thomas manners earl of rutland, and george hastings earl of huntingdon, to make a proclamation to the lincolnshire-men, summoning and commanding them on their allegiance and peril of their lives to return; which, as it much disheartened them, so many stole away," &c. in this potency of the hereditary aristocracy of the country, and comparative feebleness, on some occasions at least, of the authority of the most despotic sovereign whom england had yet seen on the throne, we discern at once the excuse which henry would make to himself for his severities against the nobility, and the motive of that extreme popularity of manners by which elizabeth aimed at attaching to herself the affections of the middling and lower orders of her subjects. soon after these events, henry confirmed the new impressions which his subjects had received of his character, by an act of extraordinary, but not unprovoked, severity, which involved in destruction one of the most ancient and powerful houses among the peerage of ireland, that of fitzgerald earl of kildare. the nobleman who now bore this title had married for his second wife lady elizabeth grey, daughter of the first marquis of dorset, and first-cousin to the king by his mother; he had been favored at court, and was at this time lord deputy of ireland. but the country being in a very disturbed state, and the deputy accused of many acts of violence, he had obeyed with great reluctance a summons to answer for his conduct before the king in council, leaving his eldest son to exercise his office during his absence. on his arrival, he was committed to the tower, and his son, alarmed by the false report of his having lost his head, broke out immediately into a furious rebellion. after a temporary success, thomas fitzgerald was reduced to great difficulties: at the same time a promise of pardon was held out to him; and confiding in it he surrendered himself to lord leonard grey, brother to the countess his step-mother. his five uncles, also implicated in the guilt of rebellion, were seized by surprise, or deceived into submission. the whole six were then conveyed to england in the same ship; and all, in spite of the entreaties and remonstrances of lord leonard grey, who considered his own honor as pledged for the safety of their lives, were hanged at tyburn. the aged earl had died in the tower on receiving news of his son's rash enterprise; and a posthumous attainder being issued against him, his lands and goods were forfeited. the king however, in pity to the widow, and as a slight atonement for so cruel an injustice, permitted one of her daughters to retain some poor remains of the family plate and valuables; and another of them, coming to england, appears to have received her education at hunsdon palace with the princesses mary and elizabeth her relations. here she was seen by henry earl of surry, whose chaste and elegant muse has handed her down to posterity as the lovely geraldine, the object of his fervent but fruitless devotion. she was married first to sir anthony brown, and afterwards became the wife of the earl of lincoln, surviving by many years her noble and unfortunate admirer. the countess of kildare, and the younger of her two sons, likewise remained in england obscure and unmolested; but the merciless rancour of henry against the house of fitzgerald still pursued its destitute and unoffending heir, who was struggling through a series of adventures the most perilous and the most romantic. this boy, named gerald, then about twelve years old, had been left by his father at a house in kildare, under the care and tuition of leverous a priest who was his foster-brother. the child was lying ill of the small-pox, when the news arrived that his brother and uncles had been sent prisoners to england: but his affectionate guardian, justly apprehensive of greater danger to his young charge, wrapped him up as carefully as he could, and conveyed him away with all speed to the house of one of his sisters, where he remained till he was quite recovered. thence his tutor removed him successively into the territories of two or three different irish chieftains, who sheltered him for about three quarters of a year, after which he carried him to his aunt the lady elenor, at that time widow of a chief named maccarty reagh. this lady had long been sought in marriage by o'donnel lord of tyrconnel, to whose suit she had been unpropitious: but wrought upon by the hope of being able to afford effectual protection to her unfortunate nephew, she now consented to an immediate union; and taking gerald along with her to her new home in the county of donegal, she there hospitably entertained him for about a year. but the jealous spirit of the implacable king seemed to know no rest while this devoted youth still breathed the air of liberty, and he caused a great reward to be offered for his apprehension, which the base-minded o'donnel immediately sought to appropriate by delivering him up. fortunately the lady elenor discovered his intentions in time, and instantly causing her nephew to disguise his person, and storing him, like a bountiful aunt, with "sevenscore portugueses," she put him under the charge of leverous and an old servant of his father's, and shipped him on board a vessel bound for st. malo's. having thus secured his escape, she loftily expostulated with her husband on his villainy in plotting to betray her kinsman, whom she had stipulated that he should protect to the utmost of his power; and she bid him know, that as the danger of the youth had alone induced her to form any connection with him, so the assurance of his safety should cause her to sequester herself for ever from the society of so base and mercenary a wretch: and hereupon, collecting all that belonged to her, she quitted o'donnel and returned to her own country. gerald, in the mean time, arrived without accident in bretagne, and was favorably received by the governor of that province, when the king of france, being informed of his situation, gave him a place about the dauphin. sir john wallop however, the english embassador, soon demanded him, in virtue of a treaty between the two countries for the delivering up of offenders and proscribed persons; and while the king demurred to the requisition, gerald consulted his safety by making a speedy retreat into flanders. thither his steps were dogged by an irish servant of the embassador's; but the governor of valenciennes protected him by imprisoning this man, till the youth himself generously begged his release; and he reached the emperor's court at brussels, without further molestation. but here also the english embassador demanded him; the emperor however excused himself from giving up a fugitive whose youth sufficiently attested his innocence, and sent him privately to the bishop of liege, with a pension of a hundred crowns a month. the bishop entertained him very honorably, placing him in a monastery, and watching carefully over the safety of his person, till, at the end of half a year, his mother's kinsman, cardinal pole, sent for him into italy. before he would admit the young irishman to his presence, the cardinal required him to learn italian; and allowing him an annuity, placed him first with the bishop of verona, then with a cardinal, and afterwards with the duke of mantua. at the end of a year and a half he invited him to rome, and soon becoming attached to him, took him into his house, and for three years had him instructed under his own eye in all the accomplishments of a finished gentleman. at the end of this time, when gerald had nearly attained the age of nineteen, his generous patron gave him the choice either of pursuing his studies or of travelling to seek his adventures. the youth preferred the latter; and repairing to naples, he fell in with some knights of rhodes, whom he accompanied to malta, and thence to tripoli, a place at that time possessed by the order, whence they carried on fierce war against the "turks and miscreants," spoiling and sacking their villages and towns, and taking many prisoners whom they sold to the christians for slaves. in these proceedings, the young adventurer took a strenuous and valiant part, much to his profit; for in less than a year he returned to rome laden with a rich booty. "proud was the cardinal to hear of his prosperous exploits," and increased his pension to three hundred pounds a year. shortly after, he entered into the service of cosmo duke of florence, and remained three years his master of the horse. the tidings of henry's death at length put an end to his exile, and he hastened to london in the company of some foreign embassadors, and still attended by his faithful guardian leverous. appearing at king edward's court in a mask, or ball, he had the good fortune to make a deep impression on the heart of a young lady, daughter to sir anthony brown, whom he married; and through the intercession of her friends was restored to a part of his inheritance by the young monarch, who also knighted him. in the next reign, the interest of cardinal pole procured his reinstatement in all the titles and honors of his ancestors. he was a faithful and affectionate subject to queen elizabeth, in whose reign he turned protestant; was by her greatly favored, and finally died in peace in .[ ] that ill-directed restlessness which formed so striking a feature in the character of henry viii. had already prompted him to interfere, as we have seen, on more than one occasion, with the order of succession; and the dangerous consequences of these capricious acts with respect to the several branches of the royal family have already been observed. to the people at large also, his instability on so momentous a point was harassing and alarming, and they became as much at a loss to conjecture what successor, as what religion, he would at last bequeath them. under such circumstances, great indeed must have been the joy in the court and in the nation on the occurrence of an event calculated to end all doubts and remove all difficulties--the birth of a prince of wales. this auspicious infant seemed to strangle in his cradle the serpents of civil discord. every lip hastened to proffer him its homage; every heart united, or seemed at least to unite, in the general burst of thankfulness and congratulation. [note : see chron. of ireland in holinshed, _pass_. collins's peerage, by sir e. brydges, article _viscount leinster_.] the zealous papists formed the party most to be suspected of insincerity in their professions of satisfaction; but the princess mary set them an excellent example of graceful submission to what was inevitable, by soliciting the office of godmother. her sister was happily too young to be infected with court-jealousies, or to behold in a brother an unwelcome intruder, who came to snatch from her the inheritance of a crown: between elizabeth and edward an attachment truly fraternal sprung up with the first dawnings of reason; and notwithstanding the fatal blow given to her interests by the act of settlement extorted from his dying hand, this princess never ceased to cherish his memory, and to mention him in terms of affectionate regret. the conjugal felicities of henry were destined to be of short duration, and before he could receive the felicitations of his subjects on the birth of his son, the mother was snatched away by death. the queen died deeply regretted, not only by her husband, but by the whole court, whom she had attached by the uncommon sweetness of her disposition. to the princess mary her behaviour had been the reverse of that by which her predecessor had disgraced herself; and the little elizabeth had received from her marks of a maternal tenderness. jane seymour was accounted a favourer of the protestant cause; but as she was apparently free from the ambition of interfering in state affairs, her death had no further political influence than what resulted from the king's marriage thus becoming once more an object of speculation and court intrigue. it did not even give a check to the advancement of her two brothers, destined to act and to suffer so conspicuously in the fierce contentions of the ensuing minority; for the king seemed to regard it as a point of policy to elevate those maternal relations of his son, on whose care he relied to watch over the safety of his person in case of his own demise, to a dignity and importance which the proudest nobles of the land might view with respect or fear. sir edward seymour, who had been created lord beauchamp the year before, was now made earl of hertford; and high places at court and commands in the army attested the favor of his royal brother-in-law. thomas seymour, afterwards lord high-admiral, attained during this reign no higher dignity than that of knighthood; but considerable pecuniary grants were bestowed upon him; and whilst he saw his wealth increase, he was secretly extending his influence, and feeding his aspiring spirit with fond anticipations of future greatness. all now seemed tranquil: but a discerning eye might already have beheld fresh tempests gathering in the changeful atmosphere of the english court. the jealousies of the king, become too habitual to be discarded, had in fact only received a new direction from the birth of his son: his mind was perpetually haunted with the dread of leaving him, a defenceless minor, in the hands of contending parties in religion, and of a formidable and factious nobility; and for the sake of obviating the distant and contingent evils which he apprehended from this source, he showed himself ready to pour forth whole rivers of the best blood of england. the person beyond all comparison most dreaded and detested by henry at this juncture was his cousin reginald pole, for whom when a youth he had conceived a warm affection, whose studies he had encouraged by the gift of a deanery and the hope of further church-preferment, and of whose ingratitude he always believed himself entitled to complain. it was the long-contested point of the lawfulness of henry's marriage with his brother's widow, which set the kinsmen at variance. pole had from the first refused to concur with the university of paris, in which he was then residing, in its condemnation of this union: afterwards, alarmed probably at the king's importunities on the subject, he had obtained the permission then necessary for leaving england, to which he had returned, and travelled into italy. here he formed friendships with the most eminent defenders of the papal authority, now incensed to the highest degree against henry, on account of his having declared himself head of the english church; and both his convictions and his passions becoming still more strongly engaged on the side which he had already espoused, he published a work on the unity of the church, in which the conduct of his sovereign and benefactor became the topic of his vehement invective. the offended king, probably with treacherous intentions, invited pole to come to england, and explain to him in person certain difficult passages of his book: but his kinsman was too wary to trust himself in such hands; and his refusal to obey this summons, which implied a final renunciation of his country and all his early prospects, was immediately rewarded by the pope, through the emperor's concurrence, with a cardinal's hat and the appointment of legate to flanders. but alarmed, as well as enraged, at seeing the man whom he regarded as his bitterest personal enemy placed in a situation so convenient for carrying on intrigues with the disaffected papists in england, henry addressed so strong a remonstrance to the governess of the netherlands, as caused her to send the cardinal out of the country before he had begun to exercise the functions of his legantine office. from this time, to maintain any intercourse or correspondence with pole was treated by the king as either in itself an act of treason, or at least as conclusive evidence of traitorous intentions. he believed that the darkest designs were in agitation against his own government and his son's succession; and the circumstance of the cardinal's still declining to take any but deacon's orders, notwithstanding his high dignity in the church, suggested to him the suspicion that his kinsman aimed at the crown itself, through a marriage with the princess mary, of whose legitimacy he had shown himself so strenuous a champion. what foundation there might be for such an idea it is difficult to determine. there is an author who relates that the lady mary was educated with the cardinal under his mother, and hints that an early attachment had thus been formed between them[ ]: a statement manifestly inaccurate, since pole was sixteen years older than the princess; though it is not improbable that mary, during some period of her youth, might be placed under the care of the countess of salisbury, and permitted to associate with her son on easy and affectionate terms. it is well known that after mary's accession, charles v. impeded the journey of pole into england till her marriage with his son philip had been actually solemnized; but this was probably rather from a persuasion of the inexpediency of the cardinal's sooner opening his legantine commission in england, than from any fear of his supplanting in mary's affections his younger rival, though some have ascribed to the emperor the latter motive. [note : see lloyd's worthies, article _pole_.] when however it is recollected, that in consequence of henry's having caused a posthumous judgement of treason to be pronounced against the papal martyr becket, his shrine to be destroyed, his bones burned, and his ashes scattered, the pope had at length, in , fulminated against him the long-suspended sentence of excommunication, and made a donation of his kingdom to the king of scots, and thus impressed the sanction of religion on any rebellious attempts of his roman-catholic subjects,--it would be too much to pronounce the apprehensions of the monarch to have been altogether chimerical. but his suspicion appears, as usual, to have gone beyond the truth, and his anger to have availed itself of slight pretexts to ruin where he feared and hated. such was the state of his mind when the treachery or weakness of geffrey pole furnished him with intelligence of a traitorous correspondence carried on with his brother the cardinal by several persons of distinction attached to the papal interest, and in which he had himself been a sharer. on his information, the marquis of exeter, viscount montacute, sir edward nevil, and sir nicholas carew, were apprehended, tried and found guilty of high treason. public opinion was at this time nothing; and notwithstanding the rank, consequence and popularity of the men whose lives were sacrificed on this occasion; notwithstanding that secret consciousness of his own ill-will towards them, which ought to have rendered henry more than usually cautious in his proceedings,--not even an attempt was made to render their guilt clear and notorious to the nation at large; and posterity scarcely even knows of what designs they were accused; to overt acts it is quite certain that they had not proceeded. henry lord montacute was obnoxious on more than one account: he was the brother of cardinal pole; and as eldest son of margaret, sole surviving child of the duke of clarence and heiress to her brother the earl of warwick, he might be regarded as succeeding to those claims on the crown which under henry vii. had proved fatal to the last-mentioned unfortunate and ill-treated nobleman. during the early part of this reign, however, he, in common with other members of the family of pole, had received marks of the friendship of henry. in , his mother was authorized to assume the title of countess of salisbury, and he that of viscount montacute, notwithstanding the attainder formerly passed against the great house of nevil, from whom these honors were derived. in lord montacute had been indicted for concealing the treasons, real or pretended, of the duke of buckingham; but immediately on his acquittal he was restored to the good graces of his sovereign, and, two years after, attended him on an expedition to france. it is probable that lord montacute was popular; he was at least a partisan of the old religion, and heir to the vast possessions which his mother derived from the king-making earl of warwick her maternal grandfather; sufficient motives with henry for now wishing his removal. if the plot in which he was charged by his perfidious brother with participating, had in view the elevation of the cardinal to a matrimonial crown by his union with the princess mary, which seems to have been insinuated, lord montacute must at least stand acquitted of all design of asserting his own title; yet it may justly be suspected that his character of representative of the house of clarence, was by henry placed foremost in the catalogue of his offences. a similar remark applies still more forcibly to the marquis of exeter. son of catherine, youngest daughter of edward iv., and so lately declared his heir by henry himself, it is scarcely credible that any inducement could have drawn this nobleman into a plot for disturbing the succession in favour of a claim worse founded than his own; and that the blood which he inherited was the true object of henry's apprehensions from him, evidently appeared to all the world by his causing the son of the unhappy marquis, a child at this period, to be detained a state prisoner in the tower during the remainder of his reign. sir edward nevil was brother to lord abergavenny and to the wife of lord montacute--a connection likely to bring him into suspicion, and perhaps to involve him in real guilt; but it must not be forgotten that he was a lineal descendant of the house of lancaster by joan daughter of john of gaunt. the only person not of royal extraction who suffered on this occasion was sir nicholas carew, master of the horse, and lately a distinguished favourite of the king; of whom it is traditionally related, that though accused as an accomplice in the designs of the other noble delinquents, the real offence for which he died, was the having retorted, with more spirit than prudence, some opprobrious language with which his royal master had insulted him as they were playing at bowls together[ ]. the family of carew was however allied in blood to that of courtney, of which the marquis of exeter was the head. [note : see fuller's worthies in surry.] but the attempt to extirpate all who under any future circumstances might be supposed capable of advancing claims formidable to the house of tudor, must have appeared to henry himself a task almost as hopeless as cruel. sons and daughters of the plantagenet princes had in every generation freely intermarried with the ancient nobles of the land; and as fast as those were cut off whose connection with the royal blood was nearest and most recent, the pedigrees of families pointed out others, and others still, whose relationship grew into nearness by the removal of such as had stood before them, and presented to the affrighted eyes of their persecutor, a hydra with still renewed and multiplying heads. not content with these inflictions,--sufficiently severe it might be thought to intimidate the papal faction,--henry gratified still further his stern disposition by the attainder of the marchioness of exeter and the aged countess of salisbury. the marchioness he soon after released; but the countess was still detained prisoner under a sentence of death, which a parliament, atrocious in its subserviency, had passed upon her without form of trial, but which the king did not think proper at present to carry into execution, either because he chose to keep her as a kind of hostage for the good behaviour of her son the cardinal, or because, tyrant as he had become, he had not yet been able to divest himself of all reverence or pity for the hoary head of a female, a kinswoman, and the last who was born to the name of plantagenet. it is melancholy, it is even disgusting, to dwell upon these acts of legalized atrocity, but let it be allowed that it is important and instructive. they form unhappily a leading feature of the administration of henry viii. during the latter years of his reign; they exhibit in the most striking point of view the sentiments and practices of the age; and may assist us to form a juster estimate of the character and conduct of elizabeth, whose infant mind was formed to the contemplation of these domestic tragedies, and whose fame has often suffered by inconsiderate comparisons which have placed her in parallel with the enlightened and humanized sovereigns of more modern days, rather than with the stern and arbitrary tudors, her barbarous predecessors. it is remarkable that the protestant party at the court of henry, so far from gaining strength and influence by the severities exercised against the adherents of cardinal pole and the ancient religion, was evidently in a declining state. the feeble efforts of its two leaders cromwel and cranmer, of whom the first was deficient in zeal, the last in courage, now experienced irresistible counteraction from the influence of gardiner, whose uncommon talents for business, joined to his extreme obsequiousness, had rendered him at once necessary and acceptable to his royal master. the law of the six articles, which forbade under the highest penalties the denial of several doctrines of the romish church peculiarly obnoxious to the reformers, was probably drawn up by this minister. it was enacted in the parliament of : a vast number of persons were soon after imprisoned for transgressing it; and cranmer himself was compelled, by the clause which ordained the celibacy of the clergy, to send away his wife. under these circumstances cromwel began to look on all sides for support; and recollecting with regret the powerful influence exerted by anne boleyn in favor of the good cause, and even the gentler and more private aid lent to it by the late queen, he planned a new marriage for his sovereign, with a lady educated in the very bosom of the protestant communion. political considerations favored the design; since a treaty lately concluded between the emperor and the king of france rendered it highly expedient that henry, by way of counterpoise, should strengthen his alliance with the smalcaldic league. in short, cromwel prevailed. holbein, whom the king had appointed his painter on the recommendation of sir thomas more, and still retained in that capacity, was sent over to take the portrait of anne sister of the duke of cleves; and rashly trusting in the fidelity of the likeness, henry soon after solicited her hand in marriage. "the lady anne," says a historian, "understood no language but dutch, so that all communication of speech between her and our king was intercluded. yet our embassador, nicholas wotton doctor of law, employed in the business, hath it, that she could both read and write in her own language, and sew very well; only for music, he said, it was not the manner of the country to learn it[ ]." it must be confessed that for a princess this list of accomplishments appears somewhat scanty; and henry, unfortunately for the lady anne, was a great admirer of learning, wit and talents, in the female sex, and a passionate lover of music, which he well understood. what was still worse, he piqued himself extremely on his taste in beauty, and was much more solicitous respecting the personal charms of his consorts than is usual with sovereigns; and when, on the arrival of his destined bride in england, he hastened to rochester to gratify his impatience by snatching a private view of her, he found that in this capital article he had been grievously imposed upon. the uncourteous comparison by which he expressed his dislike of her large and clumsy person is well known. bitterly did he lament to cromwel the hard fortune which had allotted him so unlovely a partner, and he returned to london very melancholy. but the evil appeared to be now past remedy; it was contrary to all policy to affront the german princes by sending back their countrywoman after matters had gone so far, and henry magnanimously resolved to sacrifice his own feelings, once in his life, for the good of his country. accordingly, he received the princess with great magnificence and with every outward demonstration of satisfaction, and was married to her at greenwich in january . [note : herbert.] two or three months afterwards, the king, notwithstanding his secret dissatisfaction, rewarded cromwel for his pains in concluding this union by conferring on him the vacant title of earl of essex;--a fatal gift, which exasperated to rage the mingled jealousy and disdain which this low-born and aspiring minister had already provoked from the ancient nobility, by intruding himself into the order of the garter, and which served to heap upon his devoted head fresh coals of wrath against the day of retribution which was fast approaching. the act of transferring this title to a new family, could in fact be no otherwise regarded by the great house of bourchier, which had long enjoyed it, than either as a marked indignity to itself, or as a fresh result of the general tudor system of depressing and discountenancing the blood of the plantagenets, from which the bourchiers, through a daughter of thomas of woodstock, were descended. the late earl had left a married daughter, to whom, according to the customary courtesy of english sovereigns in similar circumstances, the title ought to have been continued; and as this lady had no children, the earl of bath, as head of the house, felt himself also aggrieved by the alienation of family honors which he hoped to have seen continued to himself and his posterity. in honor, probably, of the recent marriage of the king, unusually splendid justs were opened at westminster on may-day; in which the challengers were headed by sir john dudley, and the defenders by the earl of surry. this entertainment was continued for several successive days, during which the challengers, according to the costly fashion of ancient hospitality, kept open house at their common charge, and feasted the king and queen, the members of both houses, and the lord-mayor and aldermen with their wives. but scenes of pomp and festivity had no power to divert the thoughts of the king from his domestic grievance,--a wife whom he regarded with disgust: on the contrary, it is probable that this season of courtly revelry encreased his disquiet, by giving him opportunities of beholding under the most attractive circumstances the charms of a youthful beauty whom he was soon seized with the most violent desire of placing beside him on the throne which he judged her worthy to adorn. no considerations of rectitude or of policy could longer restrain the impetuous monarch from casting off the yoke of a detested marriage: and as a first step towards emancipation, he determined to permit the ruin of its original adviser, that unpopular minister, but vigorous and serviceable instrument of arbitrary power, whom he had hitherto defended with pertinacity against all attacks. no sooner was the decline of his favor perceived, and what so quickly perceived at courts? than the ill-fated cromwel found himself assailed on every side. his active agency in the suppression of monasteries had brought upon him, with the imputation of sacrilege, the hatred of all the papists;--a certain coldness, or timidity, which he had manifested in the cause of religious reformation in other respects, and particularly the enactment of the six articles during his administration, had rendered him an object of suspicion or dislike to the protestants;--in his new and undefined office of royal vicegerent for the exercise of the supremacy, he had offended the whole body of the clergy;--and he had just filled up the measure of his offences against the nobility by procuring a grant of the place of lord high-steward, long hereditary in the great house of the veres earls of oxford. the only voice raised in his favor was that of cranmer, who interceded with henry in his behalf in a letter eloquent, touching, and even courageous, times and persons considered. gardiner and the duke of norfolk urged on his accusation; the parliament, with its accustomed subserviency, proceeded against him by attainder; and having voted him guilty of heresy and treason, left it in the choice of the king to bring him either to the block or the stake for whichever he pleased of these offences; neither of which was proved by evidence, or even supported by reasonable probabilities. but against this violation in his person of the chartered rights of englishmen, however flagrant, the unfortunate earl of essex had forfeited all right to appeal, since it was himself who had first advised the same arbitrary mode of proceeding in the cases of the marchioness of exeter, of the countess of salisbury, and of several persons of inferior rank connected with them; on whom capital punishment had already been inflicted. with many private virtues, essex, like his great master wolsey, and like the disgraced ministers of despotic princes in general, perished unpitied; and the king and the faction of gardiner and of the howards seemed equally to rejoice in the free course opened by his removal to their further projects. the parliament was immediately ordered to find valid a certain frivolous pretext of a prior contract, on which its master was pleased to demand a divorce from ann of cleves; and the marriage was unanimously declared null, without any opportunity afforded to the queen of bringing evidence in its support. the fortitude, or rather phlegm, with which her unmerited degradation was supported by the lady anne, has in it something at once extraordinary and amusing. there is indeed a tradition that she fainted on first receiving the information that her marriage was likely to be set aside; but the shock once over, she gave to the divorce, without hesitation or visible reluctance, that assent which was required of her. taking in good part the pension of three thousand pounds per annum, and the title of his _sister_ which her ex-husband was graciously pleased to offer her, she wrote to her brother the elector to entreat him still to live in amity with the king of england, against whom she had no ground of complaint; and she continued, till the day of her death, to make his country her abode. through the whole affair she gave no indication of wounded pride; unless her refusal to return in the character of a discarded and rejected damsel, to the home which she had so lately quitted in all the pomp and triumph of a royal bride, is to be regarded as such. but even for this part of her conduct a different motive is with great plausibility assigned by a writer, who supposes her to have been swayed by the prudent consideration, that the regular payment of her pension would better be secured by her remaining under the eyes and within the protection of the english nation. a very few weeks after this apparently formidable business had been thus readily and amicably arranged, catherine howard niece to the duke of norfolk, and first cousin to anne boleyn, was declared queen. this lady, beautiful, insinuating, and more fondly beloved by the king than any of her predecessors, was a catholic, and almost all the members of the council who now possessed office or influence were attached, more or less openly, to the same communion. in consequence, the penalties of the six articles were enforced with great cruelty against the reformers; but this did not exempt from punishment such as, offending on the other side, ventured to deny the royal supremacy; the only difference was, that the former class of culprits were burned as heretics, the latter hanged as traitors. the king soon after seized the occasion of a trifling insurrection in yorkshire, of which sir john nevil was the leader, to complete his vengeance against cardinal pole, by bringing to a cruel and ignominious end the days of his venerable and sorrow-stricken mother, who had been unfortunate enough thus long to survive the ruin of her family. the strange and shocking scene exhibited on the scaffold by the desperation of this illustrious and injured lady, is detailed by all our historians: it seems almost incredible that the surrounding crowd were not urged by an unanimous impulse of horror and compassion to rush in and rescue from the murderous hands of the executioner the last miserable representative of such a line of princes. but the eyes of henry's subjects were habituated to these scenes of blood; and they were viewed by some with indifference, and by the rest with emotions of terror which effectually repressed the generous movements of a just and manly indignation. in public causes, to be accused and to suffer death were now the same thing; and another eminent victim of the policy of the english tiberius displayed in a novel and truly portentous manner his utter despair of the justice of the country and the mercy of his sovereign. lord leonard grey, late deputy of ireland, was accused of favouring the escape of that persecuted child his nephew gerald fitzgerald, of corresponding with cardinal pole, and of various other offences called treasonable. being brought before a jury of knights, "he saved them," says lord herbert, "the labour of condemning him, and without more ado confessed all. which, whether this lord, who was of great courage, did out of desperation or guilt, some circumstances make doubtful; and the rather, that the articles being so many, he neither denied nor extenuated any of them, though his continual fighting with the king's enemies, where occasion was, pleaded much on his part. howsoever, he had his head cut off[ ]." [note : many years after, the earl of kildare solemnly assured the author of the "chronicles of ireland" in holinshed, that lord leonard grey had no concern whatever in his escape.] the queen and her party were daily gaining upon the mind of the king; and cranmer himself, notwithstanding the high esteem entertained for him by henry, had begun to be endangered by their machinations, when an unexpected discovery put into his hands the means of baffling all their designs, and producing a total revolution in the face of the court. it was towards the close of the year that private information was conveyed to the primate of such disorders in the conduct of the queen before her marriage as could not fail to plunge her in infamy and ruin. cranmer, if not exceedingly grieved, was at least greatly perplexed by the incident:--at first sight there appeared to be equal danger in concealing or discovering circumstances of a nature so delicate, and the archbishop was timid by nature, and cautious from the experience of a court. at length, all things well weighed, he judiciously preferred the hazard of making the communication at once, without reserve, and directly, to the person most interested; and, forming into a narrative facts which his tongue dared not utter to the face of a prince whose anger was deadly, he presented it to him and entreated him to peruse it in secret. love and pride conspired to persuade the king that his catherine was incapable of having imposed upon him thus grossly, and he at once pronounced the whole story a malicious fabrication; but the strict inquiry which he caused to be instituted for the purpose of punishing its authors, not only established the truth of the accusations already brought, but served also to throw the strongest suspicions on the conjugal fidelity of the queen. the agonies of henry on this occasion were such as in any other husband would have merited the deepest compassion: with him they were quickly succeeded by the most violent rage; and his cry for vengeance was, as usual, echoed with alacrity by a loyal and sympathizing parliament. party animosity profited by the occasion and gave additional impulse to their proceedings. after convicting by attainder the queen and her paramours, who were soon after put to death, the two houses proceeded also to attaint her uncle, aunt, grandmother, and about ten other persons, male and female, accused of being accessary or privy to her disorders before marriage, and of not revealing them to the king when they became acquainted with his intention of making her his consort; an offence declared to be misprision of treason by an ex post facto law. but this was an excess of barbarity of which henry himself was ashamed: the infamous lady rochford was the only confident who suffered capitally; the rest were released after imprisonments of longer or shorter duration; yet a reserve of bitterness appears to have remained stored up in the heart of the king against the whole race of howard, which the enemies of that illustrious house well knew how to cherish and augment against a future day. chapter iii. to . rout of solway and death of james v. of scotland.--birth of queen mary.--henry projects to marry her to his son.--offers the hand of elizabeth to the earl of arran.--earl of lenox marries lady m. douglas.--marriage of the king to catherine parr.--her person and acquirements.--influence of her conduct on elizabeth.--henry joins the emperor against francis i.--his campaign in france.--princess mary replaced in order of succession, and elizabeth also.--proposals for a marriage between elizabeth and philip of spain.--the duke of norfolk and earl of hertford heads of the catholic and protestant parties. circumstances which give a preponderance to the latter.--disgrace of the duke.--trial of the earl of surry.--his death and character.--sentence against the duke of norfolk.--death of henry. in the month of december , shortly after the rout of solway, in which the english made prisoners the flower of the scottish nobility, the same messenger brought to henry viii. the tidings that the grief and shame of this defeat had broken the heart of king james v., and that his queen had brought into the world a daughter, who had received the name of mary, and was now queen of scotland. without stopping to deplore the melancholy fate of a nephew whom he had himself brought to destruction, henry instantly formed the project of uniting the whole island under one crown, by the marriage of this infant sovereign with the prince his son. all the scottish prisoners of rank then in london were immediately offered the liberty of returning to their own country on the condition, to which they acceded with apparent alacrity, of promoting this union with all their interest; and so confident was the english monarch in the success of his measures, that previously to their departure, several of them were carried to the palace of enfield, where young edward then resided, that they might tender homage to the future husband of their queen. the regency of scotland at this critical juncture was claimed by the earl of arran, who was generally regarded as next heir to the crown, though his legitimacy had been disputed; and to this nobleman,--but whether for himself or his son seems doubtful,--henry, as a further means of securing the important object which he had at heart, offered the hand of his daughter elizabeth. so early were the concerns and interests blended, of two princesses whose celebrated rivalry was destined to endure until the life of one of them had become its sacrifice! so remarkably, too, in this first transaction was contrasted the high preeminence from which the scottish princess was destined to hurl herself by her own misconduct, with the abasement and comparative insignificance out of which her genius and her good fortune were to be employed in elevating the future sovereign of england. born in the purple of her hereditary kingdom, the monarchs of france and england made it an object of eager contention which of them should succeed in encircling with a second diadem the baby brows of mary; while the hand of elizabeth was tossed as a trivial boon to a scottish earl of equivocal birth, despicable abilities, and feeble character. so little too was even this person flattered by the honor, or aware of the advantages, of such a connection, that he soon after renounced it by quitting the english for the french party. elizabeth in consequence remained unbetrothed, and her father soon afterwards secured to himself a more strenuous ally in the earl of lenox, also of the blood-royal of scotland, by bestowing upon this nobleman the hand, not of his daughter, but of his niece the lady margaret douglas. undeterred by his late severe disappointment henry was bent on entering once more into the marriage state, and his choice now fell on catherine parr, sprung from a knightly family possessed of large estates in westmoreland, and widow of lord latimer, a member of the great house of nevil. a portrait of this lady still in existence, exhibits, with fine and regular features, a character of intelligence and arch simplicity extremely captivating. she was indeed a woman of uncommon talent and address; and her mental accomplishments, besides the honor which they reflect on herself, inspire us with respect for the enlightened liberality of an age in which such acquirements could be placed within the ambition and attainment of a private gentlewoman, born in a remote county, remarkable even in much later times for a primitive simplicity of manners and domestic habits. catherine was both learned herself, and, after her elevation a zealous patroness of learning and of protestantism, to which she was become a convert. nicholas udal master of eton was employed by her to translate erasmus's paraphrase of the four gospels; and there is extant a latin letter of hers to the princess mary, whose conversion from popery she seems to have had much at heart, in which she entreats her to permit this work to appear under her auspices. she also printed some prayers and meditations, and there was found among her papers, after her death, a piece entitled "the lamentations of a sinner bewailing her blind life," in which she deplores the years that she had passed in popish observances, and which was afterwards published by secretary cecil. it is a striking proof of the address of this queen, that she conciliated the affection of all the three children of the king, letters from each of whom have been preserved addressed to her after the death of their father. elizabeth in particular maintained with her a very intimate and frequent intercourse; which ended however in a manner reflecting little credit on either party, as will be more fully explained in its proper place. the adroitness with which catherine extricated herself from the snare in which her own religious zeal, the moroseness of the king, and the enmity of gardiner had conspired to entangle her, has often been celebrated. may it not be conjectured, that such an example, given by one of whom she entertained a high opinion, might exert no inconsiderable influence on the opening mind of elizabeth, whose conduct in the many similar dilemmas to which it was her lot to be reduced, partook so much of the same character of politic and cautious equivocation? henry discovered by experiment that it would prove a much more difficult matter than he had apprehended to accomplish, either by force or persuasion, the marriage of young edward with the queen of scots; and learning that it was principally to the intrigues of francis i., against whom he had other causes also of complaint, that he was likely to owe the disappointment of this favourite scheme, he determined on revenge. with this design he turned his eyes on the emperor; and finding charles perfectly well disposed to forget all ancient animosities in sympathy with his newly-conceived indignation against the french king, he entered with him into a strict alliance. war was soon declared against france by the new confederates; and after a campaign in which little was effected, it was agreed that charles and henry, uniting their efforts, should assail that kingdom with a force which it was judged incapable of resisting, and without stopping at inferior objects, march straight to paris. accordingly, in july , preceded by a fine army, and attended by the flower of his nobility splendidly equipped, henry took his departure for calais in a ship the sails of which were made of cloth of gold. he arrived in safety, and enjoyed the satisfaction of dazzling with his magnificence the count de buren whom the emperor sent with a body of horse to meet him; quarrelled soon after with that potentate, who found it his interest to make a separate peace; took the towns of montreuil and boulogne, neither of them of any value to him, and returned. so foolish and expensive a sally of passion, however characteristic of the disposition of this monarch, would not merit commemoration in this place, but for the important influence which it unexpectedly exerted on the fortune and expectations of elizabeth through the following train of circumstances. the emperor, whose long enmity with henry had taken its rise from what he justly regarded as the injuries of catherine of arragon his aunt, in whose person the whole royal family of spain had been insulted, had required of him as a preliminary to their treaty a formal acknowledgement of the legitimacy of his daughter mary. this henry could not, with any regard to consistency, grant; but desirous to accede as far as he conveniently could to the wishes of his new ally, he consented to stipulate, that without any explanation on this point, his eldest daughter should by act of parliament be reinstated in the order of succession. at the same time, glad to relent in behalf of his favorite child, and unwilling perhaps to give the catholic party the triumph of asserting that he had virtually declared his first marriage more lawful than his second, he caused a similar privilege to be extended to elizabeth, who was thus happily restored to her original station and prospects, before she had attained sufficient maturity of age to suffer by the cruel and mortifying degradation to which she had been for several years subjected. henceforth, though the act which declared null the marriage of the king with anne boleyn remained for ever unrepealed, her daughter appears to have been universally recognised on the footing of a princess of england; and so completely were the old disputes concerning the divorce of catherine consigned to oblivion, that in , when france, spain and england had concluded a treaty of peace, proposals passed between the courts of london and madrid for the marriage of elizabeth with philip prince of spain; that very philip afterwards her brother-in-law and in adversity her friend and protector, then a second time her suitor, and afterwards again to the end of his days the most formidable and implacable of her enemies. on which side, or on what assigned objections, this treaty of marriage was relinquished, we do not learn; but as the demonstrations of friendship between charles and henry after their french campaign were full of insincerity, it may perhaps be doubted whether either party was ever bent in earnest on the completion of this extraordinary union. the popish and protestant factions which now divided the english court, had for several years acknowledged as their respective leaders the duke of norfolk and the earl of hertford. to the latter of these, the painful impression left on henry's mind by the excesses of catherine howard, the religious sentiments embraced by the present queen, the king's increasing jealousy of the ancient nobility of the country, and above all the visible decline of his health, which brought into immediate prospect the accession of young edward under the tutelage of his uncle, had now conspired to give a decided preponderancy. the aged duke, sagacious, politic, and deeply versed in all the secrets and the arts of courts, saw in a coalition with the seymours the only expedient for averting the ruin of his house; and he proposed to bestow his daughter the duchess of richmond in marriage on sir thomas seymour, while he exerted all his authority with his son to prevail upon him to address one of the daughters of the earl of hertford. but surry's scorn of the new nobility of the house of seymour, and his animosity against the person of its chief, was not to be overcome by any plea of expedience or threatening of danger. he could not forget that it was at the instance of the earl of hertford that he, with some other nobles and gentlemen, had suffered the disgrace of imprisonment for eating flesh in lent; that when a trifling defeat which he had sustained near boulogne had caused him to be removed from the government of that town, it was the earl of hertford who ultimately profited by his misfortune, in succeeding to the command of the army. other grounds of offence the haughty surry had also conceived against him; and choosing rather to fall, than cling for support to an enemy at once despised and hated, he braved the utmost displeasure of his father, by an absolute refusal to lend himself to such a scheme of alliance. of this circumstance his enemies availed themselves to instil into the mind of the king a suspicion that the earl of surry aspired to the hand of the princess mary; they also commented with industrious malice on his bearing the arms of edward the confessor, to which he was clearly entitled in right of his mother, a daughter of the duke of buckingham, but which his more cautious father had ceased to quarter after the attainder of that unfortunate nobleman. the sick mind of henry received with eagerness all these suggestions, and the ruin of the earl was determined[ ]. an indictment of high treason was preferred against him: his proposal of disproving the charge, according to a mode then legal, by fighting his principal accuser in his shirt, was overruled; his spirited, strong and eloquent defence was disregarded--a jury devoted to the crown brought in a verdict of guilty; and in january , at the early age of seven-and-twenty, he underwent the fatal sentence of the law. [note : one extraordinary, and indeed unaccountable, circumstance in the life of the earl of surry may here be noticed:--that while his father urged him to connect himself in marriage with one lady, while the king was jealous of his designs upon a second, and while he himself, as may be collected from his poem "to a lady who refused to dance with him," made proposals of marriage to a third, he had a wife living. to this lady, who was a sister of the earl of oxford, he was united at the age of fifteen, she had borne him five children; and it is pretty plain that they were never divorced, for we find her, several years after his death, still bearing the title of countess of surry, and the guardian of his orphans. had the example of henry instructed his courtiers to find pretexts for the dissolution of the matrimonial tie whenever interest or inclination might prompt, and did our courts of law lend themselves to this abuse? a preacher of edward the sixth's time brings such an accusation against the morals of the age, but i find no particular examples of it in the histories of noble families.] no one during the whole sanguinary tyranny of henry viii. fell more guiltless, or more generally deplored by all whom personal animosity or the spirit of party had not hardened against sentiments of compassion, or blinded to the perception of merit. but much of surry has survived the cruelty of his fate. his beautiful songs and sonnets, which served as a model to the most popular poets of the age of elizabeth, still excite the admiration of every student attached to the early literature of our country. amongst other frivolous charges brought against him on his trial, it was mentioned that he kept an italian jester, thought to be a spy, and that he loved to converse with foreigners and conform his behaviour to them. for his personal safety, therefore, it was perhaps unfortunate that a portion of his youth had been passed in a visit to italy, then the focus of literature and fount of inspiration; but for his surviving fame, and for the progress of english poetry, the circumstance was eminently propitious; since it is from the return of this noble traveller that we are to date not only the introduction into our language of the petrarchan sonnet, and with it of a tenderness and refinement of sentiment unknown to the barbarism of our preceding versifiers; but what is much more, that of heroic blank verse; a noble measure, of which the earliest example exists in surry's spirited and faithful version of one book of the �neid. the exalted rank, the splendid talents, the lofty spirit of this lamented nobleman seemed to destine him to a station second to none among the public characters of his time; and if, instead of being cut off by the hand of violence in the morning of life, he had been permitted to attain a length of days at all approaching to the fourscore years of his father, it is probable that the votary of letters would have been lost to us in the statesman or the soldier. queen mary, who sought by her favor and confidence to revive the almost extinguished energies of his father, and called forth into premature distinction the aspiring boyhood of his son, would have intrusted to his vigorous years the highest offices and most weighty affairs of state. perhaps even the suspicions of her father might have been verified by the event, and her own royal hand might itself have become the reward of his virtues and attachment. elizabeth, whose maternal ancestry closely connected her with the house of howard, might have sought and found, in her kinsman the earl of surry, a counsellor and friend deserving of all her confidence and esteem; and it is possible that he, with safety and effect, might have placed himself as a mediator between the queen and that formidable catholic party of which his misguided son, fatally for himself, aspired to be regarded as the leader, and was in fact only the instrument. but the career of ambition, ere he had well entered it, was closed upon him for ever; and it is as an accomplished knight, a polished lover, and above all as a poet, that the name of surry now lives in the annals of his country. of the five children who survived to feel the want of his paternal guidance, one daughter, married to the earl of westmorland, was honorably distinguished by talents, erudition, and the patronage of letters; but of the two sons, the elder was that unfortunate duke of norfolk who paid on the scaffold the forfeit of an inconsiderate and guilty enterprise; and the younger, created earl of northampton by james i., lived to disgrace his birth and fine talents by every kind of baseness, and died just in time to escape punishment as an accomplice in overbury's murder. the duke of norfolk had been declared guilty of high treason on grounds equally frivolous with his son; but the opportune death of henry viii. on the day that his cruel and unmerited sentence was to have been carried into execution, saved his life, when his humble submissions and pathetic supplications for mercy had failed to touch the callous heart of the expiring despot. the jealousies however, religious and political, of the council of regency, on which the administration devolved, prompted them to refuse liberty to the illustrious prisoner after their weakness or their clemency had granted him his life. during the whole reign of edward vi. the duke was detained under close custody in the tower; his estates were confiscated, his blood attainted, and for this period the great name of howard disappears from the page of english history. chapter iv. to . testamentary provisions of henry viii.--exclusion of the scottish line.--discontent of the earl of arundel.--his character and intrigues.--hertford declared protector--becomes duke of somerset.--other titles conferred.--thomas seymour made lord-admiral--marries the queen dowager.--his discontent and intrigues.--his behaviour to elizabeth.--death of the queen.--seymour aspires to the hand of elizabeth--conspires against his brother--is attainted--put to death.--particulars of his intercourse with elizabeth.--examinations which she underwent on this subject.--traits of her early character.--verses on admiral seymour.--the learning of elizabeth.--extracts from ascham's letters respecting her, jane grey, and other learned ladies.--two of her letters to edward vi. the death of henry viii., which took place on january th , opened a new and busy scene, and affected in several important points the situation of elizabeth. the testament by which the parliament had empowered the king to regulate the government of the country during his son's minority, and even to settle the order of succession itself, with as full authority as the distribution of his private property, was the first object of attention; and its provisions were found strongly characteristic of the temper and maxims of its author. he confirmed the act of parliament by which his two daughters had been rendered capable of inheriting the crown, and appointed to each of them a pension of three thousand pounds, with a marriage-portion of ten thousand pounds, but annexed the condition of their marrying with the consent of such of his executors as should be living. after them, he placed in order of succession frances marchioness of dorset, and eleanor countess of cumberland, daughters of his younger sister the queen-dowager of france by charles brandon duke of suffolk; and failing the descendants of these ladies he bequeathed the crown to the next heir. by this disposition he either totally excluded, or at least removed from their rightful place, his eldest and still surviving sister the queen-dowager of scotland, and all her issue;--a most absurd and dangerous indulgence of his feelings of enmity against the scottish line, which might eventually have involved the nation in all the horrors of a civil war, and from which in fact the whole calamitous destinies of the house of suffolk, which the progress of this work will record, and in some measure also the long misfortunes of the queen of scots herself, will be found to draw their origin. sixteen executors named in the will were to exercise in common the royal functions till young edward should attain the age of eighteen; and to these, twelve others were added as a council of regency, invested however with no other privilege than that of giving their opinions when called upon. the selection of the executors and counsellors was in perfect unison with the policy of the tudors. the great officers of state formed of necessity a considerable portion of the former body, and four of these, lord wriothesley the chancellor, the earl of hertford lord-chamberlain, lord st. john master of the household, and lord russel privy-seal, were decorated with the peerage; but with the exception of sir john dudley, who had lately acquired by marriage the rank of viscount lisle, these were the only titled men of the sixteen. thus it appeared, that not a single individual amongst the hereditary nobility of the country enjoyed in a sufficient degree the favor and confidence of the monarch, to be associated in a charge which he had not hesitated to confer on persons of no higher importance than the principal gentlemen of the bed-chamber, the treasurer of calais, and the dean of canterbury. even the council reckoned among its members only two peers: one of them the brother of the queen-dowager, on whom, since the fall of cromwel, the title of earl of essex had at length been conferred in right of his wife, the heiress of the bourchiers: the other, the earl of arundel, premier earl of england and last of the ancient name of fitzalan; a distinguished nobleman, whom vast wealth, elegant tastes acquired in foreign travel, and a spirit of magnificence, combined to render one of the principal ornaments of the court, while his political talents and experience of affairs qualified him to assume a leading station in the cabinet. the loyalty and prudence of the fitzalans must have been conspicuous for ages, since no attainder, during so long a period of greatness, had stained the honor of the race; and the moderation or subserviency of the present earl had been shown by his perfect acquiescence in all the measures of henry, notwithstanding his private preference of the ancient faith: to crown his merits, his blood appears to have been unmingled with that of the plantagenets. notwithstanding all this, the king had thought fit to name him only a counsellor, not an executor. arundel deeply felt the injury; and impatience of the insignificance to which he was thus consigned, joined to his disapprobation of the measures of the regency with respect to religion, threw him into intrigues which contributed not a little to the turbulence of this disastrous period. it was doubtless the intention of henry, that the religion of the country, at least during the minority of his son, should be left vibrating on the same nice balance between protestantism and popery on which it had cost him so much pains to fix it; and with a view to this object he had originally composed the regency with a pretty equal distribution of power between the adherents of the two communions. but the suspicion, or disgust, which afterwards caused him to erase the name of gardiner from the list, destroyed the equipoise, and rendered the scale of reformation decidedly preponderant. in vain did wriothesley, a man of vigorous talents and aspiring mind, struggle with hertford for the highest place in the administration; in vain did tunstal bishop of durham,--no bigot, but a firm papist,--check with all the authority that he could venture to exert, the bold career of innovation on which he beheld cranmer full of eagerness to enter; in vain did the catholics invoke to their aid the active interference of dudley; he suffered them to imagine that his heart was with them, and that he watched an opportunity to interpose with effect in their behalf, whilst, in fact, he was only waiting till the fall of one of the seymours by the hand of the other should enable him to crush the survivor, and rise to uncontrolled authority on the ruins of both. the first attempt of the protestant party in the regency showed their intentions; its success proved their strength, and silenced for the present all opposition. it was proposed, and carried by a majority of the executors, that the earl of hertford should be declared protector of the realm, and governor of the king's person; and the new dictator soon after procured the ratification of this appointment, which overturned some of the most important clauses of the late king's will, by causing a patent to be drawn and sanctioned by the two houses which invested him, during the minority, with all the prerogatives ever assumed by the most arbitrary of the english sovereigns, and many more than were ever recognised by the constitution. as if in compensation for any disrespect shown to the memory of the deceased monarch by these proceedings, the executors next declared their intention of fulfilling certain promises made by him in his last illness, and which death alone had prevented him from carrying into effect. on this plea, they bestowed upon themselves and their adherents various titles of honor, and a number of valuable church preferments, now first conferred upon laymen, the protector himself unblushingly assuming the title of duke of somerset, and taking possession of benefices and impropriations to a vast amount. viscount lisle was created earl of warwick, and wriothesley became earl of southampton;--an empty dignity, which afforded him little consolation for seeing himself soon after, on pretence of some irregular proceedings in his office, stripped of the post of chancellor, deprived of his place amongst the other executors of the king, who now formed a privy council to the protector, and consigned to obscurity and insignificance for the short remnant of his days. sir thomas seymour ought to have been consoled by the share allotted him in this splendid distribution, for the mortification of having been named a counsellor only, and not an executor. he was made lord seymour of sudley, and soon after, lord high-admiral--preferments greatly exceeding any expectations which his birth or his services to the state could properly authorize. but he measured his claims by his nearness to the king; he compared these inferior dignities with the state and power usurped by his brother, and his arrogant spirit disdained as a meanness the thought of resting satisfied or appeased. circumstances soon arose which converted this general feeling of discontent in the mind of thomas seymour into a more rancorous spirit of envy and hostility against his brother, and gradually involved him in a succession of dark intrigues, which, on account of the embarrassments and dangers in which they eventually implicated the princess elizabeth, it will now become necessary to unravel. the younger seymour, still in the prime of life, was endowed in a striking degree with those graces of person and manner which serve to captivate the female heart, and his ambition had sought in consequence to avail itself of a splendid marriage. it is said that the princess mary herself was at first the object of his hopes or wishes: but if this were really the case, she must speedily have quelled his presumption by the lofty sternness of her repulse; for it is impossible to discover in the history of his life at what particular period he could have been occupied with such a design. immediately after the death of henry, he found means to revive with such energy in the bosom of the queen-dowager, an attachment which she had entertained for him before her marriage with the king, that she consented to become his wife with a precipitation highly indecorous and reprehensible. the connexion proved unfortunate on both sides, and its first effect was to embroil him with his brother. the protector, of a temper still weaker than his not very vigorous understanding, had long allowed himself to be governed both in great and small concerns by his wife, a woman of little principle and of a disposition in the highest degree violent, imperious, and insolent. nothing could be more insupportable to the spirit of this lady, who prided herself on her descent from thomas of woodstock, and now saw her husband governing the kingdom with all the prerogatives and almost all the splendor of royalty, than to find herself compelled to yield precedency to the wife of his younger brother; and unable to submit patiently to a mortification from which, after all, there was no escape, she could not forbear engaging in continual disputes on the subject with the queen-dowager. their husbands soon were drawn in to take part in this senseless quarrel, and a serious difference ensued between them. the protector and council soon after refused to the lord-admiral certain grants of land and valuable jewels which he claimed as bequests to his wife from the late king, and the, perhaps, real injury, thus added to the slights of which he before complained, gave fresh exasperation to the pride and turbulence of his character. taking advantage of the protector's absence on that campaign in scotland which ended with the victory of pinkey, he formed partisans among the discontented nobles, won from his brother the affections of the young king, and believing every thing ripe for an attack on his usurped authority, he designed to bring forward in the ensuing parliament a proposal for separating, according to ancient precedent, the office of guardian of the king's person from that of protector of the realm, and for conferring upon himself the former. but he discovered too late that he had greatly miscalculated his forces; his proposal was not even permitted to come to a hearing. having rendered himself further obnoxious to the vengeance of the administration by menaces thrown out in the rage of disappointment, he saw himself reduced, in order to escape a committal to the tower, to make submissions to his brother. an apparent reconciliation took place; and the admiral was compelled to change, but not to relinquish, his schemes of ambition. the princess elizabeth had been consigned on the death of her father to the protection and superintendance of the queen-dowager, with whom, at one or other of her jointure-houses of chelsea or hanworth, she usually made her abode. by this means it happened, that after the queen's remarriage she found herself domesticated under the roof of the lord-admiral; and in this situation she had soon the misfortune to become an object of his marked attention. what were, at this particular period, seymour's designs upon the princess, is uncertain; but it afterwards appeared from the testimony of eye-witnesses, that neither respect for her exalted rank, nor a sense of the high responsibility attached to the character of a guardian, with which circumstances invested him, had proved sufficient to restrain him from freedoms of behaviour towards her, which no reasonable allowance for the comparative grossness of the age can reduce within the limits of propriety or decorum. we learn that, on some occasions at least, she endeavoured to repel his presumption by such expedients as her youthful inexperience suggested; but her governess and attendants, gained over or intimidated, were guilty of a treacherous or cowardly neglect of duty, and the queen herself appears to have been very deficient in delicacy and caution till circumstances arose which suddenly excited her jealousy[ ]. a violent scene then took place between the royal step-mother and step-daughter, which ended, fortunately for the peace and honor of elizabeth, in an immediate and final separation. [note : it seems that on one occasion the queen held the hands of the princess while the lord-admiral amused himself with cutting her gown to shreds; and that, on another, she introduced him into the chamber of elizabeth before she had left her bed, when a violent romping scene took place, which was afterwards repeated without the presence of the queen. catherine was so unguarded in her own conduct, that the lord-admiral professed himself jealous of the servant who carried up coals to her apartment.] there is no ground whatever to credit the popular rumor that the queen, who died in childbed soon after this affair, was poisoned by the admiral; but there is sufficient proof that he was a harsh and jealous husband; and he did not probably at this juncture regard as unpropitious on the whole, an event which enabled him to aspire to the hand of elizabeth, though other and more intricate designs were at the same time hatching in his busy brain, to which his state of a widower seemed at first to oppose some serious obstacles. lady jane grey, eldest daughter of the marchioness of dorset, who had been placed immediately after the two princesses in order of succession, had also resided in the house of the lord-admiral during the lifetime of the queen-dowager, and he was anxious still to retain in his hands a pledge of such importance. to the applications of the marquis and marchioness for her return, he pleaded that the young lady would be as secure under the superintendance of his mother, whom he had invited to reside in his house, as formerly under that of the queen, and that a mark of the esteem of friends whom he so highly valued, would in this season of his affliction be doubly precious to him. he caused a secret agent to insinuate to the weak marquis, that if the lady jane remained under his roof, it might eventually be in his power to marry her to the young king; and finally, as the most satisfactory proof of the sincerity of his professions of regard, he advanced to this illustrious peer the sum of five hundred pounds in ready money, requiring no other security for its repayment than the person of his fair guest, or hostage. such eloquence proved irresistible: lady jane was suffered to remain under this very singular and improper protection, and report for some time vibrated between the sister and the cousin of the king as the real object of the admiral's matrimonial projects. but in his own mind there appears to have been no hesitation between them. the residence of lady jane in his house was no otherwise of importance to him, than as it contributed to insure to him the support of her father, and as it enabled him to counteract a favorite scheme of the protector's, or rather of his duchess's, for marrying her to their eldest son. with elizabeth, on the contrary, he certainly aimed at the closest of all connexions, and he was intent on improving by every means the impression which his dangerous powers of insinuation had already made on her inexperienced heart. mrs. ashley, her governess, he had long since secured in his interests; his next step was to gain one parry, her cofferer, and through these agents he proposed to open a direct correspondence with herself. his designs prospered for some time according to his desires; and though it seems never to have been exactly known, except to the parties themselves, what degree of secret intelligence elizabeth maintained with her suitor; it cannot be doubted that she betrayed towards him sentiments sufficiently favorable to render the difficulty of obtaining that consent of the royal executors which the law required, the principal obstacle, in his own opinion, to the accomplishment of his wishes. it was one, however, which appeared absolutely insuperable so long as his brother continued to preside over the administration with authority not to be resisted; and despair of gaining his object by fair and peaceful means, soon suggested to the admiral further measures of a dark and dangerous character. by the whole order of nobility the protector, who affected the love of the commons, was envied and hated; but his brother, on the contrary, had cultivated their friendship with assiduity and success; and he now took opportunities of emphatically recommending it to his principal adherents, the marquis of northampton (late earl of essex), the marquis of dorset, the earl of rutland, and others, to go into their counties and "make all the strength" there which they could. he boasted of the command of men which he derived from his office of high-admiral; provided a large quantity of arms for his followers; and gained over the master of bristol mint to take measures for supplying him, on any sudden emergency, with a large sum of money. he likewise opened a secret correspondence with the young king, and endeavoured by many accusations, true or false, to render odious the government of his brother. but happily those turbulent dispositions and inordinate desires which prompt men to form plots dangerous to the peace and welfare of a community, are rarely found to co-exist with the sagacity and prudence necessary to conduct them to a successful issue; and to this remark the admiral was not destined to afford an exception. though he ought to have been perfectly aware that his late attempt had rendered him an object of the strongest suspicion to his brother, and that he was surrounded by his spies, such was the violence and presumption of his temper, that he could not restrain himself from throwing out vaunts and menaces which served to put his enemies on the track of the most important discoveries; and in the midst of vain schemes and flattering anticipations, he was surprised on the sudden by a warrant for his committal to the tower. his principal agents were also seized, and compelled to give evidence before the council. still the protector seemed reluctant to proceed to extremities against his brother; but his own impetuous temper and the ill offices of the earl of warwick conspired to urge on his fate. far from submitting himself as before to the indulgence of the protector, and seeking to disarm his indignation by promises and entreaties, seymour now stood, as it were, at bay, and boldly demanded a fair and equal trial,--the birthright of englishmen. but this was a boon which it was esteemed on several accounts inexpedient, if not dangerous, to grant. no overt act of treason could be proved against him: circumstances might come out which would compromise the young king himself, whom a strong dislike of the restraint in which he was held by his elder uncle had thrown pretty decidedly into the party of the younger. the name of the lady elizabeth was implicated in the transaction further than it was delicate to declare. an acquittal, which the far-extended influence of the lord-admiral over all classes of men rendered by no means impossible, would probably be the ruin of the protector;--and in the end it was decided to proceed against him by the arbitrary and odious method of attainder. several of those peers, on whose support he had placed the firmest reliance, rose voluntarily in their places, and betrayed the designs which he had confided to them. the depositions before the council were declared sufficient ground for his condemnation; and in spite of the opposition of some spirited and upright members of the house of commons, a sentence was pronounced, in obedience to which, in march , he was conducted to the scaffold. the timely removal of this bad and dangerous man, however illegal and unwarrantable the means by which it was accomplished, deserves to be regarded as the first of those signal escapes with which the life of elizabeth so remarkably abounds. her attachment for seymour, certainly the earliest, was perhaps also the strongest, impression of the tender kind which her heart was destined to receive; and though there may be a probability that in this, as in subsequent instances, where her inclinations seemed most to favor the wishes of her suitors, her characteristic caution would have interfered to withhold her from an irrevocable engagement, it might not much longer have been in her power to recede with honor, or even, if the designs of seymour had prospered, with safety. the original pieces relative to this affair have fortunately been preserved, and furnish some very remarkable traits of the early character of elizabeth, and of the behaviour of those about her. the confessions of mrs. ashley and of parry before the privy-council, contain all that is known of the conduct of the admiral towards their lady during the lifetime of the queen. they seem to cast upon mrs. ashley the double imputation of having suffered such behaviour to pass before her eyes as she ought not to have endured for a moment, and of having needlessly disclosed to parry particulars respecting it which reflected the utmost disgrace both on herself, the admiral, and her pupil. yet we know that elizabeth, so far from resenting any thing that mrs. ashley had either done or confessed, continued to love and favor her in the highest degree, and after her accession promoted her husband to a considerable office:--a circumstance which affords ground for suspicion that some important secrets were in her possession respecting later transactions between the princess and seymour which she had faithfully kept. it should also be observed in palliation of the liberties which she accused the admiral of allowing to himself, and the princess of enduring, that the period of elizabeth's life to which these particulars relate was only her fourteenth year. we are told that she refused permission to the admiral to visit her after he became a widower, on account of the general report that she was likely to become his wife; and not the slightest trace was at this time found of any correspondence between them, though harrington afterwards underwent an imprisonment for having delivered to her a letter from the admiral. yet it is stated that the partiality of the young princess betrayed itself by many involuntary tokens to those around her, who were thus encouraged to entertain her with accounts of the admiral's attachment, and to inquire whether, if the consent of the council could be obtained, she would consent to admit his addresses. the admiral is represented to have proceeded with caution equal to her own. anxious to ascertain her sentiments, earnestly desirous to accomplish so splendid an union, but fully sensible of the inutility as well as danger of a clandestine connexion, he may be thought rather to have regarded her hand as the recompense which awaited the success of all his other plans of ambition, than as the means of obtaining that success; and it seemed to have been only by distant hints through the agents whom he trusted, that he had ventured as yet to intimate to her his views and wishes; but it is probable that much of the truth was by these agents suppressed. the protector, rather, as it seems, with the desire of criminating his brother than of clearing the princess, sent sir robert tyrwhitt to her residence at hatfield, empowered to examine her on the whole matter; and his letters to his employer inform us of many particulars. when, by the base expedient of a counterfeit letter, he had brought her to believe that both mrs. ashley and parry were committed to the tower, "her grace was," as he expresses it, "marvellously abashed, and did weep very tenderly a long time, demanding whether they had confessed any thing or not." soon after, sending for him, she related several circumstances which she said she had forgotten to mention when the master of the household and master denny came from the protector to examine her. "after all this," adds he, "i did require her to consider her honor, and the peril that might ensue, for she was but a subject; and i further declared what a woman mrs. ashley was, with a long circumstance, saying that if she would open all things herself, that all the evil and shame should be ascribed to them, and her youth considered both with the king's majesty, your grace, and the whole council. but in no way she will not confess any practice by mrs. ashley or the cofferer concerning my lord-admiral; and yet i do see it in her face that she is guilty, and do perceive as yet that she will abide the storms or she accuse mrs. ashley. "upon sudden news that my lord great-master and master denny was arrived at the gate, the cofferer went hastily to his chamber, and said to my lady his wife, 'i would i had never been born, for i am undone,' and wrung his hands, and cast away his chain from his neck, and his rings from his fingers. this is confessed by his own servant, and there is divers witnesses of the same." the following day tyrwhitt writes, that all he has yet gotten from the princess was by gentle persuasion, whereby he began to grow with her in credit, "for i do assure your grace she hath a good wit, and nothing is gotten off her but by great policy." a few days after, he expresses to the protector his opinion that there had been some secret promise between the princess, mrs. ashley, and the cofferer, never to confess till death; "and if it be so," he observes, "it will never be gotten of her but either by the king's majesty or else by your grace." on another occasion he confirms this idea by stating that he had tried her with false intelligence of parry's having confessed, on which she called him "false wretch," and said that it was a great matter for him to make such a promise and break it. he notices the exact agreement between the princess and the other two in all their statements, but represents it as a proof that "they had set the knot before." it appears on the whole, that sir robert with all his pains was not able to elicit a single fact of decisive importance; but probably there was somewhat more in the matter than we find acknowledged in a letter from elizabeth herself to the protector. she here states, that she did indeed send her cofferer to speak with the lord-admiral, but on no other business than to recommend to him one of her chaplains, and to request him to use his interest that she might have durham place for her town house; that parry on his return informed her, that the admiral said she could not have durham place, which was wanted for a mint, but offered her his own house for the time of her being in london; and that parry then inquired of her, whether, if the council would consent to her marrying the admiral, she would herself be willing? that she refused to answer this question, requiring to know who bade him ask it. he said, no one; but from the admiral's inquiries what she spent in her house, and whether she had gotten her patents for certain lands signed, and other questions of a similar nature, he thought "that he was given that way rather than otherwise." she explicitly denies that her governess ever advised her to marry the admiral without the consent of the council; but relates with great apparent ingenuousness, the hints which mrs. ashley had thrown out of his attachment to her, and the artful attempts which she had made to discover how her pupil stood affected towards such a connexion. the letter concludes with the following wise and spirited assertion of herself. "master tyrwhitt and others have told me, that there goeth rumours abroad which be greatly both against my honor and honesty, (which above all things i esteem) which be these; that i am in the tower, and with child by my lord admiral. my lord, these are shameful slanders, for the which, besides the desire i have to see the king's majesty, i shall most humbly desire your lordship that i may come to the court after your first determination, that i may show myself there as i am." that the cofferer had repeated his visits to the admiral oftener than was at first acknowledged either by his lady or himself, a confession afterwards addressed by elizabeth to the protector seems to show; but even with this confession tyrwhitt declares himself unsatisfied. parry, in that part of his confession where he relates what passed between himself and the lord-admiral when he waited upon him by his lady's command, takes notice of the earnest manner in which the admiral had urged her endeavouring to procure, by way of exchange, certain crown lands which had been the queen's, and seem to have been adjacent to his own, from which, he says, he inferred, that he wanted to have both them and his lady for himself. he adds, that the admiral said he wished the princess to go to the duchess of somerset, and by her means make suit to the protector for the lands, and for a town house, and "to entertain her grace for her furtherance." that when he repeated this to her, elizabeth would not at first believe that he had said such words, or could wish her so to do; but on his declaring that it was true, "she seemed to be angry that she should be driven to make such suits, and said, 'in faith i will not come there, nor begin to flatter now.'" her spirit broke out, according to tyrwhitt, with still greater vehemence, on the removal of mrs. ashley, whom lady tyrwhitt succeeded in her office:--the following is the account which he gives of her behaviour. "pleaseth it your grace to be advertised, that after my wife's repair hither, she declared to the lady elizabeth's grace, that she was called before your grace and the council and had a rebuke, that she had not taken upon her the office to see her well governed, in the lieu of mrs. ashley. her answer was, that mrs. ashley was her mistress, and that she had not so demeaned herself that the council should now need to put any mo mistresses unto her. whereunto my wife answered, seeing she did allow mrs. ashley to be her mistress, she need not to be ashamed to have any honest woman to be in that place. she took the matter so heavily that she wept all that night and lowered all the next day, till she received your letter; and then she sent for me and asked me whether she was best to write to you again or not: i said, if she would make answer that she would follow the effect of your letter, i thought it well done that she should write; but in the end of the matter i perceived that she was very loth to have a governor; and to avoid the same, said the world would note her to be a great offender, having so hastily a governor appointed her. and all is no more, she fully hopes to recover her old mistress again. the love she yet beareth her is to be wondered at. i told her, if she would consider her honor and the sequel thereof, she would, considering her years, make suit to your grace to have one, rather than to make delay to be without one one hour. she cannot digest such advice in no way; but if i should say my phantasy, it were more meet she should have two than one. she would in any wise write to your grace, wherein i offered her my advice, which she would in no wise follow, but write her own phantasy. she beginneth now a little to droop, by reason she heareth that my lord-admiral's houses be dispersed. and my wife telleth me now, that she cannot hear him discommended but she is ready to make answer therein; and so she hath not been accustomed to do, unless mrs. ashley were touched, whereunto she was very ready to make answer vehemently." &c.[ ] [note : for the original documents relative to this affair see burleigh papers by haynes, _passim_.] parry had probably the same merit of fidelity as mrs. ashley; for though tyrwhitt says he was found faulty in his accounts, he was not only continued at this time by his mistress in his office of cofferer, but raised afterwards to that of comptroller of the royal household, which he held till his death. a gentleman of the name of harrington, then in the admiral's service, who was much examined respecting his master's intercourse with the princess, and revealed nothing, was subsequently taken by her into her own household and highly favored; and so certain did this gentleman, who was a man of parts, account himself of her tenderness for the memory of a lover snatched from her by the hand of violence alone, that he ventured, several years after her accession to the throne, to present her with a portrait of him, under which was inscribed the following sonnet. "of person rare, strong limbs and manly shape, by nature framed to serve on sea or land; in friendship firm in good state or ill hap, in peace head-wise, in war, skill great, bold hand. on horse or foot, in peril or in play, none could excel, though many did essay. a subject true to king, a servant great, friend to god's truth, and foe to rome's deceit. sumptuous abroad for honor of the land, temp'rate at home, yet kept great state with stay, and noble house that fed more mouths with meat than some advanced on higher steps to stand; yet against nature, reason, and just laws, his blood was spilt, guiltless, without just cause." the fall of seymour, and the disgrace and danger in which she had herself been involved, afforded to elizabeth a severe but useful lesson; and the almost total silence of history respecting her during the remainder of her brother's reign affords satisfactory indication of the extreme caution with which she now conducted herself. this silence, however, is agreeably supplied by documents of a more private nature, which inform us of her studies, her acquirements, the disposition of her time, and the bent of her youthful mind. the latin letters of her learned preceptor roger ascham abound with anecdotes of a pupil in whose proficiency he justly gloried; and the particulars interspersed respecting other females of high rank, also distinguished by the cultivation of classical literature, enhance the interest of the picture, by affording objects of comparison to the principal figure, and illustrating the taste, almost the rage, for learning which pervaded the court of edward vi. writing in to his friend john sturmius, the worthy and erudite rector of the protestant university of strasburgh, ascham has the following passages. * * * * * "never was the nobility of england more lettered than at present. our illustrious king edward in talent, industry, perseverance, and erudition, surpasses both his own years and the belief of men.... i doubt not that france will also yield the just praise of learning to the duke of suffolk[ ] and the rest of that band of noble youths educated with the king in greek and latin literature, who depart for that country on this very day. [note : this was the second duke of the name of brandon, who died young of the sweating sickness.] "numberless honorable ladies of the present time surpass the daughters of sir thomas more in every kind of learning. but amongst them all, my illustrious mistress the lady elizabeth shines like a star, excelling them more by the splendor of her virtues and her learning, than by the glory of her royal birth. in the variety of her commendable qualities, i am less perplexed to find matter for the highest panegyric than to circumscribe that panegyric within just bounds. yet i shall mention nothing respecting her but what has come under my own observation. "for two years she pursued the study of greek and latin under my tuition; but the foundations of her knowledge in both languages were laid by the diligent instruction of william grindal, my late beloved friend and seven years my pupil in classical learning at cambridge. from this university he was summoned by john cheke to court, where he soon after received the appointment of tutor to this lady. after some years, when through her native genius, aided by the efforts of so excellent a master, she had made a great progress in learning, and grindal, by his merit and the favor of his mistress, might have aspired to high dignities, he was snatched away by a sudden illness, leaving a greater miss of himself in the court, than i remember any other to have done these many years. "i was appointed to succeed him in his office; and the work which he had so happily begun, without my assistance indeed, but not without some counsels of mine, i diligently labored to complete. now, however, released from the throng of a court, and restored to the felicity of my former learned leisure, i enjoy, through the bounty of the king, an honorable appointment in this university. "the lady elizabeth has accomplished her sixteenth year; and so much solidity of understanding, such courtesy united with dignity, have never been observed at so early an age. she has the most ardent love of true religion and of the best kind of literature. the constitution of her mind is exempt from female weakness, and she is endued with a masculine power of application. no apprehension can be quicker than her's, no memory more retentive. french and italian she speaks like english; latin, with fluency, propriety, and judgement; she also spoke greek with me, frequently, willingly, and moderately well. nothing can be more elegant than her handwriting, whether in the greek or roman character. in music she is very skilful, but does not greatly delight. with respect to personal decoration, she greatly prefers a simple elegance to show and splendor, so despising 'the outward adorning of plaiting the hair and of wearing of gold,' that in the whole manner of her life she rather resembles hippolyta than phædra. "she read with me almost the whole of cicero, and a great part of livy: from these two authors, indeed, her knowledge of the latin language has been almost exclusively derived. the beginning of the day was always devoted by her to the new testament in greek, after which she read select orations of isocrates and the tragedies of sophocles, which i judged best adapted to supply her tongue with the purest diction, her mind with the most excellent precepts, and her exalted station with a defence against the utmost power of fortune. for her religious instruction, she drew first from the fountains of scripture, and afterwards from st. cyprian, the 'common places' of melancthon, and similar works which convey pure doctrine in elegant language. in every kind of writing she easily detected any ill-adapted or far-fetched expression. she could not bear those feeble imitators of erasmus who bind the latin language in the fetters of miserable proverbs; on the other hand, she approved a style chaste in its propriety, and beautiful by perspicuity, and she greatly admired metaphors, when not too violent, and antitheses when just, and happily opposed. by a diligent attention to these particulars, her ears became so practised and so nice, that there was nothing in greek, latin, or english, prose or verse, which, according to its merits or defects, she did not either reject with disgust, or receive with the highest delight.... had i more leisure, i would speak to you at greater length of the king, of the lady elizabeth, and of the daughters of the duke of somerset, whose minds have also been formed by the best literary instruction. but there are two english ladies whom i cannot omit to mention; nor would i have you, my sturmius, omit them, if you meditate any celebration of your english friends, than which nothing could be more agreeable to me. one is jane grey[ ], the other is mildred cecil, who understands and speaks greek like english, so that it may be doubted whether she is most happy in the possession of this surpassing degree of knowledge, or in having had for her preceptor and father sir anthony coke, whose singular erudition caused him to be joined with john cheke in the office of tutor to the king, or finally, in having become the wife of william cecil, lately appointed secretary of state; a young man indeed, but mature in wisdom, and so deeply skilled both in letters and in affairs, and endued with such moderation in the exercise of public offices, that to him would be awarded by the consenting voice of englishmen the four-fold praise attributed to pericles by his rival thucydides--'to know all that is fitting, to be able to apply what he knows, to be a lover of his country, and superior to money.'" [note : this lady is commemorated at greater length in another place, and therefore a clause is here omitted.] * * * * * the learned, excellent, and unfortunate jane grey is repeatedly mentioned by this writer with warm and merited eulogium. he relates to sturmius, that in the month of august , taking his journey from yorkshire to the court, he had deviated from his course to visit the family of the marquis of dorset at his seat of broadgate in leicestershire. lady jane was alone at his arrival, the rest of the family being on a hunting party; and gaining admission to her apartment, he found her reading by herself the phædo of plato in the original, which she understood so perfectly as to excite in him extreme wonder; for she was at this time under fifteen years of age. she also possessed the power of speaking and writing greek, and she willingly promised to address to him a letter in this language. in his english work 'the schoolmaster,' referring again to this interview with jane grey, ascham adds the following curious and affecting particulars. having asked her how at her age she could have attained to such perfection both in philosophy and greek, "i will tell you," said she, "and tell you a truth, which perchance you will marvel at. one of the greatest benefits that ever god gave me is, that he sent me so sharp and severe parents, and so gentle a schoolmaster. for when i am in presence either of father or mother, whether i speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go; eat, drink, be merry or sad; be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing any thing else, i must do it, as it were, in such weight, measure, and number, even so perfectly, as god made the world, or else i am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea presently sometimes with pinches, nips, and bobs and other ways which i will not name, for the honor i bear them, so without measure misordered, that i think myself in hell, till time come that i must go to mr. elmer, who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning, that i think all the time nothing while i am with him. and when i am called from him i fall on weeping, because whatsoever else i do but learning, is full of grief, trouble, fear, and whole misliking unto me. and thus my book hath been so much my pleasure, and bringeth daily to me more pleasure and more, that in respect of it, all other pleasures, in very deed, be but trifles and troubles unto me." the epistles from which the extracts in the preceding pages are with some abridgement translated, and which are said to be the first collection of private letters ever published by any englishman, were all written during the year , when ascham, on some disgust, had quitted the court and returned to his situation of greek reader at cambridge; and perhaps the eulogiums here bestowed, in epistles which his correspondent lost no time in committing to the press, were not composed without the secret hope of their procuring for him a restoration to that court life which it seems difficult even for the learned to quit without a sigh. it would be unjust, however, to regard ascham in the light of a flatterer; for his praises are in most points corroborated by the evidence of history, or by other concurring testimonies. his observations, for instance, on the modest simplicity of elizabeth's dress and appearance at this early period of her life, which might be received with some incredulity by the reader to whom instances are familiar of her inordinate love of dress at a much more advanced age, and when the cares of a sovereign ought to have left no room for a vanity so puerile, receive strong confirmation from another and very respectable authority. dr. elmer or aylmer, who was tutor to lady jane grey and her sisters, and became afterwards, during elizabeth's reign, bishop of london, thus draws her character when young, in a work entitled "a harbour for faithful subjects." "the king left her rich cloaths and jewels; and i know it to be true, that in seven years after her father's death, she never in all that time looked upon that rich attire and precious jewels but once, and that against her will. and that there never came gold or stone upon her head, till her sister forced her to lay off her former soberness, and bear her company in her glittering gayness. and then she so wore it, as every man might see that her body carried that which her heart misliked. i am sure that her maidenly apparel which she used in king edward's time, made the noblemen's daughters and wives to be ashamed to be dressed and painted like peacocks; being more moved with her most virtuous example than with all that ever paul or peter wrote touching that matter. yea, this i know, that a great man's daughter (lady jane grey) receiving from lady mary before she was queen good apparel of tinsel, cloth of gold and velvet, laid on with parchment lace of gold, when she saw it, said, 'what shall i do with it?' 'mary,' said a gentlewoman, 'wear it.' 'nay,' quoth she, 'that were a shame, to follow my lady mary against god's word, and leave my lady elizabeth which followeth god's word.' and when all the ladies at the coming of the scots queen dowager, mary of guise, (she who visited england in edward's time,) went with their hair frownsed, curled, and doublecurled, she altered nothing but kept her old maidenly shamefacedness." this extract may be regarded as particularly curious, as an exemplification of the rigid turn of sentiment which prevailed at the court of young edward, and of the degree in which elizabeth conformed herself to it. there is a print from a portrait of her when young, in which the hair is without a single ornament and the whole dress remarkably simple. but to return to ascham.--the qualifications of this learned man as a writer of classical latin recommended him to queen mary, notwithstanding his known attachment to the protestant faith, in the capacity of latin secretary; and it was in the year , while holding this station, that he resumed his lessons to his illustrious pupil. "the lady elizabeth and i," writes he to sturmius, "are reading together in greek the orations of �schines and demosthenes. she reads before me, and at first sight she so learnedly comprehends not only the idiom of the language and the meaning of the orator, but the whole grounds of contention, the decrees of the people, and the customs and manners of the athenians, as you would greatly wonder to hear." under the reign of elizabeth, ascham retained his post of latin secretary, and was admitted to considerable intimacy by his royal mistress. addressing sturmius he says, "i received your last letters on the th of january . two passages in them, one relative to the scotch affairs, the other on the marriage of the queen, induced me to give them to herself to read. she remarked and graciously acknowledged in both of them your respectful observance of her. your judgement in the affairs of scotland, as they then stood, she highly approved, and she loves you for your solicitude respecting us and our concerns. the part respecting her marriage she read over thrice, as i well remember, and with somewhat of a gentle smile; but still preserving a modest and bashful silence. "concerning that point indeed, my sturmius, i have nothing certain to write to you, nor does any one truly know what to judge. i told you rightly, in one of my former letters, that in the whole ordinance of her life she resembled not phædra but hippolyta; for by nature, and not by the counsels of others, she is thus averse and abstinent from marriage. when i know any thing for certain, i will write it to you as soon as possible; in the mean time i have no hopes to give you respecting the king of sweden." in the same letter, after enlarging, somewhat too rhetorically perhaps, on the praises of the queen and her government, ascham recurs to his favorite theme,--her learning; and roundly asserts, that there were not four men in england, distinguished either in the church or the state, who understood more greek than her majesty: and as an instance of her proficiency in other tongues, he mentions that he was once present at court when she gave answers at the same time to three ambassadors, the imperial, the french, and the swedish, in italian, in french, and in latin; and all this, fluently, without confusion, and to the purpose. a short epistle from queen elizabeth to sturmius, which is inserted in this collection, appears to refer to that of sturmius which ascham answers above. she addresses him as her beloved friend, expresses in the handsomest terms her sense of the attachment towards herself and her country evinced by so eminent a cultivator of genuine learning and true religion, and promises that her acknowledgements shall not be confined to words alone; but for a further explanation of her intentions she refers him to the bearer; consequently we have no data for estimating the actual pecuniary value of these warm expressions of royal favor and friendship. but we have good proof, unfortunately, that no munificent act of elizabeth's ever interposed to rescue her zealous and admiring preceptor from the embarrassments into which he was plunged, probably indeed by his own imprudent habits, but certainly by no faults which ought to have deprived him of his just claims on the purse of a mistress whom, he had served with so much ability, and with such distinguished advantage to herself. the other learned females of this age whom ascham has complimented by addressing them in latin epistles, are, anne countess of pembroke, sister of queen catherine parr; a young lady of the name of vaughan; jane grey; and mrs. clark, a grand-daughter of sir thomas more, by his favorite daughter mrs. roper. in his letter to this last lady, written during the reign of mary, after congratulating her on her cultivation, amid the luxury and dissipation of a court, of studies worthy the descendant of a man whose high qualities had ennobled england in the estimation of foreign nations, he proceeds to mention, that he is the person whom, several years ago, her excellent mother had requested to undertake the instruction of all her children in greek and latin literature. at that time, he says, no offer could tempt him to quit his learned retirement at cambridge, and he was reluctantly compelled to decline the proposal; but being now once more established at court, he freely offers to a lady whose accomplishments he so much admires, any assistance in her laudable pursuits which it may be in his power to afford. a few more scattered notices may be collected relative to this period of the life of elizabeth. her talents, her vivacity, her proficiency in those classical studies to which he was himself addicted, and especially the attachment which she manifested to the reformed religion, endeared her exceedingly to the young king her brother, who was wont to call her,--perhaps with reference to the sobriety of dress and manners by which she was then distinguished,--his sweet sister temperance. on her part his affection was met by every demonstration of sisterly tenderness, joined to those delicate attentions and respectful observances which his rank required. it was probably about that she addressed to him the following letter on his having desired her picture, which affords perhaps the most favorable specimen extant of her youthful style. * * * * * "like as the rich man that daily gathereth riches to riches, and to one bag of money layeth a great sort till it come to infinite: so methinks your majesty, not being sufficed with so many benefits and gentleness shewed to me afore this time, doth now increase them in asking and desiring where you may bid and command; requiring a thing not worthy the desiring for itself, but made worthy for your highness' request. my picture i mean: in which, if the inward good mind toward your grace might as well be declared, as the outward face and countenance shall be seen, i would not have tarried the commandment but prevented it, nor have been the last to grant but the first to offer it. for the face i grant i might well blush to offer, but the mind i shall never be ashamed to present. but though from the grace of the picture the colors may fade by time, may give by weather, may be spited by chance; yet the other, nor time with her swift wings shall overtake, nor the misty clouds with their lowering may darken, nor chance with her slippery foot may overthrow. "of this also yet the proof could not be great, because the occasions have been so small; notwithstanding, as a dog hath a day, so may i perchance have time to declare it in deeds, which now i do write them but in words. and further, i shall humbly beseech your majesty, that when you shall look on my picture, you will witsafe to think, that as you have but the outward shadow of the body afore you, so my inward mind wisheth that the body itself were oftener in your presence. howbeit because both my so being i think could do your majesty little pleasure, though myself great good; and again, because i see not as yet the time agreeing thereunto, i shall learn to follow this saying of horace, '_feras, non culpes, quod vitari non potest_.' and thus i will (troubling your majesty i fear) end with my most humble thanks; beseeching god long to preserve you to his honor, to your comfort, to the realms profit, and to my joy. (from hatfield this th day of may.) your majesty's most humble sister and servant elizabeth." * * * * * an exact memorialist[ ] has preserved an instance of the high consideration now enjoyed by elizabeth in the following passage, which is further curious as an instance of the state which she already assumed in her public appearances. "march th ( ). the lady elizabeth, the king's sister, rode through london unto st. james's, the king's palace, with a great company of lords, knights, and gentlemen; and after her a great company of ladies and gentlemen on horseback, about two hundred. on the th she came from st. james's through the park to the court; the way from the park gate unto the court spread with fine sand. she was attended with a very honorable confluence of noble and worshipful persons of both sexes, and received with much ceremony at the court gate." [note : strype.] the ensuing letter, however, seems to intimate that there were those about the young king who envied her these tokens of favor and credit, and were sometimes but too successful in estranging her from the royal presence, and perhaps in exciting prejudices against her:--it is unfortunately without date of year. * * * * * "the princess elizabeth to king edward vi. "like as a shipman in stormy weather plucks down the sails tarrying for better wind, so did i, most noble king, in my unfortunate chance a thursday pluck down the high sails of my joy and comfort; and do trust one day, that as troublesome waves have repulsed me backward, so a gentle wind will bring me forward to my haven. two chief occasions moved me much and grieved me greatly: the one, for that i doubted your majesty's health; the other, because for all my long tarrying, i went without that i came for. of the first i am relieved in a part, both that i understood of your health, and also that your majesty's lodging is far from my lord marques' chamber: of my other grief i am not eased; but the best is, that whatsoever other folks will suspect, i intend not to fear your grace's good will, which as i know that i never deserved to faint, so i trust will still stick by me. for if your grace's advice that i should return, (whose will is a commandment) had not been, i would not have made the half of my way the end of my journey. "and thus as one desirous to hear of your majesty's health, though unfortunate to see it, i shall pray god to preserve you. (from hatfield this present saturday.) "your majesty's humble sister to commandment, "elizabeth." * * * * * chapter v. to . decline of the protector's authority.--he is imprisoned--accused of misdemeanors--loses his office--is liberated--reconciled with dudley, who succeeds to his authority.--dudley pushes on the reformation.--the celebration of mass prohibited.--princess mary persecuted.--the emperor attempts to get her out of the kingdom, but without success--interferes openly in her behalf.--effect of persecution on the mind of mary.--marriage proposed for elizabeth with the prince of denmark.--she declines it.--king betrothed to a princess of france.--sweating sickness.--death of the duke of suffolk.--dudley procures that title for the marquis of dorset, and the dukedom of northumberland for himself.--particulars of the last earl of northumberland.--trial, conviction, and death of the duke of somerset.--christmas festivities of the young king.--account of george ferrers master of the king's pastimes, and his works.--views of northumberland.--decline of the king's health.--scheme of northumberland for lady jane grey's succession.--three marriages contrived by him for this purpose.--he procures a settlement of the crown on the lady jane.--subserviency of the council.--death of edward concealed by northumberland.--the princesses narrowly escape falling into his hands.--courageous conduct of elizabeth.--northumberland deserted by the council and the army.--jane grey imprisoned.--northumberland arrested.--mary mounts the throne. it was to little purpose that the protector had stained his hands with the blood of his brother, for the exemption thus purchased from one kind of fear or danger, was attended by a degree of public odium which could not fail to render feeble and tottering an authority based, like his, on plain and open usurpation. other causes conspired to undermine his credit and prepare his overthrow. the hatred of the great nobles, which he augmented by a somewhat too ostentatious patronage of the lower classes against the rich and powerful, continually pursued and watched the opportunity to ruin him. financial difficulties pressed upon him, occasioned in great measure by the wars with france and scotland which he had carried on, in pursuance of henry's design of compelling the scotch to marry their young queen to his son. an object which had finally been frustrated, notwithstanding the vigilance of the english fleet, by the safe arrival of mary in france, and her solemn betrothment to the dauphin. the great and glorious work of religious reformation, though followed by somerset, under the guidance of cranmer, with a moderation and prudence which reflect the highest honor on both, could not be brought to perfection without exciting the rancorous hostility of thousands, whom various motives and interests attached to the cause of ancient superstition; and the abolition, by authority, of the mass, and the destruction of images and crucifixes, had given birth to serious disturbances in different parts of the country. the want and oppression under which the lower orders groaned,--and which they attributed partly to the suppression of the monasteries to which they had been accustomed to resort for the supply of their necessities, partly to a general inclosure bill extremely cruel and arbitrary in its provisions,--excited commotions still more violent and alarming. in order to suppress the insurrection in norfolk, headed by kett, it had at length been found necessary to send thither a large body of troops under the earl of warwick, who had acquired a very formidable degree of celebrity by the courage and conduct which he exhibited in bringing this difficult enterprise to a successful termination. a party was now formed in the council, of which warwick, southampton, arundel, and st. john, were the chiefs; and strong resolutions were entered into against the assumed authority of the protector. this unfortunate man, whom an inconsiderate ambition, fostered by circumstances favorable to its success, had pushed forward into a station equally above his talents and his birth, was now found destitute of all the resources of courage and genius which might yet have retrieved his authority and his credit. he suffered himself to be surprised into acts indicative of weakness and dismay, which soon robbed him of his remaining partisans, and gave to his enemies all the advantage which they desired. his committal to the tower on several charges, of which his assumption of the whole authority of the state was the principal, soon followed. a short time after he was deprived of his high office, which was nominally vested in six members of the council, but really in the earl of warwick, whose private ambition seems to have been the main-spring of the whole intrigue, and who thus became, almost without a struggle, undisputed master of the king and kingdom. that poorness of spirit which had sunk the duke of somerset into insignificance, saved him at present from further mischief. in the beginning of the ensuing year, , having on his knees confessed himself guilty of all the matters laid to his charge, without reservation or exception, and humbly submitted himself to the king's mercy, he was condemned in a heavy fine, on remission of which by the king he was liberated. soon after, by the special favor of his royal nephew, he was readmitted into the council; and a reconciliation was mediated for him with warwick, cemented by a marriage between one of his daughters and the son and heir of this aspiring leader. the catholic party, which had flattered itself that the earl of warwick, from gratitude for the support which some of its leaders had afforded him, and perhaps also from principle, no less than from opposition to the duke of somerset, would be led to embrace its defence, was now destined to deplore its disappointment. determined to rule alone, he soon shook off his able but too aspiring colleague, the earl of southampton, and disgraced, by the imposition of a fine for some alleged embezzlement of public money, the earl of arundel, also a known assertor of the ancient faith, finally, having observed how closely the principles of protestantism, which edward had derived from instructors equally learned and zealous, had interwoven themselves with the whole texture and fabric of his mind, he resolved to merit the lasting attachment of the royal minor by assisting him to complete the overthrow of popery in england. a confession of faith was now drawn up by commissioners appointed for the purpose, and various alterations were made in the liturgy, which had already been translated into the vulgar tongue for church use. tests were imposed, which gardiner, bonner, and several others of the bishops felt themselves called upon by conscience, or a regard to their own reputation, to decline subscribing, even at the price of deprivation; and prodigious devastations were made by the courtiers on the property of the church. to perform or assist at the performance of the mass was also rendered highly penal. but no dread of legal animadversion was capable of deterring the lady mary from the observance of this essential rite of her religion; and finding herself and her household exposed to serious inconveniences on account of their infraction of the new statute, she applied for protection to her potent kinsman the emperor charles v., who is said to have undertaken her rescue by means which could scarcely have failed to involve him in a war with england. by his orders, or connivance, certain ships were prepared in the ports of flanders, manned and armed for an attempt to carry off the princess either by stealth or open force, and land her at antwerp. in furtherance of the design, several of her gentlemen had already taken their departure for that city, and flemish light vessels were observed to keep watch on the english coast. but by these appearances the apprehensions of the council were awakened, and a sudden journey of the princess from hunsdon in hertfordshire towards norfolk, for which she was unable to assign a satisfactory reason, served as strong confirmation of their suspicions. a violent alarm was immediately sounded through the nation, of foreign invasion designed to co-operate with seditions at home; bodies of troops were dispatched to protect different points of the coast; and several ships of war were equipped for sea; while a communication on the subject was made by the council to the nobility throughout the kingdom, in terms calculated to awaken indignation against the persecuted princess, and all who were suspected, justly or unjustly, of regarding her cause with favor. a few extracts from this paper will exhibit the fierce and jealous spirit of that administration of which dudley formed the soul. "so it is, that the lady mary, not many days past, removed from newhall in essex to her house of hunsdon in hertfordshire, the cause whereof, although we knew not, yet did we rather think it likely that her grace would have come to have seen his majesty; but now upon tuesday last, she hath suddenly, without knowledge given either to us here or to the country there, and without any cause in the world by us to her given, taken her journey from hunsdon towards norfolk" &c. "this her doing we be sorry for, both for the evil opinion the king's majesty our master may conceive thereby of her, and for that by the same doth appear manifestly the malicious rancour of such as provoke her thus to breed and stir up, as much as in her and them lieth, occasion of disorder and unquiet in the realm" &c. "it is not unknown to us but some near about the said lady mary have very lately in the night seasons had privy conferences with the emperor's embassador here being, which councils can no wise tend to the weal of the king's majesty our master or his realm, nor to the nobility of this realm. and whatsoever the lady mary shall upon instigation of these forward practices further do, like to these her strange beginnings, we doubt not but your lordship will provide that her proceedings shall not move any disobedience or disorder--the effect whereof if her counsellors should procure, as it must be to her grace, and to all other good englishmen therein seduced, damnable, so shall it be most hurtful to the good subjects of the country" &c.[ ] [note : burleigh papers by haynes.] thus did the fears, the policy, or the party-spirit, of the members of the council lead them to magnify the peril of the nation from the enterprises of a young and defenceless female, whose best friend was a foreign prince, whose person was completely within their power, and who, at this period of her life "more sinned against than sinning," was not even suspected of any other design than that of withdrawing herself from a country in which she was no longer allowed to worship god according to her conscience. some slight tumults in essex and kent, in which she was not even charged with any participation, were speedily suppressed; and after some conference with the chancellor and secretary petre, mary obeyed a summons to attend them to the court, where she was now to be detained for greater security. on her arrival she received a reprimand from the council for her obstinacy respecting the mass, with an injunction to instruct herself, by reading, in the grounds of protestant belief. to this she replied, with the inflexible resolution of her character, that as to protestant books, she thanked god that she never had read any, and never intended so to do; that for her religion she was ready to lay down her life, and only feared that she might not be found worthy to become its martyr. one of her chaplains was soon after thrown into prison; and further severities seemed to await her, when a message from the emperor, menacing the country with war in case she should be debarred from the free exercise of her religion, taught the council the expediency of relaxing a little the sternness of their intolerance. but the scruples of the zealous young king on this head could not be brought to yield to reasons of state, till he had "advised with the archbishop of canterbury and the bishops of london and rochester, who gave their opinion that to give license to sin was sin, but to connive at sin might be allowed in case it were neither long, nor without hope of reformation[ ]." [note : hayward's life of edward vi.] by this prudent and humane but somewhat jesuitical decision this perplexing affair was set at rest for the present; and during the small remainder of her brother's reign, a negative kind of persecution, consisting in disfavor, obloquy, and neglect, was all, apparently, that the lady mary was called upon to undergo. but she had already endured enough to sour her temper, to aggravate with feelings of personal animosity her systematic abhorrence of what she deemed impious heresy, and to bind to her heart by fresh and stronger ties that cherished faith, in defence of which she was proudly conscious of having struggled and suffered with a lofty and unyielding intrepidity. in order to counterbalance the threatened hostility of spain, and impose an additional check on the catholic party at home, it was now judged expedient for the king to strengthen himself by an alliance with christian iii. king of denmark; an able and enlightened prince, who in the early part of his reign had opposed with vigor the aggressions of the emperor charles v. on the independence of the north of europe, and more recently had acquired the respect of the whole protestant body by establishing the reformation in his dominions. an agent was accordingly dispatched with a secret commission to sound the inclinations of the court of copenhagen towards a marriage between the prince-royal and the lady elizabeth. that this negotiation proved fruitless, was apparently owing to the reluctance to the connexion manifested by elizabeth; of whom it is observable, that she never could be prevailed upon to afford the smallest encouragement to the addresses of any foreign prince whilst she herself was still a subject; well aware that to accept of an alliance which would carry her out of the kingdom, was to hazard the loss of her succession to the english crown, a splendid reversion never absent from her aspiring thoughts. disappointed in this design, edward lost no time in pledging his own hand to the infant daughter of henry ii. of france, which contract he did not live to complete. the splendid french embassy which arrived in england during the year to make arrangements respecting the dower of the princess, and to confer on her intended spouse the order of st. michael, was received with high honors, but found the court-festivities damped by a visitation of that strange and terrific malady the sweating sickness. this pestilence, first brought into the island by the foreign mercenaries who composed the army of the earl of richmond, afterwards henry vii., now made its appearance for the fourth and last time in our annals. it seized principally, it is said, on males, on such as were in the prime of their age, and rather on the higher than the lower classes: within the space of twenty-four hours the fate of the sufferer was decided for life or death. its ravages were prodigious; and the general consternation was augmented by a superstitious idea which went forth, that englishmen alone, were the destined victims of this mysterious minister of fate, which tracked their steps, with the malice and sagacity of an evil spirit, into every distant country of the earth whither they might have wandered, whilst it left unassailed all foreigners in their own. two of the king's servants died of this disease, and he in consequence removed to hampton court in haste and with very few attendants. the duke of suffolk and his brother, students at cambridge, were seized with it at the same time, sleeping in the same bed, and expired within two hours of each other. they were the children of charles brandon by his last wife, who was in her own right baroness willoughby of eresby. this lady had already made herself conspicuous by that earnest profession of the protestant faith for which, in the reign of mary, she underwent many perils and a long exile. she was a munificent patroness of the learned and zealous divines of her own persuasion, whether natives or foreigners; and the untimely loss of these illustrious youths, who seem to have inherited both her religious principles and her love of letters, was publicly bewailed by the principal members of the university. but by the earl of warwick the melancholy event was rendered doubly conducive to the purposes of his ambition. in the first place it enabled him to bind to his interests the marquis of dorset married to the half-sister of the young duke of suffolk, by procuring a renewal of the ducal title in his behalf, and next authorized him by a kind of precedent to claim for himself the same exalted dignity. the circumstances attending dudley's elevation to the ducal rank are worthy of particular notice, as connected with a melancholy part of the story of that old and illustrious family of the percies, celebrated through so many ages of english history. the last of this house who had borne the title of earl of northumberland was that ardent and favored suitor of anne boleyn, who was compelled by his father to renounce his pretensions to her hand in deference to the wishes of a royal competitor. the disappointment and the injury impressed themselves in indelible characters on the heart of percy: in common with the object of his attachment, he retained against wolsey, whom he believed to have been actively instrumental in fostering the king's passion, a deep resentment, which is said to have rendered peculiarly acceptable to him the duty afterwards imposed upon him, of arresting that celebrated minister in order to his being brought to his trial. for the lady to whom a barbarous exertion of parental authority had compelled him to give his hand, while his whole heart was devoted to another, he also conceived an aversion rather to be lamented than wondered at. unfortunately, she brought him no living offspring; and after a few years he separated himself from her to indulge his melancholy alone and without molestation. in this manner he spun out a suffering existence, oppressed with sickness of mind and body, disengaged from public life, and neglectful of his own embarrassed affairs, till the fatal catastrophe of his brother, brought to the scaffold in for his share in the popish rebellion under aske. by this event, and the attainder of sir thomas percy's children which followed, the earl saw himself deprived of the only consolation which remained to him,--that of transmitting to the posterity of a brother whom he loved, the titles and estates derived to him through a long and splendid ancestry. as a last resource, he bequeathed all his land to the king, in the hope, which was not finally frustrated, that a return of royal favor might one day restore them to the representatives of the percies. this done, he yielded his weary spirit on the last day of the same month which had seen the fatal catastrophe of his misguided brother. from this time the title had remained dormant, till the earl of warwick, untouched by commiseration or respect for the misfortunes of so great a house, cut off for the present all chance of its restoration, by causing the young monarch whom he governed to confer upon himself the whole of the percy estates, with the new dignity of duke of northumberland; an honor undeserved and ill-acquired, which no son of his was ever permitted to inherit. but the soaring ambition of dudley regarded even these splendid acquisitions of wealth and dignity only as steps to that summit of power and dominion which he was resolved by all means and at all hazards to attain; and his next measure was to procure the removal of the only man capable in any degree of obstructing his further progress. this was the late protector, by whom some relics of authority were still retained. at the instigation of northumberland, a law was passed making it felony to conspire against the life of a privy-counsellor; and by various insidious modes of provocation, he was soon enabled to bring within the danger of this new act an enemy who was rash, little sagacious, by no means scrupulous, and surrounded with violent or treacherous advisers. on october th , somerset and several of his relations and dependants, and on the following day his haughty duchess with certain of her favorites, were committed to the tower, charged with treason and felony. the duke, being put upon his trial, so clearly disproved most of the accusations brought against him that the peers acquitted him of treason; but the evidence of his having entertained designs against the lives of the duke of northumberland, the marquis of northampton, and the earl of pembroke, appeared so conclusive to his judges,--among whom these three noblemen themselves did not blush to take their seats,--that he was found guilty of the felony. after his condemnation, somerset acknowledged with contrition that he had once mentioned to certain persons an intention of assassinating these lords; but he protested that he had never taken any measures for carrying this wicked purpose into execution. however this might be, no act of violence had been committed, and it was hoped by many and expected by more, that the royal mercy might yet be extended to preserve his life: but northumberland spared no efforts to incense the king against his unhappy uncle; he also contrived by a course of amusements and festivities to divert him from serious thought; and on january st , to the great regret of the common people and the dismay of the protestant party, the duke of somerset underwent the fatal stroke on tower-hill. during the whole interval between the condemnation and death of his uncle, the king, as we are informed, had been entertained by the nobles of his court with "stately masques, brave challenges at tilt and at barriers, and whatsoever exercises or disports they could conjecture to be pleasing to him. then also he first began to _keep hall_[ ], and the christmas-time was passed over with banquetings, plays, and much variety of mirth[ ]." [note : to keep hall, was to keep "open household with frank resort to court."] [note : hayward's life of edward vi.] we learn that it was an ancient custom, not only with the kings of england but with noblemen and "great housekeepers who used liberal feasting in that season," to appoint for the twelve days of the christmas festival a lord of misrule, whose office it was to provide diversions for their numerous guests. of what nature these entertainments might be we are not exactly informed; they probably comprised some rude attempts at dramatic representation: but the taste of an age rapidly advancing in literature and general refinement, evidently began to disdain the flat and coarse buffooneries which had formed the solace of its barbarous predecessors; and it was determined that devices of superior elegance and ingenuity should distinguish the festivities of the new court of edward. accordingly, george ferrers, a gentleman regularly educated at oxford, and a member of the society of lincoln's inn, was chosen to preside over the "merry disports;" "who," says holinshed, "being of better credit and estimation than commonly his predecessors had been before, received all his commissions and warrants by the name of master of the king's pastimes. which gentleman so well supplied his office, both in show of sundry sights and devices of rare inventions, and in act of divers interludes and matters of pastime played by persons, as not only satisfied the common sort, but also were very well liked and allowed by the council, and other of skill in the like pastimes; but best of all by the young king himself, as appeared by his princely liberality in rewarding that service." "on monday the fourth day of january," pursues our chronicler, whose circumstantial detail is sometimes picturesque and amusing, "the said lord of merry disports came by water to london, and landing at the tower wharf entered the tower, then rode through tower-street, where he was received by vause, lord of misrule to john mainard, one of the sheriffs of london, and so conducted through the city with a great company of young lords and gentlemen to the house of sir george burne lord-mayor, where he with the chief of his company dined, and after had a great banquet, and at his departure the lord-mayor gave him a standing cup with a cover of silver and gilt, of the value of ten pounds, for a reward, and also set a hogshead of wine and a barrel of beer at his gate, for his train that followed him. the residue of his gentlemen and servants dined at other aldermen's houses and with the sheriffs, and then departed to the tower wharf again, and so to the court by water, to the great commendation of the mayor and aldermen, and highly accepted, of the king and council." from this time ferrers became "a composer almost by profession of occasional interludes for the diversion of the court[ ]." none of these productions of his have come down to posterity; but their author is still known to the student of early english poetry, as one of the contributors to an extensive work entitled "the mirror for magistrates," which will be mentioned hereafter in speaking of the works of thomas sackville lord buckhurst. the legends combined in this collection, which came from the pen of ferrers, are not distinguished by any high flights of poetic fancy, nor by a versification extremely correct or melodious. their merit is that of narrating after the chronicles, facts in english history, in a style clear, natural, and energetic, with an intermixture of political reflections conceived in a spirit of wisdom and moderation, highly honorable to the author, and well adapted to counteract the turbulent spirit of an age in which the ambition of the high and the discontent of the low were alike apt to break forth into outrages destructive of the public tranquillity. [note : see warton's history of english poetry, vol. iii. p. et seq.] happy would it have been for england in more ages than one, had the sentiment of the following humble stanza been indelibly inscribed on the hearts of children. "some haply here will move a further doubt, and as for york's part allege an elder right: o brainless heads that so run in and out! when length of time a state hath firmly pight, and good accord hath put all strife to flight, were it not better such titles still to sleep than all a realm about the trial weep?" this estimable writer had been a member of parliament in the time of henry viii., and was imprisoned by that despot in , very probably without any just cause. he about the same time translated into english the great charter of englishmen which had become a dead letter through the tyranny of the tudors; and he rendered the same public service respecting several important statutes which existed only in latin or norman french; proofs of a free and courageous spirit extremely rare in that servile age! ferrers lived far into the reign of elizabeth, finishing his career at flamstead in his native county of herts in . from the pleasing contemplation of a life devoted to those honorable arts by which society is cultivated, enlightened and adorned, we must now return to tread with northumberland the maze of dark and crooked politics. by many a bold and many a crafty step this adept in his art had wound his way to the highest rank of nobility attainable by a subject, and to a station of eminence and command scarcely compatible with that character. but no sooner had he reached it, than a sudden cloud lowered over the splendid prospect stretched around him, and threatened to snatch it for ever from his sight. the youthful monarch in whom, or over whom, he reigned, was seized with a lingering disease which soon put on appearances indicative of a fatal termination. under mary, the next heir, safety with insignificance was the utmost that could be hoped by the man who had taken a principal and conspicuous part in every act of harshness towards herself, and every demonstration of hostility towards the faith which she cherished, and against whom, when he should be no longer protected by the power which he wielded, so many lawless and rapacious acts were ready to rise up in judgement. one scheme alone suggested itself for the preservation of his authority: it was dangerous, almost desperate; but loss of power was more dreaded by dudley than any degree of hazard to others or himself; and he resolved at all adventures to make the attempt. by means of the new honors which he had caused to be conferred on the marquis of dorset, now duke of suffolk, he engaged this weak and inconsiderate man to give his eldest daughter, the lady jane grey, in marriage to his fourth son guildford dudley. at the same time he procured an union between her sister, the lady catherine, and the eldest son of his able but mean-spirited and time-serving associate, the earl of pembroke; and a third between his own daughter catherine and lord hastings, son of the earl of huntingdon by the eldest daughter and co-heir of henry pole lord montacute; in whom the claims of the line of clarence now vested. these nuptials were all celebrated on one day, and with an ostentation of magnificence and festivity which the people exclaimed against as highly indecorous in the present dangerous state of the king's health. but it was not on _their_ good will that northumberland founded his hopes, and their clamors were braved or disregarded. his next measure was to prevail upon the dying king to dispose of the crown by will in favor of the lady jane. the animosity against his sister mary, to which their equal bigotry in opposite modes of faith had given birth in the mind of edward, would naturally induce him to lend a willing ear to such specious arguments as might be produced in justification of her exclusion: but that he could be brought with equal facility to disinherit also elizabeth, a sister whom he loved, a princess judged in all respects worthy of a crown, and one with whose religious profession he had every reason to be perfectly satisfied, appears an indication of a character equally cold and feeble. much allowance, however, may be made for the extreme youth of edward; the weakness of his sinking frame; his affection for the pious and amiable jane, his near relation and the frequent companion of his childhood; and above all, for the importunities, the artifices, of the practised intriguers by whom his dying couch was surrounded. the partisans of northumberland did not fail to urge, that if one of the princesses were set aside on account of the nullification of her mother's marriage, the same ground of exclusion was valid against the other. if, on the contrary, the testamentary dispositions of the late king were to be adhered to, the lady mary must necessarily precede her sister, and the cause of religious reformation was lost, perhaps for ever. with regard to the other claimants who might still be interposed between jane and the english throne, it was pretended that the scottish branch of the royal family was put out of the question by that clause of henry's will which placed the suffolk line next in order to his own immediate descendants; as if an instrument which was set aside as to several of its most important provisions was necessarily to be held binding in all the rest. even admitting this, the duchess of suffolk herself stood before her daughter in order of succession; but a renunciation obtained from this lady by the authority of northumberland, not only of her own title but of that of any future son who might be born to her, was supposed to obviate this objection. the right of the king, even if he had attained the age of majority, to dispose of the crown by will without the concurrence of parliament, was absolutely denied by the first law authorities: but the power and violence of northumberland overruled all objections, and in the end the new settlement received the signature of all the privy council, and the whole bench of judges, with the exception of justice hales, and perhaps of cecil, then secretary of state, who afterwards affirmed that he put his name to this instrument only as a witness to the signature of the king. cranmer resisted for some time, but was at length won to compliance by the tears and entreaties of edward. notwithstanding this general concurrence, it is probable that very few of the council either expected or desired that this act should be sanctioned by the acquiescence of the nation: they signed it merely as a protection from the present effects of the anger of northumberland, whom most of them hated as well as feared; each privately hoping that he should find opportunity to disavow the act of the body in time to obtain the forgiveness of mary, should her cause be found finally to prevail. the selfish meanness and political profligacy of such a conduct it is needless to stigmatize; but this was not the age of public virtue in england. a just detestation of the character of northumberland had rendered very prevalent an idea, that the constitution of the king was undermined by slow poisons of his administering; and it was significantly remarked, that his health had begun to decline from the period of lord robert dudley's being placed about him as gentleman of the bed-chamber. nothing, however, could be more destitute both of truth and probability than such a suspicion. besides the satisfactory evidence that edward's disease was a pulmonary consumption, such as no poison could produce, it has been well remarked, that if northumberland were a sound politician, there could be no man in england more sincerely desirous, for his own sake, of the continuance of the life and reign of this young prince. by a change he had every thing to lose, and nothing to gain. several circumstances tend also to show that the fatal event, hastened by the treatment of a female empiric to whom the royal patient had been very improperly confided, came upon northumberland at last somewhat by surprise, and compelled him to act with a precipitation injurious to his designs. several preparatory steps were yet wanting; in particular the important one of securing the persons of the two princesses: but this omission it seemed still possible to supply; and he ordered the death of the king to be carefully concealed, while he wrote letters in his name requiring the immediate attendance of his sisters on his person. with mary the stratagem had nearly succeeded: she had reached hoddesdon on her journey to london, when secret intelligence of the truth, conveyed to her by the earl of arundel, caused her to change her course. it was probably a similar intimation from some friendly hand, cecil's perhaps, which caused elizabeth to disobey the summons, and remain tranquil at one of her houses in hertfordshire. here she was soon after waited upon by messengers from northumberland, who apprized her of the accession of the lady jane, and proposed to her to resign her own title in consideration of a sum of money, and certain lands which should be assigned her. but elizabeth wisely and courageously replied, that her elder sister was first to be agreed with, during whose lifetime she, for her part, could claim no right at all. and determined to make common cause with mary against their common enemies, she equipped with all speed a body of a thousand horse, at the head of which she went forth to meet her sister on her approach to london. the event quickly proved that she had taken the right part. though the council manifested their present subserviency to northumberland by proclaiming queen jane in the metropolis, and by issuing in her name a summons to mary to lay aside her pretensions to the crown, this leader was too well practised in the arts of courts, to be the dupe of their hollow professions of attachment to a cause unsupported, as he soon perceived, by the favor of the people. the march of northumberland at the head of a small body of troops to resist the forces levied by mary in norfolk and suffolk, was the signal for the defection of a great majority of the council. they broke from the kind of honorable custody in the tower in which, from a well-founded distrust of their intentions, northumberland had hitherto held them; and ordering mary to be proclaimed in london, they caused the hapless jane, after a nominal reign of ten days, to be detained as a prisoner in that fortress which she had entered as a sovereign. not a hand was raised, not a drop of blood was shed, in defence of this pageant raised by the ambition of dudley. deserted by his partisans, his soldiers and himself, the guilty wretch sought, as a last feeble resource, to make a merit of being the first man to throw up his cap in the market-place of cambridge, and cry "god save queen mary!" but on the following day the earl of arundel, whom he had disgraced, and who hated him, though a little before he had professed that he could wish to spend his blood at his feet, came and arrested him in her majesty's name, and mary, proceeding to london, seated herself without opposition on the throne of her ancestors. chapter vi. and . mary affects attachment to elizabeth.--short duration of her kindness.--earl of devonshire liberated from the tower.--his character.--he rejects the love of mary--shows partiality to elizabeth.--anger of mary.--elizabeth retires from court.--queen's proposed marriage unpopular.--character of sir t. wyat.--his rebellion.--earl of devonshire remanded to the tower.--elizabeth summoned to court--is detained by illness.--wyat taken--is said to accuse elizabeth.--she is brought prisoner to the court--examined by the council--dismissed--brought again to court--re-examined--committed to the tower.--particulars of her behaviour.--influence of mary's government on various eminent characters.--reinstatement of the duke of norfolk in honor and office.--his retirement and death.--liberation from the tower of tonstal.--his character and after fortunes.--of gardiner and bonner.--their views and characters.--of the duchess of somerset and the marchioness of exeter.--imprisonment of the dudleys--of several protestant bishops--of judge hales.--his sufferings and death.--characters and fortunes of sir john cheke, sir anthony cook, dr. cox, and other protestant exiles. the conduct of elizabeth during the late alarming crisis, earned for her from mary, during the first days of her reign, some demonstration of sisterly affection. she caused her to bear her company in her public entry into london; kindly detained her for a time near her own person; and seemed to have consigned for ever to an equitable oblivion all the mortifications and heartburnings of which the child of anne boleyn had been the innocent occasion to her in times past, and under circumstances which could never more return. in the splendid procession which attended her majesty from the tower to whitehall previously to her coronation on october st , the royal chariot, sumptuously covered with cloth of tissue and drawn by six horses with trappings of the same material, was immediately followed by another, likewise drawn by six horses and covered with cloth of silver, in which sat the princess elizabeth and the lady anne of cleves, who took place in this ceremony as the adopted sister of henry viii. but notwithstanding these fair appearances, the rancorous feelings of mary's heart with respect to her sister were only repressed or disguised, not eradicated; and it was not long before a new subject of jealousy caused them to revive in all their pristine energy. amongst the state prisoners committed to the tower by henry viii., whose liberation his executors had resisted during the whole reign of edward, but whom it was mary's first act of royalty to release and reinstate in their offices or honors, was edward courtney, son of the unfortunate marquis of exeter. from the age of fourteen to that of six-and-twenty, this victim of tyranny had been doomed to expiate in a captivity which threatened to be perpetual, the involuntary offence of inheriting through an attainted father the blood of the fourth edward. to the surprise and admiration of the court, he now issued forth a comely and accomplished gentleman; deeply versed in the literature of the age; skilled in music, and still more so in the art of painting, which had formed the chief solace of his long seclusion; and graced with that polished elegance of manners, the result, in most who possess it, of early intercourse with the world and an assiduous imitation of the best examples, but to a few of her favorites the free gift of nature herself. to all his prepossessing qualities was superadded that deep romantic kind of interest with which sufferings, long, unmerited, and extraordinary, never fail to invest a youthful sufferer. what wonder that courtney speedily became the favorite of the nation!--what wonder that even the severe bosom of mary herself was touched with tenderness! with the eager zeal of the sentiment just awakened in her heart, she hastened to restore to her too amiable kinsman the title of earl of devonshire, long hereditary in the illustrious house of courtney, to which she added the whole of those patrimonial estates which the forfeiture of his father had vested in the crown. she went further; she lent a propitious ear to the whispered suggestion of her people, still secretly partial to the house of york, that an english prince of the blood was most worthy to share the throne of an english queen. it is even affirmed that hints were designedly thrown out to the young man himself of the impression which he had made upon her heart. but courtney generously disdained, as it appears, to barter his affections for a crown. the youth, the talents, the graces of elizabeth had inspired him with a preference which he was either unwilling or unable to conceal; mary was left to vent her disappointment in resentment against the ill-fated object of her preference, and in every demonstration of a malignant jealousy towards her innocent and unprotected rival. by the first act of a parliament summoned immediately after the coronation, mary's birth had been pronounced legitimate, the marriage of her father and mother valid, and their divorce null and void. a stigma was thus unavoidably cast on the offspring of henry's second marriage; and no sooner had elizabeth incurred the displeasure of her sister, than she was made to feel how far the consequences of this new declaration of the legislature might be made to extend. notwithstanding the unrevoked succession act which rendered her next heir to the crown, she was forbidden to take place of the countess of lenox, or the duchess of suffolk, in the presence-chamber, and her friends were discountenanced or affronted obviously on her account. her merit, her accomplishments, her insinuating manners, which attracted to her the admiration and attendance of the young nobility, and the favor of the nation, were so many crimes in the eyes of a sovereign who already began to feel her own unpopularity; and elizabeth, who was not of a spirit to endure public and unmerited slights with tameness, found it at once the most dignified and the safest course, to seek, before the end of the year, the peaceful retirement of her house of ashridge in buckinghamshire. it was however made a condition of the leave of absence from court which she was obliged to solicit, that she should take with her sir thomas pope and sir john gage, who were placed about her as inspectors and superintendants of her conduct, under the name of officers of her household. the marriage of mary to philip of spain was now openly talked of. it was generally and justly unpopular: the protestant party, whom the measures of the queen had already filled with apprehensions, saw, in her desire of connecting herself yet more closely with the most bigoted royal family of europe, a confirmation of their worst forebodings; and the tyranny of the tudors had not yet so entirely crushed the spirit of englishmen as to render them tamely acquiescent in the prospect of their country's becoming a province to spain, subject to the sway of that detested people whose rapacity, and violence, and unexampled cruelty, had filled both hemispheres with groans and execrations. the house of commons petitioned the queen against marrying a foreign prince: she replied by dissolving them in anger; and all hope of putting a stop to the connexion by legal means being thus precluded, measures of a more dangerous character began to be resorted to. sir thomas wyat of allingham castle in kent, son of the poet, wit, and courtier of that name, had hitherto been distinguished by a zealous loyalty; and he is said to have been also a catholic. though allied in blood to the dudleys, not only had he refused to northumberland his concurrence in the nomination of jane grey, but, without waiting a moment to see which party would prevail, he had proclaimed queen mary in the market-place at maidstone, for which instance of attachment he had received her thanks[ ]. but wyat had been employed during several years of his life in embassies to spain; and the intimate acquaintance which he had thus acquired of the principles and practices of its court, filled him with such horror of their introduction into his native country, that, preferring patriotism to loyalty where their claims appeared incompatible, he incited his neighbours and friends to insurrection. [note : see carte's history of england.] in the same cause sir peter carew, and sir gawen his uncle, endeavoured to raise the west, but with small success; and the attempts made by the duke of suffolk, lately pardoned and liberated, to arm his tenantry and retainers in warwickshire and leicestershire, proved still more futile. notwithstanding however this want of co-operation, wyat's rebellion wore for some time a very formidable appearance. the london trained-bands sent out to oppose him, went over to him in a body under bret, their captain; the guards, almost the only regular troops in the kingdom, were chiefly protestants, and therefore little trusted by the queen; and it was known that the inhabitants of the metropolis, for which he was in full march, were in their hearts inclined to his cause. it was pretty well ascertained that the earl of devonshire had received an invitation to join the western insurgents; and though he appeared to have rejected the proposal, he was arbitrarily remanded to his ancient abode in the tower. elizabeth was naturally regarded under all these circumstances of alarm with extreme jealousy and suspicion. it was well known that her present compliance with the religion of the court was merely prudential; that she was the only hope of the protestant party, a party equally formidable by zeal and by numbers, and which it was resolved to crush; it was more than suspected, that though wyat himself still professed an inviolable fidelity to the person of the reigning sovereign, and strenuously declared the spanish match to be the sole grievance against which he had taken arms, many of his partisans had been led by their religious zeal to entertain the further view of dethroning the queen, in favor of her sister, whom they desired to marry to the earl of devonshire. it was not proved that the princess herself had given any encouragement to these designs; but sir james croft, an adherent of wyat's, had lately visited ashridge, and held conferences with some of her attendants; and it had since been rumored that she was projecting a removal to her manor of donnington castle in berkshire, on the south side of the thames, where nothing but a day's march through an open country would be interposed between her residence and the station of the kentish rebels. policy seemed now to dictate the precaution of securing her person; and the queen addressed to her accordingly the following letter. * * * * * "right dear and entirely beloved sister, "we greet you well: and whereas certain evil-disposed persons, minding more the satisfaction of their own malicious and seditious minds than their duty of allegiance towards us, have of late foully spread divers lewd and untrue rumours; and by that means and other devilish practises do travail to induce our good and loving subjects to an unnatural rebellion against god, us, and the tranquillity of our realm: we, tendering the surety of your person, which might chance to be in some peril if any sudden tumult should arise where you now be, or about donnington, whither, as we understand, you are minded shortly to remove, do therefore think expedient you should put yourself in good readiness, with all convenient speed, to make your repair hither to us. which we pray you fail not to do: assuring you, that as you may most safely remain here, so shall you be most heartily welcome to us. and of your mind herein we pray you to return answer by this messenger. "given under our signet at our manor of st. james's the th of january in the st year of our reign. "your loving sister, "mary, the queen." * * * * * this summons found elizabeth confined to her bed by sickness; and her officers sent a formal statement of the fact to the privy-council, praying that the delay of her appearance at court might not, under such circumstances, be misconstrued either with respect to her or to themselves. monsieur de noailles, the french ambassador, in some papers of his, calls this "a favorable illness" to elizabeth, "since," adds he, "it seems likely to save mary from the crime of putting her sister to death by violence." and true it is, that by detaining her in the country till the insurrection was effectually suppressed, it preserved her from any sudden act of cruelty which the violence of the alarm might have prompted: but other and perhaps greater dangers still awaited her. a few days after the date of the foregoing letter, wyat entered westminster, but with a force very inadequate to his undertaking: he was repulsed in an attack on the palace; and afterwards, finding the gates of london closed against him and seeing his followers slain, taken, or flying in all directions, he voluntarily surrendered himself to one of the queen's officers and was conveyed to the tower. it was immediately given out, that he had made a full discovery of his accomplices, and named amongst them the princess and the earl of devonshire; and on this pretext, for it was probably no more, three gentlemen were sent, attended by a troop horse, with peremptory orders to bring elizabeth back with them to london. they reached her abode at ten o'clock at night, and bursting into her sick chamber, in spite of the remonstrances of her ladies, abruptly informed her of their errand. affrighted at the summons, she declared however her entire willingness to wait upon the queen her sister, to whom she warmly protested her loyal attachment; but she appealed to their own observation for the reality of her sickness, and her utter inability to quit her chamber. the gentlemen pleaded, on the other side, the urgency of their commission, and said that they had brought the queen's litter for her conveyance. two physicians were then called in, who gave it as their opinion that she might be removed without danger to her life; and on the morrow her journey commenced. the departure of elizabeth from ashridge was attended by the tears and passionate lamentations of her afflicted household, who naturally anticipated from such beginnings the worst that could befal her. so extreme was her sickness, aggravated doubtless by terror and dejection, that even these stern conductors found themselves obliged to allow her no less than four nights' rest in a journey of only twenty-nine miles. between highgate and london her spirits were cheered by the appearance of a number of gentlemen who rode out to meet her, as a public testimony of their sympathy and attachment; and as she proceeded, the general feeling was further manifested by crowds of people lining the waysides, who flocked anxiously about her litter, weeping and bewailing her aloud. a manuscript chronicle of the time describes her passage on this occasion through smithfield and fleet-street, in a litter open on both sides, with a hundred "velvet coats" after her, and a hundred others "in coats of fine red guarded with velvet;" and with this train she passed through the queen's garden to the court. this open countenancing of the princess by a formidable party in the capital itself, seems to have disconcerted the plans of mary and her advisers; and they contented themselves for the present with detaining her in a kind of honorable custody at whitehall. here she underwent a strict examination by the privy-council respecting wyat's insurrection, and the rising in the west under carew; but she steadfastly protested her innocence and ignorance of all such designs; and nothing coming out against her, in about a fortnight she was dismissed, and suffered to return to her own house. her troubles, however, were as yet only beginning. sir william st. low, one of her officers, was apprehended as an adherent of wyat's; and this leader himself, who had been respited for the purpose of working on his love of life, and leading him to betray his confederates, was still reported to accuse the princess. an idle story was officiously circulated, of his having conveyed to her in a bracelet the whole scheme of his plot; and on march th she was again taken into custody and brought to hampton-court. soon after her arrival, it was finally announced to her by a deputation of the council, not without strong expressions of concern from several of the members, that her majesty had determined on her committal to the tower till the matter could be further investigated. bishop gardiner, now a principal counsellor, and two others, came soon after, and, dismissing the princess's attendants, supplied their place with some of the queen's, and set a guard round the palace for that night. the next day, the earl of sussex and another lord were sent to announce to her that a barge was in readiness for her immediate conveyance to the tower. she entreated first to be permitted to write to the queen; and the earl of sussex assenting, in spite of the angry opposition of his companion, whose name is concealed by the tenderness of his contemporaries, and undertaking to be himself the bearer of her letter, she took the opportunity to repeat her protestations of innocence and loyalty, concluding, with an extraordinary vehemence of asseveration, in these words: "as for that traitor wyat, he might peradventure write me a letter; but on my faith i never received any from him. and as for the copy of my letter to the french king, i pray god confound me eternally, if ever i sent him word, message, token, or letter, by any means." with respect to the last clause of this disavowal, it may be fit to observe, that there is indeed no proof that elizabeth ever returned any answer to the letters or messages of the french king; but that it seems a well-authenticated fact, that during some period of her adversity henry ii. made her the offer of an asylum in france. the circumstance of the dauphin's being betrothed to the queen of scots, who claimed to precede elizabeth in the order of succession, renders the motive of this invitation somewhat suspicious; at all events, it was one which she was never tempted to accept. her letter did not obtain for the princess what she sought,--an interview with her sister; and the next day, being palm sunday, strict orders were issued for all people to attend the churches and carry their palms; and in the mean time she was privately removed to the tower, attended by the earl of sussex and the other lord, three of her own ladies, three of the queen's, and some of her officers. several characteristic traits of her behaviour have been preserved. on reaching her melancholy place of destination, she long refused to land at traitor's gate; and when the uncourteous nobleman declared "that she should not choose," offering her however, at the same time, his cloak to protect her from the rain, she retained enough of her high spirit to put it from her "with a good dash." as she set her foot on the ill-omened stairs, she said, "here landeth as true a subject, being a prisoner, as ever landed at these stairs; and before thee, o god! i speak it, having no other friends but thee alone." on seeing a number of warders and other attendants drawn out in order, she asked, "what meaneth this?" some one answered that it was customary on receiving a prisoner. "if it be," said she, "i beseech you that for my cause they may be dismissed." immediately the poor men kneeled down and prayed god to preserve her; for which action they all lost their places the next day. going a little further, she sat down on a stone to rest herself; and the lieutenant urging her to rise and come in out of the cold and wet, she answered, "better sitting here than in a worse place, for god knoweth whither you bring me." on hearing these words her gentleman-usher wept, for which she reproved him; telling him he ought rather to be her comforter, especially since she knew her own truth to be such, that no man should have cause to weep for her. then rising, she entered the prison, and its gloomy doors were locked and bolted on her. shocked and dismayed, but still resisting the weakness of unavailing lamentation, she called for her book, and devoutly prayed that she might build her house upon the rock. meanwhile her conductors retired to concert measures for keeping her securely; and her firm friend, the earl of sussex, did not neglect the occasion of reminding all whom it might concern, that the king their master's daughter was to be treated in no other manner than they might be able to justify, whatever should happen hereafter; and that they were to take heed to do nothing but what their commission would bear out. to this the others cordially assented; and having performed their office, the two lords departed. having now conducted the heroine of the protestant party to the dismal abode which she was destined for a time to occupy, it will be proper to revert to the period of mary's accession. little more than eight months had yet elapsed from the death of edward; but this short interval had sufficed to change the whole face of the english court; to alter the most important relations of the country with foreign states; and to restore in great measure the ancient religion, which it had been the grand object of the former reign finally and totally to overthrow. it is the business of the historian to record the series of public measures by which this calamitous revolution was accomplished: the humbler but not uninteresting task, of tracing its effects on the fortunes of eminent individuals, belongs to the compiler of memoirs, and forms an appropriate accompaniment to the relation of the perils, sufferings and obloquy, through which the heiress of the english crown passed on safely to the accomplishment of her high destinies. the liberation of the state-prisoners confined in the tower,--an act of grace usual on the accession of a prince,--was one which the causes of detention of the greater part of them rendered it peculiarly gratifying to mary to perform. the enemies of henry's or of edward's government she regarded with reason as her friends and partisans, and the adherents, open or concealed, of that church establishment which was to be forced back on the reluctant consciences of the nation. the most illustrious of the captives was that aged duke of norfolk whom the tyrant henry had condemned to die without a crime, and who had been suffered to languish in confinement during the whole reign of edward; chiefly, it is probable, because the forfeiture of his vast estates afforded a welcome supply to the exhausted treasury of the young king; though the extensive influence of this nobleman, and the attachment for the old religion which he was believed to cherish, had served as plausible pretexts for his detention. his high birth, his hereditary authority, his religious predilections, were so many titles of merit in the eyes of the new queen, who was also desirous of profiting by his abilities and long experience in all affairs civil and military. without waiting for the concurrence of parliament, she declared by her own authority his attainder irregular and null, restored to him such of his lands as remained vested in the crown, and proceeded to reinstate him in offices and honors. on august th he took his seat at the council-board of the eighth english monarch whose reign he had survived to witness; on the same day he was solemnly reinvested with the garter, of which he had been deprived on his attainder; and a few days after, he sat as lord-high-steward on the trial of that very duke of northumberland to whom, not long before, his friends and adherents had been unsuccessful suitors for his own liberation. there is extant a remarkable order of council, dated august th of this year, "for a letter to be written to the countess of surry to send up to mountjoy place in london her youngest son, and the rest of her children, by the earl of surry, where they shall be received by the duke of norfolk their grandfather[ ]." it may be conjectured that these young people were thus authoritatively consigned to the guardianship of the duke, for the purpose of correcting the protestant predilections in which they had been educated; and the circumstance seems also to indicate, what indeed might be well imagined, that little harmony or intercourse subsisted between this nobleman and a daughter-in-law whom he had formerly sought to deprive of her husband in order to form for him a new and more advantageous connexion. [note : see burleigh papers by haynes.] the eldest son of the earl of surry, now in the seventeenth year of his age, was honored with the title of his father; and he began his distinguished though unfortunate career by performing, as deputy to the duke of norfolk, the office of earl-marshal at the queen's coronation. on the first alarm of wyat's rebellion, the veteran duke was summoned to march out against him; but his measures, which otherwise promised success, were completely foiled by the desertion of the london bands to the insurgents; and the last military expedition of his life was destined to conclude with a hasty and ignominious flight. he soon after withdrew entirely from the fatigues of public life, and after all the vicissitudes of court and camp, palace and prison, with which the lapse of eighty eventful years had rendered him acquainted, calmly breathed his last at his own castle of framlingham in september . three deprived bishops were released from the tower, and restored with honor to their sees. these were, tonstal of durham, gardiner of winchester, and bonner of london. tonstal, many of whose younger years had been spent in diplomatic missions, was distinguished in europe by his erudition, which had gained him the friendship and correspondence of erasmus; he was also mild, charitable, and of unblemished morals. attached by principle to the faith of his forefathers, but loth either to incur personal hazard, or to sacrifice the almost princely emoluments of the see of durham, he had contented himself with regularly opposing in the house of lords all the ecclesiastical innovations of edward's reign, and as regularly giving them his concurrence when once established. it was not, therefore, professedly on a religious account that he had suffered deprivation and imprisonment, but on an obscure charge of having participated in some traitorous or rebellious design: a charge brought against him, in the opinion of most, falsely, and through the corrupt procurement of northumberland, to whose project of erecting the bishopric of durham into a county palatine for himself, the deprivation of tonstal, and the abolition of the see by act of parliament, were indispensable preliminaries. this meek and amiable prelate returned to the exercise of his high functions, without a wish of revenging on the protestants, in their adversity, the painful acts of disingenuousness which their late ascendency had forced upon him. during the whole of mary's reign, no person is recorded to have suffered for religion within the limits of his diocess. the mercy which he had shown, he afterwards most deservedly experienced. refusing, on the accession of elizabeth, to preserve his mitre by a repetition of compliances of which so many recent examples of conscientious suffering in men of both persuasions must have rendered him ashamed, he suffered a second deprivation; but his person was only committed to the honorable custody of archbishop parker. by this learned and munificent prelate the acquirements and virtues of tonstal were duly appretiated and esteemed. he found at lambeth a retirement suited to his age, his tastes, his favorite pursuits; by the arguments of his friendly host he was brought to renounce several of the grosser corruptions of popery; and dying in the year , an honorable monument was erected by the primate to his memory. with views and sentiments how opposite did gardiner and bonner resume the crosier! a deep-rooted conviction of the truth and vital importance of the religious opinions which he defends, supplies to the persecutor the only apology of which his foolish and atrocious barbarity admits; and to men naturally mild and candid, we feel a consolation in allowing it in all its force;--but by no particle of such indulgence should bonner or gardiner be permitted to benefit. it would be credulity, not candor, to yield to either of these bad men the character of sincere, though over zealous, religionists. true it is that they had subjected themselves to the loss of their bishoprics, and to a severe imprisonment, by a refusal to give in their renunciation of certain doctrines of the romish church; but they had previously gone much further in compliance than conscience would allow to any real catholic; and they appear to have stopped short in this career only because they perceived in the council such a determination to strip them, under one pretext or another, of all their preferments, as manifestly rendered further compliance useless. both of them had policy enough to restrain them, under such circumstances, from degrading their characters gratuitously, and depriving themselves of the merit of having suffered for a faith which might soon become again predominant. they received their due reward in the favor of mary, who recognised them with joy as the fit instruments of all her bloody and tyrannical designs, to which gardiner supplied the crafty and contriving head, bonner the vigorous and unsparing arm. the proud wife of the protector somerset,--who had been imprisoned, but never brought to trial, as an accomplice in her husband's plots,--was now dismissed to a safe insignificance. the marchioness of exeter, against whom, in henry's reign, an attainder had passed too iniquitous for even him to carry into effect, was also rescued from her long captivity, and indemnified for the loss of her property by some valuable grants from the new confiscations of the dudleys and their adherents. the only state prisoner to whom the door was not opened on this occasion was geffrey pole, that base betrayer of his brother and his friends by whose evidence lord montacute and the marquis of exeter had been brought to an untimely end. it is some satisfaction to know, that the commutation of death for perpetual imprisonment was all the favor which this wretch obtained from henry; that neither edward nor mary broke his bonds; and that, as far as appears, his punishment ended only with his miserable existence. not long, however, were these dismal abodes suffered to remain unpeopled. the failure of the criminal enterprise of northumberland first filled the tower with the associates, or victims, of his guilt. nearly the whole of the dudley family were its tenants for a longer or shorter time; and it was another remarkable coincidence of their destinies, which elizabeth in the after days of her power and glory might have pleasure in recalling to her favorite leicester, that during the whole of her captivity in this fortress he also was included in the number of its melancholy inmates. the places of tonstal, gardiner, and bonner, were soon after supplied by the more zealous of edward's bishops, holgate, coverdale, ridley, and hooper; and it was not long before the vehement latimer and even the cautious cranmer were added to their suffering brethren. the queen made no difficulty of pardoning and receiving into favor those noblemen and others, members of the privy-council, whom a base dread of the resentment of northumberland had driven into compliance with his measures in favor of jane grey; wisely considering, perhaps, that the men who had submitted to be the instruments of his violent and illegal proceedings, would feel little hesitation in lending their concurrence to hers also. on this principle, the marquis of winchester and the earls of arundel and pembroke were employed and distinguished; the last of these experienced courtiers making expiation for his past errors, by causing his son, lord herbert, to divorce the lady catherine grey, to whom it had so lately suited his political views to unite him. sir james hales on the contrary, that conscientious and upright judge, who alone, of all the privy-counsellors and crown-lawyers, had persisted in refusing his signature to the act by which mary was disinherited of the crown, found himself unrewarded and even discountenanced. the queen well knew, what probably the judge was not inclined to deny, that it was attachment, not to her person, but to the constitution of his country, which had prompted his resistance to that violation of the legal order of succession; and had it even been otherwise, she would have regarded all her obligations to him as effectually cancelled by his zealous adherence to the church establishment of the preceding reign. for daring to urge upon the grand juries whom he addressed in his circuit, the execution of some of edward's laws in matter of religion, yet unrepealed, judge hales was soon after thrown into prison. he endured with constancy the sufferings of a long and rigorous confinement, aggravated by the threats and ill-treatment of a cruel jailor. at length some persons in authority were sent to propound to him terms of release. it is suspected that they extorted from him some concessions on the point of religion; for immediately after their departure, retiring to his cell, in a fit of despair he stabbed himself with his knife in different parts of the body, and was only withheld by the sudden entrance of his servant from inflicting a mortal wound. bishop gardiner had the barbarity to insult over the agony or distraction of a noble spirit overthrown by persecution; he even converted his solitary act into a general reflection against protestantism, which he called "the doctrine of desperation." some time after, hales obtained his enlargement on payment of an arbitrary fine of six thousand pounds. but he did not with his liberty recover his peace of mind; and after struggling for a few months with an unconquerable melancholy, he sought and found its final cure in the waters of a pond in his garden. no blood except of principals, was shed by mary on account of the proclamation of jane grey; but she visited with lower degrees of punishment, secretly proportioned to the zeal which they had displayed in the reformation of religion, several of the more eminent partisans of this "meek usurper." the three tutors of king edward, sir anthony cook, sir john cheke and dr. cox, were sufficiently implicated in this affair to warrant their imprisonment for some time on suspicion; and all were eager, on their release, to shelter themselves from the approaching storm by flight. cheke, after confiscation of his estate, obtained permission to travel for a given time on the continent. strasburgh was selected by cook for his place of exile. the wise moderation of character by which this excellent person was distinguished, seems to have preserved him from taking any part in the angry contentions of protestant with protestant, exile with exile, by which the refugees of strasburgh and frankfort scandalized their brethren and afforded matter of triumph to the church of rome. on the accession of elizabeth he returned with alacrity to re-occupy and embellish the modest mansion of his forefathers, and "through the loopholes of retreat" to view with honest exultation the high career of public fortune run by his two illustrious sons-in-law, nicholas bacon and william cecil. the enlightened views of society taken by sir anthony led him to extend to his daughters the noblest privileges of the other sex, those which concern the early and systematic acquisition of solid knowledge. through his admirable instructions their minds were stored with learning, strengthened with principles, and formed to habits of reasoning and observation, which rendered them the worthy partners of great statesmen, who knew and felt their value. the fame, too, of these distinguished females has reflected back additional lustre on the character of a father, who was wont to say to them in the noble confidence of unblemished integrity, "my life is your portion, my example your inheritance." dr. cox was quite another manner of man. repairing first to strasburgh, where the english exiles had formed themselves into a congregation using the liturgy of the church of england, he went thence to frankfort, another city of refuge to his countrymen at this period; where the intolerance of his zeal against such as more inclined to the form of worship instituted by the genevan reformer, embarked him in a violent quarrel with john knox, against whom, on pretext of his having libelled the emperor, he found means to kindle the resentment of the magistrates, who compelled him to quit the city. after this disgraceful victory over a brother reformer smarting under the same scourge of persecution with himself, he returned to strasburgh, where he more laudably employed himself in establishing a kind of english university. his zeal for the church of england, his sufferings in the cause, and his services to learning, obtained for him from elizabeth the bishopric of ely; but neither party enjoyed from this appointment all the satisfaction which might have been anticipated. the courage, perhaps the self opinion, of dr. cox, engaged him on several occasions in opposition to the measures of the queen; and his narrow and persecuting spirit involved him in perpetual disputes and animosities, which rendered the close of a long life turbulent and unhappy, and took from his learning and gray hairs their due reverence. the rapacity of the courtiers, who obtained grant after grant of the lands belonging to his bishopric, was another fruitful source to him of vexation; and he had actually tendered the resignation of his see on very humiliating terms, when death came to his relief in the year , the eighty-second of his age. if in this and a few other instances, the polemical zeal natural to men who had sacrificed their worldly all for the sake of religion, was observed to degenerate among the refugees into personal quarrels disgraceful to themselves and injurious to their noble cause, it ought on the other hand to be observed, that some of the firmest and most affectionate friendships of the age were formed amongst these companions in adversity; and that by many who attained under elizabeth the highest preferments and distinctions, the title of fellow-exile never ceased to be regarded as the most sacred and endearing bond of brotherhood. other opportunities will arise of commemorating some of the more eminent of the clergy who renounced their country during the persecutions of mary; but respecting the laity, it may here be remarked, that with the exception of catherine duchess-dowager of suffolk, not a single person of quality was found in this list of conscientious sufferers; though one peer, probably the earl of bedford, underwent imprisonment on a religious account at home. of the higher gentry, however, there were considerable numbers who either went and established themselves in the protestant cities of germany, or passed away the time in travelling. sir francis knowles, whose lady was niece to anne boleyn, took the former part, residing with his eldest son at frankfort; walsingham adopted the latter. with the views of a future minister of state, he visited in succession the principal courts of europe, where he employed his diligence and sagacity in laying the foundations of that intimate knowledge of their policy and resources by which he afterwards rendered his services so important to his queen and country. chapter vii. and . arrival of wyat and his associates at the tower.--savage treatment of them.--further instances of mary's severity.--duke of suffolk beheaded.--death of lady jane grey--of wyat, who clears elizabeth of all share in his designs.--trial of throgmorton.--bill for the exclusion of elizabeth thrown out.--parliament protects her rights--is dissolved.--rigorous confinement of elizabeth in the tower.--she is removed under guard of beddingfield--carried to richmond--offered liberty with the hand of the duke of savoy--refuses--is carried to ricot, thence prisoner to woodstock.--anecdotes of her behaviour.--cruelty of gardiner towards her attendants.--verses by harrington.--marriage of the queen.--alarms of the protestants.--arrival of cardinal pole.--popery restored.--persecution begun.--king philip procures the liberation of state prisoners.--earl of devon travels into italy--dies.--obligation of elizabeth to philip discussed.--she is invited to court--keeps her christmas there--returns to woodstock--is brought again to court by philip's intercession.--gardiner urges her to make submissions, but in vain.--she is brought to the queen--permitted to reside without guards at one of the royal seats--finally settled at hatfield.--character of sir thomas pope.--notice of the harringtons.--philip quits england.--death of gardiner. it is now proper to return to circumstances more closely connected with the situation of elizabeth at this eventful period of her life. two or three weeks before her arrival in the tower, wyat with some of his principal adherents had been carried thither. towards these unhappy persons, none of those decencies of behaviour were observed which the sex and rank of elizabeth had commanded from the ministers of her sister's severity; and holinshed's circumstantial narrative of the circumstances attending their committal, may be cited as an instructive example of the fierce and brutal manners of the age. "sir philip denny received them at the bulwark, and as wyat passed by, he said, 'go, traitor, there was never such a traitor in england.' to whom sir thomas wyat turned and said, 'i am no traitor; i would thou shouldest well know that thou art more traitor than i; it is not the point of an honest man to call me so.' and so went forth. when he came to the tower gate, sir thomas bridges lieutenant took in through the wicket first mantell, and said; 'ah thou traitor! what hast thou and thy company wrought?' but he, holding down his head, said nothing. then came thomas knevet, whom master chamberlain, gentleman-porter of the tower, took in. then came alexander bret, (captain of the white coats,) whom sir thomas pope took by the bosom, saying, 'o traitor! how couldst thou find in thy heart to work such a villainy as to take wages, and being trusted over a band of men, to fall to her enemies, returning against her in battle?' bret answered, 'yea, i have offended in that case.' then came thomas cobham, whom sir thomas poins took in, and said; 'alas, master cobham, what wind headed you to work such treason?' and he answered, 'o sir! i was seduced.' then came sir thomas wyat, whom sir thomas bridges took by the collar, and said; 'o thou villain! how couldst thou find in thy heart to work such detestable treason to the queen's majesty, who gave thee thy life and living once already, although thou didst before this time bear arms in the field against her?[ ]... if it were not (saith he) but that the law must pass upon thee, i would stick thee through with my dagger.' to the which wyat, holding his arms under his sides and looking grievously with a grim look upon the lieutenant, said, 'it is no mastery now;' and so passed on." [note : it is plain that wyat is here accused of having taken arms for jane grey; but most wrongfully, if carte's account of him is to be credited, which there seems no reason to disbelieve.] other circumstances attending the suppression of this rebellion mark with equal force the stern and vindictive spirit of mary's government, and the remaining barbarity of english customs. the inhabitants of london being for the most part protestants and well affected, as the defection of their trained bands had proved, to the cause of wyat, it was thought expedient to admonish them of the fruits of rebellion by the gibbeting of about sixty of his followers in the most public parts of the city. neither were the bodies suffered to be removed till the public entry of king philip after the royal nuptials; on which festal occasion the streets were cleared of these noisome objects which had disgraced them for nearly half a year. some hundreds of the meaner rebels, to whom the queen was pleased to extend her mercy, were ordered to appear before her bound two-and-two together, with halters about their necks; and kneeling before her in this guise, they received her _gracious_ pardon of all offences; but no general amnesty was ever granted. that the rash attempt of the duke of suffolk should have been visited upon himself by capital punishment, is neither to be wondered at nor censured; but it was a foul act of cruelty to make this the pretext for taking away the lives of a youthful pair entirely innocent of this last design, and forgiven, as it was fondly hoped, for the almost involuntary part which they had taken in a former and more criminal enterprise. but religious bigotry and political jealousy, each perhaps sufficient for the effect, combined in this instance to urge on the relentless temper of mary; and the lady jane grey and guildford dudley her husband were ordered to prepare for the execution of the sentence which had remained suspended over them. every thinking mind must have been shocked at the vengeance taken on guildford dudley,--a youth too insignificant, it might be thought, to call forth the animadversion of the most apprehensive government, and guilty of nothing but having accepted, in obedience to his father's pleasure, the hand of jane grey. but the fate of this distinguished lady herself was calculated to awaken stronger feelings. the fortitude, the piety, the genuine humility and contrition evinced by her in the last scene of an unsullied life, furnished the best evidence of her guiltlessness even of a wish to resume the sceptre which paternal authority had once forced on her reluctant grasp; and few could witness the piteous spectacle of her violent and untimely end, without a thrill of indignant horror, and secret imprecations against the barbarity of her unnatural kinswoman. the earl of devonshire was still detained in the tower on wyat's information, as was pretended, and on other indications of guilt, all of which were proved in the end equally fallacious: and at the time of elizabeth's removal hither this state-prison was thronged with captives of minor importance implicated in the designs of wyat. these were assiduously plied on one hand with offers of liberty and reward, and subjected on the other to the most rigorous treatment, the closest interrogatories, and one of them even to the rack, in the hope of eliciting from them some evidence which might reconcile to mary's conscience, or color to the nation, the death or perpetual imprisonment of a sister whom she feared and hated. to have brought her to criminate herself would have been better still; and no pains were spared for this purpose. a few days after her committal, gardiner and other privy-councillors came to examine her respecting the conversation which she had held with sir james croft touching her removal to donnington castle. she said, after some recollection, that she had indeed such a place, but that she never occupied it in her life, and she did not remember that any one had moved her so to do. then, "to enforce the matter," they brought forth sir james croft, and gardiner demanded what she had to say to that man? she answered that she had little to say to him or to the rest that were in the tower. "but, my lords," said she, "you do examine every mean prisoner of me, wherein methinks you do me great injury. if they have done evil and offended the queen's majesty, let them answer to it accordingly. i beseech you, my lords, join not me in this sort with any of these offenders. and concerning my going to donnington castle, i do remember that master hobby and mine officers and you sir james croft had such talk;--but what is that to the purpose, my lords, but that i may go to mine own houses at all times?" the earl of arundel kneeling down said, "your grace sayeth true, and certainly we are very sorry that we have troubled you about so vain matter." she then said, "my lords, you do sift me very narrowly; but i am well assured you shall not do more to me than god hath appointed, and so god forgive you all." before their departure sir james croft kneeled down before her, declaring that he was sorry to see the day in which he should be brought as a witness against her grace. but he added, that he had been "marvellously tossed and examined touching her grace;" and ended by protesting his innocence of the crime laid to his charge[ ]. [note : fox's narrative in holinshed.] wyat was at length, on april th, brought to his death; when he confounded all the hopes and expectations of elizabeth's enemies, by strenuously and publicly asserting her entire innocence of any participation in his designs. sir nicholas throgmorton was brought to the bar immediately afterwards. his trial at length, as it has come down to us in holinshed's chronicle, is one of the most interesting documents of that nature extant. he was esteemed "a deep conspirator, whose post was thought to be at london as a factor, to give intelligence as well to them in the west, as to wyat and the rest in kent. it was believed that he gave notice to wyat to come forward with his power, and that the londoners would be ready to take his part. and that he sent a post to sir peter carew also, to advance with as much speed as might be, and to bring his forces with him. "he was said moreover to be the man that excited the earl of devon to go down into the west, and that sir james croft and he had many times consulted about the whole matter[ ]." [note : strype's ecclesiastical memorials.] to these political offences, sir nicholas added religious principles still more heinous in the eyes of mary. he, with two other gentlemen of his family, had been of the number of those who attended to the stake that noble martyr anne askew, burned for heresy in the latter end of henry's reign; when they were bid to take care of their lives, for they were all marked men. since the accession of mary also he had "bemoaned to his friend sir edward warner, late lieutenant of the tower, his own estate and the tyranny of the times, extending upon divers honest persons for religion, and wished it were lawful for all of each religion to live safely according to their conscience. for the law _ex-officio_ he said would be intolerable, and the clergy discipline now might rather be resembled to the turkish tyranny than the teaching of the christian religion. which words he was not afraid at his trial openly to acknowledge that he had said to the said warner[ ]." [note : strype's ecclesiastical memorials.] the prosecution was conducted with all the iniquity which the corrupt practice of that age admitted. not only was the prisoner debarred the assistance of counsel on his trial, he was even refused the privilege of calling a single witness in his favor. he defended himself however under all these disadvantages, with surprising skill, boldness and presence of mind; and he retorted with becoming spirit the brutal taunts of the crown lawyers and judges, who disgraced themselves on the occasion by all the excesses of an unprincipled servility. fortunately for throgmorton, the additional clauses to the treason laws added under henry viii. had been abolished under his successor and were not yet re-enacted. only the clear and equitable statute of edward iii. remained therefore in force; and the lawyers were reduced to endeavour at such an explanation of it as should comprehend a kind of constructive treason. "if," said they, "it be proved that the prisoner was connected with wyat, and of his counsel, the overt acts of wyat are to be taken as his, and visited accordingly." but besides that no participation with wyat after he had taken up arms, was proved upon throgmorton, the jury were moved by his solemn protest against so unwarrantable a principle as that the overt acts of one man might be charged as overt acts upon another. they acquitted him therefore with little hesitation, to the inexpressible disappointment and indignation of the queen and her ministers, who then possessed the power of making their displeasure on such an occasion deeply felt. the jury were immediately committed to custody, and eight of them, who refused to confess themselves in fault, were further imprisoned for several months and heavily fined. the acquitted person himself, in defiance of all law and justice, was remanded to the tower, and did not regain his liberty till the commencement of the following year, when the intercession of king philip obtained the liberation of almost all the prisoners there detained. throgmorton, like all the others called in question for the late insurrections, was closely questioned respecting elizabeth and the earl of devon; "and very fain," we are told, "the privy-councillors employed in this work would have got out of him something against them. for when at throgmorton's trial, his writing containing his confession was read in open court, he prayed the queen's serjeant that was reading it to read further, 'that hereafter,' said he, 'whatsoever become of me, my words may not be perverted and abused to the hurt of some others, and especially against the great personages of whom i have been sundry times, as appears by my answers, examined. for i perceive the net was not cast only for little fishes but for great ones[ ]." [note : strype's memorials.] this generous concern for the safety of elizabeth in the midst of his own perils appears not to have been lost upon her; and under the ensuing reign we shall have the satisfaction of seeing the abilities of sir nicholas displayed in other scenes and under happier auspices. all manifestations of popular favor towards those whom the court had proscribed and sought to ruin, were at this juncture visited with the extreme of arbitrary severity. two merchants of london, for words injurious to the queen, but principally for having affirmed that wyat at his death had cleared the lady elizabeth and the earl of devonshire, were set in the pillory, to which their ears were fastened with large nails. it was in fact an object of great importance to the catholic party to keep up the opinion, so industriously inculcated, of the princess being implicated in the late disturbances; since it was only on this false pretext that she could be detained close prisoner in the tower while a fatal stroke was aimed against her rights and interests. gardiner, now chancellor and prime minister, the most inveterate of elizabeth's enemies and the most devoted partisan of the spanish interest, thinking that all was subdued to the wishes of the court, brought before the new parliament a bill for declaring the princess illegitimate and incapable of succeeding:--it was indignantly rejected, however, by a great majority; but the failure only admonished him to renew the attack in a more indirect and covert manner. accordingly, the articles of the marriage treaty between mary and the prince of spain, artfully drawn with great seeming advantage to england, had no sooner received the assent of the two houses, than he proposed a law for conferring upon the queen the same power enjoyed by her father; that of naming a successor. but neither could this be obtained from a house of commons attached for the most part to the protestant cause and the person of the rightful heir, and justly apprehensive of the extinction of their few remaining privileges under the yoke of a detested foreign tyrant. nobody doubted that it was the purpose of the queen, in default of immediate issue of her own, to bequeath the crown to her husband, whose descent from a daughter of john of gaunt had been already much insisted on by his adherents. the bill was therefore thrown out; and the alarm excited by its introduction had caused the house to pass several spirited resolutions, one of which declared that her majesty should reign as a sole queen without any participation of her authority, while the rest guarded in various points against the anticipated encroachments of philip, when mary thought good to put a stop to the further discussion of the subject by a prorogation of parliament. after these manifold disappointments, the court party was compelled to give up, with whatever reluctance, its deep-laid plots against the unoffending princess. her own prudence had protected her life; and the independent spirit of a house of commons conscious of speaking the sense of the nation guarantied her succession. one only resource remained to gardiner and his faction:--they judged that a long-continued absence, while it gradually loosened her hold upon the affections of the people, would afford many facilities for injuring or supplanting her; and it was determined soon to provide for her a kind of honorable banishment. the confinement of the princess in the tower had purposely been rendered as irksome and comfortless as possible. it was not till after a month's close imprisonment, by which her health had suffered severely, that she obtained, after many difficulties, permission to walk in the royal apartments; and this under the constant inspection of the constable of the tower and the lord-chamberlain, with the attendance of three of the queen's women; the windows also being shut, and she not permitted to look out at them. afterwards she had liberty to walk in a small garden, the gates and doors being carefully closed; and the prisoners whose rooms looked into it being at such times closely watched by their keepers, to prevent the interchange of any word or sign with the princess. even a child of five years old belonging to some inferior officer in the tower, who was wont to cheer her by his daily visits, and to bring her flowers, was suspected of being employed as a messenger between her and the earl of devonshire; and notwithstanding the innocent simplicity of his answers to the lord-chamberlain by whom he was strictly examined, was ordered to visit her no more. the next day the child peeped in through a hole of the door as she walked in the garden, crying out, "mistress, i can bring you no more flowers!" for which, it seems, his father was severely chidden and ordered to keep his boy out of the way. from the beginning of her imprisonment orders had been given that the princess should have mass regularly said in her apartment. it is probable that elizabeth did not feel any great repugnance to this rite:--however this might be, she at least expressed none; and by this compliance deprived her sister of all pretext for persecuting her on a religious ground. but some of her household were found less submissive on this head, and she had the mortification of seeing mrs. sands, one of her ladies, carried forcibly away from her under an accusation of heresy and her place supplied by another. all these severities failed however of their intended effect: neither sufferings nor menaces could bring the princess to acknowledge herself guilty of offending even in thought against her sovereign and sister; and as the dying asseverations of wyat had fully acquitted her in the eyes of the country, it became evident that her detention in the tower could not much longer be persisted in. yet the habitual jealousy of mary's government, and the apparent danger of furnishing a head to the protestants rendered desperate by her cruelties, forbade the entire liberation of the princess; and it was resolved to adopt as a middle course the expedient sanctioned by many examples in that age, of committing her to the care of certain persons who should be answerable for her safe keeping, either in their own houses, or at some one of the royal seats. lord williams of thame, and sir henry beddingfield captain of the guard, were accordingly joined in commission for the execution of this delicate and important trust. the unfortunate prisoner conceived neither hope nor comfort from this approaching change in her situation, nor probably was it designed that she should; for intimidation seems still to have formed an essential feature in the policy of her relentless enemies. sir henry beddingfield entered the tower at the head of a hundred of his men; and elizabeth, struck with the unexpected sight, could not forbear inquiring with dismay, whether the lady jane's scaffold were removed? on being informed that it was, she received some comfort, but this was not of long duration; for soon a frightful rumor reached her, that she was to be carried away by this captain and his soldiers no one knew whither. she sent immediately for lord chandos, constable of the tower, whose humanity and courtesy had led him to soften as much as possible the hardships of her situation, though at the hazard of incurring the indignation of the court; and closely questioning him, he at length plainly told her that there was no help for it, orders were given, and she must be consigned to beddingfield's care to be carried, as he believed, to woodstock. anxious and alarmed, she now asked of her attendants what kind of man this beddingfield was; and whether, if the murdering of her were secretly committed to him, his conscience would allow him to see it executed? none about her could give a satisfactory answer, for he was a stranger to them all; but they bade her trust in god that such wickedness should not be perpetrated against her. at length, on may th, after a close imprisonment of three months, she was brought out of the tower under the conduct of beddingfield and his troop; and on the evening of the same day found herself at richmond palace, where her sister then kept her court. she was still treated in all respects like a captive: the manners of beddingfield were harsh and insolent; and such terror did she conceive from the appearances around her, that sending for her gentleman-usher, she desired him and the rest of her officers to pray for her; "for this night," said she, "i think to die." the gentleman, much affected by her distress, encouraged her as well as he was able: then going down to lord williams, who was walking with beddingfield, he called him aside and implored him to tell him sincerely, whether any mischief were designed against his mistress that night or no; "that he and his men might take such part as god should please to appoint." "for certainly," added this faithful servant, "we will rather die than she should secretly and innocently miscarry." "marry, god forbid," answered williams, "that any such wicked purpose should be wrought; and rather than it should be so, i with my men are ready to die at her feet also." in the midst of her gloomy apprehensions, the princess was surprised by an offer from the highest quarter, of immediate liberty on condition of her accepting the hand of the duke of savoy in marriage. oppressed, persecuted, and a prisoner, sequestered from every friend and counsellor, guarded day and night by soldiers, and in hourly dread of some attempt upon her life, it must have been confidently expected that the young princess would embrace as a most joyful and fortunate deliverance this unhoped-for proposal; and by few women, certainly, under all the circumstances, would such expectations have been frustrated. but the firm mind of elizabeth was not thus to be shaken, nor her penetration deceived. she saw that it was banishment which was held out to her in the guise of marriage; she knew that it was her reversion of an independent english crown which she was required to barter for the matrimonial coronet of a foreign dukedom; and she felt the proposal as what in truth it was;--an injury in disguise. fortunately for herself and her country, she had the magnanimity to disdain the purchase of present ease and safety at a price so disproportionate; and returning to the overture a modest but decided negative, she prepared herself to endure with patience and resolution the worst that her enraged and baffled enemies might dare against her. no sooner was her refusal of the offered marriage made known, than orders were given for her immediate removal into oxfordshire. on crossing the river at richmond on this melancholy journey, she descried on the other side "certain of her poor servants," who had been restrained from giving their attendance during her imprisonment, and were anxiously desirous of seeing her again. "go to them," said she to one of her men, "and say these words from me, _tanquam ovis_" (like a sheep to the slaughter). as she travelled on horseback the journey occupied four days, and the slowness of her progress gave opportunity for some striking displays of popular feeling. in one place, numbers of people were seen standing by the way-side who presented to her various little gifts; for which beddingfield did not scruple, in his anger, to call them traitors and rebels. the bells were every where rung as she passed through the villages, in token of joy for her liberation; but the people were soon admonished that she was still a prisoner and in disgrace, by the orders of beddingfield to set the ringers in the stocks. on the third evening she arrived at ricot, the house of lord williams, where its owner, gracefully sinking the character of a watchful superintendant in that of a host who felt himself honored by her visit, introduced her to a large circle of nobility and gentry whom he had invited to bid her welcome. the severe or suspicious temper of beddingfield took violent umbrage at the sight of such an assemblage: he caused his soldiers to keep strict watch; insisted that none of the guests should be permitted to pass the night in the house; and asked lord williams if he were aware of the consequences of thus entertaining the queen's prisoner? but he made answer, that he well knew what he did, and that "her grace might and should in his house be merry." intelligence however had no sooner reached the court of the reception afforded to the princess at ricot, than directions arrived for her immediate removal to woodstock. here, under the harsher inspection of beddingfield, she found herself once more a prisoner. no visitant was permitted to approach; the doors were closed upon her as in the tower; and a military guard again kept watch around the walls both day and night. we possess many particulars relative to the captivity of elizabeth at woodstock. in some of them we may recognise that spirit of exaggeration which the anxious sympathy excited by her sufferings at the time, and the unbounded adulation paid to her afterwards, were certain to produce; others bear all the characters of truth and nature. it is certain that her present residence, though less painful and especially less opprobrious than imprisonment in the tower, was yet a state of rigorous constraint and jealous inspection, in which she was haunted with cares and fears which robbed her youth of its bloom and vivacity, and her constitution of its vigor. on june th such was the state of her health that two physicians were sent from the court who remained for several days in attendance on her. on their return, they performed for their patient the friendly office of making a favorable report of her behaviour and of the dutiful humility of her sentiments towards her majesty, which was received, we are told, with more complacency by mary than by her bishops. soon after, she was advised by some friend to make her peace with the queen by submissions and acknowledgements, which, with her usual constancy, she absolutely refused, though apparently the only terms on which she could hope for liberty. under such circumstances we may give easy belief to the touching anecdote, that "she, hearing upon a time out of her garden at woodstock, a milkmaid singing pleasantly, wished herself a milkmaid too; saying that her case was better, and her life merrier than hers." the instances related of the severity and insolence of sir henry beddingfield are to be received with more distrust. we are told, that observing a chair of state prepared for the princess in an upper chamber at lord williams's house, he seized upon it for himself and insolently ordered his boots to be pulled off in that apartment. yet we learn from the same authority that afterwards at woodstock, when she seems to have been in his sole custody, elizabeth having called him her jailor, on observing him lock the gate of the garden while she was walking in it, he fell on his knees and entreated her grace not to give him that name, for he was appointed to be one of her officers. it has also been asserted, that on her accession to the throne she dismissed him from her presence with the speech, that she prayed god to forgive him, as she did, and that when she had a prisoner whom she would have straitly kept and hardly used, she would send for him. but if she ever used to him words like these, it must have been in jest; for it is known from the best authority, that beddingfield was frequently at the court of elizabeth, and that she once visited him on a progress. if there is any truth in the stories told of persons of suspicious appearance lurking about the walls of the palace, who sought to gain admittance for the purpose of taking away her life, the exact vigilance of her keeper, by which all access was barred, might more deserve her thanks than her reproaches. during the period that the princess was thus industriously secluded from conversation with any but the few attendants who had been allowed to remain about her person, her correspondence was not less watchfully restricted. we are told, that when, after urgent application to the council, she had at length been permitted to write to the queen, beddingfield looked over her as she wrote, took the paper into his own keeping when she paused, and brought it back to her when she chose to resume her task. yet could not his utmost precaution entirely cut off her communications with the large and zealous party who rested upon her all their hopes of better times for themselves or for the country. through the medium of a visitor to one of her ladies, she received the satisfactory assurance that none of the prisoners for wyat's business had been brought to utter any thing by which she could be endangered. perhaps it was with immediate reference to this intelligence that she wrote with a diamond on her window the homely but expressive distich, "much suspected by me nothing proved can be, quoth elizabeth prisoner." but these secret intelligencers were not always fortunate enough to escape detection, of which the consequences were rendered very grievous through the arbitrary severity of mary's government, and the peculiar malice exercised by gardiner against the adherents of the princess. sir john harrington, son to the gentleman of the same name formerly mentioned as a follower of admiral seymour, thus, in his _brief view of the church_, sums up the character of this celebrated bishop of winchester, with reference to this part of his conduct. "lastly, the plots he laid to entrap the lady elizabeth, and his terrible hard usage of all her followers, i cannot yet scarce think of with charity, nor write of with patience. my father, for only carrying a letter to the lady elizabeth, and professing to wish her well, he kept in the tower twelve months, and made him spend a thousand pounds ere he could be free of that trouble. my mother, that then served the lady elizabeth, he caused to be sequestered from her as an heretic, insomuch that her own father durst not take her into his house, but she was glad to sojourn with one mr. topcliff; so as i may say in some sort, this bishop persecuted me before i was born." in the twelfth month of his imprisonment, this unfortunate harrington, having previously sent to the bishop many letters and petitions for liberty without effect, had the courage to address to him a "sonnet," which his son has cited as "no ill verse for those unrefined times;" a modest commendation of lines so spirited, which the taste of the more modern reader, however fastidious, need not hesitate to confirm. to bishop gardiner. . "at least withdraw your cruelty, or force the time to work your will; it is too much extremity to keep me pent in prison still, free from all fault, void of all cause, without all right, against all laws. how can you do more cruel spite than proffer wrong and promise right? nor can accuse, nor will acquight. . eleven months past and longer space i have abode your dev'lish drifts, while you have sought both man and place, and set your snares, with all your shifts, the faultless foot to wrap in wile with any guilt, by any guile: and now you see that will not be, how can you thus for shame agree to keep him bound you should set free? . your chance was once as mine is now, to keep this hold against your will, and then you sware you well know how, though now you swerve, i know how ill. but thus this world his course doth pass, the priest forgets a clerk he was, and you that have cried justice still, and now have justice at your will, wrest justice wrong against all skill. . but why do i thus coldly plain as if it were my cause alone? when cause doth each man so constrain as england through hath cause to moan, to see your bloody search of such as all the earth can no way touch. and better were that all your kind like hounds in hell with shame were shrined, than you add might unto your mind. . but as the stone that strikes the wall sometimes bounds back on th' hurler's head, so your foul fetch, to your foul fall may turn, and 'noy the breast that bred. and then, such measure as you gave of right and justice look to have, if good or ill, if short or long; if false or true, if right or wrong; and thus, till then, i end my song." such were the trials and sufferings which exercised the fortitude of elizabeth and her faithful followers during her deplorable abode at woodstock. mary, meanwhile, was rapt in fond anticipations of the felicity of her married life with a prince for whom, on the sight of his picture, she is said to have conceived the most violent passion. the more strongly her people expressed their aversion and dread of the spanish match, the more vehemently did she show herself bent on its conclusion; and having succeeded in suppressing by force the formidable rebellion to which the first report of such an union had given birth, she judged it unnecessary to employ any of those arts of popularity to which her disposition was naturally adverse, for conciliating to herself or her destined spouse the good will of her subjects. after many delays which severely tried her temper, the arrival of the prince of spain at southampton was announced to the expecting queen, who went as far as winchester to meet him, in which city gardiner blessed their nuptials on july the th, . the royal pair passed in state through london a few days after, and the city exhibited by command the outward tokens of rejoicing customary in that age. bonfires were kindled in the open places, tables spread in the streets at which all passers-by might freely regale themselves with liquor: every parish sent forth its procession singing _te deum_; the fine cross in cheapside was beautified and newly gilt, and pageants were set up in the principal streets. but there was little gladness of heart among the people; and one of these festal devices gave occasion to a manifestation of the dispositions of the court respecting religion, which filled the citizens with grief and horror. a large picture had been hung over the conduit in gracechurch street representing the nine worthies, and among them king henry viii. made his appearance, according to former draughts of him, holding in his hand a book on which was inscribed "_verbum dei_." this accompaniment gave so much offence, that gardiner sent for the painter; and after chiding him severely, ordered that a pair of gloves should be substituted for the bible. religion had already been restored to the state in which it remained at the death of henry; but this was by no means sufficient to satisfy the conscience of the queen, which required the entire restoration in all its parts, of the ancient church-establishment. it had been, in fact, one of the first acts of her reign to forward to rome a respectful embassy which conveyed to the sovereign pontiff her recognition of the supremacy of the holy see, and a petition that he would be pleased to invest with the character of his legate for england cardinal pole,--that earnest champion of her own legitimacy and the church's unity, who had been for so many years the object of her father's bitterest animosity. mary's precipitate zeal had received some check in this instance from the worldly policy of the emperor charles v., who, either entertaining some jealousy of the influence of pole with the queen, or at least judging it fit to secure the great point of his son's marriage before the patience of the people of england should be proved by the arrival of a papal legate, had impeded the journey of the cardinal by a detention of several weeks in his court at brussels. but no sooner was philip in secure possession of his bride, than pole was suffered to proceed on his mission. the parliament, which met early in november , reversed the attainder which had laid him under sentence of death, and on the th of the same month he was received at court with great solemnity, and with every demonstration of affection on the part of his royal cousin. from this period the cause of popery proceeded triumphantly: a reign of terror commenced; and the government gained fresh strength and courage by every exertion of the tyrannic power which it had assumed. after the married clergy had been reduced to give up either their wives or their benefices, and the protestant bishops deprived, and many of them imprisoned, without exciting any popular commotion in their behalf, the court became emboldened to propose in parliament a solemn reconciliation of the country to the papal see. a house of commons more obsequious than the former acceded to the motion, and on november th the legate formally absolved the nation from all ecclesiastical censures, and readmitted it within the pale of the church. the ancient statutes against heretics were next revived; and the violent counsels of gardiner proving more acceptable to the queen than the milder ones of pole, a furious persecution was immediately set on foot. bishops hooper and rogers were the first victims; saunders and taylor, two eminent divines, succeeded; upon all of whom gardiner pronounced sentence in person; after which he resigned to bonner, his more brutal but not more merciless colleague, the inglorious task of dragging forth to punishment the heretics of inferior note and humbler station. in the midst however of his barbarous proceedings, of which london was the principal theatre, the bench of bishops thought proper in solemn assembly to declare that they had no part in such severities; and philip, who shrank from the odium of the very deeds most grateful to his savage soul, caused a spanish friar his confessor to preach before him in praise of toleration, and to show that christians could bring no warrant from scripture for shedding the blood of their brethren on account of religious differences. but justly apprehensive that so extraordinary a declaration of opinion from such a person might not of itself suffice to establish in the minds of the english that character of lenity and moderation which he found it his interest to acquire, he determined to add some few deeds to words. about the close of the year , sir nicholas throgmorton, robert dudley, and all the other prisoners on account of the usurpation of jane grey or the insurrection of wyat, were liberated, at the intercession, as was publicly declared, of king philip; and he soon after employed his good offices in the cause of two personages still more interesting to the feelings of the nation,--the princess elizabeth and the earl of devonshire. it is worth while to estimate the value of these boasted acts of generosity. with regard to courtney it may be sufficient to observe, that a close investigation of facts had proved him to have been grateful for the liberation extended to him by mary on her accession, and averse from all schemes for disturbing her government, and that the queen's marriage had served to banish from her mind some former grounds of displeasure against him. nothing but an union with elizabeth could at this time have rendered him formidable; and it was easy to guard effectually against the accomplishment of any such design, without the odious measure of detaining the earl in perpetual imprisonment at fotheringay castle, whither he had been already removed from the tower. after all, it was but the shadow of liberty which he was permitted to enjoy; and he found himself so beset with spies and suspicion, that a very few months after his release he requested and obtained the royal license to travel. proceeding into italy, he shortly after ended at padua his blameless and unfortunate career. popular fame attributed his early death to poison administered by the imperialists, but probably, as in a multitude of similar cases, on no sufficient authority. as to elizabeth, certain writers have ascribed philip's protection of her at this juncture to the following deduction of consequences;--that if she were taken off, and if the queen should die childless, england would become the inheritance of the queen of scots, now betrothed to the dauphin, and thus go to augment the power of france, already the most formidable rival of the spanish monarchy. admitting however that such a calculation of remote contingencies might not be too refined to act upon the politic brain of philip, it is yet plainly absurd to suppose that the life or death of elizabeth was at this time at all the matter in question. secret assassination does not appear to have been so much as dreamed of, and mary and her council, even supposing them to have been sufficiently wicked, were certainly not audacious enough to think of bringing to the scaffold, without form of trial, without even a plausible accusation, the immediate heiress of the crown, and the hope and favorite of the nation. the only question must now have been, what degree of liberty it would be advisable to allow her; and a due consideration of the facts, that she had already been removed from the tower, and that after her second release, (that, namely, from woodstock), she was never, to the end of the reign, permitted to reside in a house of her own without an inspector of her conduct, will reduce within very moderate limits the vaunted claims of philip to her lasting gratitude. the project of marrying the princess to the duke of savoy had doubtless originated with the spanish court; and it was still persisted in by philip, from the double motive of providing for the head of the protestant party in england a kind of honorable exile, and of attaching to himself by the gift of her hand, a young prince whom he favored and destined to high employments in his service. but as severity had already been tried in vain to bring elizabeth to compliance on this point, it seems now to have been determined to make experiment of opposite measures. the duke of savoy, who had attended philip to england, was still in the country; and as he was in the prime of life and a man of merit and talents, it appeared not unreasonable to hope that a personal interview might incline the princess to lend a more propitious ear to his suit. to this consideration then we are probably to ascribe the invitation which admitted elizabeth to share in the festivals of a christmas celebrated by philip and mary at hampton court with great magnificence, and which must have been that of the year , because this is well known to have been the only one passed by the spanish prince in england. a contemporary chronicle still preserved amongst the mss of the british museum, furnishes several particulars of her entertainment. on christmas eve, the great hall of the palace being illuminated with a thousand lamps artificially disposed, the king and queen supped in it; the princess being seated at the same table, next to the cloth of estate. after supper she was served with a perfumed napkin and a plate of "comfects" by lord paget, but retired to her ladies before the revels, masking, and disguisings began. on st. stephen's day she heard mattins in the queen's closet adjoining to the chapel, where she was attired in a robe of white satin, strung all over with large pearls; and on december the th she sat with their majesties and the nobility at a grand spectacle of justing, when two hundred spears were broken by combatants of whom half were accoutered in the almaine and half in the spanish fashion. how soon the princess again exchanged the splendors of a court for the melancholy monotony of woodstock does not appear from this document, nor from any other with which i am acquainted; but several circumstances make it clear that we ought to place about this period an incident recorded by holinshed, and vaguely stated to have occurred soon after "the stir of wyat" and the troubles of elizabeth for that cause. a servant of the princess's had summoned a person before the magistrates for having mentioned his lady by the contumelious appellation of a _jill_, and having made use of other disparaging language respecting her. was it to be endured, asked the accuser, that a low fellow like this should speak of her grace thus insolently, when the greatest personages in the land treated her with every mark of respect? he added, "i saw yesterday in the court that my lord cardinal pole, meeting her in the chamber of presence, kneeled down on his knee and kissed her hand; and i saw also, that king philip meeting her made her such obeisance that his knee touched the ground." if this story be correct, which is not indeed vouched by the chronicler, but which seems to bear internal evidence of genuineness, it will go far to prove that the situation of elizabeth during her abode at woodstock was by no means that opprobrious captivity which it has usually been represented. she visited the court, it appears, occasionally, perhaps frequently; and was greeted in public by the king himself with every demonstration of civility and respect;--demonstrations which, whether accompanied or not by the corresponding sentiments, would surely suffice to protect her from all harsh or insolent treatment on the part of those to whom the immediate superintendance of her actions was committed. her enemies however were still numerous and powerful; and it is certain that she found no advocate in the heart of her sister. that able, but thoroughly profligate politician lord paget, notwithstanding his serving the princess with "comfects," is reported to have said, that the queen would never have peace in the country till her head were smitten off; and gardiner never ceased to look upon her with an evil eye. lord williams, it seems, had made suit that he might be permitted to take her from woodstock to his own home, giving large bail for her safe keeping; and as he was a known catholic and much in favor, it was supposed at first that his petition would be heard; but by some secret influence the mind of mary was indisposed to the granting of this indulgence and the proposal was dropped. but the spanish counsellors who attended their prince never ceased, we are told, to persuade him "that the like honor he should never obtain as he should in delivering the lady elizabeth" out of her confinement: and philip, who was now labouring earnestly at the design, which he had entertained ever since his marriage, of procuring himself to be crowned king of england, was himself aware of the necessity of previously softening the prejudices of the nation by some act of conspicuous popularity: he renewed therefore his solicitations on this point with a zeal which rendered them effectual. the moment indeed was favorable;--mary, who now believed herself far advanced in pregnancy, was too happy in her hopes to remain inflexible to the entreaties of her husband; and the privy-council, in their sanguine expectations of an heir, viewed the princess as less than formerly an object of political jealousy. and thus, by a contrariety of cause and effect by no means rare in the complicated system of human affairs, elizabeth became indebted for present tranquillity and comparative freedom to the concurrence of projects and expectations the most fatal to all her hopes of future greatness. about the end of april, , the princess took at length her final departure from woodstock, and proceeded,--but still under the escort of beddingfield and his men,--to hampton court. at colnbrook she was met by her own gentlemen and yeomen to the number of sixty, "much," says john fox, "to all their comforts, which had not seen her of long season before, notwithstanding they were immediately commanded in the queen's name to depart the town, and she not suffered once to speak to them." the next day she reached hampton court, and was ushered into the prince's lodgings; but the doors were closed upon her and guarded as at woodstock, and it was a fortnight, according to the martyrologist, before any one had recourse to her. at the end of this time she was solaced by a visit from lord william howard, son of the old duke of norfolk, and first-cousin to her mother, who "very honorably used her," and through whom she requested to speak to some of the privy-council. several of its members waited upon her in consequence, and gardiner among the rest, who "humbled himself before her with all humility," but nevertheless seized the opportunity to urge her once more to make submission to the queen, as a necessary preliminary to the obtaining of her favor. elizabeth, with that firmness and wisdom which had never, in her severest trials, forsaken her, declared that rather than do so, she would lie in prison all the days of her life; adding, that she craved no mercy at her majesty's hand, but rather the law, if ever she did offend her in thought, word, or deed. "and besides this," said she, "in yielding i should speak against myself, and confess myself an offender, by occasion of which the king and queen might ever after conceive of me an ill opinion; and it were better for me to lie in prison for the truth, than to be abroad and suspected of my prince." the councillors now departed, promising to deliver her message to the queen. the next day gardiner waited upon her again and told her that her majesty "marvelled she would so stoutly carry herself, denying to have offended; so that it should seem the queen had wrongfully imprisoned her grace:" and that she must tell another tale ere she had her liberty. the lady elizabeth declared she would stand to her former resolution, for she would never belie herself. "then," said the bishop, "your grace hath the 'vantage of me and the other councillors for your long and wrong imprisonment." she took god to witness that she sought no 'vantage against them for their so dealing with her. gardiner and the rest then kneeled, desiring that all might be forgotten, and so departed; she being locked up again. about a week after the failure of this last effort of her crafty enemy to extort some concession which might afterwards be employed to criminate her or justify himself, she received a sudden summons from the queen, and was conducted by torch-light to the royal apartments. mary received her in her chamber, to which she had now confined herself in expectation of that joyful event which was destined never to arrive. the princess on entering kneeled down, and protested herself a true and loyal subject, adding, that she did not doubt that her majesty would one day find her to be such, whatever different report had gone of her. the queen expressed at first some dissatisfaction at her still persisting so strongly in her assertions of innocence, thinking that she might take occasion to inveigh against her imprisonment as the act of injustice and oppression which in truth it was; but on her sister's replying in a submissive manner, that it was her business to bear what the queen was pleased to inflict and that she should make no complaints, she appears to have been appeased. fox's account however is, that they parted with few comfortable words of the queen in english, but what she said in spanish was not known: that it was thought that king philip was there behind a cloth, and not seen, and that he showed himself "a very friend" in this business. from other accounts we learn, that elizabeth scrupled not the attempt to ingratiate herself with mary at this interview by requesting that her majesty would be pleased to send her some catholic tractates for confirmation of her faith and to counteract the doctrines which she had imbibed from the works of the reformers. mary showed herself somewhat distrustful of her professions on this point, but dismissed her at length with tokens of kindness. she put upon her finger, as a pledge of amity, a ring worth seven hundred crowns;--mentioned that sir thomas pope was again appointed to reside with her, and observing that he was already well known to her sister commended him as a person whose prudence, humanity, and other estimable qualities, were calculated to render her new situation perfectly agreeable. to what place the princess was first conveyed from this audience does not appear, but it must have been to one of the royal seats in the neighbourhood of london, to several of which she was successively removed during some time; after which she was permitted to establish herself permanently at the palace of hatfield in hertfordshire. from this auspicious interview the termination of her prisoner-state may be dated. henceforth she was released from the formidable parade of guards and keepers; no doors were closed, no locks were turned upon her; and though her place of residence was still prescribed, and could not, apparently, be changed by her at pleasure, she was treated in all respects as at home and mistress of her actions. sir thomas pope was a man of worth and a gentleman; and such were the tenderness and discretion with which he exercised the delicate trust reposed in him, that the princess must soon have learned to regard him in the light of a real friend. it is not a little remarkable at the same time, that the person selected by mary to receive so distinguished a proof of her confidence, should have made his first appearance in public life as the active assistant of cromwel in the great work of the destruction of monasteries; and that from grants of abbey lands, which the queen esteemed it sacrilege to touch, he had derived the whole of that wealth of which he was now employing a considerable portion in the foundation of trinity college oxford. but sir thomas pope, even in the execution of the arbitrary and rapacious mandates of henry, had been advantageously distinguished amongst his colleagues by the qualities of mildness and integrity; and the circumstance of his having obtained a seat at the council-board of mary from the very commencement of her reign, proves him to have acquired some peculiar merits in her eyes. certain it is, however, that a furious zeal, whether real or pretended, for the romish faith, was not amongst his courtly arts; for though strictly enjoined to watch over the due performance and attendance of mass in the family of the princess, he connived at her retaining about her person many servants who were earnest protestants. this circumstance unfortunately reached the vigilant ears of gardiner; and it was to a last expiring effort of his indefatigable malice that elizabeth owed the mortification of seeing two gentlemen from the queen arrive at lamer, a house in hertfordshire which she then occupied, who carried away her favorite mrs. ashley and three of her maids of honor, and lodged them in the tower. isabella markham, afterwards the wife of that sir john harrington whose sufferings in the princess's service have been already adverted to, was doubtless one of these unfortunate ladies. elizabeth, highly to her honor, never dismissed from remembrance the claims of such as had been faithful to her in her adversity; she distinguished this worthy pair by many tokens of her royal favor; stood godfather to their son, and admitted him from his tenderest youth to a degree of affectionate intimacy little inferior to that in which she indulged the best beloved of her own relations. in the beginning of september king philip, mortified by the refusal of his coronation, in which the parliament with steady patriotism persisted; disappointed in his hopes of an heir; and disgusted by the fondness and the jealousy of a spouse devoid of every attraction personal and mental, quitted england for the continent, and deigned not to revisit it during a year and a half. elizabeth might regret his absence, as depriving her of the personal attentions of a powerful protector; but late events had so firmly established her as next heir to the crown, that she was now perfectly secure against the recurrence of any attempt to degrade her from her proper station; and her reconciliation with the queen, whether cordial or not, obtained for her occasional admission to the courtly circle. a few days after the king's departure we find it mentioned that "the queen's grace, the lady elizabeth, and all the court, did fast from flesh to qualify them to take the pope's jubilee and pardon granted to all out of his abundant clemency[ ];" a trait which makes it probable that mary was now in the habit of exacting her sister's attendance at court, for the purpose of witnessing with her own eyes her punctual observance of the rites of that church to which she still believed her a reluctant conformist. [note : strype's ecclesiastical memorials.] a few weeks afterwards, the death of her capital enemy, gardiner, removed the worst of the ill instruments who had interposed to aggravate the suspicions of the queen, and there is reason to believe that the princess found in various ways the beneficial effects of this event. chapter viii. to . elizabeth applies herself to classical literature.--its neglected state.--progress of english poetry.--account of sackville and his works.--plan of his mirror for magistrates.--extracts.--notice of the contributors to this collection.--its popularity and literary merits.--entertainment given to elizabeth by sir thomas pope.--dudley ashton's attempt.--elizabeth acknowledged innocent of his designs.--her letter to the queen.--she returns to london--quits it in some disgrace after again refusing the duke of savoy.--violence of philip respecting this match.--mary protects her sister.--festivities at hatfield, enfield, and richmond.--king of sweden's addresses to elizabeth rejected.--letter of sir t. pope respecting her dislike of marriage.--proceedings of the ecclesiastical commission.--cruel treatment of sir john cheke.--general decay of national prosperity.--loss of calais.--death of mary. notwithstanding the late fortunate change in her situation, elizabeth must have entertained an anxious sense of its remaining difficulties, if not dangers; and the prudent circumspection of her character again, as in the latter years of her brother, dictated the expediency of shrouding herself in all the obscurity compatible with her rank and expectations. to literature, the never failing resource of its votaries, she turned again for solace and occupation; and claiming the assistance which ascham was proud and happy to afford her, she resumed the diligent perusal of the greek and latin classics. the concerns of the college of which sir thomas pope was the founder likewise engaged a portion of her thoughts; and this gentleman, in a letter to a friend, mentions that the lady elizabeth, whom he served, and who was "not only gracious but right learned," often asked him of the course which he had devised for his scholars. classical literature was now daily declining from the eminence on which the two preceding sovereigns had labored to place it. the destruction of monastic institutions, and the dispersion of libraries, with the impoverishment of public schools and colleges through the rapacity of edward's courtiers, had inflicted far deeper injury on the cause of learning than the studious example of the young monarch and his chosen companions was able to compensate. the persecuting spirit of mary, by driving into exile or suspending from the exercise of their functions the able and enlightened professors of the protestant doctrine, had robbed the church and the universities of their brightest luminaries; and it was not under the auspices of her fierce and ignorant bigotry that the cultivators of the elegant and humanizing arts would seek encouragement or protection. gardiner indeed, where particular prejudices did not interfere, was inclined to favor the learned; and ascham owed to him the place of latin secretary. cardinal pole also, himself a scholar, was desirous to support, as much as present circumstances would permit, his ancient character of a patron of scholars, and he earnestly pleaded with sir thomas pope to provide for the teaching of greek as well as latin in his college; but sir thomas persisted in his opinion that a latin professorship was sufficient, considering the general decay of erudition in the country, which had caused an almost total cessation of the study of the greek language. it was in the department of english poetry alone that any perceptible advance was effected or prepared during this deplorable æra; and it was to the vigorous genius of one man, whose vivid personifications of abstract beings were then quite unrivalled, and have since been rarely excelled in our language, and whose clear, copious, and forcible style of poetic narrative interested all readers, and inspired a whole school of writers who worked upon his model, that this advance is chiefly to be attributed. this benefactor to our literature was thomas sackville, son of sir richard sackville, an eminent member of queen mary's council, and second-cousin to the lady elizabeth by his paternal grandmother, who was a boleyn. the time of his birth is doubtful, some placing it in , others as early as . he studied first at oxford and afterwards at cambridge, distinguishing himself at both universities by the vivacity of his parts and the excellence of his compositions both in verse and prose. according to the custom of that age, which required that an english gentleman should acquaint himself intimately with the laws of his country before he took a seat amongst her legislators, he next entered himself of the inner temple, and about the last year of mary's reign he served in parliament. but at this early period of life poetry had more charms for sackville than law or politics; and following the bent of his genius, he first produced "gorboduc," confessedly the earliest specimen of regular tragedy in our language; but which will be noticed with more propriety when we reach the period of its representation before queen elizabeth. he then, about the year as is supposed, laid the plan of an extensive work to be called "a mirror for magistrates;" of which the design is thus unfolded in a highly poetical "induction." the poet wandering forth on a winter's evening, and taking occasion from the various objects which "told the cruel season," to muse on the melancholy changes of human affairs, and especially on the reverses incident to greatness, suddenly encounters a "piteous wight," clad all in black, who was weeping, sighing, and wringing her hands, in such lamentable guise, that "----never man did see a wight but half so woe-begone as she." struck with grief and horror at the view, he earnestly requires her to "unwrap" her woes, and inform him who and whence she is, since her anguish, if not relieved, must soon put an end to her life. she answers, "sorrow am i, in endless torments pained among the furies in th' infernal lake:" from these dismal regions she is come, she says, to bemoan the luckless lot of those "whom fortune in this maze of misery, of wretched chance most woful mirrors chose:" and she ends by inviting him to accompany her in her return: "come, come, quoth she, and see what i shall show, come hear the plaining and the bitter bale of worthy men by fortune's overthrow: come thou and see them ruing all in row. they were but shades that erst in mind thou rolled, come, come with me, thine eyes shall then behold." he accepts the invitation, having first done homage to sorrow as to a goddess, since she had been able to read his thought. the scenery and personages are now chiefly copied from the sixth book of the �neid; but with the addition of many highly picturesque and original touches. the companions enter, hand in hand, a gloomy wood, through which sorrow only could have found the way. "but lo, while thus amid the desert dark we passed on with steps and pace unmeet, a rumbling roar, confused with howl and bark of dogs, shook all the ground beneath our feet, and struck the din within our ears so deep, as half distraught unto the ground i fell; besought return, and not to visit hell." his guide however encourages him, and they proceed by the "lothly lake" avernus, "in dreadful fear amid the dreadful place." "and first within the porch and jaws of hell sat deep remorse of conscience, all besprent with tears; and to herself oft would she tell her wretchedness, and cursing never stent to sob and sigh: but ever thus lament with thoughtful care, as she that all in vain should wear and waste continually in pain. her eyes, unsteadfast rolling here and there, whirled on each place as place that vengeance brought, so was her mind continually in fear, tossed and tormented with tedious thought of those detested crimes that she had wrought: with dreadful cheer and looks thrown to the sky, longing for death, and yet she could not die. next saw we dread, all trembling how he shook with foot uncertain proffered here and there, benumbed of speech, and with a ghastly look searched every place, all pale and dead with fear, his cap borne up with staring of his hair." &c. all the other allegorical personages named, and only named, by virgil, as well as a few additional ones, are pourtrayed in succession, and with the same strength and fullness of delineation; but with the exception of war, who appears in the attributes of mars, they are represented simply as _examples_ of old age, malady, &c., not as the _agents_ by whom these evils are inflicted upon others. cerberus and charon occur in their appropriate offices, but the monstrous forms gorgon, chimæra, &c., are judiciously suppressed; and the poet is speedily conducted to the banks of that "main broad flood" "which parts the gladsome fields from place of woe." "with sorrow for my guide, as there i stood, a troop of men the most in arms bedight, in tumult clustered 'bout both sides the flood: 'mongst whom, who were ordained t' eternal night, or who to blissful peace and sweet delight, i wot not well, it seemed that they were all such as by death's untimely stroke did fall." sorrow acquaints him that these are all illustrious examples of the reverses which he was lately deploring, who will themselves relate to him their misfortunes; and that he must afterwards "recount the same to kesar, king and peer." the first whom he sees advancing towards him from the throng of ghosts is henry duke of buckingham, put to death under richard iii.: and his "legend," or story, is unfortunately the only one which its author ever found leisure to complete; the favor of his illustrious kinswoman on her accession causing him to sink the poet in the courtier, the ambassador, and finally the minister of state. but he had already done enough to earn himself a lasting name amongst the improvers of poetry in england. in tragedy he gave the first regular model; in personification he advanced far beyond all his predecessors, and furnished a prototype to that master of allegory, spenser. a greater than spenser has also been indebted to him; as will be evident, i think, to all who compare the description of the figures on the shield of war in his induction, and especially those of them which relate to the siege of troy, with the exquisitely rich and vivid description of a picture on that subject in shakespeare's early poem on tarquin and lucretia. the legend of the duke of buckingham is composed in a style rich, free and forcible; the examples brought from ancient history, of the suspicion and inward wretchedness to which tyrants have ever been a prey, and afterwards, of the instability of popular favor, might in this age be accounted tedious and pedantic; they are however pertinent, well recited, and doubtless possessed the charm of novelty with respect to the majority of contemporary readers. the curses which the unhappy duke pours forth against the dependent who had betrayed him, may almost compare, in the energy and inventiveness of malice, with those of shakespeare's queen margaret; but they lose their effect by being thrown into the form of monologue and ascribed to a departed spirit, whose agonies of grief and rage in reciting his own death have something in them bordering on the burlesque. the mind of sackville was deeply fraught, as we have seen, with classic stores; and at a time when england possessed as yet no complete translation of virgil, he might justly regard it as a considerable service to the cause of national taste to transplant into our vernacular poetry some scattered flowers from his rich garden of poetic sweets. thus he has embellished his legend with an imitation or rather paraphrase of the celebrated description of night in the fourth book of the �neid. the lines well merit transcription. "midnight was come, when ev'ry vital thing with sweet sound sleep their weary limbs did rest; the beasts were still, the little birds that sing now sweetly slept besides their mother's breast, the old and all were shrowded in their nest; the waters calm, the cruel seas did cease; the woods, the fields, and all things held their peace. the golden stars were whirled amid their race, and on the earth did laugh with twinkling light, when each thing nestled in his resting place forgat day's pain with pleasure of the night: the hare had not the greedy hounds in sight; the fearful deer had not the dogs in doubt, the partridge dreamt not of the falcon's foot. the ugly bear now minded not the stake, nor how the cruel mastives do him tear; the stag lay still unroused from the brake; the foamy boar feared not the hunter's spear: all things were still in desert, bush and breer. with quiet heart now from their travails ceast soundly they slept in midst of all their rest." the allusion to bear-bating in the concluding stanza may offend the delicacy of a modern reader; but let it be remembered that in the days of mary, and even of elizabeth, this amusement was accounted "sport for ladies." the "mirror for magistrates" was not lost to the world by the desertion of sackville from the service of the muses; for a similar or rather perhaps the same design was entertained, and soon after carried into execution, by other and able though certainly inferior hands. during the reign of mary,--but whether before or after the composition of sackville's induction does not appear,--a certain printer, having communicated to several "worshipful and honorable persons" his intention of republishing lydgate's translation in verse of boccacio's "fall of princes," was by them advised to procure a continuation of the work, chiefly in english examples; and he applied in consequence to baldwyne, an ecclesiastic and graduate of oxford. baldwyne declined to embark alone in so vast a design, and one, as he thought, so little likely to prove profitable; but seven other contemporary poets, of whom george ferrers has already been mentioned as one, having promised their assistance, he consented to assume the editorship of the work. the general frame agreed upon by these associates was that employed in the original work of boccacio, who feigned, that a party of friends being assembled, it was determined that each of them should contribute to the pleasure of the company by personating some illustrious and unfortunate character, and relating his adventures in the first person. a contrivance so tame and meagre compared with the descent to the regions of the dead sketched with so much spirit by sackville, that it must have preceded, in all probability, their knowledge at least of his performance. the first part of the work, almost entirely by baldwyne, was written, and partly printed, in mary's time, but its publication was prevented by the interference of the lord-chancellor,--a trait of the mean and cowardly jealousy of the administration, which speaks volumes. in the first year of elizabeth lord stafford, an enlightened patron of letters, procured a licence for its appearance. a second part soon followed, in which sackville's induction and legend were inserted. the success of this collection was prodigious; edition after edition was given to the public under the inspection of different poetical revisers, by each of whom copious additions were made to the original work. its favor and reputation continued during all the reign of elizabeth, and far into that of james; for mr. warton tells us that in chapman's "may-day," printed in , "a gentleman of the most elegant taste for reading and highly accomplished in the current books of the times, is called 'one that has read marcus aurelius, gesta romanorum, and the mirror of magistrates.'[ ]" [note : history of english poetry, vol. iii.] the greater part of the contributors to this work were lawyers; an order of men who, in most ages and nations, have accounted it a part of professional duty to stand in opposition to popular seditions on one hand, and to the violent and illegal exertion of arbitrary power on the other. accordingly, many of the legends are made to exemplify the evils of both these excesses; and though, in more places than one, the unlawfulness, on any provocation, of lifting a hand against "the lord's anointed" is in strong terms asserted, the deposition of tyrants is often recorded with applause; and no mercy is shown to the corrupt judge or minister who wrests law and justice in compliance with the wicked will of his prince. the newly published chronicles of the wars of york and lancaster by hall, a writer who made some approach to the character of a genuine historian, furnished facts to the first composers of the mirror; the later ones might draw also from holinshed and stow. there is some probability that the idea of forming plays on english history was suggested to shakespeare by the earlier of these legends; and it is certain that his plays, in their turn, furnished some of their brightest ornaments of sentiment and diction to the legends added by later editors. to a modern reader, the greater part of these once admired pieces will appear trite, prosaic, and tedious; but an uncultivated age--like the children and the common people of all ages--is most attracted and impressed by that mode of narration which leaves the least to be supplied by the imagination of the hearer or reader; and when this collection of history in verse is compared, not with the finished labors of a hume or a robertson, but with the prolix and vulgar narratives of the chroniclers, the admiration and delight with which it was received will no longer surprise. one circumstance more respecting a work so important by the quantity of historical knowledge which it diffused among the mass of readers, and the influence which it exerted over the public mind during half a century, deserves to be here adverted to. baldwyne and his fellow-laborers began their series from the norman conquest, and the same starting-point had been judiciously chosen by sackville; but the fabulous history of geffrey of monmouth still found such powerful advocates in national vanity, ignorance and credulity, that succeeding editors found it convenient to embellish their work with moral examples drawn from his fictitious series of british kings before the invasion of the romans. accordingly they have brought forward a long line of worthies, beginning with king albanact, son of brute the trojan, and ending with cadwallader the last king of the britons, scarcely one of whom, excepting the renowned prince arthur, is known even by name to the present race of students in english history; though amongst poetical readers, the immortal verse of spenser preserves some recollection that such characters once were fabled. in return for this superfluity, our saxon line of kings is passed over with very little notice, only three legends, and those of very obscure personages, being interposed between cadwallader and king harold. the descent of the royal race of britain from the trojans was at this period more than an article of poetical faith; it was maintained, or rather taken for granted, by the gravest and most learned writers. one kelston, who dedicated a versified chronicle of the brutes to edward vi., went further still, and traced up the pedigree of his majesty through two-and-thirty generations, to osiris king of egypt. troynovant, the name said to have been given to london by brute its founder, was frequently employed in verse. a song addressed to elizabeth entitles her the "beauteous queen of second troy;" and in describing the pageants which celebrated her entrance into the provincial capitals which she visited in her progresses, it will frequently be necessary to introduce to the reader personages of the ancient race of this fabled conqueror of our island, who claimed for his direct ancestor,--but whether in the third or fourth degree authors differ,--no less a hero than the pious �neas himself. but to return to the personal circumstances of elizabeth. the public and splendid celebration of the festivals of the church was the least reprehensible of the measures employed by mary for restoring the ascendancy of her religion over the minds of her subjects. she had been profuse in her donations of sacred vestments and ornaments to the churches and the monasteries, of which she had restored several; and these gaudy trappings of a ceremonial worship were exhibited, rather indeed to the scandal than the edification of a dejected people, in frequent processions conducted with the utmost solemnity and magnificence. court entertainments always accompanied these devotional ceremonies, and elizabeth seems by assisting at the latter to have purchased admission to the former. the christmas festivities in which she shared have already been described in the words of a contemporary chronicler; and from the same source we derive the following account of the "antique pageantries" with which another season of rejoicing was celebrated for her recreation, by the munificence of the indulgent superintendent of her conduct and affairs. "in shrove-tide , sir thomas pope made for the lady elizabeth, all at his own costs, a great and rich masking in the great hall at hatfield, where the pageants were marvellously furnished. there were there twelve minstrels anticly disguised; with forty six or more gentlemen and ladies, many of them knights or nobles, and ladies of honor, apparelled in crimson sattin, embroidered upon with wreaths of gold, and garnished with borders of hanging pearl. and the devise of a castle of cloth of gold, set with pomegranates about the battlements, with shields of knights hanging therefrom; and six knights in rich harness tourneyed. at night the cupboard in the hall was of twelve stages mainly furnished with garnish of gold and silver vessul, and a banquet of seventy dishes, and after a voidee of spices and suttleties with thirty six spice-plates; all at the charges of sir thomas pope. and the next day the play of holophernes. but the queen percase misliked these folleries as by her letters to sir thomas it did appear; and so their disguisings ceased[ ]." [note : see nichols's "progresses," vol. i. p. .] a circumstance soon afterwards occurred calculated to recall past dangers to the mind of the princess, and perhaps to disturb her with apprehensions of their recurrence. dudley ashton, formerly a partisan of wyat, had escaped into france, after the defeat and capture of his leader, whence he was still plotting the overthrow of mary's government. by the connivance or assistance of that court, now on the brink of war with england, he was at length enabled to send over one cleberry, a condemned person, whom he instructed to counterfeit the earl of devonshire, and endeavour to raise the country in his cause. letters and proclamations were at the same time dispersed by ashton, in which the name of elizabeth was employed without scruple. the party had even the slanderous audacity to pretend, that between courtney and the heiress of the crown the closest of all intimacies, if not an actual marriage, subsisted; and the matter went so far that at ipswich, one of the strong holds of protestantism, cleberry proclaimed the earl of devonshire and the princess, king and queen. but the times were past when any advantage could be taken of this circumstance against elizabeth, whose perfect innocence was well known to the government; and the council immediately wrote in handsome terms to sir thomas pope, directing him to acquaint her, in whatever manner he should judge best, with the abominable falsehoods circulated respecting her. a few days after, the queen herself wrote also to her sister in terms fitted to assure her of perfect safety. the princess replied, says strype, "in a well penned letter," "utterly detesting and disclaiming all concern in the enterprise, and declaiming against the actors in it." of the epistle thus commended, a single paragraph will probably be esteemed a sufficient specimen.... "and among earthly things i chiefly wish this one; that there were as good surgeons for making anatomies of hearts, that might show my thoughts to your majesty, as there are expert physicians of the bodies, able to express the inward griefs of their maladies to the patient. for then i doubt not, but know well, that whatsoever others should suggest by malice, yet your majesty should be sure by knowledge; so that the more such misty clouds offuscate the clear light of my truth, the more my tried thoughts should glister to the dimming of their hidden malice." &c. it must be confessed that this erudite princess had not perfectly succeeded in transplanting into her own language the epistolary graces of her favorite cicero;--but to how many much superior classical scholars might a similar remark be applied! the frustration of mary's hope of becoming a mother, her subsequent ill state of health, and the resolute refusal of the parliament to permit the coronation of her husband, who had quitted england in disgust to attend his affairs on the continent, conferred, in spite of all the efforts of the catholic party, a daily augmenting importance on elizabeth. when therefore in november she had come in state to somerset place, her town-residence, to take up her abode for the winter, a kind of court was immediately formed around her; and she might hope to be richly indemnified for any late anxieties or privations, by the brilliant festivities, the respectful observances, and the still more welcome flatteries, of which she found herself the distinguished object:--but disappointment awaited her. she had been invited to court for the purpose of receiving a second and more solemn offer of the hand of the duke of savoy, whose suit was enforced by the king her brother-in-law with the whole weight of his influence or authority. this alliance had been the subject of earnest correspondence between philip and the english council; the imperial ambassadors were waiting in england for her answer; and the disappointment of the high-raised hopes of the royal party, by her reiteration of a decided negative, was followed by her quitting london in a kind of disgrace early in the month of december. but philip would not suffer the business to end here. indignant at the resistance opposed by the princess to his measures, he seems to have urged the queen to interfere in a manner authoritative enough to compel obedience; but, by a remarkable exchange of characters, mary now appeared as the protectress of her sister from the violence of philip. in a letter still preserved, she tells him, that unless the consent of parliament were first obtained, she fears that the accomplishment of the marriage would fail to procure for him the advantages which he expected; but that, however this might be, her conscience would not allow her to press the matter further. that the friar alphonso, philip's confessor, whom he had sent to argue the point with her, had entirely failed of convincing her; that in fact she could not comprehend the drift of his arguments. philip, it is manifest, must already have made use of very harsh language towards the queen respecting her conduct in this affair, for she deprecates his further displeasure in very abject terms; but yet persists in her resolution with laudable firmness. her husband was so far, however, from yielding with a good grace a point on which he had certainly no right to dictate either to mary or to her sister, that soon afterwards he sent into england the duchesses of parma and lorrain for the purpose of conducting the princess into flanders:--but this step was ill-judged. his coldness and neglect had by this time nearly extinguished the fond passion of the queen, who is said to have torn his picture in a fit of rage, on report of some disrespectful language which he had used concerning her since his departure for the continent. resentment and jealousy now divided her gloomy soul; and philip's behaviour, on which she had doubtless her spies, caused her to regard the duchess of lorrain as the usurper of his heart. the extraordinary circumstances of pomp and parade with which this lady, notwithstanding the smallness of her revenues, now appeared in england, confirmed and aggravated her most painful suspicions; and so far from favoring the suit urged by such an ambassadress, mary became more than ever determined on thwarting it. she would not permit the duchesses to pay the princess a single visit at hatfield; and her reception gave them so little encouragement to persevere, that they speedily returned to report their failure to him who sent them. these circumstances seem to have produced a cordiality of feeling and frequency of intercourse between the sisters which had never before existed. in february the princess arrived with a great retinue at somerset place, and went thence to wait upon the queen at whitehall; and when the spring was somewhat further advanced, her majesty honored her by returning the visit at hatfield. the royal guest was, of course, to be entertained with every species of courtly and elegant delight; and accordingly, on the morning after her arrival, she and the princess, after attending mass, went to witness a grand exhibition of _bear-bating_, "with which their highnesses were right well content." in the evening the chamber was adorned with a sumptuous suit of tapestry, called, but from what circumstance does not appear, "the hangings of antioch." after supper a play was represented by the choristers of st. paul's, then the most applauded actors in london; and after it was over, one of the children accompanied with his voice the performance of the princess on the virginals. sir thomas pope could now without offence gratify his lady with another show, devised by him in that spirit of romantic magnificence equally agreeable to the taste of the age and the temper of elizabeth herself. she was invited to repair to enfield chase to take the amusement of hunting the hart. twelve ladies in white satin attended her on their "ambling palfreys," and twenty yeomen clad in green. at the entrance of the forest she was met by fifty archers in scarlet boots and yellow caps, armed with gilded bows, one of whom presented to her a silver-headed arrow winged with peacock's feathers. the splendid show concluded, according to the established laws of the chase, by the offering of the knife to the princess, as first lady on the field; and her _taking 'say_ of the buck with her own fair and royal hand. during the summer of the same year the queen was pleased to invite her sister to an entertainment at richmond, of which we have received some rather interesting particulars. the princess was brought from somerset place in the queen's barge, which was richly hung with garlands of artificial flowers and covered with a canopy of green sarcenet, wrought with branches of eglantine in embroidery and powdered with blossoms of gold. in the barge she was accompanied by sir thomas pope and four ladies of her chamber. six boats attended filled with her retinue, habited in russet damask and blue embroidered satin, tasseled and spangled with silver; their bonnets cloth of silver with green feathers. the queen received her in a sumptuous pavilion in the labyrinth of the gardens. this pavilion, which was of cloth of gold and purple velvet, was made in the form of a castle, probably in allusion to the kingdom of castile; its sides were divided in compartments, which bore alternately the fleur de lis in silver, and the pomegranate, the bearing of granada, in gold. a sumptuous banquet was here served up to the royal ladies, in which there was introduced a pomegranate-tree in confectionary work, bearing the arms of spain:--so offensively glaring was the preference given by mary to the country of her husband and of her maternal ancestry over that of which she was a native and in her own right queen! there was no masking or dancing, but a great number of minstrels performed. the princess returned to somerset place the same evening, and the next day to hatfield. the addresses of a new suitor soon after furnished elizabeth with an occasion of gratifying the queen by fresh demonstrations of respect and duty. the king of sweden was earnestly desirous of obtaining for eric his eldest son the hand of a lady whose reversionary prospects, added to her merit and accomplishments, rendered her without dispute the first match in europe. he had denied his son's request to be permitted to visit her in person, fearing that those violences of temper and eccentricities of conduct of which this ill-fated prince had already given strong indications, might injure his cause in the judgement of so discerning a princess. the business was therefore to be transacted through the swedish ambassador; but he was directed by his sovereign to make his application by a message to elizabeth herself, in which the queen and council were not for the present to participate. the princess took hold of this circumstance as a convenient pretext for rejecting a proposal which she felt no disposition to encourage; and she declared that she could never listen to any overtures of this nature which had not first received the sanction of her majesty. the ambassador pleaded in answer, that as a gentleman his master had judged it becoming that his first application should be made to herself; but that should he be so happy as to obtain her concurrence, he would then, as a king, make his demand in form to the queen her sister. the princess replied, that if it were to depend on herself, a single life would ever be her choice; and she finally dismissed the suit with a negative. on receiving some hint of this transaction, mary sent for sir thomas pope, and having learned from him all the particulars, she directed him to express to her sister her high approbation of her proper and dutiful conduct on this occasion; and also to make himself acquainted with her sentiments on the subject of matrimony in general. he soon after transmitted to her majesty all the information she could desire, in the following letter: "first after i had declared to her grace how well the queen's majesty liked of her prudent and honorable answer made to the same messenger; i then opened unto her grace the effects of the said messenger's credence; which after her grace had heard, i said, the queen's highness had sent me to her grace, not only to declare the same, but also to understand how her grace liked the said motion. whereunto, after a little pause taken, her grace answered in form following: 'master pope, i require you, after my most humble commendations to the queen's majesty, to render unto the same like thanks that it pleased her highness, of her goodness, to conceive so well of my answer made to the same messenger; and herewithal, of her princely consideration, with such speed to command you by your letters to signify the same unto me: who before remained wonderfully perplexed, fearing that her majesty might mistake the same: for which her goodness, i acknowledge myself bound to honor, serve, love, and obey her highness during my life. requiring you also to say unto her majesty, that in the king my brother's time there was offered me a very honorable marriage, or two; and ambassadors sent to treat with me touching the same; whereupon i made my humble suit unto his highness, as some of honor yet living can be testimonies, that it would like the same to give me leave, with his grace's favor, to remain in that estate i was, which of all others best liked me, or pleased me. and, in good faith, i pray you say unto her highness, i am even at this present of the same mind, and so intend to continue, with her majesty's favor: and assuring her highness i so well like this estate, as i persuade myself there is not any kind of life comparable unto it. and as concerning my liking the said motion made by the said messenger, i beseech you say unto her majesty, that to my remembrance i never heard of his master before this time; and that i so well like both the message and the messenger, as i shall most humbly pray god upon my knees, that from henceforth i never hear of the one nor the other: assure you that if he should eftsoons repair unto me, i would forbear to speak to him. and were there nothing else to move me to mislike the motion, other than that his master would attempt the same without making the queen's majesty privy thereunto, it were cause sufficient.' "and when her grace had thus ended, i was so bold as of myself to say unto her grace, her pardon first required, that i thought few or none would believe but that her grace could be right well contented to marry; so that there were some honorable marriage offered her by the queen's highness, or by her majesty's assent. whereunto her grace answered, 'what i shall do hereafter i know not; but i assure you, upon my truth and fidelity, and as god be merciful unto me, i am not at this time otherwise minded than i have declared unto you; no, though i were offered the greatest prince in all europe.' and yet percase, the queen's majesty may conceive this rather to proceed of a maidenly shamefacedness, than upon any such certain determination[ ]." [note : the hint of "some honorable marriage" in the above letter, has been supposed to refer to the duke of savoy; but if the date inscribed upon the copy which is found among the harleian mss. be correct (april th ), this could not well be; since the queen, early in the preceding year, had declined to interfere further in his behalf.] this letter appears to have been the last transaction which occurred between mary and elizabeth: from it, and from the whole of the notices relative to the situation of the latter thrown together in the preceding pages, it may be collected, that during the three last years of her sister's reign,--the period, namely, of her residence at hatfield,--she had few privations, and no personal hardships to endure: but for individuals whom she esteemed, for principles to which her conscience secretly inclined, for her country which she truly loved, her apprehensions must have been continually excited, and too often justified by events the most cruel and disastrous. the reestablishment, by solemn acts of the legislature, of the romish ritual and the papal authority, though attended with the entire prohibition of all protestant worship, was not sufficient for the bigotry of mary. aware that the new doctrines still found harbour in the bosoms of her subjects, she sought to drag them by her violence from this last asylum; for to her, as to all tyrants, it appeared both desirable and possible to subject the liberty of thinking to the regulation and control of human laws. by virtue of her authority as head of the english church,--a title which the murmurs of her parliament had compelled her against her conscience to resume after laying it aside for some time,--she issued an ecclesiastical commission, which wanted nothing of the spanish inquisition but the name. the commissioners were empowered to call before them the leading men in every parish of the kingdom, and to compel them to bind themselves by oath to give information against such of their neighbours as, by abstaining from attendance at church or other symptoms of disaffection to the present order of things, afforded room to doubt the soundness of their belief. articles of faith were then offered to the suspected persons for their signature, and on their simple refusal they were handed over to the civil power, and fire and faggot awaited them. by this barbarous species of punishment, about two hundred and eighty persons are stated to have perished during the reign of mary; but, to the disgrace of the learned, the rich, and the noble, these martyrs, with the exception of a few distinguished ecclesiastics, were almost all from the middling or lower, some from the very lowest classes of society. amongst these glorious sufferers, therefore, the princess could have few personal friends to regret; but in the much larger number of the disgraced, the suspected, the imprisoned, the fugitive, she saw the greater part of the public characters, whether statesmen or divines, on whose support and attachment she had learned to place reliance. the extraordinary cruelties exercised upon sir john cheke, who whilst he held the post of preceptor to her brother had also assisted in her own education, must have been viewed by elizabeth with strong emotion of indignation and grief. it has been already mentioned, that after his release from imprisonment incurred in the cause of lady jane grey,--a release, by the way, which was purchased by the sacrifice of his landed property and all his appointments,--this learned and estimable person obtained permission to travel for a limited period. this was regarded as a special favor; for it was one of mary's earliest acts of tyranny to prohibit the escape of her destined victims, and it was only by joining themselves to the foreign congregations of the reformed, who had license to depart the kingdom, or by eluding with much hazard the vigilance of the officers by whom the seaports were watched, that any of her protestant subjects had been enabled to secure liberty of conscience in a voluntary exile. it is a little remarkable that rome should have been cheke's first city of pilgrimage; but classical associations in this instance overcame the force of protestant antipathies. he took the opportunity however of visiting basil in his way, where an english congregation was established, and where he had the pleasure of introducing himself to several learned characters, once perhaps the chosen associates of erasmus. in the beginning of he had reached strasburgh, for it was thence that he addressed a letter to his dear friend and brother-in-law sir william cecil, who appears to have made some compliances with the times which alarmed and grieved him. it is in a strain of the most affectionate earnestness that he entreats him to hold fast his faith, and "to take heed how he did in the least warp or strain his conscience by any compliance for his worldly security." but such exhortations, however salutary in themselves, did not come with the best grace from those who had found in flight a refuge from the terrors of that persecution which was raging in all its fierceness before the eyes of such of their unfortunate brethren as had found themselves necessitated to abide the fiery trial. a remark by no means foreign to the case before us! sir john cheke's leave of absence seems now to have expired; and it was probably with the design of making interest for its renewal that he privately repaired, soon after the date of his letter, to brussels, on a visit to his two learned friends, lord paget and sir john mason, then residing in that city as mary's ambassadors. these men were recent converts, or more likely conformists, to the court religion; and paget's furious councils against elizabeth have been already mentioned. it is to be hoped that they did not add to the guilt of self-interested compliances in matters of faith the blacker crime of a barbarous act of perfidy against a former associate and brother-protestant who had scarcely ceased to be their guest;--but certain it is, that on some secret intimation of his having entered his territories, king philip issued special orders for the seizure of cheke. on his return, between brussels and antwerp, the unhappy man, with sir peter carew his companion, was apprehended by a provost-marshal, bound hand and foot, thrown into a cart, and so conveyed on board a vessel sailing for england. he is said to have been brought to the tower muffled, according to an odious practice of spanish despotism introduced into the country during the reign of mary. under the terror of such a surprise the awful alternative "comply or burn" was laid before him. human frailty under these trying circumstances prevailed; and in an evil hour this champion of light and learning was tempted to subscribe his false assent to the doctrine of the real presence and the whole list of romish articles. this was but the beginning of humiliations: he was now required to pronounce two ample recantations, one before the queen in person, the other before cardinal pole, who also imposed upon him various acts of penance. even this did not immediately procure his liberation from prison; and while he was obliged in public to applaud the mercy of his enemies in terms of the most abject submission, he bewailed in private, with abundance of bitter tears, their cruelty, and still more his own criminal compliance. the savage zealots knew not how to set bounds to their triumph over a man whom learning and acknowledged talents and honorable employments had rendered so considerable. even when at length he was set free, and flattered himself that he had drained to the dregs his cup of bitterness, he discovered that the masterpiece of barbarity, the refinement of insult, was yet in store. he was required, as evidence of the sincerity of his conversion and a token of his complete restoration to royal favor, to take his seat on the bench by the side of the savage bonner, and assist at the condemnation of his brother-protestants. the unhappy man did not refuse,--so thoroughly was his spirit subdued within him,--but it broke his heart; and retiring at last to the house of an old and learned friend, whose door was opened to him in christian charity, he there ended within a few months, his miserable life, a prey to shame, remorse and melancholy. a sadder tale the annals of persecution do not furnish, or one more humbling to the pride and confidence of human virtue. many have failed under lighter trials; few have expiated a failure by sufferings so severe. how often must this victim of a wounded spirit have dwelt with envy, amid his slower torments, on the brief agonies and lasting crown of a courageous martyrdom! it is happily not possible for a kingdom to flourish under the crushing weight of such a tyranny as that of mary. the retreat of the foreign protestants had robbed the country of hundreds of industrious and skilful artificers; the arbitrary exactions of the queen impoverished and discouraged the trading classes, against whom they principally operated; tumults and insurrections were frequent, and afforded a pretext for the introduction of spanish troops; the treasury was exhausted in efforts for maintaining the power of the sovereign, restoring the church to opulence and splendor, and re-edifying the fallen monasteries. to add to these evils, a foreign marriage rendered both the queen and country subservient to the interested or ambitious projects of the spanish sovereign. for his sake a needless war was declared against france, which, after draining entirely an already failing treasury, ended in the loss of calais, the last remaining trophy of the victories by which the edwards and the henrys had humbled in the dust the pride and power of france. this last stroke completed the dejection of the nation; and mary herself, who was by no means destitute of sensibility where the honor of her crown was concerned, sunk into an incurable melancholy. "when i die," said she to her attendants who sought to discover the cause of her despondency, "calais will be found at my heart." the unfeeling desertion of her husband, the consciousness of having incurred the hatred of her subjects, the unprosperous state of her affairs, and the well founded apprehension that her successor would once more overthrow the whole edifice of papal power which she had labored with such indefatigable ardor to restore, may each be supposed to have infused its own drop of bitterness into the soul of this unhappy princess. the long and severe mortifications of her youth, while they soured her temper, had also undermined her constitution, and contributed to bring upon her a premature old age; dropsical symptoms began to appear, and after a lingering illness of nearly half a year she sunk into the grave on the th day of november , in the forty-fourth year of her age. chapter ix. and . general joy on the accession of elizabeth.--views of the nobility--of the middling and lower classes.--flattery with which she is addressed.--descriptions of her person.--her first privy-council.--parry and cecil brought into office.--notices of each.--death of cardinal pole.--the queen enters london--passes to the tower.--lord robert dudley her master of the horse.--notices respecting him.--the queen's treatment of her relations.--the howard family.--sir richard sackville.--henry cary.--the last, created lord hunsdon.--preparations in london against the queen's coronation.--splendid costume of the age.--she passes by water from westminster to the tower.--the procession described.--her passage through the city.--pageants exhibited.--the bishops refuse to crown her.--bishop of carlisle prevailed on.--religious sentiments of the queen.--prohibition of preaching--of theatrical exhibitions. never perhaps was the accession of any prince the subject of such keen and lively interest to a whole people as that of elizabeth. both in the religious establishments and political relations of the country, the most important changes were anticipated; changes in which the humblest individual found himself concerned, and to which a vast majority of the nation looked forward with hope and joy. with the courtiers and great nobles, whose mutability of faith had so happily corresponded with every ecclesiastical vicissitude of the last three reigns, political and personal considerations may well be supposed to have held the first place; and though the old religion might still be endeared to them by many cherished associations and by early prejudice, there were few among them who did not regard the liberation of the country from spanish influence as ample compensation for the probable restoration of the religious establishment of henry or of edward. besides, there was scarcely an individual belonging to these classes who had not in some manner partaken of the plunder of the church, and whom the avowed principles of mary had not disquieted with apprehensions that some plan of compulsory restitution would sooner or later be attempted by an union of royal and papal authority. with the middling and lower classes religious views and feelings were predominant the doctrines of the new and better system of faith and worship had now become more precious and important than ever in the eyes of its adherents from the hardships which many of them had encountered for its sake, and from the interest which each disciple vindicated to himself in the glory and merit of the holy martyrs whose triumphant exit they had witnessed. with all the fervor of pious gratitude they offered up their thanksgivings for the signal deliverance by which their prayers had been answered. the bloody tyranny of mary was at an end; and though the known conformity of elizabeth to romish rites might apparently give room for doubts and suspicions, it should seem that neither catholics nor protestants were willing to believe that the daughter of anne boleyn could in her heart be a papist. under this impression the citizens of london, who spoke the sense of their own class throughout the kingdom, welcomed the new queen as a protectress sent by heaven itself: but even in the first transports of their joy, and amid the pompous pageantries by which their loyal congratulations were expressed, they took care to intimate, in a manner not to be misunderstood, their hopes and expectations on the great concern now nearest to their hearts. prudence confined within their own bosoms the regrets and murmurs of the popish clergy; submission and a simulated loyalty were at present obviously their only policy: thus not a whisper breathed abroad but of joy and gratulation and happy presage of the days to come. the sex, the youth, the accomplishments, the graces, the past misfortunes of the princess, all served to heighten the interest with which she was beheld: the age of chivalry had not yet expired; and in spite of the late unfortunate experience of a female reign, the romantic image of a maiden queen dazzled all eyes, subdued all hearts, inflamed the imaginations of the brave and courtly youth with visions of love and glory, exalted into a passionate homage the principle of loyalty, and urged adulation to the very brink of idolatry. the fulsome compliments on her beauty which elizabeth, almost to the latest period of her life, not only permitted but required and delighted in, have been adverted to by all the writers who have made her reign and character their theme: and those of the number whom admiration and pity of the fair queen of scots have rendered hostile to her memory, have taken a malicious pleasure in exaggerating the extravagance of this weakness, by denying her, even in her freshest years, all pretensions to those personal charms by which her rival was so eminently, distinguished. others however have been more favorable, and probably more just, to her on this point; and it would be an injury to her memory to withhold from the reader the following portraitures which authorize us to form a pleasing as well as majestic image of this illustrious female at the period of her accession and at the age of five-and-twenty. "she was a lady of great beauty, of decent stature, and of an excellent shape. in her youth she was adorned with a more than usual maiden modesty; her skin was of pure white, and her hair of a yellow colour; her eyes were beautiful and lively. in short, her whole body was well made, and her face was adorned with a wonderful and sweet beauty and majesty. this beauty lasted till her middle age, though it declined[ ]." &c. [note : bohun's "character of queen elizabeth."] "she was of personage tall, of hair and complexion fair, and therewith well favored, but high-nosed; of limbs and feature neat, and, which added to the lustre of those exterior graces, of stately and majestic comportment; participating in this more of her father than her mother, who was of an inferior allay, plausible, or, as the french hath it, more debonaire and affable, virtues which might suit well with majesty, and which descending as hereditary to the daughter, did render her of a more sweeter temper and endeared her more to the love and liking of her people, who gave her the name and fame of a most gracious and popular prince[ ]." [note : naunton's "fragmenta regalia."] the death of mary was announced to the two houses, which were then sitting, by heath bishop of ely, the lord-chancellor. in both assemblies, after the decorum of a short pause, the notification was followed by joyful shouts of "god save queen elizabeth! long and happily may she reign!" and with great alacrity the members issued out to proclaim the new sovereign before the palace in westminster and again at the great cross in cheapside. the londoners knew not how to contain their joy on this happy occasion:--the bells of all the churches were set ringing, bonfires were kindled, and tables were spread in the streets according to the bountiful and hospitable custom of that day, "where was plentiful eating, drinking, and making merry." on the following sunday _te deum_ was sung in the churches; probably an unexampled, however merited, expression of disrespect to the memory of the former sovereign. elizabeth received the news of her own accession at hatfield. we are not told that she affected any great concern for the loss of her sister, much less did any unbecoming sign of exultation escape her; but, "falling on her knees, after a good time of respiration she uttered this verse of the psalms; _a domino factum est istud, et est mirabile oculis nostris_[ ]: which to this day we find on the stamp of her gold; with this on her silver, _posui deum adjutorem meum_[ ]."[ ] [note : it is the lord's doing, it is marvellous in our eyes.] [note : i have chosen god for my helper.] [note : "fragmenta regalia."] several noblemen of the late queen's council now repairing to her, she held at hatfield on november the th her first privy-council; at which she declared sir thomas parry comptroller of her household, sir edward rogers captain of the guard, and sir william cecil principal secretary of state, all three being at the same time admitted to the council-board. from these appointments, the first of her reign, some presages might be drawn of her future government favorable to her own character and correspondent to the wishes of her people. parry was the person who had filled for many years the office of her cofferer, who was perfectly in the secret of whatever confidential intercourse she might formerly have held with the lord-admiral, and whose fidelity to her in that business had stood firm against all the threats of the protector and council, and the artifices of those by whom his examination had been conducted. that mindfulness of former services, of which the advancement of this man formed by no means a solitary instance in the conduct of elizabeth, appeared the more commendable in her, because she accompanied it with a generous oblivion of the many slights and injuries to which her defenceless and persecuted condition had so long exposed her from others. the merit of cecil was already in part known to the public; and his promotion to an office of such importance was a happy omen for the protestant cause, his attachment to which had been judged the sole impediment to his advancement under the late reign to situations of power and trust corresponding with the opinion entertained of his integrity and political wisdom. a brief retrospect of the scenes of public life in which he had already been an actor will best explain the character and sentiments of this eminent person, destined to wield for more than forty years with unparalleled skill and felicity, under a mistress who knew his value, the energies of the english state. born, in , the son of the master of the royal wardrobe, cecil early engaged the notice of henry viii. by the fame of a religious dispute which he had held in latin with two popish priests attached to the irish chieftain o'neal. a place in reversion freely bestowed on him by the king at once rewarded the zeal of the young polemic, and encouraged him to desert the profession of the law, in which he had embarked, for the political career. his marriage with the sister of sir john cheke strengthened his interest at court by procuring him an introduction to the earl of hertford, and early in the reign of edward this powerful patronage obtained for him the office of secretary of state. in the first disgrace of the protector he lost his place, and was for a short time a prisoner in the tower; but his compliant conduct soon restored him to favor: he scrupled not to draw the articles of impeachment against the protector; and northumberland, finding him both able in business and highly acceptable to the young monarch, procured, or permitted, his reinstatement in office in september . cecil, however, was both too wary and too honest to regard himself as pledged to the support of northumberland's inordinate schemes of ambition; and scarcely any public man of the day, attached to the protestant cause, escaped better in the affair of lady jane grey. it is true that one writer accuses him of having drawn all the papers in her favor: but this appears to be, in part at least, either a mistake or a calumny; and it seems, on the contrary, that he refused to northumberland some services of this nature. it has been already mentioned that his name appeared with those of the other privy-councillors to edward's settlement of the crown; and his plea of having signed it merely as a witness to the king's signature, deserves to be regarded as a kind of subterfuge. but he was early in paying his respects to mary, and he took advantage of the graciousness with which she received his explanations to obtain a general pardon, which protected him from all personal danger. he lost however his place of secretary, which some have affirmed that he might have retained by further compliances in religion. this however is the more doubtful, because it cannot be questioned that he must have yielded a good deal on this point, without which he neither could nor would have made one of a deputation sent to conduct to england cardinal pole the papal legate, nor probably would he have been joined in commission with the cardinal and other persons sent to treat of a peace with france. but admitting, as we must, that this eminent statesman was far from aspiring to the praise of a confessor, he will still be found to deserve high commendation for the zeal and courage with which, as a member of parliament, he defended the interests of his oppressed and suffering fellow-protestants. at considerable hazard to himself, he opposed with great freedom of speech a bill for confiscating the property of exiles for religion; and he appears to have escaped committal to the tower on this account, solely by the presence of mind which he exhibited before the council and the friendship of some of its members. he is known to have maintained a secret and intimate correspondence with elizabeth during the time of her adversity, and to have assisted her on various trying occasions with his salutary counsels; and nothing could be more interesting than to trace the origin and progress of that confidential relation between these eminent and in many respects congenial characters, which after a long course of years was only terminated by the hand of death;--but materials for this purpose are unfortunately wanting. the letters on both sides were probably sacrificed by the parties themselves to the caution which their situation required; and among the published extracts from the burleigh papers, only a single document is found relative to the connexion subsisting between them during the reign of mary. this is a short and uninteresting letter addressed to cecil by sir thomas benger, one of the princess's officers, in which, after some mention of accounts, not now intelligible, he promises that he and sir thomas parry will move the princess to grant his correspondent's request, which is not particularized, and assures him that as his coming thither would be thankfully received, so he wishes that all the friends of the princess entertained the same sense of that matter as he does. the letter seems to point at some official concern of cecil in the affairs of elizabeth. it is dated october th . the private character of cecil was in every respect exemplary, and his disposition truly amiable. his second marriage with one of the learned daughters of sir anthony cook conferred upon him that exalted species of domestic happiness which a sympathy in mental endowments can alone bestow; whilst it had the further advantage of connecting him with the excellent man her father, with sir nicholas bacon and sir thomas hobby, the husbands of two of her sisters, and generally with the wisest and most conscientious supporters of the protestant interest. this great minister was honorably distinguished through life by an ardor and constancy of friendship rare in all classes of men, but esteemed peculiarly so in those whose lives are occupied amid the heartless ceremonial of courts and the political intrigues of princes. his attachments, as they never degenerated into the weakness of favoritism, were as much a source of benefit to his country as of enjoyment to himself; for his friends were those of virtue and the state. and there were few among the more estimable public men of this reign who were not indebted either for their first introduction to the notice of elizabeth, their continuance in her favor, or their restoration to it when undeservedly lost, to the generous patronage or powerful intercession of cecil. on appointing him a member of her council, the queen addressed her secretary in the following gracious words: "i give you this charge, that you shall be of my privy-council, and content yourself to take pains for me and my realm. this judgement i have of you, that you will not be corrupted with any gift, and that you will be faithful to the state, and that, without respect of my private will, you will give me that counsel that you think best: and that if you shall know any thing necessary to be declared to me of secrecy, you shall show it to myself only, and assure yourself i will not fail to keep taciturnity therein. and therefore herewith i charge you[ ]." [note : "nugæ antiquæ."] cardinal pole was not doomed to be an eye-witness of the relapse of the nation into what he must have regarded as heresy of the most aggravated nature; he expired a few hours after his royal kinswoman: and elizabeth, with due consideration for the illustrious ancestry, the learning, the moderation, and the blameless manners of the man, authorized his honorable interment at canterbury among the archbishops his predecessors, with the attendance of two bishops, his ancient friends and the faithful companions of his long exile. on november d the queen set forward for her capital, attended by a train of about a thousand nobles, knights, gentlemen, and ladies, and took up her abode for the present at the dissolved monastery of the chartreux, or charterhouse, then the residence of lord north; a splendid pile which offered ample accommodation for a royal retinue. her next remove, in compliance with ancient custom, was to the tower. on this occasion all the streets from the charterhouse were spread with fine gravel; singers and musicians were stationed by the way, and a vast concourse of people freely lent their joyful and admiring acclamations, as preceded by her heralds and great officers, and richly attired in purple velvet, she passed along mounted on her palfrey, and returning the salutations of the humblest of her subjects with graceful and winning affability. with what vivid and what affecting impressions of the vicissitudes attending on the great must she have passed again within the antique walls of that fortress once her dungeon, now her palace! she had entered it by the traitor's gate, a terrified and defenceless prisoner, smarting under many wrongs, hopeless of deliverance, and apprehending nothing less than an ignominious death. she had quitted it, still a captive, under the guard of armed men, to be conducted she knew not whither. she returned to it in all the pomp of royalty, surrounded by the ministers of her power, ushered by the applauses of her people; the cherished object of every eye, the idol of every heart. devotion alone could supply becoming language to the emotions which swelled her bosom; and no sooner had she reached the royal apartments, than falling on her knees she returned humble and fervent thanks to that providence which had brought her in safety, like daniel from the den of lions, to behold this day of exaltation. elizabeth was attended on her passage to the tower by one who like herself returned with honor to that place of his former captivity; but not, like herself, with a mind disciplined by adversity to receive with moderation and wisdom "the good vicissitude of joy." this person was lord robert dudley, whom the queen had thus early encouraged to aspire to her future favors by appointing him to the office of master of the horse. we are totally uninformed of the circumstances which had recommended to her peculiar patronage this bad son of a bad father; whose enterprises, if successful, would have disinherited of a kingdom elizabeth herself no less than mary. but it is remarkable, that even under the reign of the latter, the surviving members of the dudley family had been able to recover in great measure from the effects of their late signal reverses. lord robert, soon after his release from the tower, contrived to make himself so acceptable to king philip by his courtier-like attentions, and to mary by his diligence in posting backwards and forwards to bring her intelligence of her husband during his long visits to the continent, that he earned from the latter several marks of favor. two of his brothers fought, and one fell, in the battle of st. quintin's; and immediately afterwards the duchess their mother found means, through some spanish interests and connexions, to procure the restoration in blood of all her surviving children. the appointment of robert to the place of master of the ordnance soon followed; so that even before the accession of elizabeth he might be regarded as a rising man in the state. his personal graces and elegant accomplishments are on all hands acknowledged to have been sufficiently striking to dazzle the eyes and charm the heart of a young princess of a lively imagination and absolute mistress of her own actions. the circumstance of his being already married, blinded her perhaps to the nature of her sentiments towards him, or at least it was regarded by her as a sufficient sanction in the eyes of the public for those manifestations of favor and esteem with which she was pleased to honor him. but whether the affection which she entertained for him best deserved the name of friendship or a still tenderer one, seems after all a question of too subtile and obscure a nature for sober discussion; though in a french "_cour d'amour_" it might have furnished pleas and counterpleas of exquisite ingenuity, prodigious sentimental interest, and length interminable. what is unfortunately too certain is, that he was a favorite, and in the common judgement of the court, of the nation, and of posterity, an unworthy one; but calumny and prejudice alone have dared to attack the reputation of the queen. elizabeth had no propensity to exalt immoderately her relations by the mother's side;--for she neither loved nor honored that mother's memory; but several of the number may be mentioned, whose merits towards herself, or whose qualifications for the public service, justly entitled them to share in her distribution of offices and honors, and whom she always treated with distinction. the whole illustrious family of the howards were her relations; and in the first year of her reign she conferred on the duke of norfolk, her second-cousin, the order of the garter. her great-uncle lord william howard, created baron of effingham by mary, was continued by her in the high office of lord-chamberlain, and soon after appointed one of the commissioners for concluding a peace with france. lord thomas howard, her mother's first-cousin, who had treated her with distinguished respect and kindness on her arrival at hampton court from woodstock, and had the further merit of being indulgent to protestants during the persecutions of mary, received from her the title of viscount bindon, and continued much in her favor to the end of his days. sir richard sackville, also her mother's first-cousin, had filled different fiscal offices under the three last reigns; he was a man of abilities, and derived from a long line of ancestors great estates and extensive influence in the county of sussex. the people, who marked his growing wealth, and to whom he was perhaps officially obnoxious, nicknamed him fill-sack: in mary's time he was a catholic, a privy-councillor, and chancellor of the court of augmentations; under her successor he changed the first designation and retained the two last, which he probably valued more. he is chiefly memorable as the father of sackville the poet, afterwards lord buckhurst and progenitor of the dukes of dorset. sir francis knolles, whose lady was one of the queen's nearest kinswomen, was deservedly called to the privy-council on his return from his voluntary banishment for conscience' sake; his sons gained considerable influence in the court of elizabeth; his daughter, the mother of essex, and afterwards the wife of leicester, was for various reasons long an object of the queen's particular aversion. but of all her relations, the one who had deserved most at her hands was henry carey, brother to lady knolles, and son to mary boleyn, her majesty's aunt. this gentleman had expended several thousand pounds of his own patrimony in her service and relief during the time of her imprisonment, and she liberally requited his friendship at her first creation of peers, by conferring upon him, with the title of baron hunsdon, the royal residence of that name, with its surrounding park and several beneficial leases of crown lands. he was afterwards joined in various commissions and offices of trust: but his remuneration was, on the whole, by no means exorbitant; for he was not rapacious, and consequently not importunate; and the queen, in the employments which she assigned him, seemed rather to consult her own advantage and that of her country, by availing herself of the abilities of a diligent and faithful servant, than to please herself by granting rewards to an affectionate and generous kinsman. in fact, lord hunsdon was skilled as little in the ceremonious and sentimental gallantry which she required from her courtiers, as in the circumspect and winding policy which she approved in her statesmen. "as he lived in a ruffling time," says naunton, "so he loved sword and buckler men, and such as our fathers wont to call men of their hands, of which sort he had many brave gentlemen that followed him; yet not taken for a popular or dangerous person." though extremely choleric, he was honest, and not at all malicious. it was said of him that "his latin and his dissimulation were both alike," equally bad, and that "his custom in swearing and obscenity in speech made him seem a worse christian than he was." fuller relates of him the following characteristic anecdote. "once, one mr. colt chanced to meet him coming from hunsdon to london, in the equipage of a lord of those days. the lord, on some former grudge, gave him a box on the ear: colt presently returned the principal with interest; and thereupon his servants drawing their swords, swarmed about him. 'you rogues,' said my lord, 'may not i and my neighbour change a blow but you must interpose?' thus the quarrel was begun and ended in the same minute[ ]." [note : "worthies" in herts.] the queen's attachment to such of her family as she was pleased to honor with her notice, was probably the more constant because there was nothing in it of excess or of blindness:--even leicester in the height of his favor felt that he must hold sacred their claims to her regard: according to naunton's phrase, he used to say of sackville and hunsdon, "that they were of the tribe of dan, and were noli me tangere's." after a few days spent in the tower, elizabeth passed by water to somerset place; and thence, about a fortnight after, when the funeral of her predecessor was over, to the palace of westminster, where she kept her christmas. busy preparation was now making in her good city of london against the solemn day of her passage in state from the tower to her coronation at westminster. the usages and sentiments of that age conferred upon these public ceremonials a character of earnest and dignified importance now lost; and on this memorable occasion, when the mingled sense of deliverance received and of future favor to be conciliated had opened the hearts of all men, it was resolved to lavish in honor of the new sovereign every possible demonstration of loyal affection, and every known device of festal magnificence. the costume of the age was splendid. gowns of velvet or satin, richly trimmed with silk, furs, or gold lace, costly gold chains, and caps or hoods of rich materials adorned with feathers or ouches, decorated on all occasions of display the persons not of nobles or courtiers alone, but of their crowds of retainers and higher menials, and even of the plain substantial citizens. female attire was proportionally sumptuous. hangings, of cloth, of silk, of velvet, cloth of gold or silver, or "needlework sublime," clothed on days of family-festivity the _upper chamber_[ ] of every house of respectable appearance; these on public festivals were suspended from the balconies, and uniting with the banners and pennons floating overhead, gave to the streets almost the appearance of a suit of long and gayly-dressed saloons. every circumstance thus conspired to render the public entry of queen elizabeth the most gorgeous and at the same time the most interesting spectacle of the kind ever exhibited in the english metropolis. [note : as long as that style of domestic architecture prevailed in which every story was made to project considerably beyond the one beneath it, the upper room, from its superior size and lightsomeness, appears to have been that dedicated to the entertainment of guests.] her majesty was first to be conducted from her palace in westminster to the royal apartments in the tower; and a splendid water procession was appointed for the purpose. at this period, when the streets were narrow and ill-paved, the roads bad, and the luxury of close carriages unknown, the thames was the great thoroughfare of the metropolis. the old palace of westminster, as well as those of richmond and greenwich, the favorite summer residences of the tudor princes, stood on its banks, and the court passed from one to the other in barges. the nobility were beginning to occupy with their mansions and gardens the space between the strand and the water, and it had become a reigning folly amongst them to vie with each other in the splendor of their barges and of the liveries of the rowers, who were all distinguished by the crests or badges of their lords. the corporation and trading companies of london possessed, as now, their state-barges enriched with carved and gilded figures and "decked and trimmed with targets and banners of their misteries." on the th of january these were all drawn forth in grand array; and to enliven the pomp, "the bachelor's barge of the lord-mayor's company, to wit the mercers, had their barge with a _foist_ trimmed with three tops and artillery aboard, gallantly appointed to wait upon them, shooting off lustily as they went, with great and pleasant melody of instruments, which played in most sweet and heavenly manner." in this state they rowed up to westminster and attended her majesty with the royal barges back to the tower. her passage through the city took place two days after. she issued forth drawn in a sumptuous chariot, preceded by trumpeters and heralds in their coat-armour and "most honorably accompanied as well with gentlemen, barons, and other the nobility of this realm, as also with a notable train of goodly and beautiful ladies, richly appointed." the ladies were on horseback, and both they and the lords were habited in crimson velvet, with which their horses were also trapped. let it be remarked by the way, that the retinue of fair equestrians constantly attendant on the person of the maiden queen in all her public appearances, was a circumstance of prodigious effect; the gorgeousness of royal pomp was thus heightened, and at the same time rendered more amiable and attractive by the alliance of grace and beauty; and a romantic kind of charm, comparable to that which seizes the imagination in the splendid fictions of chivalry, was cast over the heartless parade of courtly ceremonial. it was a very different spirit, however, from that of romance or of knight-errantry which inspired the bosoms of the citizens whose acclamations now rent the air on her approach. they beheld in the princess whom they welcomed the daughter of that henry who had redeemed the land from papal tyranny and extortion; the sister of that young and godly edward,--the josiah of english story,--whose pious hand had reared again the altars of pure and primitive religion; and they had bodied forth for her instruction and admonition, in a series of solemn pageants, the maxims by which they hoped to see her equal or surpass these deep-felt merits of her predecessors. these pageants were erections placed across the principal streets in the manner of triumphal arches: illustrative sentences in english and latin were inscribed upon them; and a child was stationed in each, who explained to the queen in english verse the meaning of the whole. the first was of three stories, and represented by living figures: first, henry vii. and his royal spouse elizabeth of york, from whom her majesty derived her name; secondly, henry viii. and anne boleyn; and lastly, her majesty in person; all in royal robes. the verses described the felicity of that union of the houses to which she owed her existence, and of concord in general. the second pageant was styled "the seat of worthy governance," on the summit of which sat another representative of the queen; beneath were the cardinal virtues trampling under their feet the opposite vices, among whom ignorance and superstition were not forgotten. the third exhibited the eight beatitudes, all ascribed with some ingenuity of application to her majesty. the fourth ventured upon a more trying topic: its opposite sides represented in lively contrast the images of a decayed and of a flourishing commonwealth; and from a cave below issued time leading forth his daughter truth, who held in her hand an english bible, which she offered to the queen's acceptance. elizabeth received the volume, and reverently pressing it with both hands to her heart and to her lips, declared aloud, amid the tears and grateful benedictions of her people, that she thanked the city more for that gift than for all the cost they had bestowed upon her, and that she would often read over that book. the last pageant exhibited "a seemly and mete personage, richly apparelled in parliament robes, with a sceptre in her hand, over whose head was written 'deborah, the judge and restorer of the house of israel.'" to render more palatable these grave moralities, the recorder of london, approaching her majesty's chariot near the further end of cheapside, where ended the long array of the city companies, which had lined the streets all the way from fenchurch, presented her with a splendid and ample purse, containing one thousand marks in gold. the queen graciously received it with both hands, and answered his harangue "marvellous pithily." to crown the whole, those two griesly personages vulgarly called gog and magog, but described by the learned as gogmagog the albion and corineus the briton, deserted on this memorable day that accustomed station in guildhall where they appear as the tutelary genii of the city, and were seen rearing up their stately height on each side of temple-bar. with joined hands they supported above the gate a copy of latin verses, in which they obligingly expounded to her majesty the sense of all the pageants which had been offered to her view, concluding with compliments and felicitations suitable to the happy occasion. the queen, in few but cordial words, thanked the citizens for all their cost and pains, assured them that she would "stand their good queen," and passed the gate amid a thunder of applause. elizabeth possessed in a higher degree than any other english prince who ever reigned, the innocent and honest arts of popularity; and the following traits of her behaviour on this day are recorded by our chroniclers with affectionate delight. "'yonder is an ancient citizen,' said one of the knights attending on her person, 'which weepeth and turneth his face backward: how may it be interpreted? that he doth so for sorrow or for gladness?' with a just and pleasing confidence, the queen replied, 'i warrant you it is for gladness,'" "how many nosegays did her grace receive at poor women's hands! how many times staid she her chariot when she saw any simple body offer to speak to her grace! a branch of rosemary given her grace with a supplication by a poor woman about fleet-bridge was seen in her chariot till her grace came to westminster[ ]." [note : holinshed's chronicles.] the reader may here be reminded, that five-and-twenty years before, when the mother of this queen passed through london to her coronation, the pageants exhibited derived their personages and allusions chiefly from pagan mythology or classical fiction. but all was now changed; the earnestness of religious controversy in edward's time, and the fury of persecution since, had put to flight apollo, the muses, and the graces: learning indeed had kept her station and her honors, but she had lent her lamp to other studies, and whether in the tongue of ancient rome or modern england, elizabeth was hailed in christian strains, and as the sovereign of a christian country. a people filled with earnest zeal in the best of causes implored her to free them once again from popery; to overthrow the tyranny of error and of superstition; to establish gospel truth; and to accept at their hands, as the standard of her faith and the rule of her conduct, that holy book of which they regarded the free and undisturbed possession as their brightest privilege. how tame, how puerile, in the midst of sentiments serious and profound as these, would have appeared the intrusion of classical imagery, however graceful in itself or ingenious in its application! frigid must have been the spectator who could even have remarked its absence, while shouts of patriotic ardor and of religious joy were bursting from the lips of the whole assembled population. the august ceremonies of the coronation, which took place on the following day, merit no particular description; regulated in every thing by ancient custom, they afforded little scope for that display of popular sentiment which had given so intense an interest to the procession of the day before. great perplexity was occasioned by the refusal of the whole bench of bishops to perform the coronation service; but at length, to the displeasure of his brethren, ogelthorp bishop of carlisle suffered himself to be gained over, and the rite was duly celebrated. this refractoriness of the episcopal order was wisely overlooked for the present by the new government; but it proceeded no doubt from the principle, that, the marriage of henry viii. with catherine of arragon having been declared lawful and valid, the child of anne boleyn must be regarded as illegitimate and incapable of the succession. the compliance of ogelthorp could indeed be censured by the other bishops on no other ground than their disallowance of the title of the sovereign; in the office itself, as he performed it, there was nothing to which the most rigid catholic could object, for the ancient ritual is said to have been followed without the slightest modification. this circumstance has been adduced among others, to show that it was rather by the political necessities of her situation, than by her private judgement and conscience in religious matters, that elizabeth was impelled finally to abjure the roman catholic system, and to declare herself the general protectress of the protestant cause. probably, had she found herself free to follow entirely the dictates of her own inclinations, she would have established in the church of which she found herself the head, a kind of middle scheme like that devised by her father, for whose authority she was impressed with the highest veneration. to the end of her days she could never be reconciled to married bishops; indeed with respect to the clergy generally, a sagacious writer of her own time observes, that "_cæteris paribus_, and sometimes _imparibus_ too, she preferred the single man before the married[ ]." [note : harrington's "brief view."] she would allow no one "to speak irreverently of the sacrament of the altar;" that is, to enter into discussions respecting the real presence; she enjoined the like respectful silence concerning the intercession of saints; and we learn that one patch, who had been wolsey's fool, and had contrived, like some others, to keep in favor through all the changes of four successive reigns, was employed by sir francis knolles to break down a crucifix which she still retained in her private chapel to the scandal of all good protestants. a remarkable incident soon served to intimate the coolness and caution with which it was her intention to proceed in re-establishing the maxims of the reformers. lord bacon thus relates the anecdote: "queen elizabeth on the morrow of her coronation (it being the custom to release prisoners at the inauguration of a prince) went to the chapel; and in the great chamber one of her courtiers, who was well known to her, either out of his own motion, or by the instigation of a wiser man, presented her with a petition, and before a great number of courtiers besought her with a loud voice that now this good time there might be four or five more principal prisoners released: these were the four evangelists, and the apostle st. paul, who had been long shut up in an unknown tongue, as it were in prison; so as they could not converse with the common people. the queen answered very gravely, that it was best first to inquire of themselves whether they would be released or not[ ]." [note : bacon's "apophthegms."] it was not long, however, ere this happy deliverance was fully effected. before her coronation, elizabeth had taken the important step of authorizing the reading of the liturgy in english; but she forbade preaching on controverted topics generally, and all preaching at paul's cross in particular, till the completion of that revision of the service used in the time of edward vi. which she had intrusted to parker archbishop-elect of canterbury, with several of her wisest counsellors. it was the zeal of the ministers lately returned from exile, many of whom had imbibed at geneva or zurich ideas of a primitive simplicity in christian worship widely remote from the views and sentiments of the queen, which gave occasion to this prohibition. the learning, the piety, the past sufferings of the men gave them great power over the minds and opinions of the people, who ran in crowds to listen to their sermons; and elizabeth began already to apprehend that the hierarchy which she desired to establish would stand as much in need of protection from the disciples of calvin and zwingle on one hand, as from the adherents of popery on the other. there is good reason to believe, that a royal proclamation issued some time after, by which all manner of plays and interludes were forbidden to be represented till after the ensuing hallowmass, was dictated by similar reasons of state with the prohibition of popular and unlicensed preaching. from the earliest beginnings of the reformation under henry viii. the stage had come in aid of the pulpit; not, according to the practice of its purer ages, as the "teacher best of moral wisdom, with delight received," but as the vehicle of religious controversy, and not seldom of polemical scurrility. several times already had this dangerous novelty attracted the jealous eyes of authority, and measures had in vain been taken for its suppression. in henry added to an edict for the destruction of tyndale's english bible, with all the controversial works on both sides of which it had been the fertile parent, an injunction that "the kingdom should be purged and cleansed of all religious plays, interludes, rhymes, ballads, and songs, which are equally pestiferous and noisome to the peace of the church." during the reign of edward, when the papists had availed themselves of the license of the theatre to attack cranmer and the protector, a similar prohibition was issued against all dramatic performances, as tending to the growth of "disquiet, division, tumults and uproars." mary's privy-council, on the other hand, found it necessary to address a remonstrance to the president of the north, respecting certain players, servants to sir francis lake, who had gone about the country representing pieces in ridicule of the king and queen and the formalities of the mass; and the design of the proclamation of elizabeth was rendered evident by a solemn enactment of heavy penalties against such as should abuse the common-prayer in any interludes, songs, or rhymes[ ]. [note : warton's "history of english poetry," vol. iii. p. _et seq._] chapter x. . meeting of parliament.--prudent counsel of sir n. bacon.--act declaratory of the queen's title.--her answer to an address praying her to marry.--philip ii. offers her his hand.--motives of her refusal.--proposes to her the archduke charles.--the king of sweden renews his addresses by the duke of finland.--honorable reception of the duke.--addresses of the duke of holstein.--the duke of norfolk, lord r. dudley, the marquis of northampton, the earl of rutland, made knights of the garter.--notices of the two last.--queen visits the earl of pembroke.--his life and character.--arrival and entertainment of a french embassy.--review of the london trained-bands.--tilt in greenwich park.--band of gentlemen-pensioners.--royal progress to dartford, cobham hall, eltham, and nonsuch.--the earl of arundel entertains her at the latter place.--obsequies for the king of france.--death of frances duchess of suffolk.--sumptuary law respecting apparel.--fashions of dress.--law against witchcraft. in the parliament which met in january , two matters personally interesting to the queen were agitated; her title to the crown, and her marriage; and both were disposed of in a manner calculated to afford a just presage of the maxims by which the whole tenor of her future life and reign was to be guided. by the eminently prudent and judicious counsels of sir nicholas bacon keeper of the seals, she omitted to require of parliament the repeal of those acts of her father's reign which had declared his marriage with her mother null, and herself illegitimate; and reposing on the acknowledged maxim of law, that the crown once worn takes away all defects in blood, she contented herself with an act declaratory in general terms of her right of succession. thus the whole perplexing subject of her mother's character and conduct was consigned to an oblivion equally safe and decent; and the memory of her father, which, in spite of all his acts of violence and injustice, was popular in the nation and respected by herself, was saved from the stigma which the vindication of anne boleyn must have impressed indelibly upon it. on the other topic she explained herself with an earnest sincerity which might have freed her from all further importunity in any concern less interesting to the wishes of her people. to a deputation from the house of commons with an address, "the special matter whereof was to move her grace to marriage," after a gracious reception, she delivered an answer in which the following passages are remarkable. "...from my years of understanding, sith i first had consideration of my life, to be born a servitor of almighty god, i happily chose this kind of life, in the which i yet live; which i assure you for mine own part hath hitherto best contented myself, and i trust hath been most acceptable unto god. from the which, if either ambition of high estate, offered to me in marriage by the pleasure and appointment of my prince, whereof i have some records in this presence (as you our treasurer well know); or if eschewing the danger of mine enemies, or the avoiding of the peril of death, whose messenger, or rather a continual watchman, the prince's indignation, was no little time daily before mine eyes, (by whose means although i know, or justly may suspect, yet i will not now utter, or if the whole cause were in my sister herself, i will not now burden her therewith, because i will not charge the dead): if any of these, i say, could have drawn or dissuaded me from this kind of life, i had not now remained in this estate wherein you see me; but so constant have i always continued in this determination, although my youth and words may seem to some hardly to agree together; yet it is most true that at this day i stand free from any other meaning that either i have had in times past, or have at this present." after a somewhat haughty assurance that she takes the recommendation of the parliament in good part, because it contains no limitation of place or person, which she should have regarded as great presumption in them, "whose duties are to obey," and "not to require them that may command;" having declared that should she change her resolution, she will choose one for her husband who shall, if possible, be as careful for the realm as herself, she thus concludes: "and in the end, this shall be for me sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare, that a queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin." one matrimonial proposal her majesty had already received, and that at once the most splendid and the least suitable which europe could afford. philip of spain, loth to relinquish his hold upon england, but long since aware of the impracticability of establishing any claims of his own in opposition to the title of elizabeth, now sought to reign by her; and to the formal announcement which she conveyed to him of the death of his late wife, accompanied with expressions of her anxiety to preserve his friendship, he had replied by an offer of his hand. the objections to this union were so peculiarly forcible, and so obvious to every eye, that it appears at first view almost incredible that the proposal should have been made, as it yet undoubtedly was, seriously and with strong expectations of success. but philip, himself a politician, believed elizabeth to be one also; and he flattered himself that he should be able to point out such advantages in the connexion as might over-balance in her mind any scruples of patriotism, of feeling, or of conscience. she stood alone, the last of her father's house, unsupported at home by the authority of a powerful royal family, or abroad by great alliances. the queen of scots, whom few of the subjects of elizabeth denied to be next heir to the crown, and whose claim was by most of the catholics held preferable to her own, was married to the dauphin of france, consequently her title would be upheld by the whole force of that country, with which, as well as with scotland, elizabeth at her accession had found the nation involved in an unsuccessful war. the loss of calais, the decay of trade, the failure of the exchequer, and the recent visitations of famine and pestilence, had infected the minds of the english with despondency, and paralysed all their efforts. in religion they were confessedly a divided people; but it is probable that philip, misled by his own zeal and that of the catholic clergy, confidently anticipated the extirpation of heresy and the final triumph of the papal system, if the measures of _salutary rigor_ which had distinguished the reign of mary should be persisted in by her successor; and that he actually supposed the majority of the nation to be at this time sincerely and cordially catholic. in offering therefore his hand to elizabeth, he seemed to lend her that powerful aid against her foreign foe and rival without which her possession of the throne could not be secure, and that support against domestic faction without which it could not be tranquil. he readily undertook to procure from the pope the necessary dispensation for the marriage, which he was certain would be granted with alacrity; and before the answer of elizabeth could reach him, he had actually dispatched envoys to rome for this purpose. a princess, in fact, of a character less firm and less sagacious than elizabeth, might have found in these seeming benefits temptations not to be resisted; the splendor of philip's rank and power would have dazzled and overawed, the difficulties of her own situation would have affrighted her, and between ambition and alarm she would probably have thrown herself into the arms, and abandoned her country to the mercy, of a gloomy, calculating, relentless tyrant. but elizabeth was neither to be deceived nor intimidated. she well knew how odious this very marriage had rendered her unhappy sister; she understood and sympathized in the religious sentiments of the great mass of her subjects; she felt too all the pride, as well as the felicity, of independence; and looking around with a cheerful confidence on a people who adored her, she formed at once the patriotic resolution to wear her english diadem by the suffrage of the english nation alone, unindebted to the protection and free from the participation of any brother-monarch living, even of him who held the highest place among the potentates of europe. her best and wisest counsellors applauded her decision, but they unanimously advised that no means consistent with the rejection of his suit should be omitted, by which the friendship of the king of spain might be preserved and cultivated. expedients were accordingly found, without actually encouraging his hopes, for protracting the negotiation till a peace was concluded with france and with scotland, and finally of declining the marriage without a breach of amity. yet the duke de feria, the spanish ambassador, had not failed to represent to the queen, that as the addresses of his master were founded on personal acquaintance and high admiration of her charms and merit, a negative could not be returned without wounding equally his pride and his feelings. philip, however, soon consoled himself for this disappointment by taking to wife the daughter of the king of france; and before the end of the year we find him recommending to elizabeth as a husband his cousin the archduke charles, son of the emperor ferdinand. the overture was at this time declined by the queen without hesitation; but some time afterwards, circumstances arose which caused the negotiation to be resumed with prospect of success, and the pretensions and qualifications of the austrian prince became, as we shall see, an object of serious discussion. eric, who had now ascended the throne of sweden, sent his brother the duke of finland to plead once more with the english princess in his behalf; and the king of denmark, unwilling that his neighbour should bear off without a contest so glorious a prize, lost no time in sending forth on the same high adventure his nephew the duke of holstein. it is more than probable that shakespear, in his description of the wooers of all countries who contend for the possession of the fair and wealthy portia[ ], satirically alludes to several of these royal suitors, whose departure would often be accounted by his sovereign "a gentle ridance," since she might well exclaim with the italian heiress, "while we shut the gate on one wooer, another knocks at the door." [note : see "the merchant of venice."] the duke of finland was received with high honors. the earl of oxford and lord robert dudley repaired to him at colchester and conducted him into london. at the corner of gracechurch-street he was received by the marquis of northampton and lord ambrose dudley, attended by many gentlemen, and, what seems remarkable, by ladies also; and thence, followed by a great troop of gentlemen in gold chains and yeomen of the guard, he proceeded to the bishop of winchester's palace in southwark, "which was hung with rich cloth of arras, and wrought with gold and silver and silks. and there he remained." on the last circumstance it may be remarked, that it appears at this time to have been the invariable custom for ambassadors and other royal visitants to be lodged at some private house, where they were entertained, nominally perhaps at the expense of the sovereign, but really to the great cost as well as inconvenience of the selected host. the practice discovers a kind of feudal right of ownership still claimed by the prince in the mansions of his barons, some of which indeed were royal castles or manor-houses and held perhaps under peculiar obligations: at the same time it gives us a magnificent idea of the size and accommodation of these mansions and of the style of house-keeping used in them. it further intimates that an habitual distrust of these foreign guests caused it to be regarded as a point of prudence to place them under the secret inspection of some native of approved loyalty and discretion. prisoners of state, as well as ambassadors and royal strangers, were thus committed to the private custody of peers or bishops. the duke of holstein on his arrival was lodged at somerset place, of which the queen had granted the use to lord hunsdon. he came, it seems, with sanguine expectations of success in his suit; but the royal fair one deemed it sufficient to acknowledge his pains by an honorable reception, the order of the garter, and the grant of a yearly pension. meantime the queen herself, with equal assiduity and better success than awaited these princely wooers, was applying her cares to gain the affections of her subjects of every class, and if possible of both religious denominations. on her young kinsman the duke of norfolk, the first peer of the realm by rank, property, and great alliances, and the most popular by his known attachment to the protestant faith, she now conferred the distinction of the garter, decorating with it at the same time the marquis of northampton, the earl of rutland, and lord robert dudley. the marquis, a brother of queen catherine parr, whom he resembled in the turn of his religious opinions, had been for these opinions a great sufferer under the last reign. on pretext of his adherence to the cause of jane grey, in which he had certainly not partaken more deeply than many others who found nothing but favor in the sight of mary, he was attainted of high treason, and though his life was spared, his estates were forfeited and he had remained ever since in disgrace and suspicion. a divorce which he had obtained from an unfaithful wife under the ecclesiastical law of henry viii. was also called in question, and an after marriage which he had contracted declared null, but it appears to have been confirmed under elizabeth. he was accounted a modest and upright character, endowed with no great talents for military command, in which he had been unsuccessful, nor yet for civil business; but distinguished by a fine taste in music and poetry, which formed his chief delight. from the new sovereign substantial benefits as well as flattering distinctions awaited him, being reinstated by her in the possession of his confiscated estates and appointed a privy-councillor. henry second earl of rutland of the surname of manners, was the representative of a knightly family seated during many generations at ettal in northumberland, and known in border history amongst the stoutest champions on the english side. but ettal, a place of strength, was more than once laid in ruins, and the lands devastated and rendered "nothing worth," by incursions of the scots; and though successive kings rewarded the services and compensated the losses of these valiant knights, by grants of land and appointments to honorable offices in the north, it was many an age before they attained to such a degree of wealth as would enable them to appear with distinction amongst the great families of the kingdom. at length sir robert manners, high sheriff of northumberland, having recommended himself to the favor of the king-making warwick and of richard duke of gloucester, was fortunate enough by a judicious marriage with the daughter of lord roos, heiress of the tiptofts earls of worcester, to add the noble castle and fertile vale of belvoir to the battered towers and wasted fields of his paternal inheritance. a second splendid alliance completed the aggrandizement of the house of manners. the son of sir robert, bearing in right of his mother the title of lord roos, and knighted by the earl of surry for his distinguished bravery in the scottish wars, was honored with the hand of anne sole heiress of sir thomas st. leger by the duchess-dowager of exeter, a sister of king edward iv. the heir of this marriage, in consideration of his maternal ancestry, was advanced by henry viii. to the title of earl of rutland, never borne but by princes of the blood. his successor, whom the queen was pleased to honor on this occasion, had suffered a short imprisonment in the cause of jane grey, but was afterwards intrusted by mary with a military command. under elizabeth he was lord lieutenant of the counties of nottingham and rutland, and one of the commissioners for enforcing the oath of supremacy on all persons in offices of trust or profit suspected of adherence to the old religion. he died in . of lord robert dudley it is only necessary here to observe, that his favor with the queen became daily more apparent, and began to give fears and jealousies to her best friends and wisest counsellors. the hearts of the common people, as this wise princess well knew, were easily and cheaply to be won by gratifying their eyes with the frequent view of her royal person, and she neglected no opportunity of offering herself, all smiles and affability, to their ready acclamations. on one occasion she passed publicly through the city to visit the mint and inspect the new coinage, which she had the great merit of restoring to its just standard from the extremely depreciated state to which it had been brought by the successive encroachments of her immediate predecessors. another time she visited the dissolved priory of st. mary spittle in bishopsgate-street, which was noted for its pulpit-cross, where, on set days, the lord-mayor and aldermen attended to hear sermons. it is conjectured that the queen went thither for the same purpose; but if this were the case, her equipage was somewhat whimsical. she was attended, as stow informs us, by a thousand men in harness with shirts of mail and corselets and morice-pikes, and ten great pieces carried through the city unto the court, with drums and trumpets sounding, and two morice dancings, and in a cart two white bears. having supped one afternoon with the earl of pembroke at baynard's castle in thames-street, she afterwards took boat and was rowed up and down the river, "hundreds of boats and barges rowing about her, and thousands of people thronging at the water side to look upon her majesty; rejoicing to see her, and partaking of the music and sights upon the thames." this peer was the offspring of a base-born son of william herbert earl of pembroke, and coming early to court to push his fortune, became an esquire of the body to henry viii. soon ingratiating himself with this monarch, he obtained from his customary profusion towards his favorites, several offices in wales and enormous grants of abbey-lands in some of the southern counties. in the year , the th of his age, we find him considerable enough to procure the king's license "to retain thirty persons at his will and pleasure, over and above such persons as attended on him, and to give them his livery, badges, and cognizance." the king's marriage with catherine parr, his wife's sister, increased his consequence, and henry on his death-bed appointed him one of his executors and a member of the young king's council. he was actively useful in the beginning of edward's reign in keeping down commotions in wales and suppressing some which had arisen in wiltshire and somersetshire. this service obtained for him the office of master of the horse; and that more important service which he afterwards performed at the head of one thousand welshmen, with whom he took the field against the cornish rebels, was rewarded by the garter, the presidency of the council for wales, and a valuable wardship. he figured next as commander of part of the forces in picardy and governor of calais, and found himself strong enough to claim of the feeble protector as his reward the titles of baron herbert and earl of pembroke, become extinct by the failure of legitimate heirs. as soon as his sagacity prognosticated the fall of somerset, he judiciously attached himself to the rising fortunes of northumberland. with this aspiring leader it was an object of prime importance to purchase the support of a nobleman who now appeared at the head of three hundred retainers, and whose authority in wales and the southern counties was equal, or superior, to the hereditary influence of the most powerful and ancient houses. to engage him therefore the more firmly in his interest, northumberland proposed a marriage between pembroke's son lord herbert and lady catherine grey, which was solemnized at the same time with that between lord guildford dudley and the lady jane her eldest sister. but no ties of friendship or alliance could permanently engage pembroke on the losing side; and though he concurred in the first measures of the privy-council in behalf of lady jane's title, it was he who devised a pretext for extricating its members from the tower, where northumberland had detained them in order to secure their fidelity, and, assembling them in baynard's castle, procured their concurrence in the proclamation of mary. by this act he secured the favor of the new queen, whom he further propitiated by compelling his son to repudiate the innocent and ill-fated lady catherine, whose birth caused her to be regarded at court with jealous eyes. mary soon confided to him the charge of effectually suppressing wyat's rebellion, and afterwards constituted him her captain-general beyond the seas, in which capacity he commanded the english forces at the battle of st. quintin's. such was the respect entertained for his experience and capacity, that elizabeth admitted him to her privy-council immediately after her accession, and as a still higher mark of her confidence named him,--with the marquis of northampton, the earl of bedford, and lord john grey, leading men of the protestant party,--to assist at the meetings of divines and men of learning by whom the religious establishment of the country was to be settled. he was likewise appointed a commissioner for administering the oath of supremacy. in short, he retained to his death, which occurred in , in the d year of his age, the same high station among the confidential servants of the crown which he had held unmoved through all the mutations of the eventful period of his public life. naunton, in his "fragmenta regalia," speaking of paulet marquis of winchester and lord-treasurer, who, he says, had then served four princes "in as various and changeable season that well i may say, neither time nor age hath yielded the like precedent," thus proceeds: "this man being noted to grow high in her" (queen elizabeth's) "favor, as his place and experience required, was questioned by an intimate friend of his, how he stood up for thirty years together amidst the changes and reigns of so many chancellors and great personages. 'why,' quoth the marquis, 'ortus sum ex salice, non ex quercu.' (by being a willow and not an oak). and truly the old man hath taught them all, especially william earl of pembroke, for they two were ever of the king's religion, and over-zealous professors. of these it is said, that both younger brothers, yet of noble houses, they spent what was left them and came on trust to the court; where, upon the bare stock of their wits, they began to traffic for themselves, and prospered so well, that they got, spent, and left, more than any subjects from the norman conquest to their own times: whereunto it hath been prettily replied, that they lived in a time of dissolution.--of any of the former reign, it is said that these two lived and died chiefly in the queen's favor." among the means employed by pembroke for preserving the good graces of the new queen, the obvious one of paying court to her prime favorite robert dudley was not neglected; and lord herbert, whose first marriage had been contracted in compliance with the views of the father, now formed a third in obedience to the wishes of the son. the lady to whom he was thus united by motives in which inclination had probably no share on either side, was the niece of dudley and sister of sir philip sidney, one of the most accomplished women of her age, celebrated during her life by the wits and poets whom she patronized, and preserved in the memory of posterity by an epitaph from the pen of ben jonson which will not be forgotten whilst english poetry remains. the arrival of ambassadors of high rank from france, on occasion of the peace recently concluded with that country, afforded the queen an opportunity of displaying all the magnificence of her court; and their entertainment has furnished for the curious inquirer in later times some amusing traits of the half-barbarous manners of the age. the duke de montmorenci, the head of the embassy, was lodged at the bishop of london's, and the houses of the dean and canons of st. paul's were entirely filled with his numerous retinue. the gorgeousness of the ambassador's dress was thought remarkable even in those gorgeous times. the day after their arrival they were conducted in state to court, where they supped with the queen, and afterwards partook of a "goodly banquet," with all manner of entertainment till midnight. the next day her majesty gave them a sumptuous dinner, followed by a baiting of bulls and bears. "the queen's grace herself" stood with them in a gallery, looking on the pastime, till six o'clock, when they returned by water to sup with the bishop their host. on the following day they were conducted to the paris garden, then a favorite place of amusement on the surry side of the thames, and there regaled with another exhibition of bull and bear baiting. two days afterwards they departed, "taking their barge towards gravesend," highly delighted, it is to be hoped, with the elegant taste of the english in public diversions, and carrying with them a number of mastiffs, given them to hunt wolves in their own country. but notwithstanding all outward shows of amity with france, elizabeth had great cause to apprehend that the pretensions of the queen of scots and her husband the dauphin, who had openly assumed the royal arms of england, might soon reinvolve her in hostilities with that country and with scotland; and it consequently became a point of policy with her to animate by means of military spectacles, graced with her royal presence and encouragement, the warlike preparations of her subjects. she was now established for a time in her favorite summer-palace of greenwich, and the london companies were ordered to make a muster of their men at arms in the adjoining park. the employment of fire-arms had not as yet consigned to disuse either the defensive armour or the weapons of offence of the middle ages; and the military arrays of that time amused the eye of the spectator with a rich variety of accoutrement far more picturesque in its details, and probably more striking even in its general effect, than that magnificent uniformity which, at a modern review, dazzles but soon satiates the sight. of the fourteen hundred men whom the metropolis sent forth on this occasion, eight hundred, armed in fine corselets, bore the long moorish pike; two hundred were halberdiers wearing a different kind of armour, called almain rivets; and the gunners, or musketeers, were equipped in shirts of mail, with morions or steel caps. her majesty, surrounded by a splendid court, beheld all their evolutions from a gallery over the park gate, and finally dismissed them, confirmed in loyalty and valor by praises, thanks, and smiles of graciousness. a few days afterwards the queen's pensioners were appointed "to run with the spear," and this chivalrous exhibition was accompanied with such circumstances of romantic decoration as peculiarly delighted the fancy of elizabeth. she caused to be erected for her in greenwich park a banqueting-house "made with fir poles and decked with birch branches and all manner of flowers both of the field and the garden, as roses, julyflowers, lavender, marygolds, and all manner of strewing-herbs and rushes." tents were also set up for her household, and a place was prepared for the tilters. after the exercises were over, the queen gave a supper in the banqueting-house, succeeded by a masque, and that by a splendid banquet. "and then followed great casting of fire and shooting of guns till midnight." this band of gentlemen pensioners, the boast and ornament of the court of elizabeth, was probably the most splendid establishment of the kind in europe. it was entirely composed of the flower of the nobility and gentry, and to be admitted to serve in its ranks was during the whole of the reign regarded as a distinction worthy the ambition of young men of the highest families and most brilliant prospects. sir john holles, afterwards earl of clare, was accustomed to say, that while he was a pensioner to queen elizabeth, he did not know _a worse man_ in the whole band than himself; yet he was then in possession of an inheritance of four thousand a year. "it was the constant custom of that queen," pursues the earl's biographer, "to call out of all counties of the kingdom, the gentlemen of the greatest hopes and the best fortunes and families, and with them to fill the more honorable rooms of her household servants, by which she honored them, obliged their kindred and alliance, and fortified herself[ ]." [note : collins's "historical collections."] on this point of policy it deserves to be remarked, that however it might strengthen the personal influence of the sovereign to enroll amongst the menial servants of the crown gentlemen of influence and property, it is chiefly perhaps to this practice that we ought to impute that baseness of servility which infected, with scarcely one honorable exception, the public characters of the reign of elizabeth. on july th the queen set out on the first of those royal _progresses_ which form so striking a feature in the domestic history of her reign. in them, as in most of the recreations in which she at any time indulged herself, elizabeth sought to unite political utilities with the gratification of her taste for magnificence, and especially for admiration. it has also been surmised, that she was not inattentive to the savings occasioned to her privy purse by maintaining her household for several weeks in every year at the expense of her nobles, or of the towns through which she passed; and it must be admitted that more than one disgraceful instance might be pointed out, of a great man obliged to purchase the continuance or restoration of her favor by soliciting the almost ruinous honor of a royal visit. on the whole, however, her deportment on these occasions warrants the conclusion, that an earnest and constant desire of popularity was her principal motive for persevering to the latest period of her life to encounter the fatigue of these frequent journeys, and of the acts of public representation which they imposed upon her. "in her progress," says an acute and lively delineator of her character, "she was most easy to be approached; private persons and magistrates, men and women, country-people and children, came joyfully and without any fear to wait upon her and see her. her ears were then open to the complaints of the afflicted and of those that had been any way injured. she would not suffer the meanest of her people to be shut out from the places where she resided, but the greatest and the least were then in a manner levelled. she took with her own hand, and read with the greatest goodness, the petitions of the meanest rustics. and she would frequently assure them that she would take a particular care of their affairs, and she would ever be as good as her word. she was never seen angry with the most unseasonable or uncourtly approach; she was never offended with the most impudent or importunate petitioner. nor was there any thing in the whole course of her reign that more won the hearts of the people than this her wonderful facility, condescension, and the sweetness and pleasantness with which she entertained all that came to her[ ]." [note : bohun's "character of queen elizabeth."] the first stage of the queen's progress was to dartford in kent, where henry viii., whose profusion in the article of royal residences was extreme, had fitted up a dissolved priory as a palace for himself and his successors. elizabeth kept this mansion in her own hands during the whole of her reign, and once more, after an interval of several years, is recorded to have passed two days under its roof. james i. granted it to the earl of salisbury: the lords darcy were afterwards its owners. the embattled gatehouse with an adjoining wing, all that remains in habitable condition, are at the present time occupied as a farm house; while foundations of walls running along the neighbouring fields to a considerable distance, alone attest the magnitude, and leave to be imagined the splendor, of the ancient edifice. such is at this day the common fate of the castles of our ancient barons, the mansions of our nobles of a following age, and the palaces of the plantagenets, the tudors, and the stuarts! from dartford she proceeded to cobham hall,--an exception to the general rule,--for this venerable mansion is at present the noble seat of the earl of darnley; and though the centre has been rebuilt in a more modern style, the wings remain untouched, and in one of them the apartment occupied by the queen on this visit is still pointed out to the stranger. she was here sumptuously entertained by william lord cobham, a nobleman who enjoyed a considerable share of her favor, and who, after acquitting himself to her satisfaction in an embassy to the low-countries, was rewarded with the garter and the place of a privy-councillor. he was however a person of no conspicuous ability, and his wealth and his loyalty appear to have been his principal titles of merit. eltham was her next stage; an ancient palace frequently commemorated in the history of our early kings as the scene of rude magnificence and boundless hospitality. in henry iii. kept a grand christmas at ealdham palace,--so it was then called. a son of edward ii. was named john of eltham, from its being the place of his birth. edward iii. twice held his parliament in its capacious hall. it was repaired at great cost by edward iv., who made it a frequent place of residence; but henry viii. began to neglect it for greenwich, and elizabeth was the last sovereign by whom it was visited. its hall, feet in length, with a beautifully carved roof resembling that of westminster-hall and windows adorned with all the elegance of gothic tracery, is still in being, and admirably serves the purposes of a barn and granary. elizabeth soon quitted this seat of antique grandeur to contemplate the gay magnificence of nonsuch, regarded as the triumph of her father's taste and the masterpiece of all the decorative arts. this stately edifice, of which not a vestige now remains, was situated near ewel in surry, and commanded from its lofty turrets extensive views of the surrounding country. it was built round two courts, an outer and an inner one, both very spacious; and the entrance to each was by a square gatehouse highly ornamented, embattled, and having turrets at the four corners. these gatehouses were of stone, as was the lower story of the palace itself; but the upper one was of wood, "richly adorned and set forth and garnished with variety of statues, pictures, and other antic forms of excellent art and workmanship, and of no small cost:" all which ornaments, it seems, were made of _rye dough_. in modern language the "pictures" would probably be called basso-relievos. from the eastern and western angles of the inner court rose two slender turrets five stories high, with lanthorns on the top, which were leaded and surrounded with wooden balustrades. these towers of observation, from which the two parks attached to the palace and a wide expanse of champaign country beyond might be surveyed as in a map, were celebrated as the peculiar boast of nonsuch. henry was prevented by death from beholding the completion of this gaudy structure, and queen mary had it in contemplation to pull it down to save further charges; but the earl of arundel, "for the love and honor he bare to his old master," purchased the place, and finished it according to the original design. it was to this splendid nobleman that the visit of the queen was paid. he received her with the utmost magnificence. on sunday night a banquet, a mask, and a concert were the entertainments: the next day she witnessed a course from a standing made for her in the park, and "the children of paul's" performed a play; after which a costly banquet was served up in gilt dishes. on her majesty's departure her noble host further presented her with a cupboard of plate. the earl of arundel was wealthy, munificent, and one of the finest courtiers of his day: but it must not be imagined that even by him such extraordinary cost and pains would have been lavished upon his illustrious guest as a pure and simple homage of that sentimental loyalty which feels its utmost efforts overpaid by their acceptance. he looked in fact to a high and splendid recompense,--one which as yet perhaps he dared not name, but which the sagacity of his royal mistress would, as he flattered himself, be neither tardy nor reluctant to divine. the death of henry ii. of france, which occurred during the summer of this year, gave occasion to a splendid ceremony in st. paul's cathedral, which was rendered remarkable by some circumstances connected with the late change of religion. this was the performance of his obsequies, then a customary tribute among the princes of europe to the memory of each other; which elizabeth therefore would by no means omit, though the custom was so intimately connected with doctrines and practices characteristic of the romish church, that it was difficult to divest it, in the judgement of a protestant people, of the character of a superstitious observance. a hearse magnificently adorned with the banners and scutcheons of the deceased was placed in the church; a great train of lords and gentlemen attended as mourners; and all the ceremonies of a real funeral were duly performed, not excepting the offering at the altar of money, originally designed, without doubt, for the purchase of masses for the dead. the herald, however, was ordered to substitute other words in place of the ancient request to all present to pray for the soul of the departed; and several reformations were made in the service, and in the communion with which this stately piece of pageantry concluded. in the month of december was interred with much ceremony in westminster abbey frances duchess-dowager of suffolk, grandaughter to henry vii. after the tragical catastrophe of her misguided husband and of lady jane grey her eldest daughter, the duchess was suffered to remain in unmolested privacy, and she had since rendered herself utterly insignificant, not to say contemptible, by an obscure marriage with one stoke, a young man who was her master of the horse. there is a tradition, that on elizabeth's exclaiming with surprise and indignation when the news of this connexion reached her ears, "what, hath she married her horse keeper?" cecil replied, "yes, madam, and she says your majesty would like to do so too;" lord robert dudley then filling the office of master of the horse to the queen. the impolicy or inutility of sumptuary laws was not in this age acknowledged. a proclamation therefore was issued in october to check that prevalent excess in apparel which was felt as a serious evil at this period, when the manufactures of england were in so rude a state that almost every article for the use of the higher classes was imported from flanders, france, or italy, in exchange for the raw commodities of the country, or perhaps for money. the invectives of divines, in various ages of the christian church, have placed upon lasting record some transient follies which would otherwise have sunk into oblivion, and the sermons of bishop pilkington, a warm polemic of this time, may be quoted as a kind of commentary on the proclamation. he reproves "fine-fingered rufflers, with their sables about their necks, corked slippers, trimmed buskins, and warm mittons."--"these tender parnels," he says, "must have one gown for the day, another for the night; one long, another short; one for winter, another for summer. one furred through, another but faced: one for the work-day, another for the holiday. one of this color, another of that. one of cloth, another of silk, or damask. change of apparel; one afore dinner, another at after: one of spanish fashion, another of turkey. and to be brief, never content with enough, but always devising new fashions and strange. yea a ruffian will have more in his ruff and his hose than he should spend in a year. he which ought to go in a russet coat, spends as much on apparel for him and his wife, as his father would have kept a good house with." the costly furs here mentioned had probably become fashionable since a direct intercourse had been opened in the last reign with russia, from which country ambassadors had arrived, whose barbaric splendor astonished the eyes of the good people of london. the affectation of wearing by turns the costume of all the nations of europe, with which the queen herself was not a little infected, may be traced partly to the practice of importing articles of dress from those nations, and that of employing foreign tailors in preference to native ones, and partly to the taste for travelling, which since the revival of letters had become laudably prevalent among the young nobility and gentry of england. that more in proportion was expended on the elegant luxuries of dress, and less on the coarser indulgences of the table, ought rather to have been considered as a desirable approach to refinement of manners than a legitimate subject of censure. an act of parliament was passed in this year subjecting the use of enchantment and witchcraft to the pains of felony. the malcontent catholics, it seems, were accused of employing practices of this nature; their predictions of her majesty's death had given uneasiness to government by encouraging plots against her government; and it was feared, "by many good and sober men," that these dealers in the black art might even bewitch the queen herself. that it was the learned bishop jewel who had led the way in inspiring these superstitious terrors, to which religious animosities lent additional violence, may fairly be inferred from the following passage of a discourse which was delivered by him in the queen's presence the year before.... "witches and sorcerers within these last few years are marvellously increased within your grace's realm. these eyes have seen most evident and manifest marks of their wickedness. your grace's subjects pine away even unto the death; their color fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their speech is benumbed, their senses are bereft. wherefore your poor subjects' most humble petition to your highness is, that the laws touching such malefactors may be put in due execution. for the shoal of them is great, their doing horrible, their malice intolerable, the examples most miserable. and i pray god they never practise further than upon the subject." chapter xi. . successful campaign in scotland.--embassy of viscount montacute to spain--of sir t. chaloner to the emperor.--account of chaloner.--letter of his respecting dudley and the queen.--dudley loses his wife.--mysterious manner of her death.--suspicion cast upon her husband.--dudley and several other courtiers aspire to the hand of their sovereign.--tournaments in her honor.--impresses.--sir w. pickering.--rivalry of arundel and dudley. the accession of francis ii., husband to the queen of scots, to the french throne had renewed the dangers of elizabeth from the hostility of france and of scotland; and in the politic resolution of removing from her own territory to that of her enemies the seat of a war which she saw to be inevitable, she levied a strong army and sent it under the command of the duke of norfolk and lord grey de wilton to the frontiers of scotland. she also entered into a close connexion with the protestant party in that country, who were already in arms against the queen-regent and her french auxiliaries. success attended this well-planned expedition, and at the end of a single campaign elizabeth was able to terminate the war by the treaty of edinburgh; a convention the terms of which were such as effectually to secure her from all fear of future molestation in this quarter. during the period of these hostilities, however, her situation was an anxious one. it was greatly to be feared that the emperor and the king of spain, forgetting in their zeal for the catholic church the habitual enmity of the house of austria against that of bourbon, would make common cause with france against a sovereign who now stood forth the avowed protectress of protestantism; and such a combination of the great powers of europe, seconded by a large catholic party at home, england was by no means in a condition to withstand. by skilful negotiation it seemed possible to avert these evils; and elizabeth, by her selection of diplomatic agents on this important occasion, gave striking evidence of her superior judgement. to plead her cause with the king of spain, she dispatched anthony browne viscount montacute; a nobleman who, to the general recommendation of wisdom and experience in public affairs, added the peculiar one, for this service, of a zealous attachment to the romish faith, proved by his determined opposition in the house of lords to the bill of uniformity lately carried by a great majority. the explanations and arguments of the viscount prevailed so far with philip, that he ordered his ambassador at rome to oppose the endeavours of the french court to prevail on the pope to fulminate his ecclesiastical censures against elizabeth. it was found impracticable, however, to bring him to terms of cordial amity with a heretic sovereign whose principles he both detested and dreaded; and by returning, some time after, the decorations of the order of the garter, he distinctly intimated to the queen, that motives of policy alone restrained him from becoming her open enemy. for ambassador to the emperor she made choice, at the recommendation probably of cecil, of his relation and beloved friend sir thomas chaloner the elder, a statesman, a soldier, and a man of letters; and in these three characters, so rarely united, one of the distinguished ornaments of his age. he was born in of a good family in wales, and, being early sent to cambridge, became known as a very elegant latin poet, and generally as a young man of the most promising talents. after a short residence at court, his merit caused him to be selected to attend into germany sir henry knevet the english ambassador, with a view to his qualifying himself for future diplomatic employment. at the court of charles v. he was received with extraordinary favor; and after waiting upon that monarch, in several of his journeys, he was at length induced, by admiration of his character, to accompany him as a volunteer in his rash expedition against algiers. he was shipwrecked in the storm which almost destroyed the fleet, and only escaped drowning by catching in his mouth, as he was struggling with the waves, a cable, by which he was drawn up into a ship with the loss of several of his teeth. returning home, he was made clerk of the council, which office he held during the remainder of henry's reign. early in the next he was distinguished by the protector, and, having signalized his valor in the battle of pinkey, was knighted by him on the field. the fall of his patron put a stop to his advancement; but he solaced himself under this reverse by the cultivation of literature, and of friendship with such men as cook, smith, cheke, and cecil. the strictness of his protestant principles rendered his situation under the reign of mary both disagreeable and hazardous, and he generously added to its perils by his strenuous exertions in behalf of the unfortunate cheke; but the services which he had rendered in edward's time to many of the oppressed catholics now interested their gratitude in his protection, and were thus the means of preserving him unhurt for better times. soon after his return from his embassy to the emperor ferdinand, we find him engaged in a very perplexing and disagreeable mission to the unfriendly court of philip ii., where the mortifications which he encountered, joined to the insalubrity of the climate, so impaired his health that he found himself obliged to solicit his recall, which he did in an ovidian elegy addressed to the queen. the petition of the poet was granted, but too late; he sunk under a lingering malady in october , a few months after his return. the poignant grief of cecil for his loss found its best alleviation in the exemplary performance of all the duties of surviving friendship. he officiated as chief mourner at his funeral, and superintended with solicitude truly paternal the education of his son, thomas chaloner the younger, afterwards a distinguished character. by his encouragement, the latin poems of his friend, chiefly consisting of epitaphs and panegyrics on his most celebrated contemporaries, were collected and published; and it was under his patronage, and prefaced by a latin poem from his pen in praise of the author, that a new and complete edition appeared of the principal work of this accomplished person;--a tractate "on the right ordering of the english republic," also in latin. sir thomas chaloner was the first ambassador named by elizabeth; a distinction of which he proved himself highly deserving. wisdom and integrity he was already known to possess; and in his negotiations with the imperial court, where it was his business to draw the bonds of amity as close as should be found practicable without pledging his mistress to the acceptance of the hand of the archduke charles, he also manifested a degree of skill and dexterity which drew forth the warmest commendations from elizabeth herself. his conduct, she said, had far exceeded all her expectations of his prudence and abilities. this testimony may be allowed to give additional weight to his opinion on a point of great delicacy in the personal conduct of her majesty, as well as on some more general questions of policy, expressed in a postscript to one of his official letters to secretary cecil. the letter, it should be observed, was written near the close of the year , when the favor of the queen to dudley had first become a subject of general remark, and before all hopes were lost of her finally closing with the proposals of the archduke. "i assure you, sir, these folks are broad-mouthed where i spake of one too much in favor, as they esteem. i think ye guess whom they named; if ye do not, i will upon my next letters write further. to tell you what i conceive; as i count the slander most false, so a young princess cannot be too wary what countenance or familiar demonstration she maketh, more to one than another. i judge no man's service in the realm worth the entertainment with such a tale of obloquy, or occasion of speech to such men as of evil will are ready to find faults. this delay of ripe time for marriage, besides the loss of the realm (for without posterity of her highness what hope is left unto us?) ministereth matter to these leud tongues to descant upon, and breedeth contempt. i would i had but one hour's talk with you. think if i trusted not your good nature, i would not write thus much; which nevertheless i humbly pray you to reserve as written to yourself. "consider how ye deal now in the emperor's matter: much dependeth on it. here they hang in expectation as men desirous it should go forward, but yet they have small hope: in mine opinion (be it said to you only) the affinity is great and honorable: the amity necessary to stop and cool many enterprises. ye need not fear his greatness should overrule you; he is not a philip, but better for us than a philip. let the time work for scotland as god will, for sure the french, i believe, shall never long enjoy them: and when we be stronger and more ready, we may proceed with that, that is yet unripe. the time itself will work, when our great neighbours fall out next. in the mean time settle we things begun; and let us arm and fortify our frontiers." &c.[ ] [note : "burleigh papers," by haynes, p. .] sufficient evidence remains that the sentiments of cecil respecting the queen's behaviour to dudley coincided with those of his friend, and that fears for her reputation gave additional urgency about this period to those pleadings in favor of matrimony which her council were doomed to press upon her attention so often and so much in vain. but a circumstance occurred soon after which totally changed the nature of their apprehensions respecting her future conduct, and rendered her anticipated choice of a husband no longer an object of hope and joy, but of general dissatisfaction and alarm. just when the whispered scandal of the court had apprized him how obvious to all beholders the partiality of his sovereign had become,--just when her rejection of the proposals of so many foreign princes had confirmed the suspicion that her heart had given itself at home,--just, in short, when every thing conspired to sanction hopes which under any other circumstances would have appeared no less visionary than presumptuous,--at the very juncture most favorable to his ambition, but most perilous to his reputation, lord robert dudley lost his wife, and by a fate equally sudden and mysterious. this unfortunate lady had been sent by her husband, under the conduct of sir richard verney, one of his retainers,--but for what reason or under what pretext does not appear,--to cumnor house in berkshire, a solitary mansion inhabited by anthony foster, also a dependent of dudley's and bound to him by particular obligations. here she soon after met with her death; and verney and foster, who appear to have been alone in the house with her, gave out that it happened by an accidental fall down stairs. but this account, from various causes, gained so little credit in the neighbourhood, that reports of the most sinister import were quickly propagated. these discourses soon reached the ears of thomas lever, a prebendary of coventry and a very conscientious person, who immediately addressed to the secretaries of state an earnest letter, still extant, beseeching them to cause strict inquiry to be made into the case, as it was commonly believed that the lady had been murdered: but he mentioned no particular grounds of this belief, and it cannot now be ascertained whether any steps were taken in consequence of his application. if there were, they certainly produced no satisfactory explanation of the circumstance; for not only the popular voice, which was ever hostile to dudley, continued to accuse him as the contriver of her fate, but cecil himself, in a memorandum drawn up some years after of reasons against the queen's making him her husband, mentions among other objections, "that he is infamed by the death of his wife." whether the thorough investigation of this matter was evaded by the artifices of dudley, or whether his enemies, finding it impracticable to bring the crime home to him, found it more advisable voluntarily to drop the inquiry, certain it is, that the queen was never brought in any manner to take cognisance of the affair, and that the credit of dudley continued as high with her as ever. but in the opinion of the country the favorite passed ever after for a dark designer, capable of perpetrating any secret villainy in furtherance of his designs, and skilful enough to conceal his atrocity under a cloak of artifice and hypocrisy impervious to the partial eyes of his royal mistress, though penetrated by all the world besides. this idea of his character caused him afterwards to be accused of practising against the lives of several other persons who were observed to perish opportunely for his purposes. each of these charges will be particularly examined in its proper place; but it ought here to be observed, that not one of them appears to be supported by so many circumstances of probability as the first; and even in support of this, no direct evidence has ever been adduced. under all the circumstances of his situation, dudley could not venture as yet openly to declare himself the suitor of his sovereign; but she doubtless knew how to interpret both the vehemence of his opposition to the pretensions of the archduke, and the equal vehemence with which those pretensions were supported by an opposite party in her council, of which the earl of sussex was the head. few could yet be persuaded that the avowed determination of the queen in favor of the single state would prove unalterable: most therefore who observed her averseness to a foreign connexion believed that she was secretly meditating to honor with her hand some subject of her own, who could never have a separate interest from that of his country, and whose gratitude for the splendid distinction would secure to her the possession of his lasting attachment. this idea long served to animate the assiduities of her nobles and courtiers, and two or three besides dudley were bold enough to publish their pretensions. secret hopes or wishes were cherished in the bosoms of others; and it thus became a fashion to accost her in language where the passionate homage of the lover mingled with the base adulation of the menial. her personal vanity, triumphant over her good sense and her perceptions of regal dignity, forbade her to discourage a style of address equally disgraceful to those who employed and to her who permitted it; and it was this unfortunate habit of receiving, and at length requiring, a species of flattery which became every year more grossly preposterous, which depraved by degrees her taste, infected her whole disposition, and frequently lent to the wisest sovereign of europe the disgusting affectation of a heroine of french romance. tilts and tournaments were still the favorite amusements of all the courts of europe; and it was in these splendid exhibitions that the rival courtiers of elizabeth found the happiest occasions of displaying their magnificence, giving proof of their courage and agility, and at the same time insinuating, by a variety of ingenious devices, their hopes and fears, their amorous pains, and their profound devotedness to her service. in the purer ages of chivalry, no other cognisances on shields were adopted, either in war or in these games which were its image, than the armorial bearings which each warrior had derived from his ancestors, or solemnly received at the hands of the heralds before he entered on his first campaign. but as the spirit of the original institution declined, and the french fashion of gallantry began to be engrafted upon it, an innovation had taken place in this matter, which is thus commemorated and deplored by the worthy camden, clarencieux king-at-arms, who treats the subject with a minuteness and solemnity truly professional. "whoever," says he, "would note the manners of our progenitors,--in wearing their coat-armour over their harness, and bearing their arms in their shields, their banners and pennons, and in what formal manner they were made bannerets, and had license to rear their banner of arms, which they presented rolled up, unto the prince, who unfolded and re-delivered it with happy wishes; i doubt not but he will judge that our ancestors were as valiant and gallant as they have been since they left off their arms and used the colors and curtains of their mistress' bed instead of them." the same author afterwards observes, that these fopperies, as well as the adoption of _impresses_, first prevailed in the expedition of charles viii. against naples in , and that it was about the beginning of the reign of henry viii. that the english wits first thought of imitating the french and italians in the invention of these devices. an _impress_, it seems, was an emblematical device assumed at the will of the bearer, and illustrated by a suitable motto; whereas the coat of arms had either no motto, or none appropriate. of this nature therefore was the representation of an english archer, with the words "cui adhæreo præest" (he prevails to whom i adhere), used by henry viii. at his meeting with charles and francis. elizabeth delighted in these whimsical inventions. camden says that she "used upon different occasions so many heroical devices as would require a volume," but most commonly a sieve without a word. her favorite mottos were "video taceo" (i see and am silent), and "semper eadem" (always the same). thus patronized, the use of impresses became general. scarcely a public character of that age, whether statesman, courtier, scholar, or soldier, was unprovided with some distinction of this nature; and at tournaments in particular, the combatants all vied with each other in the invention of occasional devices, sometimes quaintly, sometimes elegantly, expressive of their situation or sentiments, and for the most part conveying some allusion at once gallant and loyal. it may be worth while to cite a few of the most remarkable of these out of a considerable number preserved by camden. the prevalence amongst them of astronomical emblems is worthy of observation, as indicative of that general belief of the age in the delusions of judicial astrology, which rendered its terms familiar alike to the learned, the great, and the fair. a dial with the sun setting, "occasu desines esse" (thy being ceases with its setting). the sun shining on a bush, "si deseris pereo" (forsake me, and i perish). the sun reflecting his rays from the bearer, "quousque avertes" (how long wilt thou avert thy face)? venus in a cloud, "salva me, domina" (mistress, save me). the letter i, "omnia ex uno" (all things from one). a fallow field, "at quando messis" (when will be the harvest)? the full moon in heaven, "quid sine te coelum" (what is heaven without thee)? cynthia, it should be observed, was a favorite fancy-name of the queen's; she was also designated occasionally by that of astræa, whence the following devices. a man hovering in the air, "feror ad astræam" (i am borne to astræa). the zodiac with virgo rising, "jam redit et virgo" (the maid returns); and a zodiac with no characters but those of leo and virgo, "his ego præsidiis" (with these to friend). a star, "mihi vita spica virginis" (my life is in spica virginis)--a star in the left hand of virgo so called: here the allusion was probably double; to the queen, and to the horoscope of the bearer. the twelve houses of heaven with neither sign nor planet therein, "dispone" (dispose). a white shield, "fatum inscribat eliza" (eliza writes my fate). an eye in a heart, "vulnus alo" (i feed the wound). a ship sinking and the rainbow appearing, "quid tu si pereo" (to what avail if i perish)? as the rainbow is an emblem seen in several portraits of the queen, this device probably reproaches some tardy and ineffectual token of her favor. the sun shining on a withered tree which blooms again, "his radiis rediviva viresco" (these rays revive me). a pair of scales, fire in one, smoke in the other, "ponderare errare" (to weigh is to err). at one tilt were borne all the following devices, which camden particularly recommends to the notice and interpretation of the reader. many flies about a candle, "sic splendidiora petuntur" ("thus brighter things are sought). drops falling into a fire, "tamen non extinguenda" (yet not to be extinguished). the sun, partly clouded over, casting its rays upon a star, "tantum quantum" (as much as is vouchsafed). a folded letter, "lege et relege"[ ] (read and reread). [note : see camden's "remains."] it would have increased our interest in these very significant impresses, if our author could have informed us who were the respective bearers. perhaps conjecture would not err in ascribing one of the most expressive to sir william pickering, a gentleman whose name has been handed down to posterity as an avowed pretender to the royal marriage. that a person illustrious neither by rank nor ancestry, and so little known to fame that no other mention of him occurs in the history of the age, should ever have been named amongst the suitors of his sovereign, is a circumstance which must excite more curiosity than the scanty biographical records of the time will be found capable of satisfying. a single paragraph of camden's annals seems to contain nearly all that can now be learned of a man once so remarkable. "nor were lovers wanting at home, who deluded themselves with vain hopes of obtaining her in marriage. namely sir william pickering, a man of good family though little wealth, and who had obtained reputation by the cultivation of letters, by the elegance of his manners, and by his embassies to france and germany." &c. rapin speaks of him as one who was encouraged to hope by some distinguished mark of the queen's favor, which he does not however particularize. lloyd in his "worthies" adds nothing to camden's information but the epithet "comely" applied to his person, the vague statement that "his embassies in france and germany were so well managed, that in king edward's days he was by the council pitched upon as the oracle whereby our agents were to be guided abroad," and a hint that he soon retired from the court of elizabeth to devote himself to his studies. the earl of arundel might be the bearer of another of these devices. we have already seen with what magnificence of homage this nobleman had endeavoured to bespeak the favorable sentiments of his youthful sovereign; and if illustrious ancestry, vast possessions, established consequence in the state, and long experience in public affairs, might have sufficed to recommend a subject to her choice, none could have advanced fairer pretensions than the representative of the ancient house of fitzalan. the advanced age of the earl was indeed an objection of considerable and daily increasing weight; he persevered however in his suit, notwithstanding the queen's visible preference of dudley and every other circumstance of discouragement, till the year . losing then all hopes of success, and becoming sensible at length of pecuniary difficulties from the vast expense which he had lavished on this splendid courtship, he solicited the permission of his royal mistress to retire for a time into italy. while it lasted, however, the rivalry of arundel and dudley, or rather, in the heraldic phraseology of the day, that of the white horse and the bear, divided the court, inflamed the passions of the numerous retainers of the respective candidates, and but for the impartial vigilance of cecil might have ended in deeds of blood. in the burleigh papers is a confession of one guntor, a servant or retainer of the earl of arundel, who was punished for certain rash speeches relative to this competition, from which we learn some curious particulars. he says, that he once fell in talk with a gentleman named cotton, who told him, that the queen, having supped one evening at lord robert dudley's, it was dark before she could get away; and some servants of the house were sent with torches to light her home. that by the way her highness was pleased to enter into conversation with the torch-bearers, and was reported to have said, that she would make their lord the best that ever was of his name. as the father of lord robert was a duke, this promise was understood to imply nothing less than her design of marrying him. on this guntor answered, that he prayed all men might take it well, and that no trouble might arise thereof; afterwards he said, that he thought if a parliament were held, some men would recommend lord robert, and some his own master to the queen for a husband; and so it might fortune there would rise trouble among the noblemen, adding, "i trust the white horse will be in quiet, and so shall we be out of trouble; it is well known _his_ blood as yet was never attaint, nor was he ever man of war, wherefore it is likely that we shall sit still; but if he should stomach it, he were able to make a great power." in his zeal for the cause of his lord, he also wished that his rival had been put to death with his father, "or that some ruffian would have dispatched him by the way as he hath gone, with some dag (pistol) or gun." so high did words run on occasion of this great contest. chapter xii. . on the conduct of elizabeth as head of the church.--sketch of the history of the reformation in england.--notices of parker, grindal, and jewel. there was no part of the regal office the exercise of which appeared so likely to expose elizabeth to invidious reflections, as that which comprehended the management of ecclesiastical affairs. few divines, though protestant, could behold without a certain feeling of mingled jealousy and disdain, a female placed at the head of the religion of the country, and by the whole papal party such a supremacy was regarded perhaps as the most horrible, certainly as the most preposterous, of all the prodigies which heresy had yet brought forth. "i have seen the head of the english church dancing!" exclaimed, it is said, with a sarcastic air, an ambassador from one of the catholic courts of europe. a more striking incongruity indeed could scarcely be imagined, than between the winning manners and sprightly disposition of this youthful princess, as they displayed themselves amid the festivities of her court and the homage of her suitors, and the grave and awful character of governess of the church, with which she had been solemnly invested. in virtue of this office, it was the right and duty of the queen to choose a religion for the country; to ordain its rites and ceremonies, discipline, and form of church government; and to fix the rank, offices and emoluments of its ministers. she was also to exercise this power entirely at her own discretion, free from the control of parliament or the interference of the clerical body, and assisted only by such commissioners, lay or ecclesiastical, as it should please herself to appoint. this exorbitant authority was first assumed by her arbitrary father when it became his will that his people should acknowledge no other pope than himself; and the servile spirit of the age, joined to the ignorance and indifference on religious subjects then general, had caused it to be submitted to without difficulty. in consequence, the title of head of the church had quietly devolved upon edward vi. as part of his regal style; and while the duties of the office were exercised by cranmer and the protector, the nation, now generally favorable to the cause of reform, was more inclined to rejoice in its existence than to dispute the authority by which it had been instituted. mary abhorred the title, as a badge of heresy and a guilty usurpation on the rights of the sovereign pontiff, and in the beginning of her reign she laid it aside, but was afterwards prevailed upon to resume it, because there was a convenience in the legal sanction which it afforded to her acts of tyranny over the consciences of men. the first parliament of elizabeth, in the fervor of its loyalty, decreed to her, as if by acclamation, all the honors or prerogatives ever enjoyed by her predecessors, and it was solely at her own request that the appellation of head, was now exchanged for the less assuming one of governess, of the english church. the power remained the same; it was, as we have seen, of the most absolute nature possible; since, unlimited by law, it was also, owing to its recent establishment, equally uncontrolled by custom. it remains to the delineator of the character of elizabeth to inquire in what manner she acquitted herself, to her country and to posterity, of the awful responsibility imposed upon her by its possession. a slight sketch of the circumstances attending the introduction of the reformation into england, will serve to illustrate this important branch of her policy. on comparing the march of this mighty revolution in our own country with its mode of progress amongst the other nations of europe, one of the first remarks which suggests itself is, that in no other country was its course so immediately or effectually subjected to the guidance and control of the civil power. in switzerland, the system of zwingle, the earliest of the reformers, had fully established itself in the hearts of his fellow-citizens before the magistracies of zurich and its neighbouring republics thought proper to interfere. they then gave the sanction of law to the religion which had become that of the majority, but abstained from all dictation on points of which they felt themselves incompetent judges. in germany, the impulse originating in the daring mind of luther, was first communicated to the universities, to the lower orders of the clergy, and through them to the people. the princes of the empire afterwards took their part as patrons or persecutors of the new opinions; but in either case they acted under the influence of ecclesiastics, and no where arrogated to themselves the character of lawgivers in matters of faith. at geneva, the vigor and dexterity of calvin's measures brought the magistracy under a complete subjection to the church, of which he had made himself the head, and restricted its agency in religious concerns to the execution of such decrees as the spiritual ruler saw good to promulgate. the system of the same reformer had recently been introduced into scotland by the exertions of john knox, a disciple who equalled his master in the fierceness of his bigotry, in self-opinion, and in the love of power, whilst he exceeded him in turbulence of temper and ferocity of manners: and here the independence of the church on the state, or rather its paramount legislative authority in all matters of faith, discipline and worship, was held in the loftiest terms. the opposition which this doctrine, so formed for popularity, experienced from the government in the outset, was overborne or disregarded, and it was in despite of the utmost efforts of regal authority that the new religion was established by an act of the scottish parliament. in england, on the contrary, the passions of henry viii. had prompted him to disclaim submission to the papal decrees before the spirit of the people demanded such a step,--before any apostle of reformation had arisen in the land capable of inspiring the multitude with that zeal which makes its will omnipotent, and leaves to rulers no other alternative than to comply or fall,--yet not before the attachment of men to the ancient religion was so far weakened, that the majority could witness its overthrow with patience if not with complacency. to have timed this momentous step so fortunately for the cause of prerogative might in some princes have been esteemed the result of profound combinations,--the triumph of political sagacity; in henry it was the pure effect of accident: but the advantages which he derived from the quiescent state of the public mind were not on this account the less real or the less important, nor did he suffer them to go unimproved. on one hand, no considerable opposition was made to his assumption of the supremacy; on the other, the spoil of the monasteries was not intercepted in its passage to the royal coffers by the more rapid movements of a populace intoxicated with fanatical rage or fired with hopes of plunder. what appeared still more extraordinary, he found it practicable, to the end of his reign, to keep the nation suspended, as to doctrine and the forms of worship, in that nice equilibrium between protestant and papist which happened best to accord with his individual views or prejudices. cranmer, who has a better title than any other to be revered as the father of the anglican church, showed himself during the life of henry the most cautious and complaisant of reformers. aware that any rashness or precipitation on the part of the favorers of new opinions might expose them to all the fury of persecution from a prince so dogmatical and violent, he constantly refrained from every alarming appeal to the sense of the people on theological questions, and was content to proceed in his great work step by step, with a slow, uncertain, and interrupted progress, at the will of that capricious master whose vacillations of humor or opinion he watched with the patience, and improved with the skill, of a finished courtier. administered in so qualified and mitigated a form, the spirit of reformation exhibited in this country little of its stronger and more turbulent workings. no sect at that time arose purely and peculiarly english: our native divines did not embrace exclusively, or with vehemence, the tenets of any one of the great leaders of reform on the continent, and a kind of eclectic system became that of the anglican church from its earliest institution. the respective contributions to this system of the most celebrated theologians of the age may be thus stated. it was chiefly from zwingle,--the first, in point of time, of all the reformers of the sixteenth century, and the one whose doctrine on the eucharist and on several other points diverged most widely from the tenets of the church of rome,--that our principal opponents of popery in the reign of henry viii. derived their notions. latimer, ridley, cranmer himself, were essentially his disciples. by others, the system of luther was in the whole or in part adopted. but this reformer was personally so obnoxious to henry, on account of the disrespectful and acrimonious style of his answer to the book in which that royal polemic had formerly attacked his doctrine, that no english subject thought proper openly to profess himself his follower, or to open any direct communication with him. thus the confession of augsburg, though more consonant to the notions of the english monarch than any other scheme of protestant doctrine, failed to obtain the sanction of that authority which might have rendered it predominant in this country. a long and vehement controversy on the subject of the eucharist had been maintained between the german and swiss divines during the later years of henry; but at the period of edward's accession, when cranmer first undertook the formation of a national church according to his own ideas of gospel truth and political expediency, this dispute was in great measure appeased, and sanguine hopes were entertained that a disagreement regarded as dangerous in a high degree to the common cause of religious reform might soon be entirely reconciled. luther, the last survivor of the original disputants, was lately dead; and to the post which he had held in the university of wittemberg, as well as to the station of head of the protestant church, melancthon had succeeded. this truly excellent person, who carried into all theological debates a spirit of conciliation equally rare and admirable, was earnestly laboring at a scheme of comprehension. his laudable endeavours were met by the zealous co-operation of calvin, who had by this time extended his influence from geneva over most of the helvetic congregations, and was diligent in persuading them to recede from the unambiguous plainness of zwingle's doctrine,--which reduced the lord's supper to a simple commemoration,--and to admit so much of a mystical though spiritual presence of christ in that rite, as might bring them to some seeming agreement with the less rigid of the followers of the lutheran opinion. at the same time bucer, who presided over the flourishing church of strasburg, was engaged in framing yet another explication of this important rite, by which he vainly hoped to accommodate the consciences of all these zealous and acute polemics. bucer was remarkable among the theologians of his time by a subtility in distinction resembling that of the schoolmen, and by a peculiar art of expressing himself on doctrinal points in terms so nicely balanced, and in a style of such labored intricacy, that it was scarcely possible to discover his true meaning, or pronounce to which extreme of opinion he most inclined. these dubious qualifications, by which he disgusted alternately both calvin and the more zealous lutherans, were however accompanied and redeemed by great learning and diligence; by a remarkable talent for public business, which rendered him eminently useful in all the various negotiations with temporal authorities, or with each other, in which the leaders of the reformation found it necessary to engage; by a mild and candid spirit, and by as much of sincerity and probity as could co-exist with the open defence of pious frauds. the whole character of the man appeared to cranmer admirably fitted for co-operation in the work which he had in hand. on the difficult question of the eucharist bucer would preserve the wariness and moderation which appeared essential in the divided state of protestant opinion: on justification and good works he held a middle doctrine, which might conciliate the catholics, and was capable of being so interpreted as not greatly to offend the moderate lutherans: on the subject of church government he had not yet committed himself, and there was little doubt that he would cheerfully submit to the natural predilection of the archbishop for prelacy. his erudition and his morals could not fail to prove serviceable and creditable to the great cause of national instruction and reformed religion. accordingly an invitation was sent to him, in the name of the young king, to come and occupy the theological chair in the university of cambridge; and in the year he reached england, and began to discharge with much assiduity the duties of his office. the name and influence of bucer became very considerable in this country, though his career was terminated by death within two years after his arrival. a public funeral, attended by all the members of the university and many other persons of eminence, attested the consideration in which he was held by edward's ministers; the subsequent disinterment of his remains by order of cardinal pole, for the purpose of committing his bones to the flames, gave further evidence of his merits in the protestant cause; and in the composition of our national articles, it has been said that no hand has left more distinguishable traces of itself than that of bucer. from strasburg also the university of oxford was destined to receive a professor of divinity in the person of the celebrated peter martyr. this good and learned man, a florentine by birth and during some years principal of a college of augustines at naples, having gradually become a convert to the doctrines of the reformers, and afterwards proceeding openly to preach them, was compelled to quit his country in order to avoid persecution. passing into switzerland, he was received with affectionate hospitality by the disciples of zwingle at zurich; and after making some abode there he repaired to basil, whence bucer caused him to be invited to fill the station of theological professor at strasburg. he was also appointed the colleague of this divine in the ministry, and their connexion had subsisted about five years in perfect harmony when the offers of cranmer induced the two friends to remove into england. it is to be presumed that no considerable differences of opinion on points deemed by themselves essential could exist between associates so united; but a greater simplicity of character and of views, and superior boldness in the enunciation of new doctrines, strikingly distinguished the proceedings of peter martyr from those of his friend. with respect to church government, he, like bucer, was willing to conform to the regulations of cranmer and the english council; but he preached at oxford on the eucharist with so zwinglian a cast of sentiment, that the popish party raised a popular commotion against him, by which his life was endangered, and he was compelled for a time to withdraw from the city. tranquillity was soon however restored by the interference of the public authority, and the council proceeded vigorously in obliterating the last vestiges of romish superstition. ridley throughout his own diocese now caused the altars to be removed from the churches, and communion-tables to be placed in their room; and, as if by way of comment on this alteration, martyr and others procured a public recognition of the genevan as a sister church, and the admission into the english service-book of the articles of faith drawn up by calvin. during the remainder of edward's reign the tide of public opinion continued running with still augmenting velocity towards geneva. calvin took upon him openly to expostulate with bucer on the preference of state expediency to scripture truth, betrayed, as he asserted, by the obstinate adherence of this divine to certain doctrines and observances which savoured too much of popery; and it is probable that a still nearer approach might have been made to his simpler ritual, but for the untimely death of the zealous young king, and the total ruin of the new establishment which ensued. just before the persecutions of mary drove into exile so many of the most zealous and conscientious of her protestant subjects, the discord between the lutherans and those whom they styled sacramentarians had burst out afresh in germany with more fury than ever. the incendiary on this occasion was westphal, superintendant of the lutheran church of hamburgh, who published a violent book on the subject of the eucharist; and through the influence of this man, and of the outrageous spirit of intolerance which his work had raised, latimer and ridley were stigmatized by fellow protestants as "the devil's martyrs," and the lutheran cities drove from their gates as dangerous and detestable heretics the english refugees who fled to them for shelter. by those cities or congregations, on the contrary,--whether in germany, france, or switzerland,--in which the tenets either of zwingle or calvin were professed, these pious exiles were received with open arms, venerated as confessors, cherished as brethren in distress, and admitted with perfect confidence into the communion of the respective churches. treatment so opposite from the two contending parties, between which they had supposed themselves to occupy neutral ground, failed not to produce corresponding effects on the minds of the exiles. at frankfort, where the largest body of them was assembled, and where they had formed an english congregation using king edward's liturgy, this form of worship became the occasion of a division amongst themselves, and a strong party soon declared itself in favor of discarding all of popish forms or doctrine which the english establishment, in common with the lutheran, had retained, and of adopting in their place the simpler creed and ritual of the genevan church. it was found impracticable to compromise this difference; a considerable number finally seceded from the congregation, and it was from this division at frankfort that english nonconformity took its birth. no equally strong manifestation of opinion occurred amongst the exiles in other cities; but on the whole it may be affirmed, that the majority of these persons returned from their wanderings with their previous predilection for the calvinistic model confirmed and augmented by the united influence of the reasonings and persuasions of its ablest apostles, and of those sentiments of love and hatred from which the speculative opinions of most men receive an irresistible though secret bias. their more unfortunate brethren, in the mean time, who, unwilling to resign their country, or unable to escape from it, had been compelled to look persecution in the face and deliberately acquaint themselves with all its horrors, were undergoing other and in some respects opposite influences. an overpowering dread and abhorrence of the doctrines of the church of rome must so have absorbed all other thoughts and feelings in the minds of this dispersed and affrighted remnant of the english church, as to leave them little attention to bestow upon the comparatively trifling objects of dispute between protestant and protestant. they might even be disposed to regard such squabbles with emotions of indignation and disgust, and to ask how brethren in affliction could have the heart to nourish animosities against each other. the memory of edward vi. was deservedly dear to them, and they would contemplate the restoration of his ritual by the successor of mary as an event in which they ought to regard all their prayers as fulfilled:--yet the practice, forced upon them by the vigilance of persecution, of holding their assemblies for divine worship in places unconsecrated, with the omission of every customary ceremonial and under the guidance frequently of men whom zeal and piety alone had ordained to the office of teachers and ministers of religion, must amongst them also have been producing a secret alienation from established forms and rituals, and a propensity to those extemporaneous effusions of devotion, or urgencies of supplication, which seem best adapted to satisfy the wants of the pious soul under the fiery trial of persecution and distress. the calvinistic model therefore, as the freest of all, and that which most industriously avoided any resemblance of popish forms, might be the one most likely to obtain their suffrage also. such being the state of religious opinion in england at the accession of elizabeth, it will not appear wonderful that the genevan reformer should have begun to indulge the flattering expectation of seeing his own scheme established in england as in scotland, and himself revered throughout the island as a spiritual director from whose decisions there could be no appeal. emboldened at once by zeal and ambition, he hastened to open a communication with the new government, in the shape of an exhortation to the queen to call a protestant council for establishing uniformity of doctrine and of church government; but his dream of supremacy was quickly dissipated on receiving for answer, that england was determined to preserve her episcopacy. this decisive rejection of the presbyterian form was followed up by other acts on the part of the queen which gave offence to all the real friends of reformed religion, and went far to prove that elizabeth was at heart little more of a protestant than her father. the general prohibition of preaching, which was strictly enforced during the first months of her reign, was understood as a measure of repression levelled full as much against the indiscreet zeal of the returned exiles, as against the disaffection of the catholics. an order that until the next meeting of parliament no change should be made in the order of worship established by the late queen, except the reading of the creed and commandments in english, implied, at least, a determination in the civil power to take the management of religion entirely out of the hands of a clergy whose influence over the minds of the people it viewed with a jealous eye. it was soon also discovered, to the increasing horror of all true protestants, that the queen was strongly disposed to insist on the celibacy of the clergy; and even when the strenuous efforts of cecil and others had brought her to yield with reluctance this capital point, she still pertinaciously refused to authorize their marrying by an express law. she would not even declare valid the marriages contracted by them during the reign of her brother; so that it became necessary to procure private bills of legitimation in behalf of the offspring of these unions, though formed under the express sanction of then existing laws. the son of cranmer himself, and the son of archbishop parker, were of the number of those who found it necessary to resort to this disagreeable and degrading expedient. other things which offended the reformists were, the queen's predilection, already mentioned, for crucifixes, which she did not cause to be removed from the churches till after considerable delay and difficulty, and retained in her private chapel for many years longer,--and her wish to continue the use of altars. this being regarded as a dangerous compliance with the romish doctrine, since an _altar_ could only suit with the notion of a _sacrifice_ of christ in the mass, earnest expostulations on the subject were addressed to her by several of the leading divines; and in the end the queen found it expedient, with whatever reluctance, to ordain the substitution of communion-tables. she was also bent upon retaining in the church of which she was the head the use of vestments similar to those worn by the different orders of popish priests in the celebration of the various offices of their religion. a very natural association of ideas caused the protestant clergy to regard with suspicion and abhorrence such an approximation in externals to that worship which was in their eyes the abomination of idolatry; and several of the returned exiles, to whom bishoprics were now offered, scrupled to accept of them under the obligation of wearing the appointed habits. repeated and earnest representations were made to the queen against them, but she remained inflexible. in this dilemma, the divines requested the advice of peter martyr, who had quitted england on the accession of mary and was now professor of theology at zurich. he persuaded compliance, representing to them that it was better that high offices in the church should be occupied by persons like themselves, though with the condition of submitting to some things which they did not approve, than that such posts should be given to lutherans or concealed catholics, who, instead of promoting any further reformation, would labor continually to bring back more and more of the ancient ceremonies and superstitions. this argument was deemed conclusive, and the bishoprics were accepted. but such a plea, though it might suffice certain men for a time, could not long satisfy universally; and we shall soon have occasion to take notice of scruples on this point, as the source of the first intestine divisions by which the anglican church was disturbed, and of the first persecutions of her own children by which she disgraced herself. on the whole, it must be admitted that the personal conduct of elizabeth in this momentous business exhibited neither enlargement of mind nor elevation of soul. considerably attached to ceremonial observances, and superior to none of the superstitions which she might have imbibed in her childhood, she was however more attached to her own power and authority than to these. little under the influence of any individual amongst her clergy, and somewhat inclined to treat that order in general with harshness, if not cruelty,--as in the article of their marriages, in the unmitigated rigor with which she exacted from them her first fruits, and in the rapacity which she permitted her courtiers to exercise upon the temporalities of the bishoprics,--the only view which she took of the subject was that of the sovereign and the politician. aware on one hand of the manner in which her title to the crown was connected with the renunciation of papal authority, of the irreconcileable enmity borne her by the catholic powers, and of the general attachment of her subjects to the cause of the reformation, she felt herself called upon to assume the protection of the protestant interest of europe, and to re-establish that worship in her own dominions. on the other hand, she remarked with secret dread and aversion the popular spirit and republican tendency of the institutions of calvin, and she resolved at all hazards to check the growth of his opinions in england. accordingly, it was the scope of every alteration made by her in the service-book of edward, to give it more of a lutheran aspect, and it was for some time apprehended that she would cause the entire confession of augsburg to be received into it. of toleration, of the rights of conscience, she had as little feeling or understanding as any prince or polemic of her age. her establishment was formed throughout in the spirit of compromise and political expediency; she took no pains to ascertain, either by the assembling of a national synod or by the submission of the articles to free discussion in parliament, whether or not they were likely to prove agreeable to the opinions of the majority; it sufficed that she had decreed their reception, and she prepared, by means of penal statutes strictly executed, to prevent the propagation of any doctrines, or the observance of any rites, capable of interfering with the exact uniformity in religion then regarded as essential to the peace and stability of every well constituted state. to cecil her chief secretary of state and to nicholas bacon her keeper of the seals, assisted by a select number of divines, the management of this great affair was chiefly intrusted by the queen: and much might be said of the sagacity displayed by her in this appointment, and of the wisdom and moderation exercised by them in the discharge of their office; much also might be, much has been said, of the excellencies of the form of worship by them established;--but little, alas! of moral or of religious merit can be awarded by the verdict of impartial history to the motives or conduct of the heroine of protestantism in a transaction so momentous and so memorable. three acts of the parliament of gave the sanction of law to the new ecclesiastical establishment; they were those of supremacy, of uniformity, and a third empowering the queen to appoint bishops. by the first, the authority of the pope was solemnly renounced, and the whole government of the church vested in the queen, her heirs and successors; and an important clause further enabled her and them to delegate their authority to commissioners of their own appointment, who amongst other extraordinary powers were to be invested with the cognisance of all errors and heresies whatsoever. on this foundation was erected the famous high commission court, which grew into one of the principal grievances of this and the two following reigns, and of which, from the moment of its formation, the proceedings assumed a character of arbitrary violence utterly incompatible with the security and happiness of the subject, and hostile to the whole tenor of the ancient charters. the act of uniformity ordained an exact compliance in all points with the established form of worship and a punctual attendance on its offices; it also rendered highly penal the exercise, public or private, of any other; and of this law it was not long before several unfortunate catholics were doomed to experience the utmost rigor. many parish priests who had been open and violent papists in the last reign, permitted themselves to take the oath of supremacy and retain their cures under the new order of things, a kind of compliance with the times which the court of rome is said sometimes to have permitted, sometimes even to have privately enjoined,--on the principle of peter martyr, that it was better that its secret adherents should continue to occupy the churches, on whatever conditions, than that they should be surrendered entirely into the hands of an opposite party. the bishops, on the contrary, considered themselves as called upon by the dignity of their character and office to bear a public testimony against the defection of england from the holy see; and those of them who had not previously been deprived on other grounds, now in a body refused the oaths and submitted themselves to the consequences. all were deprived, a few imprisoned, several committed to honorable custody. the policy of elizabeth, unlike the genuine bigotry of her sister, contented itself with a kind of negative intolerance; and as long as the degraded bishops abstained from all manifestations, by words or deeds, of hostility against her government and ecclesiastical establishment, and all celebration of the peculiar rites of their religion, they were secure from molestation; and never to them, as to their unfortunate protestant predecessors, were articles of religion offered for signature under the fearful alternative of compliance or martyrdom. to supply the vacancies of the episcopal bench became one of the earliest cares of the queen and her ministers; and their choice, which fell on the most eminent of the confessors and exiles, was generally approved by the nation. dr. parker, formerly her mother's chaplain and the religious instructor of her own childhood, was designated by elizabeth for the primacy. this eminent divine had likewise been one of the chaplains of edward vi., and enjoyed under his reign considerable church preferments. he had been the friend of cranmer, bucer, latimer, and ridley; of cook, cheke, and cecil; and was the ardent coadjutor of these meritorious public characters in the promotion of reformed religion, and the advancement of general learning,--two grand objects, which were regarded by them as inseparable and almost identical. on the accession of mary, being stripped of all his benefices as a married priest, parker with his family was reduced to poverty and distress; and it was only by a careful concealment of his person, by frequent changes of place, and in some instances by the timely advertisements of watchful friends, that he was enabled to avoid a still severer trial of his constancy. during this period of distress he found support and solace from the pious task of translating into english metre the whole of the psalms. the version still exists in manuscript, and is executed with some spirit, and not inelegantly, in the old measure of fourteen syllables. parker's "_nolo episcopari_" is supposed to have been more than ordinarily sincere: in fact, the station of metropolitan must at this juncture have been felt as one of considerable difficulty, perhaps even of danger; and the stormy temper of the queen afterwards prepared for the prelate so much of contradiction and humiliation as caused him more than once to bewail his final acceptance of the highest dignity of the english church. with all her personal regard for the primate, elizabeth could not always refrain in his presence from reflections against married priests, which gave him great pain. during a progress which she made in into essex and suffolk, she expressed high displeasure at finding so many of the clergy married, and the cathedrals and colleges so filled with women and children; and in consequence she addressed to the archbishop a royal injunction, "that no head or member of any college or cathedral should bring a wife or any other woman into the precincts of it, to abide in the same, on pain of forfeiture of all ecclesiastical promotion." parker regarded it as his duty to remonstrate with her in person against so popish a prohibition; on which, after declaring to him that she repented of having made any married bishops, she went on to treat the institution of matrimony itself with a satire and contempt which filled him with horror. it was to his wife that her majesty, in returning acknowledgements for the magnificent hospitality with which she had been received at the archiepiscopal palace, made use of the well-known ungracious address; "madam i may not call you, mistress i am ashamed to call you, and so i know not what to call you; but howsoever i thank you." but these fits of ill-humor were transient; for parker learned the art of dispelling them by submissions, or soothing them by the frequent and respectful tender of splendid entertainments and costly gifts. he did not long remain insensible to the charms of rank and fortune; and it must not be concealed that an inordinate love of power, and a haughty intolerance of all opposition, gradually superseded that candor and christian meekness of which he had formerly been cited as an edifying example. against that sect amongst the clergy who refused to adopt the appointed habits and scrupled some of the ceremonies, soon after distinguished by the appellation of puritans, he exercised his authority with unsparing rigor; and even stretched it by degrees so far beyond all legal bounds, that the queen herself, little as she was inclined to tolerate this sect or to resent any arbitrary conduct in her commissioners, was moved at length to interpose and reverse some of his proceedings. the archbishop, now become incapable of yielding his own will even to that of his sovereign, complained and remonstrated instead of submitting: reproaches ensued on the part of elizabeth; and in may the learned prelate ended in a kind of disgrace the career which he had long pursued amid the warmest testimonies of royal approbation. the fairest, at least the most undisputed, claim of this eminent prelate to the gratitude of his contemporaries and the respect of posterity, is founded on the character which his high station enabled him to assume and maintain, of the most munificent patron of letters of his age and country. the study which he particularly encouraged, and to which his own leisure was almost exclusively devoted, was that of english antiquities; and he formed and presented to corpus christi college a large and valuable collection of the manuscripts relative to these objects which had been scattered abroad at the dissolution of the monasteries, and must have been irretrievably lost but for his diligence in inquiring after them and the liberality with which he rewarded their discovery. he edited four of our monkish historians; was the first publisher of that interesting specimen of early english satire and versification, pierce plowman's visions; composed a history in latin of his predecessors in the see of canterbury, and encouraged the labors of many private scholars by acts of generosity and kindness. grindal, a divine of eminence, who during his voluntary exile at frankfort had taken a strong part in favor of king edward's service-book, was named as the successor of bonner in the bishopric of london; but a considerable time was spent in overcoming his objections to the habits and ceremonies, before he could be prevailed upon to assume a charge of which he deeply felt the importance and responsibility. to the reputation of learning and piety which this prelate enjoyed in common with so many of his clerical contemporaries, he added an extraordinary earnestness in the promotion of christian knowledge, and a courageous inflexibility on points of professional duty, imitated by few and excelled by none. his manly spirit disdained that slavish obsequiousness by which too many of his episcopal brethren paid homage to the narrow prejudices and state-jealousies of an imperious mistress, and it soon became evident that strife and opposition awaited him. his first difference was with archbishop parker, whom he highly offended by his backwardness in proceeding to extremities against the puritans, a sect many of whose scruples grindal himself had formerly entertained, and was still inclined to view with respect or pity rather than with indignation. cecil, who was his chief friend and patron, apprehensive of his involving himself in trouble, gladly seized an occasion of withdrawing him from the contest, by procuring his appointment in to the vacant archbishopric of york; a hitherto neglected province, in which his efforts for the instruction of the people and the reformation of the state of the church were peculiarly required and eminently successful. for his own repose, grindal ought never to have quitted this sphere of unmolested usefulness; but when, on the death of parker in , the primacy was offered to him, ambition, or perhaps the hope of rendering his plans more extensively beneficial, unfortunately prompted its acceptance. thus was he brought once more within the uncongenial atmosphere of a court, and subjected to the immediate control of his sovereign in matters on which he regarded it as a duty, on the double ground of conscience and the rights of his office, to resist the fiat of a temporal head of the church. the queen, whose dread and hatred of the puritans augmented with the severities which she exercised against them, had conceived a violent aversion to certain meetings called prophesyings, at this time held by the clergy for the purpose of exercising their younger members in expounding the scriptures, and at which the laity had begun to attend as auditors in great numbers and with much interest. such assemblies, her majesty declared, were nothing else than so many schools of puritanism, where the people learned to be so inquisitive that their spiritual superiors would soon lose all influence over them, and she issued positive commands to grindal for their suppression. at the same time she expressed to him her extreme displeasure at the number of preachers licensed in his province, and required that it should be very considerably lessened, "urging that it was good for the world to have few preachers, that three or four might suffice for a county; and that the reading of the homilies to the people was enough." but the venerable primate, so far from consenting to abridge the means of that religious instruction which he regarded it as the most sacred duty of a protestant church to afford, took the freedom of addressing to her majesty a very plain and earnest letter of expostulation. in this piece, after showing the great necessity which existed for multiplying, rather than diminishing, opportunities of edification both to the clergy and the people, and protesting that he could not in conscience be instrumental to the suppression either of preaching or prophesyings, he proceeded to remonstrate with her majesty on the arbitrary, imperious, and as it were papal manner, in which she took upon herself to decide points better left to the management of her bishops. he ended by exhorting her to remember that she also was a mortal creature, and accountable to god for the exercise of her power, and that she ought above all things to be desirous of employing it piously for the promotion of true religion. the event showed this remonstrance to be rather well-intended than well-judged. indignation was the only sentiment which it awakened in the haughty mind of elizabeth, and she answered it by an order of the star-chamber, in virtue of which the archbishop was suspended from his functions for six months, and confined during the same period to his house. at the end of this time he was urged by burleigh to acknowledge himself in fault and beg the queen's forgiveness but he steadily refused to compromise thus a good cause, and his sequestration was continued. it even appears that nothing but the honest indignation of some of her ministers and courtiers restrained the queen from proceeding to deprive him. at the end of four or five years, her anger being somewhat abated, it pleased her to take off the sequestration, but without restoring the primate to her favor; and as he was now old and blind, he willingly consented to resign the primacy and retire on a pension: but in , before the matter could be finally arranged, he died. archbishop grindal was a great contributor to fox's "acts and monuments," for which he collected many materials; but he was the author of no considerable work, and on the whole he seems to have been less admirable by the display of any extraordinary talents than revered and exemplary for the primitive virtues of probity, sincerity, and godly zeal. these were the qualities which obtained for him the celebration of spenser in his "shepherd's calendar," where he is designated by the name of algrind, and described as a true teacher of the gospel and a severe reprover of the pride and worldliness of the popish clergy. the lines were written during the period of the prelate's disgrace, which is allegorically related and bewailed by the poet. another distinguished ornament of the episcopal bench was jewel, consecrated to the see of salisbury in . it is remarkable that this learned apologist of the church of england had expressed at first a stronger repugnance to the habits than most of his colleagues; but having once brought himself to compliance, he thenceforth became noted for the rigor with which he exacted it of others. in the time of henry viii. jewel had become suspected of opinions which he openly embraced on the accession of edward, and he was sufficiently distinguished amongst the reformers of this reign to be marked out as one of the first objects of persecution under mary. as a preliminary step, on which proceedings might be founded, the romish articles were offered for his signature, when he disappointed alike his enemies and his friends by subscribing them without apparent reluctance. but his insincerity in this act was notorious, and it was in contemplation to subject him to the fierce interrogatories of bonner, when timely warning enabled him, through many perils, to escape out of the country. safe arrived at frankfort, he made a public confession, before the english congregation, of his guilt in signing articles which his conscience abhorred, and humbly entreated forgiveness of god and the church. after this, he repaired to strasburgh and passed away the time with his friend peter martyr. the erudition of jewel was profound and extensive, his private life amiable, his performance of his episcopal duties sedulous; and such was the esteem in which his celebrated "apology" was held, that elizabeth, and afterwards james i., ordained that a copy of it should be kept in every parish-church in england. of dr. cox, elevated to the see of ely, mention has already been made; and it would be superfluous here to enter more largely into the ecclesiastical history of the reign. a careful consideration of the behaviour of elizabeth towards the two successive primates parker and grindal, will furnish a sufficiently accurate notion of the spirit of her religious policy, besides affording a valuable addition to the characteristic traits illustrative of her temper and opinions. chapter xiiia. . tragedy of ferrex and porrex.--translations of ancient tragedies.--death of francis ii.--mary refuses to ratify the treaty of edinburgh--returns to scotland.--enmity between mary and elizabeth.--philip ii. secretly encourages the english papists.--measures of rigor adopted against them by elizabeth.--anecdote of the queen and dr. sampson.--st. paul's struck by lightning.--bishop pilkington's sermon on the occasion.--paul's walk.--precautions against the queen's being poisoned.--the king of sweden proposes to visit her.--steps taken in this matter. the eighteenth of january ought to be celebrated as the birthday of the english drama; for it was on this day that thomas sackville caused to be represented at whitehall, for the entertainment of elizabeth and her court, the tragedy of ferrex and porrex, otherwise called gorboduc, the joint production of himself and thomas norton. from the unrivalled force of imagination, the vigor and purity of diction, and the intimate knowledge and tasteful adaptation of the beauties of the latin poets displayed in the contributions of sackville to the mirror of magistrates, a lettered audience would conceive high expectations from his attempt in a new walk of poetry; but in the then barbarous state of our theatre, such a performance as gorboduc must have been hailed as not only a novelty but a wonder. it was the first piece composed in english on the ancient tragic model, with a regular division into five acts, closed by lyric choruses. it offered the first example of a story from british history, or what passed for history, completely dramatized and represented with an attempt at theatrical illusion; for the earlier pieces published under the title of tragedies were either ballads or monologues, which might indeed be sung or recited, but were incapable of being acted. the plot of the play was fraught with those circumstances of the deepest horror by which the dormant sensibilities of an inexperienced audience require and delight to be awakened. an unwonted force of thought and dignity of language claimed the patience, if not the admiration, of the hearers, for the long political disquisitions by which the business of the piece was somewhat painfully retarded. the curiosity of the public respecting a drama which had been performed with general applause both at court and before the society of the middle temple, encouraged its surreptitious appearance in print in , and a second stolen edition was followed, some years after, by a corrected one published under the inspection of the authors themselves. the taste for the legitimate drama thus awakened, may be supposed to have led to the naturalization amongst us of several of its best ancient models. the phoenissæ of euripides appeared under the title of jocasta, having received an english dress from gascoigne and kinwelmershe, two students of gray's inn. the ten tragedies of seneca, englished by different hands, succeeded. it is worthy of note, however, that none of these translators had the good taste to imitate the authors of ferrex and porrex in the adoption of blank verse, and that one only amongst them made use of the heroic rhymed couplet; the others employing the old alexandrine measure, excepting in the choruses, which were given in various kinds of stanza. her majesty alone seems to have perceived the superior advantages, or to have been tempted by the greater facility of sackville's verse; and amongst the mss. of the bodleian library there is found a translation by her own hand of part of seneca's hercules oetæus, which is in this measure. warton however adds, that this specimen "has no other recommendation than its royalty." the propensity of elizabeth, amid all the serious cares of government and all the pettinesses of that political intrigue to which she was addicted, to occupy herself with attempts in polite literature, for which she possessed no manner of talent, is not the least remarkable among the features of her extraordinary and complicated character. at the period of her reign however which we are now considering, public affairs must have required from her an almost undivided attention. by the death of francis ii. about the end of the year , the queen of scots had become a widow, and the relations of england with france and scotland had immediately assumed an entirely novel aspect. the change was in one respect highly to the advantage of elizabeth. by the loss of her royal husband, mary was deprived of that command over the resources of the french monarchy by which she had hoped to render effective her claim to the english crown, and she found it expedient to discontinue for the present the use of the royal arms of england. the enmity of the queen-mother had even chased her from that court where she had reigned so lately, and obliged her to retire to her uncle, the cardinal of lorrain at rheims. but from the age and temper of the beautiful and aspiring mary, it was to be expected that she would ere long be induced to re-enter the matrimonial state with some one of the princes of europe; and neither as a sovereign nor a woman could elizabeth regard without jealousy the plans for her reestablishment already agitated by her ambitious uncles of the house of guise. under these circumstances, it was the first object of elizabeth to obtain from her rival the formal ratification, which had hitherto been withheld, of the treaty of edinburgh, by one article of which mary was pledged never to resume the english arms; and throgmorton, then ambassador to france, was instructed to urge strongly her immediate compliance with this certainly not inequitable demand. the queen of scots, however, persisted in evading its fulfilment, and on pleas so forced and futile as justly to confirm all previous suspicions of her sincerity. matters were in this state between the two sovereigns, when mary came to the resolution of acceding to the unanimous entreaties of her subjects of both religions, by returning to govern in person the kingdom of her ancestors; and she sent to request of elizabeth a safe-conduct. the english princess promptly replied, that the queen had only to ratify the treaty of edinburgh, and she should obtain not merely a safe-conduct but free permission to shorten the fatigues of her voyage by passing through england, where she should be received with all the marks of affection due to a beloved sister. by this answer mary chose to regard herself as insulted; and declaring to the english ambassador in great heat that nothing vexed her so much as to have exposed herself without necessity to such a refusal, and that she doubted not that she should be able to return to her country without the permission of elizabeth, as she had quitted it in spite of all the vigilance of her brother, she abruptly broke off the conference. henceforth the breach between these illustrious kinswomen became irreparable. in vain did mary, after her arrival in scotland, endeavour to remedy the imprudence which she was conscious of having committed, by professions of respect and friendship; for with these hollow compliments she had the further indiscretion to mingle the demand that elizabeth should publicly declare her next heir to the english throne; a proposal which this high-spirited princess could never hear without rage. neither of the queens was a novice in the arts of dissimulation, and as often as it suited the interest or caprice of the moment, each would lavish upon the other, without scruple, every demonstration of amity, every pledge of affection; but jealousy, suspicion, and hatred dwelt irremoveably in the inmost recesses of their hearts. the protestant party in scotland was powerfully protected by elizabeth, the catholic party in england was secretly incited by mary; and it became scarcely less the care and occupation of each to disturb the administration of her rival than to fix her own on a solid basis. mary had been attended on her return to scotland by her three uncles, the duke of aumale, the grand prior and the marquis of elbeuf, with a numerous retinue of french nobility; and when after a short visit the duke and the grand prior took their leave of her, they with their company consisting of more than a hundred returned through england, visiting in their way the court of elizabeth. brantome, who was of the party, has given incidentally the following particulars of their entertainment in the short memoir which he has devoted to the celebration of henry ii. of france. "bref, c'estoit un roy tres accomply & fort aymable. j'ay ouy conter a la reigne d'angleterre qui est aujourd'huy, que c'estoit le roy & le prince du monde qu'elle avoit plus desiré de voir, pour le beau rapport qu'on luy en avoit fait, & pour sa grande renommée qui en voloit par tout. monsieur le connestable qui vit aujourd'huy s'en pourra bien ressouvenir, ce fut lorsque retournant d'escosse m. le grand prieur de france, de la maison de lorreine, & luy, la reigne leur donna un soir a soupper, où après se fit un ballet de ses filles, qu'elle avoit ordonné & dressé, representant les vierges de l'evangile, desquelles les unes avoient leurs lampes allumées & les autres n'avoient ny huile ny feu & en demandoient. ces lampes estoient d'argent fort gentiment faites & elabourées, & les dames étoient tres-belles & honnestes & bien apprises, qui prirent nous autres françois pour danser, mesme la reigne dansa, & de fort bonne grace & belle majesté royale, car elle l'avoit & estoit lors en sa grande beauté & belle grace. rien ne l'a gastée que l'execution de la pauvre reigne d'escosse, sans cela c'estoit une tres-rare princesse. "...estant ainsi à table devisant familierement avec ces seigneurs, elle dit ces mots, (après avoir fort loüé le roy): c'estoit le prince du monde que j'avois plus desiré de voir, & luy avois deja mandé que bientost je le verrois, & pour ce j'avois commandé de me faire bien appareiller mes galeres (usant de ces mots) pour passer en france exprès pour le voir. monsieur le connestable, d'aujourd'huy, qui estoit lors monsieur d'amville, respondit, madame, je m'asseure que vous eussiez esté tres-contente de le voir, car son humeur & sa façon vous eussent pleu; aussi lui eust il esté tres-content de vous voir, car il eust fort aimé vôtre belle humeur & vos agreables façons, & vous eust fait un honorable accueil & tres-bonne chere, & vous eust bien fait passer le temps. je le croy & m'en asseure, dit elle." &c. by the death of the king of france, and the increasing distractions of that unhappy country under the feeble minority of charles ix., the politics of the king of spain also were affected. he had not now to fear the union of the crowns of england france and scotland under the joint rule of francis and mary, which he had once regarded as a not improbable event; consequently his strongest inducement for keeping measures with elizabeth ceased to operate, and he began daily to disclose more and more of that animosity with which he could not fail to regard a princess who was at once the heroine and patroness of protestantism. from this time he began to furnish secret aids which added hope and courage to the english partisans of popery and of mary; and elizabeth judged it a necessary policy to place her catholic subjects under a more rigid system of restraint. it was contrary to her private inclinations to treat this sect with severity, and she was the more reluctant to do so as she thus gratified in an especial manner the wishes of the puritanical or calvinistic party in the church, their inveterate enemies; and by identifying in some measure her cause with theirs, saw herself obliged to conform in several points to their views rather than her own wishes. the law which rendered it penal to hear mass was first put in force against several persons of rank, that the example might strike the more terror. sir edward waldegrave, in mary's reign a privy-councillor, was on this account committed to the tower, with his lady and some others; and lord loughborough, also a privy-councillor much favored and trusted by the late queen, was brought into trouble on the same ground. against waldegrave it is to be feared that much cruelty was exercised during his imprisonment; for it is said to have occasioned his death, which occurred in the tower a few months afterwards. the high commission court now began to take cognisance of what was called recusancy, or the refusal to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy; it also encouraged informations against such as refrained from joining in the established worship; and numerous professors of the old religion, both ecclesiastics and laity, were summoned on one account or other before this tribunal. of these, some were committed to prison, others restricted from entering certain places, as the two universities, or circumscribed within the limits of some town or county; and most were bound in great penalties to be forthcoming whenever it should be required. as a further demonstration of zeal against popery, the queen caused all the altars in westminster abbey to be pulled down; and about the same time a remarkable scene occurred between her majesty and dr. thomas sampson dean of christ-church. it happened that the queen had appointed to go to st. paul's on new year's day to hear the dean preach; and he, thinking to gratify her on that day with an elegant and appropriate present, had procured some prints illustrative of the histories of the saints and martyrs, which he caused to be inserted in a richly bound prayer-book and laid on the queen's cushion for her use. her majesty opened the volume; but no sooner did the prints meet her eye, than she frowned, blushed, and called to the verger to bring her the book she was accustomed to use. as soon as the service was ended, she went into the vestry and inquired of the dean who had brought that book? and when he explained that he had meant it as a present to her majesty, she chid him severely, inquired if he was ignorant of her proclamation against images, pictures, and romish reliques in the churches, and of her aversion to all idolatry, and strictly ordered that no similar mistake should be made in future. what renders this circumstance the more curious is, that elizabeth at this very time kept a crucifix in her private chapel, and that sampson was so far from being popishly inclined, that he had refused the bishopric of norwich the year before, on account of the habits and ceremonies, and was afterwards deprived of his deanery by archbishop parker for nonconformity. never did parties in religion run higher than about this period of the reign of elizabeth; and we may remark as symptomatic of the temper of the times, the manner in which a trivial accident was commented upon by adverse disputants. the beautiful steeple of st. paul's cathedral, the loftiest in the kingdom, had been stricken by lightning and utterly destroyed, together with the bells and roof. a papist immediately dispersed a paper representing this accident as a judgement of heaven for the discontinuance of the matins and other services which had used to be performed in the church at different hours of the day and night. pilkington bishop of durham, who preached at paul's cross after the accident, was equally disposed to regard it as a judgement, but on the sins of london in general, and particularly on certain abuses by which the church had formerly been polluted. in a tract published in answer to that of the papist he afterwards gave an animated description of the practices of which this cathedral had been the theatre; curious at the present day as a record of forgotten customs. he said that "no place had been more abused than paul's had been, nor more against the receiving of christ's gospel; wherefore it was more wonder that god had spared it so long, than that he overthrew it now.... from the top of the spire, at coronations or other solemn triumphs, some for vain glory had used to throw themselves down by a rope, and so killed themselves, vainly to please other men's eyes. at the battlements of the steeple, sundry times were used their popish anthems, to call upon their gods, with torch and taper, in the evenings. in the top of one of the pinnacles was lollards' tower, where many an innocent soul had been by them cruelly tormented and murdered. in the middest alley was their long censer, reaching from the roof to the ground; as though the holy ghost came down in their censing, in likeness of a dove. in the arches, men commonly complained of wrong and delayed judgments in ecclesiastical causes: and divers had been condemned there by annas and caiaphas for christ's cause. their images hung on every wall, pillar and door, with their pilgrimages and worshipings of them: passing over their massing and many altars, and the rest of their popish service. the south alley was for usury and popery, the north for simony; and the horse fair in the midst for all kind of bargains, meetings, brawlings, murders, conspiracies. the font for ordinary payments of money as well known to all men as the beggar knows his dish.... so that without and within, above the ground and under, over the roof and beneath, from the top of the steeple and spire down to the low floor, not one spot was free from wickedness." the practice here alluded to, of making the nave of st. paul's a kind of exchange for the transaction of all kinds of business, and a place of meeting for idlers of every sort, is frequently referred to by the writers of this and the two succeeding reigns; and when or by what means the custom was put an end to, does not appear. it was here that sir nicholas throgmorton held a conference with an emissary of wyat's; it was here that one of the bravoes engaged in the noted murder of arden of feversham was hired. it was in paul's that falstaff is made to say he "bought" bardolph. in bishop earl's admirable little book called micro-cosmography the scene is described with all the wit of the author and somewhat of the quaintness of his age, which was that of james i. "_paul's walk_ is the land's epitome, or you may call it the lesser isle of great britain. it is, more than this, the whole world's map, which you may here discern in its perfectest motion, justling, and turning. it is the great exchange of all discourse, and no business whatsoever but is here stirring and afoot. it is the synod of all pates politic, joined and laid together in most serious posture, and they are not half so busy at the parliament.... it is the market of young lecturers, whom you may cheapen here at all rates and sizes. it is the general mint of all famous lies, which are here, like the legends of popery, first coined and stamped in the church. all inventions are emptied here, and not a few pockets. the best sign of a temple in it is, that it is the thieves sanctuary.... the visitants are, all men without exception, but the principal inhabitants and possessors are, stale knights, and captains out of service, men of long rapiers and breeches which, after all, turn merchants here, and traffic for news. some make it a preface to their dinner, but thriftier men make it their ordinary, and board here very cheap." the vigilant ministers of elizabeth had now begun to alarm themselves and her with apprehensions of plots against her life from the malice of the papists; and it would be rash to pronounce that such fears were entirely void of foundation; but we may be permitted to smile at the ignorant credulity on the subject of poisons,--universal indeed in that age,--which dictated the following minute of council, extant in the handwriting of cecil. "we think it very convenient that your majesty's apparel, and specially all manner of things that shall touch any part of your majesty's body bare, be circumspectly looked unto; and that no person be permitted to come near it, but such as have the trust and charge thereof. "item. that no manner of perfume either in apparel or sleeves, gloves or such like, or otherwise that shall be appointed for your majesty's savor, be presented by any stranger or other person, but that the same be corrected by some other fume. "item. that no foreign meat or dishes being dressed out of your majesty's court, be brought to your food, without assured knowledge from whom the same cometh; and that no use be had hereof. "item. that it may please your majesty to take the advice of your physician for the receiving weekly twice some preservative 'contra pestem et venena,' as there be many good things 'et salutaria.' "item. it may please your majesty to give order who shall take the charge of the back doors to your chamberers chambers, where landresses, tailors, wardrobers, and the like, use to come; and that the same doors be duly attended upon, as becometh, and not to stand open but upon necessity. "item. that the privy chamber may be better ordered, with an attendance of an usher, and the gentlemen and grooms[ ]." [note : "burleigh papers" by haynes, p. .] it was fortunate that the same exaggerated notions of the power of poisons prevailed amongst papists as protestants. against the ill effects of a drug applied by direction of a spanish friar to the arms of a chair and the pommel of a saddle, the antidotes received twice a week might be depended upon as an effectual preservative. from these perils, real and imaginary,--none of which however appear to have taken strong hold of the cheerful and courageous temper of the queen,--her attention and that of her council was for some time diverted by the expectation of a royal suitor. eric king of sweden,--whose hopes of final success in his addresses were kept up in spite of the repeated denials of the queen, by the artifice of some englishmen at his court who deluded him by pretended secret intelligence,--had sent to her majesty a royal present, and declared his intention of following in person. the present consisted of eighteen large piebald horses, and two ship-loads of precious articles which are not particularized. it does not appear that this offering was ill-received; but as elizabeth was determined not to relent in favor of the sender, she caused him to be apprized of the impositions passed upon him by the english to whom he had given ear, at the same time expressing her anxious hope that he would spare himself the fatigues of a fruitless voyage. fearing however that he might be already on his way, she occupied herself in preparations for receiving him with all the hospitality and splendor due to his errand, his rank and her own honor. it was at the same time a business of some perplexity so to regulate all these matters of ceremony that neither eric himself nor others might conclude that he was a favored suitor. among the state papers of the time we find, first a letter of council to the lord mayor, setting forth, that, "whereas certain bookbinders and stationers did utter certain papers wherein were printed the face of her majesty and the king of sweden; although her majesty was not miscontented that either her own face or that of this king should be pourtrayed; yet to be joined in the same paper with him or any other prince who was known to have made request for marriage to her, was what she could not allow. accordingly it was her pleasure that the lord mayor should seize all such papers, and pack them up so that none of them should get abroad. otherwise she might seem to authorize this joining of herself in marriage to him, which might seem to touch her in honor." next we have a letter to the duke of norfolk directing the manner in which he should go to meet the king, if he landed at any part of norfolk or suffolk: and lastly, we have the solemn judgement of the lord-treasurer, the lord-steward, and the lord-chamberlain, on the ceremonial to be observed towards him on his arrival by the queen herself. one paragraph is conceived with all the prudery and the deep policy about trifles, which marked the character of elizabeth herself. "bycause the queen's majesty is a maid, in this case would many things be omitted of honor and courtesy, which otherwise were mete to be showed to him, as in like cases hath been of kings of this land to others, and therefore it shall be necessary that the gravest of her council do, as of their own judgement, excuse the lack thereof to the king; and yet on their own parts offer the supplement thereof with reverence." after all, the king of sweden never came. chapter xiiib. to . difficulties respecting the succession.--lady c. grey marries the earl of hertford.--cruel treatment of them by elizabeth.--conspiracy of the poles.--law against prophecies.--sir h. sidney ambassador to france.--some account of him.--defence of havre under the earl of warwick.--its surrender.--proposed interview between elizabeth and mary.--plague in london.--studies of the queen.--proclamation respecting portraits of her.--negotiations concerning the marriage of mary.--elizabeth proposes to her lord r. dudley.--hales punished for defending the title of the suffolk line.--sir n. bacon and lord j. grey in some disgrace on the same account.--queen's visit to cambridge.--dudley created earl of leicester.--notice of sir james melvil and extracts from his memoirs.--marriage of mary with darnley.--conduct of elizabeth respecting it.--she encourages, then disavows the scotch malcontent lords.--behaviour of sir n. throgmorton.--the puritans treated with greater lenity. the situation of elizabeth, amid its many difficulties, presented none so perplexing, none which the opinions of her most prudent counsellors were so much divided on the best mode of obviating, as those arising out of the doubt and confusion in which the right of succession was still involved. her avowed repugnance to marriage, which was now feared to be insurmountable, kept the minds of men continually busy on this dangerous topic, and she was already incurring the blame of many by the backwardness which she discovered in designating a successor and causing her choice to be confirmed, as it would readily have been, by the parliament. but this censure must be regarded as unjust. even though the jealousy of power had found no entrance into the bosom of elizabeth, sound policy required her long to deliberate before she formed a decision, and perhaps, whatever that decision might be, forbade her, under present circumstances, to announce it to the world. the title of the queen of scots, otherwise unquestionable, was barred by the will of henry viii., ratified by an unrepealed act of parliament, and nothing less solemn than a fresh act of the whole legislature would have been sufficient to render it perfectly free from objection: and could elizabeth be in reason expected to take such a step in behalf of a foreign and rival sovereign, professing a religion hostile to her own and that of her people; of one, above all, who had openly pretended a right to the crown preferable to her own, and who was even now exhausting the whole art of intrigue to undermine and supplant her? on the other hand, to confirm the exclusion of the scottish line, and adopt as her successor the representative of that of suffolk, appeared neither safe nor equitable. the testamentary disposition of henry had evidently been dictated by caprice and resentment, and the title of mary was nevertheless held sacred and indisputable not only by all the catholics, but by the partisans of strict hereditary right in general, and by all who duly appretiated the benefits which must flow from an union of the english and scottish sceptres. to inflict a mortal injury on mary might be as dangerous as to give her importance by an express law establishing her claims, and against any perils in which elizabeth might thus involve herself the house of suffolk could afford her no accession of strength, since their allegiance,--all they had to offer,--was hers already. the lady catherine grey, the heiress of this house, might indeed have been united in marriage to some protestant prince, whose power would have acted as a counterpoise to that of scotland. but a secret and reluctant persuasion that the real right was with the scottish line, constantly operated on the mind of elizabeth so far as to prevent her from taking any step towards the advancement of the rival family; and the unfortunate lady catherine was doomed to undergo all the restraints, the persecutions and the sufferings, which in that age formed the melancholy appanage of the younger branches of the royal race, with little participation of the homage or the hopes which some minds would have accepted as an adequate compensation. it will be remembered, that the hand of this high-born lady was given to lord herbert, son of the earl of pembroke, on the same day that guildford dudley fatally received that of her elder sister the lady jane; and that on the accession of mary this short-lived and perhaps uncompleted union had been dissolved at the instance of the politic father of lord herbert. from this time lady catherine had remained in neglect and obscurity till the year , when information of her having formed a private connexion with the earl of hertford, son of the protector somerset, reached the ears of elizabeth. the lady, on being questioned, confessed her pregnancy, declaring herself at the same time to be the lawful wife of the earl: her degree of relationship to the queen was not so near as to render her marriage without the royal consent illegal, yet by a stretch of authority familiar to the tudors she was immediately sent prisoner to the tower. hertford, in the mean time, was summoned to produce evidence of the marriage, by a certain day, before special commissioners named by her majesty, from whose decision no appeal was to lie. he was at this time in france, and so early a day was designedly fixed for his answer, that he found it impracticable to collect his proofs in time, and to the tower he also was committed, as the seducer of a maiden of royal blood. by this iniquitous sentence, a color was given for treating the unfortunate lady and those who had been in her confidence with every species of harshness and indignity, and the following extract from a warrant addressed in the name of her majesty to mr. warner, lieutenant of the tower, sufficiently indicates the cruel advantage taken of her situation. ..."our pleasure is, that ye shall, as by our commandment, examine the lady catherine very straightly, how many hath been privy to the love between her and the earl of hertford from the beginning; and let her certainly understand that she shall have no manner of favor except she will show the truth, not only what ladies or gentlewomen of this court were thereto privy, but also what lords and gentlemen: for it doth now appear that sundry personages have dealt herein, and when it shall appear more manifestly, it shall increase our indignation against her, if she will forbear to utter it. "we earnestly require you to use your diligence in this. ye shall also send to alderman lodge secretly for st. low, and shall put her in awe of divers matters confessed by the lady catherine; and so also deal with her that she may confess to you all her knowledge in the same matters. it is certain that there hath been great practices and purposes; and since the death of the lady jane she hath been most privy. and as ye shall see occasion so ye may keep st. low two or three nights more or less, and let her be returned to lodge's or kept still with you as ye shall think meet[ ]." &c. [note : "burleigh papers" by haynes.] the child of which the countess of hertford was delivered soon after her committal, was regarded as illegitimate, and she was doomed to expiate her pretended misconduct by a further imprisonment at the arbitrary pleasure of the queen. the birth of a second child, the fruit of stolen meetings between the captive pair, aggravated in the jealous eyes of elizabeth their common guilt. warner lost his place for permitting or conniving at their interviews, and hertford was sentenced in the star-chamber to a fine of fifteen thousand pounds for the double offence of vitiating a female of the royal blood, and of breaking his prison to renew his offence. it might somewhat console this persecuted pair under all their sufferings, to learn how unanimously the public voice was in their favor. no one doubted that they were lawfully married,--a fact which was afterwards fully established,--and it was asked, by what right, or on what principle, her majesty presumed to keep asunder those whom god had joined? words ran so high on this subject after the sentence of the star-chamber, that some alarmists in the privy-council urged the necessity of inflicting still severer punishment on the earl, and of intimidating the talkers by strong measures. the further consequences of this affair to persons high in her majesty's confidence will be related hereafter: meantime it must be recorded, to the eternal disgrace of elizabeth's character and government, that she barbarously and illegally detained her ill-fated kinswoman, first in the tower and afterwards in private custody, till the day of her death in january ; and that the earl her husband, having added to the original offence of marrying a princess, the further presumption of placing upon legal record the proofs of his children's legitimacy, was punished, besides his fine, with an imprisonment of nine whole years. so much of the jealous spirit of her grandfather still survived in the bosom of this last of the tudors! on another occasion, however, she exercised towards a family whose pretensions had been viewed by her father with peculiar dread and hostility, a degree of forbearance which had in it somewhat of magnanimity. arthur and edmund pole, two nephews of the cardinal, with sir anthony fortescue their sister's husband, and other accomplices, had been led, either by private ambition, by a vehement zeal for the romish faith, or both together, to meditate the subversion of the existing state of things, and to plan the following wild and desperate scheme. having first repaired to france, where they expected to receive aid and counsels from the guises, the conspirators were to return at the head of an army and make a landing in wales. here arthur pole, assuming at the same time the title of duke of clarence, was to proclaim the queen of scots, and the new sovereign was soon after to give her hand to his brother edmund. this absurd plot was detected before any steps were taken towards its execution: the poles were apprehended, and made a full disclosure on their trial of all its circumstances; pleading however in excuse, that they had no thought of putting their design in practice till the death of the queen, an event which certain diviners in whom they placed reliance had confidently predicted within the year. in consideration of this confession, and probably of the insignificance of the offenders, the royal pardon was extended to their lives, and the illustrious name of pole was thus preserved from extinction. it is probable, however, that they were kept for some time prisoners in the tower; and thither was also sent the countess of lenox, on discovery of the secret correspondence which she carried on with the queen of scots. the confession of the poles seems to have given occasion to the renewal, by the parliament of , of a law against "fond and fantastical prophecies," promulgated with design to disturb the queen's government; by which act also it was especially forbidden to make prognostications on or by occasion of any coats of arms, crests, or badges; a clause added, it is believed, for the particular protection of the favorite, dudley, whose _bear and ragged staff_ was the continual subject of open derision or emblematical satire. a legend in the "mirror for magistrates," relating the unhappy catastrophe of george duke of clarence, occasioned by a prophecy against one whose name began with a g, appears to have been composed in aid of the operation of this law. the author takes great pains to impress his readers with the futility as well as wickedness of such predictions, and concludes with the remark, that no one ought to imagine the foolish and malicious inventors of modern prophecies inspired, though ..."learned _merlin_ whom god gave the sprite to know and utter princes' acts to come, like to the jewish prophets did recite in shade of beasts their doings all and some; expressing plain by manners of the doom that kings and lords such properties should have as have the beasts whose name he to them gave!" in france every thing now wore the aspect of an approaching civil war between the partisans of the two religions, under the conduct on one side of the guises, on the other of the princes of the house of condé. elizabeth judged it her duty, or her policy, to make a last effort for the reconciliation of these angry factions, and she dispatched an ambassador to charles ix. charged with her earnest representations on the subject. they were however ineffectual, and produced apparently no other valuable result than that of rendering her majesty better acquainted with the talents and merit of the eminent person whom she had honored with this delicate commission. this person was sir henry sidney, one of the most upright as well as able of the ministers of elizabeth:--that he was the father of sir philip sidney was the least of his praises; and it may be cited as one of the caprices of fame, that he should be remembered by his son, rather than his son by him. those qualities which in sir philip could afford little but the promise of active virtue, were brought in sir henry to the test of actual performance; and lasting monuments of his wisdom and his goodness remain in the institutions by which he softened the barbarism of wales, and appeased the more dangerous turbulence of ireland by promoting its civilization. sir henry was the son of sir william sidney, a gentleman of good parentage in kent, whose mother was of the family of brandon and nearly related to the duke of suffolk of that name, the favorite and brother-in-law of henry viii. sir william in his youth had made one of a band of gentlemen of figure, who, with their sovereign's approbation, travelled into spain and other countries of europe to study the manners and customs of their respective courts. he likewise distinguished himself in the field of flodden. the king stood godfather to his son henry, born in , and caused him to be educated with the prince of wales, to whom sir william was appointed tutor, chamberlain, and steward. the excellent qualities and agreeable talents of young sidney soon endeared him to edward, who made him his inseparable companion and often his bed-fellow; kept him in close attendance on his person during his long decline, and sealed his friendship by breathing his last in his arms. during the short reign of this lamented prince sidney had received the honor of knighthood, and had been intrusted, at the early age of one or two and twenty, with an embassy to the french king, in which he acquitted himself so ably that he was soon afterwards sent in a diplomatic character to scotland. he had likewise formed connexions which exerted important influence on his after fortunes. sir john cheke held him in particular esteem, and through his means he had contracted a cordial friendship with cecil, of which in various ways he found the benefit to the end of his life. a daughter of the all-powerful duke of northumberland had also honored him with her hand,--a dangerous gift, which was likely to have involved him in the ruin which the guilty projects of that audacious man drew down upon the heads of himself and his family. but the prudence or loyalty of sidney preserved him from the snare. no sooner had his royal master breathed his last, than, relinquishing all concern in public affairs, he withdrew to the safe retirement of his own seat at penshurst, where he afterwards afforded a generous asylum to such of the dudleys as had escaped death or imprisonment. queen mary seems to have held out an earnest of future favor to sidney, by naming him amongst the noblemen and knights appointed to attend philip of spain to england for the completion of his nuptials; and this prince further honored him by becoming sponsor to his afterwards celebrated son and giving him his own name. but sidney soon quitted a court in which a man of protestant principles could no longer reside with satisfaction, if with safety, and accompanied to ireland his brother-in-law viscount fitzwalter, then lord-deputy. in that kingdom he at first bore the office of vice-treasurer, and afterwards, during the frequent absences of the lord-deputy, the high one of sole lord-justice. the accession of elizabeth enabled lord robert dudley to make a large return for the former kindness of his brother-in-law; and supported by the influence of this distinguished favorite, in addition to his personal claims, sir henry sidney rose in a few years to the dignities of privy-councillor and knight of the garter. after his embassy to france he was appointed to the post of lord-president of wales, to which, in , the still more important one of lord-deputy of ireland was added;--an union of two not very compatible offices, unexampled in our annals before or since. some particulars of sir henry sidney's government of ireland may come under review hereafter: it is sufficient here to observe, that ample testimony to his merit was furnished by elizabeth herself, in the steadiness with which she persisted in appointing and re-appointing him to this most perplexing department of public service, in spite of all the cabals, of english or irish growth, by which, though his favor with her was sometimes shaken, her rooted opinion of his probity and sufficiency could never be overthrown. the failure of elizabeth's negotiations with the french court was followed by her taking up arms in support of the oppressed hugonots; and ambrose dudley earl of warwick, the elder brother of lord robert, was sent to normandy at the head of three thousand men. of the two dudleys it was said by their contemporaries, that the elder inherited the money, and the younger the wit, of his father. if this remark were well founded, which seems doubtful, the appointment of warwick to an important command must probably be set down to the account of favoritism. it was not however the wish of the queen that her troops should often be led into battle. it was her main object to obtain lasting possession of the town of havre, as an indemnification for the loss of calais, so much deplored by the nation; and into this place warwick threw himself with his chief force. in the next campaign, when it was assailed with the whole power of france, he prepared, according to the orders of elizabeth, for a desperate defence, and no blame was ever imputed to him for a surrender, which became unavoidable through the ravages of the plague, and the delay of reinforcements by contrary winds[ ]. warwick appears to have preserved through life the character of a man of honor and a brave soldier. [note : it was by no remissness on the part of the queen that this town was lost; the preservation of which was an object very near her heart, as appears from a letter of encouragement addressed by the privy-council to warwick, which has the following postscript in her own handwriting. "my dear warwick; if your honor and my desire could accord with the loss of the needfullest finger i keep, god so help me in my utmost need as i would gladly lose that one joint for your safe abode with me; but since i cannot that i would, i will do that i may, and will rather drink in an ashen cup than you or yours should not be succoured both by sea and land, yea, and that with all speed possible, and let this my scribbling hand witness it to them all. "yours as my own, "e.r." see "archæologia," vol. xiii. p. .] a project which had been for some time under discussion, of a personal interview at york between the english and scottish queens, was now finally given up. elizabeth, it is surmised, was unwilling to afford her beautiful and captivating enemy such an opportunity of winning upon the affections of the english people, and mary was fearful of offending her uncles the princes of guise by so public an advance towards a good understanding with a princess now engaged in open hostilities against their country and faction. the failure of this design deserves not to be regretted. the meetings of princes have never, under any circumstances, been known to produce a valuable political result; and an interview between these jealous and exasperated rivals could only have exhibited disgusting scenes of forced civility and exaggerated profession, thinly veiling the inveterate animosity which neither party could hope effectually to hide from the intuitive perception of the other. a terrible plague, introduced by the return of the sickly garrison of havre, raged in london during the year , and for some time carried off about a thousand persons weekly. the sittings of parliament were held on this account at hertford castle; and the queen, retiring to windsor, kept herself in unusual privacy, and took advantage of the opportunity to pursue her literary occupations with more than common assiduity. without entirely deserting her favorite greek classics, she at this time applied herself principally to the study of the christian fathers, with the laudable purpose, doubtless, of making herself mistress of those questions respecting the doctrine and discipline of the primitive church now so fiercely agitated between the divines of different communions, and on which, as head of the english church, she was often called upon to decide in the last resort. cecil had mentioned these pursuits of her majesty in a letter to cox bishop of ely, and certainly as matter of high commendation; but the bishop answered, perhaps with better judgement, that after all, scripture was "that which pierced;" that of the fathers, one was inclined to pelagianism, another to monachism, and he hoped that her majesty only occupied herself with them at idle hours. even studies so solemn could not however preserve the royal theologian, now in her thirtieth year, from serious disturbance on account of certain ill-favored likenesses of her gracious countenance which had obtained a general circulation among her loving subjects. so provoking an abuse was thought to justify and require the special exertion of the royal prerogative for its correction, and cecil was directed to draw up an energetic proclamation on the subject. this curious document sets forth, that "forasmuch as through the natural desire that all sorts of subjects had to procure the portrait and likeness of the queen's majesty, great numbers of painters, and some printers and gravers, had and did daily attempt in divers manners to make portraitures of her, wherein none hitherto had sufficiently expressed the natural representation of her majesty's person, favor, or grace; but had for the most part erred therein, whereof daily complaints were made amongst her loving subjects,--that for the redress hereof her majesty had been so importunately sued unto by the lords of her council and other of her nobility, not only to be content that some special cunning painter might be permitted by access to her majesty to take the natural representation of her, whereof she had been always of her own right disposition very unwilling, but also to prohibit all manner of other persons to draw, paint, grave, or portrait her personage or visage for a time, until there were some perfect pattern or example to be followed: "therefore her majesty, being herein as it were overcome with the continual requests of so many of her nobility and lords, whom she could not well deny, was pleased that some cunning person should shortly make a portrait of her person or visage to be participated to others for the comfort of her loving subjects; and furthermore commanded, that till this should be finished, all other persons should abstain from making any representations of her; that afterwards her majesty would be content that all other painters, printers, or gravers, that should be known men of understanding, and so therein licensed by the head officers of the places where they should dwell (as reason it was that every person should not without consideration attempt the same), might at their pleasure follow the said pattern or first portraiture. and for that her majesty perceived a great number of her loving subjects to be much grieved with the errors and deformities herein committed, she straitly charged her officers and ministers to see to the observation of this proclamation, and in the meantime to forbid the showing or publication of such as were apparently deformed, until they should be reformed which were reformable[ ]." [note : "archæologia," vol. ii. p. .] on the subject of marriage, so perpetually moved to her both by her parliament and by foreign princes, elizabeth still preserved a cautious ambiguity of language, well exemplified in the following passage: "the duke of wirtemburg, a german protestant prince, had lately friendly offered his service to the queen, in case she were minded to marry. to which, january th she gave him this courteous and princely answer: 'that although she never yet were weary of single and maiden life, yet indeed she was the last issue of her father left, and the only of her house; the care of her kingdom and the love of posterity did counsel her to alter this course of life. but in consideration of the leave that her subjects had given her in ampler manner to make her choice than they did to any prince afore, she was even in courtesy bound to make that choice so as should be for the best of her state and subjects. and for that he offered therein his assistance, she graciously acknowledged the same, promising to deserve it hereafter[ ].'" [note : strype's "annals," vol. i. p. .] it might be curious to inquire of what nature the _assistance_ politely proffered by the duke in this matter, and thus favorably received by her majesty, could be; it does not appear that he tendered his own hand to her acceptance. the french court became solicitous about this time to draw closer its bond of amity with the queen of scots, who, partly on account of some wrong which had been done her respecting the payment of her dower, partly in consequence of various affronts put upon her subjects, had begun to estrange herself from her old connexions, and to seek in preference the alliance of elizabeth. french agents were now sent over to scotland to urge upon her the claims of former friendship, and to tempt her by brilliant promises to listen to proposals of marriage from the duke of anjou, preferably to those made her by the archduke charles or by don carlos. intelligence of these negotiations awakened all the jealousies, political and personal, of elizabeth. she ordered her agent randolph, a practised intriguer, to devise means for crossing the matrimonial project. meantime, by way of intimidation, she appointed the earl of bedford to the lieutenancy of the four northern counties, and the powerful earl of shrewsbury to that of several adjoining ones, and ordered a considerable levy of troops in these parts for the reinforcement of the garrison of berwick and the protection of the english border, on which she affected to dread an attack by an united french and scottish force. randolph soon after received instructions to express openly to mary his sovereign's dislike of her matching either with the archduke or with any other foreign prince, and her wish that she would choose a husband within the island; and he was next empowered to add, that if the scottish queen would gratify his mistress in this point, she need not doubt of obtaining a public recognition of her right of succession to the english crown. elizabeth afterwards came nearer to the point; she designated lord robert dudley as the individual on whom she desired that the choice of her royal kinswoman should fall. by a queen-dowager of france, and a queen-regnant of scotland, the proposal of so inferior an alliance might almost be regarded as an insult, and mary was naturally haughty; but her hopes and fears compelled her to dissemble her indignation, and even to affect to take the matter into consideration. she trusted that pretexts might be found hereafter for evading the completion of the marriage, even if the queen of england were sincere in desiring such an advancement for her favorite, which was much doubted, and she determined for the present to show herself docile to all the suggestions of her royal sister, and to preserve the good understanding on her part unbroken. it was during the continuance of this state of apparent amity between the rival queens, that elizabeth thought proper to visit with tokens of her displeasure the leaders in an attempt to establish the title of the suffolk line, which still found adherents of some importance. john hales, clerk of the hanaper, a learned and able man, and, like all who espoused this party, a zealous protestant, had written, and secretly circulated, a book in defence of the claims of the lady catherine, and he had also procured opinions of foreign lawyers in favor of the validity of her marriage. for one or both of these offences he was committed to the fleet prison, and the secretary was soon after commanded to examine thoroughly into the business, and learn to whom hales had communicated his work. a more disagreeable task could scarcely have been imposed upon cecil; for, besides that he must probably have been aware that his friend and brother-in-law sir nicholas bacon was implicated, it seems that he himself was not entirely free from suspicion of some participation in the affair. but he readily acknowledged his duty to the queen to be a paramount obligation to all others, and he wrote to a friend that he was determined to proceed with perfect impartiality. in conclusion, hales was liberated after half a year's imprisonment. bacon, the lord keeper, who appeared to have seen the book, and either to have approved it, or at least to have taken no measures for its suppression or the punishment of its author, was not removed from his office; but he was ordered to confine himself strictly to its duties, and to abstain henceforth from taking any part in political business. but by this prohibition cecil affirmed that public business suffered essentially, for bacon had previously discharged with distinguished ability the functions of a minister of state; and he never desisted from intercession with her majesty till he saw his friend fully reinstated in her favor. lord john grey of pyrgo, uncle to lady catherine, had been a principal agent in this business, and after several examinations by members of the privy-council, he was committed to a kind of honorable custody, in which he appears to have remained till his death, which took place a few months afterwards. these punishments were slight compared with the customary severity of the age; and it has plausibly been conjectured that the anger of elizabeth on this occasion was rather feigned than real, and that although she thought proper openly to resent any attempt injurious to the title of the queen of scots, she was secretly not displeased to let this princess perceive that she must still depend on her friendship for its authentic and unanimous recognition. her anger against the earl of hertford for the steps taken by him in confirmation of his marriage was certainly sincere, however unjust. she was provoked, perhaps alarmed, to find that he had been advised to appeal against the decision of her commissioners: on better consideration, however, he refrained from making this experiment; but by a process in the ecclesiastical courts, with which the queen could not or would not interfere, he finally succeeded in establishing the legitimacy of his sons. of the progresses of her majesty, during several years, nothing remarkable appears on record; they seem to have had no other object than the gratification of her love of popular applause, and her taste for magnificent entertainments which cost her nothing; and the trivial details of her reception at the different towns or mansions which she honored with her presence, are equally barren of amusement and instruction. but her visit to the university of cambridge in the summer of presents too many characteristic traits to be passed over in silence. her gracious intention of honoring this seat of learning with her royal presence was no sooner disclosed to the secretary, who was chancellor of the university, than it was notified by him to the vice-chancellor, with a request that proper persons might be sent to receive his instructions on the subject. it appears to have been part of these instructions, that the university should prepare an extremely respectful letter to lord robert dudley, who was its high-steward, entreating him in such manner to commend to her majesty their good intentions, and to excuse any their failure in the performance, that she might be inclined to receive in good part all their efforts for her entertainment. so notorious was at this time the pre-eminent favor of this courtier with his sovereign, and so humble was the style of address to him required from a body so venerable and so illustrious! cecil arrived at cambridge the day before the queen to set all things in order, and received from the university a customary offering of two pairs of gloves, two sugarloaves, and a marchpane. lord robert and the duke of norfolk were complimented with the same gift, and finer gloves and more elaborate confectionary were presented to the queen herself. when she reached the door of king's college chapel, the chancellor kneeled down and bade her welcome; and the orator, kneeling on the church steps, made her an harangue of nearly half an hour. "first he praised and commended many and singular virtues planted and set in her majesty, which her highness not acknowledging of shaked her head, bit her lips and her fingers, and sometimes broke forth into passion and these words; 'non est veritas, et utinam'--on his praising virginity, she said to the orator, 'god's blessing of thy heart, there continue.' after that he showed what joy the university had of her presence" &c. "when he had done she commended him, and much marvelled that his memory did so well serve him, repeating such diverse and sundry matters; saying that she would answer him again in latin, but for fear she should speak false latin, and then they would laugh at her." this concluded, she entered the chapel in great state; lady strange, a princess of the suffolk line, bearing her train, and her ladies following in their degrees. _te deum_ was sung and the evening service performed, with all the pomp that protestant worship admits, in that magnificent temple, of which she highly extolled the beauty. the next morning, which was sunday, she went thither again to hear a latin sermon _ad clerum_, and in the evening, the body of this solemn edifice being converted into a temporary theatre, she was there gratified with a representation of the aulularia of plautus. offensive as such an application of a sacred building would be to modern feelings, it probably shocked no one in an age when the practice of performing dramatic entertainments in churches, introduced with the mysteries and moralities of the middle ages, was scarcely obsolete, and certainly not forgotten. neither was the representation of plays on sundays at this time regarded as an indecorum. a public disputation in the morning and a latin play on the story of dido in the evening formed the entertainment of her majesty on the third day. on the fourth, an english play called ezechias was performed before her. the next morning she visited the different colleges,--at each of which a latin oration awaited her and a parting present of gloves and confectionary, besides a volume richly bound, containing the verses in english, latin, greek, hebrew, and chaldee, composed by the members of each learned society in honor of her visit. afterwards she repaired to st. mary's church, where a very long and very learned disputation by doctors in divinity was prepared for her amusement and edification. when it was ended, "the lords, and especially the duke of norfolk and lord robert dudley, kneeling down, humbly desired her majesty to speak something to the university, and in latin. her highness at the first refused, saying, that if she might speak her mind in english, she would not stick at the matter. but understanding by mr. secretary that nothing might be said openly to the university in english, she required him the rather to speak; because he was chancellor, and the chancellor is the queen's mouth. whereunto he answered, that he was chancellor of the university, and not hers. then the bishop of ely kneeling said, that three words of her mouth were enough." by entreaties so urgent, she appeared to suffer herself to be prevailed upon to deliver a speech which had doubtless been prepared for the occasion, and very probably by cecil himself. this harangue is not worth transcribing at length: it contained some disqualifying phrases respecting her own proficiency in learning, and a pretty profession of feminine bashfulness in delivering an unstudied speech before so erudite an auditory:--her attachment to the cause of learning was then set forth, and a paragraph followed which may thus be translated: "i saw this morning your sumptuous edifices founded by illustrious princes my predecessors for the benefit of learning; but while i viewed them my mind was affected with sorrow, and i sighed like alexander the great, when having perused the records of the deeds of other princes, turning to his friends or counsellors, he lamented that any one should have preceded him either in time or in actions. when i beheld your edifices, i grieved that i had done nothing in this kind. yet did the vulgar proverb somewhat lessen, though it could not entirely remove my concern;--that 'rome was not built in a day.' for my age is not yet so far advanced, neither is it yet so long since i began to reign, but that before i pay my debt to nature,--unless atropos should prematurely cut my thread,--i may still be able to execute some distinguished undertaking: and never will i be diverted from the intention while life shall animate this frame. should it however happen, as it may, i know not how soon, that i should be overtaken by death before i have been able to perform this my promise, i will not fail to leave some great work to be executed after my decease, by which my memory may be rendered famous, others excited by my example, and all of you animated to greater ardor in your studies." after such a speech, it might naturally be inquired, which college did she endow? but, alas! the prevailing disposition of elizabeth was the reverse of liberal; and her revenues, it may be added, were narrow. during the whole course of her long reign, not a single conspicuous act of public munificence sheds its splendor on her name, and the pledge thus solemnly and publicly given, was never redeemed by her, living or dying. an annuity of twenty pounds bestowed, with the title of _her scholar_, on a pretty young man of the name of preston, whose graceful performance in a public disputation and in the latin play of dido had particularly caught her fancy, appears to have been the only solid benefit bestowed by her majesty in return for all the cost and all the learned incense lavished on her reception by this loyal and splendid university[ ]. [note : a seeming contradiction to the assertions in the text may be discovered in the circumstance that elizabeth is the nominal foundress of jesus college oxford. but it was at the expense, as well as at the suggestion, of dr. price, a patriotic welshman, that this seminary of learning, designed for the reception of his fellow-countrymen, was instituted. her name, a charter of incorporation dated june th , and some timber from her forests of stow and shotover, were the only contributions of her majesty towards an object so laudable, and of which the inadequate funds of the real founder long delayed the accomplishment.] soon after her return from her progress, the queen determined to gratify her feelings by conferring on her beloved dudley some signal testimonies of her royal regard; and she invested him with the dignities of baron of denbigh and earl of leicester, accompanying these honors with the splendid gift of kennelworth castle, park and manor:--for in behalf of dudley, and afterwards of essex, she could even forget for a time her darling virtue,--frugality. the chronicles of the time describe with extraordinary care and minuteness the whole pompous ceremonial of this creation; but a much more lively and interesting description of this scene, as well as of several others of which he was an eye-witness in the court of elizabeth, has been handed down to us in the entertaining memoirs of sir james melvil; a scotch gentleman noted among the political agents, or diplomatists of second rank, whom that age of intrigue brought forth so abundantly. a few particulars of the history of this person, curious in themselves, will also form a proper introduction to his narrative. melvil was born in fifeshire in the year , of a family patronized by the queen regent, mary of guise, who having taken into her own service his brothers robert and andrew, both afterwards noted in public life, determined to send james to france to be brought up as page to the queen her daughter, then dauphiness. he was accordingly placed under the care of the crafty monluc bishop of valence, then on his return from his scotch embassy; and previously to his embarkation for the continent he had the advantage of accompanying this master of intrigue on a secret mission to o'neil, then the head of the irish rebels. the youth was apparently not much delighted with his visit to this barbarous chieftain, whose dwelling was "a great dark tower, where," says he, "we had cold cheer, such as herrings and biscuit, for it was lent." arriving at paris, the bishop caused him to be carefully instructed in all the requisite accomplishments of a page,--the french tongue, dancing, fencing, and playing on the lute: and after nine years spent under his protection, melvil passed into the service of the constable montmorenci, by whose interest he obtained a pension from the king of france. whilst in this situation, he was dispatched on a secret mission to scotland, to learn the real designs of the prior of st. andrews, and to inform himself of the state of parties in that country. in the year he obtained permission from his own sovereign to travel, and gained admission into the service of the elector palatine. this prince employed him in an embassy of condolence on the death of francis ii. some time after his return he received a commission from the queen of scots to make himself personally acquainted with the archduke charles, who was proposed to her for a husband. this done, he made a tour in italy, and then returned to the elector palatine at heidelberg. he was next employed by maximilian king of the romans to carry to france the portrait of one of his daughters, to whom proposals of marriage had been made on the part of charles ix. at this court catherine dei medici would gladly have detained him; but a summons from his own queen determined him to repair again to scotland. duke casimir, son of the elector palatine, having some time before made an offer of his hand to queen elizabeth, to which a dubious answer had been returned, requested melvil, in passing through england, to convey his picture to that princess. the envoy, secretly despairing of the suit, desired that he might also be furnished with portraits of the other members of the electoral family, and with some nominal commission by means of which he might gain more easy access to the queen, and produce the picture as if without design. he was accordingly instructed to press for a more explicit answer than had yet been given to the proposal of an alliance offensive and defensive between england and the protestant princes of germany; and thus prepared he reached london early in the year . after some discourse with the queen on the ostensible object of his mission, melvil found occasion to break forth into earnest commendations of the elector, whose service nothing, he said, but this duty to his own sovereign could have induced him to quit; and he added, that for the remembrance of so good a master, he had desired to carry home with him his portrait, as well as those of all his sons and daughters. "so soon as she heard me mention the pictures," continues he, "she enquired if i had the picture of duke casimir, desiring to see it. and when i alleged that i had left the pictures in london, she being then at hampton court, and that i was ready to go forward on my journey, she said i should not part till she had seen the pictures. so the next day i delivered them all to her majesty, and she desired to keep them all night; and she called upon my lord robert dudley to be judge of duke casimir's picture, and appointed me to meet her the next morning in her garden, where she caused to deliver them all unto me, giving me thanks for the sight of them. i then offered unto her majesty all the pictures, so she would permit me to retain the elector's and his lady's, but she would have none of them. i had also sure information that first and last she despised the said duke casimir." it was a little before this time that elizabeth had been consulted by mary on the proposal of the archduke, and had declared by randolph her strong disapprobation of it. she now told melvil, with whom she conversed on this and other subjects very familiarly and with apparent openness, that she intended soon to mention as fit matches for his queen two noblemen, one or other of whom she hoped to see her accept. these two, according to melvil, were dudley and lord darnley, eldest son of the earl of lenox by the lady margaret douglas. it must however be remarked, that melvil appears to be the only writer who asserts that the first suggestion of an union between mary and darnley came from the english queen, who afterwards so vehemently opposed this step. but be this as it may, it is probable that elizabeth was more sincere in her desire to impede the austrian match than to promote any other for the queen of scots; and with the former view melvil accuses her of throwing out hints by which the archduke was encouraged to renew his suit to herself. provoked, as he asserts, by this duplicity, of which she soon received certain information, mary returned a sharp answer to a letter from her kinswoman of seemingly friendly advice, and hence had ensued a coldness and a cessation of intercourse between them. but mary, "fearing that if their discord continued it would cut off all correspondence between her and her friends in england," thought good, a few weeks after melvil had returned to scotland, to dispatch him again towards london, "to deal with the queen of england, with the spanish ambassador, and with my lady margaret douglas, and with sundry friends she had in england of different opinions." it was the interest of neither sovereign at this time to be on bad terms with the other; and their respective ministers and secretaries being also agreed among themselves to maintain harmony between the countries, the excuses and explanations of melvil were allowed to pass current, and the demonstrations of amity were resumed between the hostile queens. some particulars of the reception of this envoy at the english court are curious, and may probably be relied on. "being arrived at london i lodged near the court, which was at westminster. my host immediately gave advertisement of my coming, and that same night her majesty sent mr. hatton, afterwards governor of the isle of wight, to welcome me, and to show me that the next morning she would give me audience in her garden at eight of the clock." "the next morning mr. hatton and mr. randolph, late agent for the queen of england in scotland, came to my lodging to convey me to her majesty, who was, as they said, already in the garden. with them came a servant of my lord robert's with a horse and foot-mantle of velvet, laced with gold, for me to ride upon. which servant, with the said horse, waited upon me all the time that i remained there." at a subsequent interview, "the old friendship being renewed, elizabeth inquired if the queen had sent any answer to the proposition of marriage made to her by mr. randolph. i answered, as i had been instructed, that my mistress thought little or nothing thereof, but attended the meeting of some commissioners upon the borders... to confer and treat upon all such matters of greatest importance, as should be judged to concern the quiet of both countries, and the satisfaction of both their majesties' minds." adding, "the queen my mistress is minded, as i have said, to send for her part my lord of murray, and the secretary lidingtoun, and expects your majesty will send my lord of bedford and my lord robert dudley." she answered, "it appeared i made but small account of my lord robert, seeing i named the earl of bedford before him, but that erelong she would make him a far greater earl, and that i should see it done before my returning home. for she esteemed him as her brother and best friend, whom she would have herself married had she ever minded to have taken a husband. but being determined to end her life in virginity, she wished the queen her sister might marry him, as meetest of all other with whom she could find in her heart to declare her second person. for being matched with him, it would remove out of her mind all fears and suspicions, to be offended by any usurpation before her death. being assured that he was so loving and trusty that he would never suffer any such thing to be attempted during her time. and that the queen my mistress might have the higher esteem of him, i was required to stay till i should see him made earl of leicester and baron of denbigh; which was done at westminster with great solemnity, the queen herself helping to put on his ceremonial (mantle), he sitting upon his knees before her with a great gravity. but she could not refrain from putting her hand in his neck, smilingly tickling him, the french ambassador and i standing by. then she turned, asking at me how i liked him? i answered, that as he was a worthy servant, so he was happy, who had a princess who could discern and reward good service. yet, says she, you like better of yonder long lad, pointing towards my lord darnley, who, as nearest prince of the blood, did bear the sword of honor that day before her." "she appeared to be so affectionate to the queen her good sister, that she expressed a great desire to see her. and because their so much by her desired meeting could not so hastily be brought to pass, she appeared with great delight to look upon her majesty's picture. she took me to her bed-chamber, and opened a little cabinet, wherein were divers little pictures wrapped within paper, and their names written with her own hand upon the papers. upon the first that she took up was written 'my lord's picture.' i held the candle, and pressed to see that picture so named; she appeared loath to let me see it, yet my importunity prevailed for a sight thereof, and i found it to be the earl of leicester's picture. i desired that i might have it to carry home to my queen, which she refused, alleging that she had but that one picture of his. i said, 'your majesty hath here the original, for i perceived him at the furthest part of the chamber, speaking with secretary cecil.' then she took out the queen's picture, and kissed it, and i adventured to kiss her hand, for the great love evidenced therein to my mistress. she showed me also a fair ruby, as great as a tennis-ball; i desired that she would send either it, or my lord of leicester's picture, as a token to my queen. she said, that if the queen would follow her counsel, she would in process of time get all that she had; that in the meantime she was resolved in a token to send her with me a fair diamond. it was at this time late after supper; she appointed me to be with her the next morning by eight of the clock, at which time she used to walk in her garden." "she enquired of me many things relating to this kingdom (scotland) and other countries wherein i had travelled. she caused me to dine with her dame of honor, my lady strafford (an honorable and godly lady, who had been at geneva banished during the reign of queen mary), that i might be always near her, that she might confer with me." ..."at divers meetings we had divers purposes. the queen my mistress had instructed me to leave matters of gravity sometimes, and cast in merry purposes, lest otherwise she should be wearied; she being well informed of that queen's natural temper. therefore in declaring my observations of the customs of dutchland, poland, and italy; the buskins of the women was not forgot, and what country weed i thought best becoming gentlewomen. the queen said she had clothes of every sort, which every day thereafter, so long as i was there, she changed. one day she had the english weed, another the french, and another the italian, and so forth. she asked me, which of them became her best? i answered, in my judgement the italian dress; which answer i found pleased her well, for she delighted to show her golden coloured hair, wearing a caul and bonnet as they do in italy. her hair was rather reddish than yellow, curled in appearance naturally. "she desired to know of me what colour of hair was reputed best, and whether my queen's hair or hers was best, and which of them two was fairest? i answered, the fairness of them both was not their worst faults. but she was earnest with me to declare which of them i judged fairest? i said, she was the fairest queen in england, and mine in scotland. yet she appeared earnest. i answered, they were both the fairest ladies in their countries; that her majesty was whiter, but my queen was very lovely. she enquired, which of them was of highest stature? i said, my queen. then, saith she, she is too high, for i myself am neither too high nor too low. then she asked, what exercises she used? i answered, that when i received my dispatch, the queen was lately come from the highland hunting. that when her more serious affairs permitted, she was taken up with reading of histories: that sometimes she recreated herself in playing upon the lute and virginals. she asked if she played well? i said reasonably, for a queen." "that same day after dinner, my lord of hunsdon drew me up to a quiet gallery that i might hear some music, but he said he durst not avow it, where i might hear the queen play upon the virginals. after i had harkened awhile, i took by the tapestry that hung before the door of the chamber, and seeing her back was toward the door, i ventured within the chamber, and stood a pretty space hearing her play excellently well; but she left off immediately, so soon as she turned about and saw me. she appeared to be surprised to see me, and came forward, seeming to strike me with her hand, alleging that she used not to play before men, but when she was solitary, to shun melancholy. she asked how i came there? i answered, as i was walking with my lord of hunsdon, as we passed by the chamber door, i heard such melody as ravished me, whereby i was drawn in ere i knew how, excusing my fault of homeliness as being brought up in the court of france, where such freedom was allowed; declaring myself willing to endure what kind of punishment her majesty should be pleased to inflict upon me, for so great an offence. then she sat down low upon a cushion, and i upon my knees by her, but with her own hand she gave me a cushion to lay under my knee, which at first i refused, but she compelled me to take it. she then called for my lady strafford out of the next chamber, for the queen was alone. she enquired whether my queen or she played best? in that i found myself obliged to give her the praise. she said my french was very good, and asked if i could speak italian, which she spoke reasonably well. i told her majesty i had no time to learn the language, not having been above two months in italy. then she spake to me in dutch, which was not good; and would know what kind of books i most delighted in, whether theology, history, or love matters? i said i liked well of all the sorts. here i took occasion to press earnestly my dispatch: she said i was sooner weary of her company than she was of mine. i told her majesty, that though i had no reason of being weary, i knew my mistress her affairs called me home; yet i was stayed two days longer, that i might see her dance, as i was afterward informed. which being over, she enquired of me whether she or my queen danced best? i answered, the queen danced not so high or disposedly as she did. then again she wished that she might see the queen at some convenient place of meeting. i offered to convey her secretly to scotland by post, cloathed like a page, that under this disguise she might see the queen, as james v. had gone in disguise with his own ambassador to see the duke of vendome's sister, who should have been his wife. telling her that her chamber might be kept in her absence, as though she were sick; that none need be privy thereto except lady strafford, and one of the grooms of her chamber. she appeared to like that kind of language, only answered it with a sigh, saying, alas, if i might do it thus!" respecting leicester, melvil says, that he was conveyed by him in his barge from hampton court to london, and that, by the way, he inquired of him what the queen of scots thought of him and of the marriage proposed by randolph. "whereunto," says he, "i answered very coldly, as i had been by my queen commanded." then he began to purge himself of so proud a pretence as to marry so great a queen, declaring that he did not esteem himself worthy to wipe her shoes, and that the invention of that proposition of marriage proceeded from mr. cecil, his secret enemy: "for if i," said he, "should have appeared desirous of that marriage, i should have offended both the queens, and lost their favor[ ]." [note : melvil's "memoirs," _passim_.] if we are to receive as sincere this declaration of his sentiments by leicester,--confessedly one of the deepest dissemblers of the age,--what a curious view does it afford of the windings and intricacies of the character of elizabeth, of the tissue of ingenious snares which she delighted to weave around the foot-steps even of the man whom she most favored, loved, and trusted! perhaps she encouraged, if she did not originally devise, this matrimonial project purely as a romantic trial of his attachment to herself, and pleased her fancy with the idea of his rejecting for her a younger and a fairer queen;--perhaps she entertained a transient thought of making him her own husband, and wished previously to give him consequence by this proposal;--perhaps she meant nothing more than to perplex mary by a variety of suitors, and thus delay her marriage; an event which she could not anticipate without vexation. that she was not sincere in her recommendation of leicester is certain from the circumstance, that when the queen of scots, appearing to incline to a speedy conclusion of the business, pressed to know on what conditions elizabeth would give her approbation to the union, the earnestness in the cause which she had before displayed immediately abated. her conduct with respect to darnley is equally involved in perplexity and double-dealing. melvil, as we have seen, asserts that it was elizabeth herself who first mentioned him as a suitable match for the queen of scots: and if his relation be correct, which his partiality towards his own sovereign makes indeed somewhat doubtful, the english princess must have been well aware, when she conversed with him, of the favor with which the addresses of this young nobleman were likely to be received, though the envoy says that he forbore openly to express the sentiments of his court on this topic. it was after melvil's departure that elizabeth, not indeed without reluctance and hesitation, permitted darnley to accompany the earl his father into scotland, ostensibly for the purpose of witnessing the reversal of the attainder formerly passed against him, and his solemn restoration in blood; but really, as she must well have known, with the object of pushing his suit with the queen. mary no sooner beheld the handsome youth than she was seized with a passion for him, which she determined to gratify: but apprehensive, with reason, of the interference of elizabeth, she disguised for the present her inclinations, and engaged with a feigned earnestness in negotiations preparatory to an union with leicester. meanwhile she was secretly soliciting at rome the necessary dispensation for marrying within the prohibited degrees of the church; and it was not till the arrival of this instrument was speedily expected, and all her other preparations were complete, that, taking off the mask, she requested her good sister's approbation of her approaching nuptials with lord darnley. it is scarcely credible that a person of elizabeth's sagacity, with her means of gaining intelligence and after all that had passed, could have been surprised by this notification of the intentions of the queen of scots, and it is even problematical how far she was really displeased at the occurrence. except by imitating her perpetual celibacy,--a compliment to her envy and her example which could not in reason be expected,--it might seem impossible for the queen of scots better to consult the views and wishes of her kinswoman than by uniting herself to darnley;--a subject, and an english subject, a near relation both of her own and elizabeth's, and a man on whom nature had bestowed not a single quality calculated to render him either formidable or respectable. the queen of england, however, frowardly bent on opposing the match to the utmost, directed sir nicholas throgmorton, her ambassador, to set before the eyes of mary a long array of objections and impediments; and he was further authorized secretly to promise support to such of the scottish nobles as would undertake to oppose it. she ordered, in the most imperious terms, the earl of lenox and his son to return immediately into england; threw the countess of lenox into the tower by way of intimidation; and caused her privy-council to exercise their ingenuity in discovering the manifold inconveniences and dangers likely to arise to herself and to her country from the alliance of the queen of scots with a house so nearly connected with the english crown. mary, however, persisted in accomplishing the union on which her mind was set: darnley and his father neglected elizabeth's order of recall; and her privy-council vexed her by drawing from the melancholy forebodings which she had urged them to promulgate two unwelcome inferences;--that the queen ought to lose no time in forming a connexion which might cut off the hopes of others by giving to the nation posterity of her own;--and that as the lenox family were known papists, it would now be expedient to exercise against all of that persuasion the utmost severity of the penal laws. the earl of murray and some other malcontent lords in scotland were the only persons who entered with warmth and sincerity into the measures of elizabeth against the marriage; for they alone had any personal interest in impeding the advancement of the lenox family. rashly relying on the assurances which they had received of aid from england, they took up arms against their sovereign; but finding no support from any quarter, they were soon compelled to make their escape across the border and seek refuge with the earl of bedford, lord warden of the marches. on their arrival in london, the royal dissembler insisted on their declaring, in presence of the french and spanish ambassadors, that their rebellious attempts had received no encouragement from her; but after this open disavowal, she permitted them to remain unmolested in her dominions, secretly supplying them with money and interceding with their offended sovereign in their behalf. melvil acquaints us that when sir nicholas throgmorton, on returning from his embassy, found that the promises which he had made to these malcontents had been disclaimed both by her majesty and by randolph, he "stood in awe neither of queen nor council to declare the verity, that he had made such promises in her name, whereof the councillors and craftiest courtiers thought strange, and were resolving to punish him for avowing the same promise to be made in his mistress' name, had not he wisely and circumspectly obtained an act of council for his warrant, which he offered to produce. and the said sir nicholas was so angry that he had been made an instrument to deceive the said banished lords, that he advised them to sue humbly for pardon at their own queen's hand, and to engage never again to offend her for satisfaction of any prince alive. and because, as they were then stated, they had no interest, he penned for them a persuasive letter and sent to her majesty." on this occasion throgmorton showed himself a warm friend to mary's succession in england, and advised clemency to the banished lords as one mean to secure it. mary, highly esteeming him and convinced by his reasons, resolved to follow his counsels. elizabeth never willingly remitted any thing of that rigor against the puritans which she loved to believe it politic to exercise; but they were fortunate enough to find an almost avowed patron in leicester, and secret favorers in several of her ministers and counsellors; and during the persecutions of the catholics which followed the marriage of mary, she was compelled to press upon them with a less heavy hand. archbishop parker, who was proceeding with much self-satisfaction and success in the task of silencing by the pains of suspension and deprivation all scruples of conscience among the clergy respecting habits and ceremonies, was now mortified to find his zeal restrained by the interference of the queen herself, while the exulting puritans studied to improve to the utmost the temporary connivance of the ruling powers. chapter xiv. and . renewal of the archduke's proposal.--disappointment of leicester.--anecdote concerning him.--disgrace of the earl of arundel.--situation of the duke of norfolk.--leicester his secret enemy.--notice of the earl of sussex.--proclamation respecting fencing schools.--marriage of lady mary grey.--sir h. sidney deputy of ireland.--queen's letter to him.--prince of scotland born.--melvil sent with the news to elizabeth.--his account of his reception.--motion in the house of commons for naming a successor.--discord between the house and the queen on this ground.--she refuses a subsidy--dissolves parliament--visits oxford.--particulars of her reception. whether or not it was with a view of impeding the marriage of the queen of scots that elizabeth had originally encouraged the renewal of the proposals of the archduke to herself, certain it is that the treaty was still carried on, and even with increased earnestness, long after this motive had ceased to operate. it was subsequently to mary's announcement of her approaching nuptials, that to the instances of the imperial ambassador elizabeth had replied, that she desired to keep herself free till she had finally decided on the answer to be given to the king of france, who had also offered her his hand[ ]. after breaking off this negotiation with charles ix., she declared to the same ambassador, that she would never engage to marry a person whom she had not seen;--an answer which seemed to hint to the archduke that a visit would be well received. it was accordingly reported with confidence that this prince would soon commence his journey to england; and cecil himself ventured to write to a friend, that if he would accede to the national religion, and if his person proved acceptable to her majesty, "except god should please to continue his displeasure against us, we should see some success." but he thought that the archduke would never explain himself on religion to any one except the queen, and not to her until he should see hopes of speeding. [note : it is on the authority of strype's "annals" that this offer of charles ix. to elizabeth is recorded. hume, camden, rapin, are all silent respecting it; but as it seems that catherine dei medici was at the time desirous of the appearance of a closer connexion with elizabeth, it is not improbable that she might throw out some hint of this nature without any real wish of bringing about an union in all respects so unsuitable.] the splendid dream of leicester's ambition was dissipated for ever by these negotiations; and a diminution of the queen's partiality towards him, distinctly visible to the observant eyes of her courtiers, either preceded or accompanied her entertaining so long, and with such an air of serious deliberation, the proposals of a foreign prince. the enemies of leicester,--a large and formidable party, comprehending almost all the highest names among the nobility and the greater part of the ministers,--openly and zealously espoused the interest of the archduke. leicester at first with equal warmth and equal openness opposed his pretensions; but he was soon admonished by the frowns of his royal mistress, that if he would preserve or recover his influence, he must now be content to take a humbler tone, and disguise a disappointment which there was arrogance in avowing. the disposition of elizabeth partook so much more of the haughty than the tender, that the slightest appearances of presumption would always provoke her to take a pleasure in mortifying the most distinguished of her favorites; and it might be no improbable guess, that almost the whole of the encouragement given by her to the addresses of the archduke was prompted by the desire of humbling the pride of leicester, and showing him that his ascendency over her was not so complete or so secure as he imagined. a circumstance is related which we may conjecture to have occurred about this time, and which sets in a strong light this part of the character of elizabeth. "bowyer, a gentleman of the black rod, being charged by her express command to look precisely into all admissions into the privy-chamber, one day stayed a very gay captain, and a follower of my lord of leicester's, from entrance; for that he was neither well known, nor a sworn servant to the queen: at which repulse, the gentleman, bearing high on my lord's favor, told him, he might perchance procure him a discharge. leicester coming into the contestation, said publicly (which was none of his wont) that he was a knave, and should not continue long in his office; and so turning about to go in to the queen, bowyer, who was a bold gentleman and well beloved, stepped before him and fell at her majesty's feet, related the story, and humbly craves her grace's pleasure; and whether my lord of leicester was king, or her majesty queen? whereunto she replied with her wonted oath, 'god's death, my lord, i have wished you well; but my favor is not so locked up for you, that others shall not partake thereof; for i have many servants, to whom i have, and will at my pleasure, bequeath my favor, and likewise resume the same: and if you think to rule here, i will take a course to see you forthcoming. i will have here but one mistress, and no master; and look that no ill happen to him, lest it be required at your hands.' which words so quelled my lord of leicester, that his feigned humility was long after one of his best virtues[ ]." [note : naunton's "fragmenta regalia."] it might be some consolation to leicester, under his own mortifications, to behold his ancient rival the earl of arundel subjected to far severer ones. this nobleman had resigned in disgust his office of lord-chamberlain; subsequently, the queen, on some ground of displeasure now unknown, had commanded him to confine himself to his own house; and at the end of several months passed under this kind of restraint, she still denied him for a further term the consolation and privilege of approaching her royal presence. disgraces so public and so lasting determined him to throw up the desperate game on which he had hazarded so deep a stake: he obtained leave to travel, and hastened to conceal or forget in foreign lands the bitterness of his disappointment and the embarrassment of his circumstances. it is probable that from this time elizabeth found no more serious suitors amongst her courtiers, though they flattered her by continuing, almost to the end of her life, to address her in the language of love, or rather of gallantry. with all her coquetry, her head was clear, her passions were cool; and men began to perceive that there was little chance of prevailing with her to gratify her heart or her fancy at the expense of that independence on which her lofty temper led her to set so high a value. some were still uncharitable, unjust enough to believe that leicester was, or had been, a fortunate lover; but few now expected to see him her husband, and none found encouragement sufficient to renew the experiment in which he had failed. notwithstanding her short and capricious fits of pride and anger, it was manifest that leicester still exercised over her mind an influence superior on the whole to that of any other person; and the high distinction with which she continued to treat him, both in public and private, alarmed the jealousy and provoked the hostility of all who thought themselves entitled by rank, by relationship, or by merit, to a larger share of her esteem and favor, or a more intimate participation in her councils. one nobleman there was, who had peculiar pretensions to supersede leicester in his popular appellation of "heart of the court," and on whom he had already fixed in secret the watchful eye of a rival. this was thomas duke of norfolk. inheriting through several channels the blood of the plantagenets,--nearly related to the queen by her maternal ancestry, and connected by descent or alliance with the whole body of the ancient nobility; endeared also to the people by many shining qualities, and still more by his unfeigned zeal for reformed religion,--his grace stood first amongst the peers of england, not in degree alone or in wealth, but in power, in influence, and in public estimation. he was in the prime of manhood and lately a widower; and when, in the parliament of , certain members did not scruple to maintain that the queen ought to be compelled to marry for the good of her country, the duke was named by some, as the earl of pembroke was by others and the earl of leicester by a third party, as the person whom she ought to accept as a husband. it does not however appear that the duke himself had aspired, openly at least, to these august but unattainable nuptials. elizabeth seems to have entertained for him at this period a real regard: he could be to her no object of distrust or danger, and the example which she was ever careful to set of a scrupulous observance of the gradations of rank, led her on all occasions to prefer him to the post of honor. thus, after the peace with france in , when charles ix. in return for the garter, which the queen of england had sent him, offered to confer the order of st. michael on two english nobles of her appointment, she named without hesitation the duke of norfolk and the earl of leicester. the arrogance of dudley seldom escaped from the control of policy; and as he had the sagacity to perceive that the duke was a competitor over whom treachery alone could render him finally triumphant, he cautiously avoided with him any open collision of interests, any offensive rivalry in matters of place and dignity. he even went further; he compelled himself, by a feigned deference, to administer food to that exaggerated self-consequence,--the cherished foible of the house of howard in general and of this duke in particular,--out of which he perhaps already hoped that matter would arise to work his ruin. the chronicles of the year give a striking instance of this part of his behaviour, in the information, that the duke of norfolk, going to keep his christmas in his own county, was attended out of london by the earls of leicester and warwick, the lord-chamberlain and other lords and gentlemen, who brought him on his journey, "doing him all the honor in their power." the duke was not gifted with any great degree of penetration, and the generosity of his disposition combined with his vanity to render him generally the dupe of outward homage and fair professions. he repaid the insidious complaisance of leicester with good will and even with confidence; and it was not till all was lost that he appears to have recognised this fatal and irreparable error. thomas earl of sussex was an antagonist of a different nature,--an enemy rather than a rival,--and one who sought the overthrow of leicester with as much zeal and industry as leicester himself sought his, or that of the duke; but by means as open and courageous as those of his opponent were ever secret, base, and cowardly. this nobleman, the third earl of the surname of radcliffe, and son of him who had interfered with effect to procure more humane and respectful treatment of elizabeth during the period of her adversity, had been first known by the title of lord fitzwalter, which he derived from a powerful line of barons well known in english history from the days of henry i. by his mother, a daughter of thomas second duke of norfolk, he was first-cousin to queen anne boleyn; and friendship, still more than the ties of blood, closely connected him with the head of the howards. several circumstances render it probable that he was not a zealous protestant, though it is no where hinted that he was even secretly attached to the catholic party. during the reign of mary, his high character and approved loyalty had caused him to be employed, first in an embassy to the emperor charles v. to settle the queen's marriage-articles; and afterwards in the arduous post of lord-deputy of ireland. elizabeth continued him for some time in this situation; but wishing to avail herself of his counsels and service at home, she recalled him in , conferred upon him the high dignity of lord-chamberlain, vacant by the resignation of the earl of arundel, and appointed as his successor in ireland his excellent second in office sir henry sidney, who stood in the same relation, that of brother-in-law, to sussex and to leicester, and whose singular merit and good fortune it was to preserve to the end the esteem and friendship of both. the ostensible cause of quarrel between these two earls seems to have been their difference of opinion respecting the austrian match; but this was rather the pretext than the motive of an animosity deeply rooted in the natures and situation of each, and probably called into action by particular provocations now unknown. the disposition of sussex was courageous and sincere; his spirit high, his judgement clear and strong, his whole character honorable and upright. in the arts of a courtier, which he despised, he was confessedly inferior to his wily adversary; in all the qualifications of a statesman and a soldier he vastly excelled him. sussex was endowed with penetration sufficient to detect, beneath the thick folds of hypocrisy and artifice in which he had involved them, the monstrous vices of leicester's disposition; and he could not without indignation and disgust behold a princess whose blood he shared, whose character he honored, and whose service he had himself embraced with pure devotion, the dupe of an impostor so despicable and so pernicious. that influence which he saw leicester abuse to the dishonor of the queen and the detriment of the country, he undertook to overthrow by fair and public means, and, so far as appears, without motives of personal interest or ambition:--thus far all was well, and for the effort, whether successful or not, he merited the public thanks. but there mingled in the bosom of the high-born sussex an illiberal disdain of the origin of dudley, with a just abhorrence of his character and conduct. he was wont to say of him, that two ancestors were all that he could number, his father and grandfather; both traitors and enemies to their country. his sarcasms roused in leicester an animosity which he did not attempt to disguise: with the exception of cecil and his friends, who stood neuter, the whole court divided into factions upon the quarrel of these two powerful peers; and to such extremity were matters carried, that for some time neither of them would stir abroad without a numerous train armed, according to the fashion of the day, with daggers and spiked bucklers. scarcely could the queen herself restrain these "angry opposites" from breaking out into acts of violence: at length however, summoning them both into her presence, she forced them to a reconciliation neither more nor less sincere than such pacifications by authority have usually proved. the open and unmeasured enmity of sussex seems to have been productive in the end of more injury to his own friends than to leicester. the storm under which the favorite had bowed for an instant was quickly overpast, and he once more reared his head erect and lofty as before. to revenge himself by the ruin or disgrace of sussex was however beyond his power: the well-founded confidence of elizabeth in his abilities and his attachment to her person, he found to be immovable; but against his friends and adherents, against the duke of norfolk himself, his malignant arts succeeded but too well; and it seems not improbable that leicester, for the purpose of carrying on without molestation his practices against them, concurred in procuring for his adversary an honorable exile in the shape of an embassy to the imperial court, on which he departed in the year . after his return from this mission the queen named the earl of sussex lord-president of the north, an appointment which equally removed him from the immediate theatre of court intrigue. not long after, the hand of death put a final close to his honorable career, and to an enmity destined to know no other termination. as he lay upon his death-bed, this eminent person is recorded to have thus addressed his surrounding friends: "i am now passing into another world, and must leave you to your fortunes and to the queen's grace and goodness; but beware of the _gipsy_ (meaning leicester), for he will be too hard for you all; you know not the beast so well as i do[ ]." [note : naunton's "fragmenta regalia."] this earl left no children, and his widow became the munificent foundress of sidney sussex college, cambridge. of his negotiations with the court of vienna respecting the royal marriage which he had so much at heart, particulars will be given in due time; but the miscellaneous transactions of two or three preceding years claim a priority of narration. by a proclamation of february , the queen revived some former sumptuary laws respecting apparel; chiefly, it should appear, from an apprehension that a dangerous confusion of ranks would be the consequence of indulging to her subjects the liberty of private judgement in a matter so important. the following clause concerning fencing schools is appended to this instrument. "because it is daily seen what disorders do grow and are likely to increase in the realm, by the increase of numbers of persons taking upon them to teach the multitude of common people to play at all kind of weapons; and for that purpose set up schools called schools of fence, in places inconvenient; tending to the great disorder of such people as properly ought to apply to their labours and handy works: therefore her majesty ordereth and commandeth, that no teacher of fence shall keep any school or common place of resort in any place of the realm, but within the liberties of some city of the realm. where also they shall be obedient to such orders as the governors of the cities shall appoint to them, for the better keeping of the peace, and for prohibition of resort of such people to the same schools as are not mete for that purpose." &c. on these restrictions, which would seem to imply an unworthy jealousy of putting arms and the skill to use them into the hands of the common people, it is equitable to remark, that the custom of constantly wearing weapons, at this time almost universal, though prohibited by the laws of some of our early kings, had been found productive of those frequent acts of violence and outrage which have uniformly resulted from this truly barbarous practice in all the countries where it has been suffered to prevail. from the description of england prefixed to holinshed's chronicles, we learn several particulars on this subject. few men, even of the gravest and most pacific characters, such as ancient burgesses and city magistrates, went without a dagger at their side or back. the nobility commonly wore swords or rapiers as well as daggers, as did every common serving-man following his master. some "desperate cutters" carried two daggers, or two rapiers in a sheath, always about them, with which in every drunken fray they worked much mischief; their swords and daggers also were of an extraordinary length (an abuse which was provided against by a clause of the proclamation above quoted); some "suspicious fellows" also would carry on the highways staves of twelve or thirteen feet long, with pikes of twelve inches at the end, wherefore the honest traveller was compelled to ride with a case of _dags_ (pistols) at his saddle-bow, and none travelled without sword, or dagger, or hanger. about this time occurred what a contemporary reporter called "an unhappy chance and monstrous;" the marriage of lady mary grey to the serjeant-porter: a circumstance thus recorded by fuller, with his accustomed quaintness. "mary grey... frighted with the infelicity of her two elder sisters, jane and this catherine, forgot her honor to remember her safety, and married one whom she could love and none need fear, martin kays, of kent esquire, who was a judge at court, (but only of doubtful casts at dice, being serjeant-porter,) and died without issue the th of april [ ]." [note : "worthies in leicestershire."] the queen, according to her usual practice in similar cases, sent both husband and wife to prison. what became further of the husband i do not find; but respecting the wife, sir thomas gresham the eminent merchant, in a letter to lord burleigh dated in april , mentions, that the lady mary grey had been kept in his house nearly three years, and begs of his lordship that he will make interest for her removal. thus it should appear that this unfortunate lady did not sufficiently "remember her safety" in forming this connexion, obscure and humble as it was; for all matrimony had now become offensive to the austerity or the secret envy of the maiden queen. sir henry sidney, on arriving to take the government of ireland, found that unhappy country in a state of more than ordinary turbulence, distraction, and misery. petty insurrections of perpetual recurrence harassed the english pale; and the native chieftains, disdaining to accept the laws of a foreign sovereign as the umpire of their disputes, were waging innumerable private wars, which at once impoverished, afflicted, and barbarized their country. the most important of these feuds was one between the earls of ormond and desmond, which so disquieted the queen that, in addition to all official instructions, she deemed it necessary to address her deputy on the subject in a private letter written with her own hand. this document, printed in the sidney papers, is too valuable, as a specimen of her extraordinary style and her manner of thinking, to be omitted. it is without date, but must have been written in . * * * * * "letter of queen elizabeth to sir henry sidney, on the quarrel between thomas earl of ormond and the earl of desmond, _anno_ . "harry, "if our partial slender managing of the contentious quarrel between the two irish earls did not make the way to cause these lines to pass my hand, this gibberish should hardly have cumbered your eyes; but warned by my former fault, and dreading worser hap to come, i rede you take good heed that the good subjects lost state be so revenged that i hear not the rest be won to a right bye way to breed more traitor's stocks, and so the goal is gone. make some difference between tried, just, and false friend. let the good service of well-deservers be never rewarded with loss. let their thank be such as may encourage no strivers for the like. suffer not that desmond's denying deeds, far wide from promised works, make you to trust to other pledge than either himself or john for gage: he hath so well performed his english vows, that i warn you trust him no longer than you see one of them. prometheus let me be, _epimetheus_[ ] hath been mine too long. i pray god your old strange sheep late (as you say) returned into the fold, wore not her wooly garment upon her wolvy back. you know a kingdom knows no kindred, _si violandum jus regnandi causa_. a strength to harm is perilous in the hand of an ambitious head. where might is mixed with wit, there is too good an accord in a government. essays be oft dangerous, specially when the cup-bearer hath received such a preservative as, what might so ever betide the drinker's draught, the carrier takes no bane thereby. [note : in the original, "and prometheus," but evidently by a mere slip of the pen.] "believe not, though they swear, that they can be full sound, whose parents sought the rule that they full fain would have. i warrant you they will never be accused of bastardy; you were to blame to lay it to their charge, they will trace the steps that others have passed before. if i had not espied, though very late, legerdemain, used in these cases, i had never played my part. no, if i did not see the balances held awry, i had never myself come into the weigh house. i hope i shall have so good a customer of you, that all other officers shall do their duty among you. if aught have been amiss at home, i will patch though i cannot whole it. let us not, nor no more do you, consult so long as till advice come too late to the givers: where then shall we wish the deeds while all was spent in words; a fool too late bewares when all the peril is past. if we still advise, we shall never do, thus are we still knitting a knot never tied; yea, and if our _web_[ ] be framed with rotten hurdles, when our _loom_ is welny done, our work is new to begin. god send the weaver true prentices again, and let them be denizens i pray you if they be not citizens; and such too as your ancientest aldermen, that have or now dwell in your official place, have had best cause to commend their good behaviour. [note : the words _web_ and _loom_ in this sentence ought certainly to be transposed.] "let this memorial be only committed to vulcan's base keeping, without any longer abode than the reading thereof, yea, and with no mention made thereof to any other wight. i charge you as i may command you. seem not to have had but secretary's letter from me. "your loving mistress "elizabeth r." * * * * * in the month of june , the queen of scots was delivered of a son. james melvil was immediately dispatched with the happy intelligence to her good sister of england: and he has fortunately left us a narrative of this mission, which equals in vivacity the relation of his former visit. "by twelve of the clock i took horse, and was that night at berwick. the fourth day after, i was at london, and did first meet with my brother sir robert (then ambassador to england), who that same night sent and advertised secretary cecil of my arrival, and of the birth of the prince, desiring him to keep it quiet till my coming to court to show it myself unto her majesty, who was for the time at greenwich, where her majesty was in great mirth, dancing after supper. but so soon as the secretary cecil whispered in her ear the news of the prince's birth, all her mirth was laid aside for that night. all present marvelling whence proceeded such a change; for the queen did sit down, putting her hand under her cheek, bursting out to some of her ladies, that the queen of scots was mother of a fair son, while she was but a barren stock. "the next morning was appointed for me to get audience, at what time my brother and i went by water to greenwich, and were met by some friends who told us how sorrowful her majesty was at my news, but that she had been advised to show a glad and cheerful countenance; which she did in her best apparel, saying, that the joyful news of the queen her sister's delivery of a fair son, which i had sent her by secretary cecil, had recovered her out of a heavy sickness which she had lain under for fifteen days. therefore she welcomed me with a merry volt, and thanked me for the diligence i had used in hasting to give her that welcome intelligence." &c. "the next day her majesty sent unto me her letter, with the present of a fair chain." resolved to perform with a good grace the part which she had assumed, elizabeth accepted with alacrity the office of sponsor to the prince of scotland, sending thither as her proxies the earl of bedford, mr. carey son of lord hunsdon, and other knights and gentlemen; who met with so cordial a reception from mary,--now at open variance with her husband, and therefore desirous of support from england,--as to provoke the jealousy of the french ambassadors. the present of the royal godmother was a font of pure gold worth above one thousand pounds; in return for which, rings, rich chains of diamond and pearl, and other jewels were liberally bestowed upon her substitutes. the birth of her son lent a vast accession of strength to the party of the queen of scots in england; and melvil was commissioned to convey back to her from several of the principal personages of the court, warm professions of an attachment to her person and interests, which the jealousy of their mistress compelled them to dissemble. elizabeth, on her part, was more than ever disturbed by suspicions on this head, which were kept in constant activity by the secret informations of the armies of spies whom it was her self-tormenting policy to set over the words and actions of the scottish queen and her english partisans. the more she learned of the influence privately acquired by mary amongst her subjects, the more, of course, she feared and hated her, and the stronger became her determination never to give her additional consequence by an open recognition of her right of succession. at the same time she was fully sensible that no other person could be thought of as the inheritrix of her crown; and she resolved, perhaps wisely, to maintain on this subject an inflexible silence: this policy, however, connected with her perseverance in a state of celibacy, began to awaken in her people an anxiety respecting their future destinies, which, being artfully fomented by scottish emissaries, produced, in , the first symptoms of discord between the queen and her faithful commons. a motion was made in the lower house for reviving the suit to her majesty touching the naming of a successor in case of her death without posterity; and in spite of the strenuous opposition of the court party, and the efforts of the ministers to procure a delay by declaring "that the queen was moved to marriage and inclined to prosecute the same," it was carried, and a committee appointed to confer with the lords. the business was not very agreeable to the upper house: a committee however was named, and the queen soon after required some members of both houses to wait upon her respecting this matter; when the lord-keeper explained their sentiments in a long speech, to which her majesty was pleased to reply after her darkest and most ambiguous manner. "as to her marriage," she said, "a silent thought might serve. she thought it had been so desired that none other trees blossom should have been minded or ever any hope of fruit had been denied them. but that if any doubted that she was by vow or determination never bent to trade in that kind of life, she bade them put out that kind of heresy, for their belief was therein awry. and though she could think it best for a private woman, yet she strove with herself to think it not meet for a prince. as to the succession, she bade them not think that they had needed this desire, if she had seen a time so fit; and it so ripe to be denounced. that the greatness of the cause, and the need of their return, made her say that a short time for so long a continuance ought not to pass by rote. that as cause by conference with the learned should show her matter worth utterance for their behoof, so she would more gladly pursue their good after her days, than with all her prayers while she lived be a means to linger out her living thread. that for their comfort, she had good record in that place that other means than they mentioned had been thought of perchance for their good, as much as for her own surety: which, if they could have been presently or conveniently executed, it had not been now deferred or over-slipped. that she hoped to die in quiet with _nunc dimittis_, which could not be without she saw some glimpse of their following surety after her graved bones." these vague sentences tended little to the satisfaction of the house; and a motion was made, and strongly supported by the speeches of several members, for reiteration of the suit. at this her majesty was so incensed, that she communicated by sir francis knowles her positive command to the house to proceed no further in this business, satisfying themselves with the promise of marriage which she had made on the word of a prince. but that truly independent member paul wentworth could not be brought to acquiesce with tameness in this prohibition, and he moved the house on the question, whether the late command of her majesty was not a breach of its privileges? the queen hereupon issued an injunction that there should be no debates on this point; but the spirit of resistance rose so high in the house of commons against this her arbitrary interference, that she found it expedient, a few days after, to rescind both orders, making a great favor however of her compliance, and insisting on the condition, that the subject should not at this time be further pursued. in her speech on adjourning parliament she did not omit to acquaint both houses with her extreme displeasure at their interference touching the naming of a successor; a matter which she always chose to regard as belonging exclusively to her prerogative;--and she ended by telling them, "that though perhaps they might have after her one better learned or wiser, yet she assured them none more careful over them. and therefore henceforth she bade them beware how they proved their prince's patience as they had now done hers. and notwithstanding, not meaning, she said, to make a lent of christmas, the most part of them might assure themselves that they departed in their prince's grace[ ]." [note : strype's "annals."] she utterly refused an extraordinary subsidy which the commons had offered on condition of her naming her successor, and even of the ordinary supplies which she accepted, she remitted a fourth, popularly observing, that it was as well for her to have money in the coffers of her subjects as in her own. by such an alternation of menaces and flatteries did elizabeth contrive to preserve her ascendency over the hearts and minds of her people! the earl of leicester had lately been elected chancellor of the university of oxford, and in the autumn of the queen consented to honor with her presence this seat of learning, long ambitious of such a distinction. she was received with the same ceremonies as at cambridge: learned exhibitions of the same nature awaited her; and she made a similar parade of her bashfulness, and a still greater of her erudition; addressing this university not in latin, but in greek. of the dramatic exhibitions prepared for her recreation, an elegant writer has recorded the following particulars[ ]. "in the magnificent hall of christ-church, she was entertained with a latin comedy called marcus geminus, the latin tragedy of progne, and an english comedy on the story of palamon and arcite, (by richard edwards gentleman of the queen's chapel, and master of the choristers,) all acted by the students of the university. when the last play was over, the queen summoned the poet into her presence, whom she loaded with thanks and compliments: and at the same time, turning to her levee, remarked, that palamon was so justly drawn as a lover, that he must have been in love indeed; that arcite was a right martial knight, having a swart and manly countenance, yet with the aspect of a venus clad in armour: that the lovely emilia was a virgin of uncorrupted purity and unblemished simplicity; and that though she sung so sweetly, and gathered flowers alone in the garden, she preserved her chastity undeflowered. the part of emilia, the only female part in the play, was acted by a boy of fourteen, whose performance so captivated her majesty, that she made him a present of eight guineas[ ]. during the exhibition, a cry of hounds belonging to theseus was counterfeited without in the great square of the college; the young students thought it a real chase, and were seized with a sudden transport to join the hunters: at which the queen cried out from her box, "o excellent! these boys, in very troth, are ready to leap out of the windows to follow the hounds!" [note : warton's "history of english poetry."] [note : mr. warton apparently forgets that _guineas_ were first coined by charles ii.] dr. lawrence humphreys, who had lately been distinguished by his strenuous opposition to the injunctions of the queen and archbishop parker respecting the habits and ceremonies, was at this time vice-chancellor of oxford; and when he came forth in procession to meet the queen, she could not forbear saying with a smile, as she gave him her hand to kiss--"that loose gown, mr. doctor, becomes you mighty well; i wonder your notions should be so narrow." chapter xv. and . terms on which elizabeth offers to acknowledge mary as her successor,--rejected by the scots.--death of darnley.--conduct of elizabeth towards his mother.--letter of cecil.--letter of elizabeth to mary.--mary marries bothwell--is defeated at langside--committed to loch leven castle.--interference of elizabeth in her behalf.--earl of sussex ambassador to vienna.--letters from him to elizabeth respecting the archduke.--causes of the failure of the marriage treaty with this prince.--notice of lord buckhurst.--visit of the queen to fotheringay castle.--mary escapes from prison--raises an army--is defeated--flies into england.--conduct of elizabeth.--mary submits her cause to her--is detained prisoner.--russian embassy.--chancellor's voyage to archangel.--trade opened with russia.--treaty with the czar.--negotiations between elizabeth and the french court.--marriage proposed with the duke of anjou.--privy-council hostile to france.--queen on bad terms with spain. notwithstanding the uniform success and general applause which had hitherto crowned her administration, at no point perhaps of her whole reign was the path of elizabeth more beset with perplexities and difficulties than at the commencement of the year . the prevalence of the scottish faction had compelled her to give a pledge to her parliament respecting matrimony, which must either be redeemed by the sacrifice of her darling independence, or forfeited with the loss of her credit and popularity. her favorite state-mystery,--the choice of a successor,--had also been invaded by rude and daring hands; and to such extremity was she reduced on this point, that she had found it necessary to empower the commissioners whom she sent into scotland for the baptism of the prince, distinctly to propound the following offer. that on a simple ratification by mary of only so much of the treaty of edinburgh as engaged her to advance no claim upon the english crown during the lifetime of elizabeth or any posterity of hers, a solemn recognition of her right of succession should be made by the queen and parliament of england. the scottish ministry, instead of closing instantly with so advantageous a proposal, were imprudent enough to insist upon a previous examination of the will of henry viii., which they fondly believed that they could show to be a forgery: and the delay which the refusal of elizabeth occasioned, gave time for the interposition of circumstances which ruined for ever the character and authority of mary, and rescued her sister-queen from this dilemma. on february the th , lord darnley, then called king of scots, perished by a violent and mysterious death. bothwell, the queen's new favorite, was universally accused of the murder; and the open discord which had subsisted, even before the assassination of rizzio, between the royal pair, gave strong ground of suspicion that mary herself was a participator in the crime. elizabeth behaved on this tragical occurrence with the utmost decorum and moderation; she expressed no opinion hostile to the fame of the queen of scots, and took no immediate measures of a public nature respecting it. it can scarcely be doubted however, that, in common with all europe, she secretly believed in the guilt of mary; and even though at the bottom of her heart she may have desired rather to see her condemned than acquitted in the general verdict, such a feeling ought not, under all the circumstances, to be imputed to her as indicative of any extraordinary malignity of disposition. to announce to the countess of lenox, still her prisoner, the frightful catastrophe which had closed the history of her rash misguided son, was the first step taken by elizabeth: it was a proper, and even an indispensable one; but the respectful and considerate manner of the communication, contrasted with former harsh treatment, might be designed to intimate to the house of lenox that it should now find in her a protectress, and perhaps an avenger. we possess a letter addressed by cecil to sir henry norris ambassador in france, in which are found some particulars on this subject, oddly prefaced by a commission on which it is amusing to a modern reader to contemplate a prime minister at such a time, and with so much gravity, engaged. but the division of labor in public offices seems to have been in this age very imperfect: elizabeth employed her secretary of state to procure her a mantua-maker; james i. occupied his in transcribing sonnets of his own composition. * * * * * "sir william cecil to sir henry norris. february th - . "...the queen's majesty would fain have a taylor that had skill to make her apparel both after the french and italian manner; and she thinketh that you might use some means to obtain some one such there as serveth that queen, without mentioning any manner of request in the queen's majesty's name. first, to cause my lady your wife to use some such means to get one as thereof knowledge might not come to the queen mother's ears, of whom the queen's majesty thinketh thus: that if she did understand it were a matter wherein her majesty might be pleasured, she would offer to send one to the queen's majesty. nevertheless, if it cannot be so obtained by this indirect means, then her majesty would have you devise some other good means to obtain one that were skilful. "i have stayed your son from going hence now these two days, upon the queen's commandment, for that she would have him to have as much of the truth of the circumstances of the murder of the king of scots as might be; and hitherto the same is hard to come by, other than in a generality.... the queen's majesty sent yesterday my lady howard and my wife to the lady lenox to the tower, to open this matter unto her, who could not by any means be kept from such passions of mind as the horribleness of the fact did require. and this last night were with her the said lady, the dean of westminster, and dr. huick, and i hope her majesty will show some favorable compassion of the said lady, whom any humane nature must needs pity[ ]." [note : "scrinia ceciliana."] * * * * * the liberation of the countess followed; and the earl her husband soon after gratified elizabeth's desire to interfere, by invoking her assistance to procure, by representations to mary, some extension of the unusually short time within which he was required to bring forward his proofs against bothwell, whom he had accused of the assassination of his son. this petition produced a very earnest letter from one queen to the other; in which elizabeth plainly represented to her royal sister, that the refusal of such a request to the father of her husband would bring her into greater suspicion than, as she hoped, she was aware, or would be willing to hear; adding, "for the love of god, madam, use such sincerity and prudence in this case, which touches you so nearly, that all the world may have reason to judge you innocent of so enormous a crime; a thing which unless you do, you will be worthily blotted out from the rank of princesses, and rendered, not undeservedly, the opprobrium of the vulgar; rather than which fate should befal you, i should wish you an honorable sepulture instead of a stained life[ ]." [note : see the french original in robertson's "hist. of scotland," vol. iii. append. xix.] but to these and all other representations which could be made to her, this criminal and infatuated woman replied by marrying bothwell three months after the death of her husband. she now attempted by the most artful sophistries to justify her conduct to the courts of france and england: but vain was the endeavour to excuse or explain away facts which the common sense and common feelings of mankind told them could admit of neither explanation nor apology. the nobles conspired, the people rose in arms against her; and within a single month after her ill-omened nuptials, she saw her guilty partner compelled to tear himself from her arms and seek his safety in flight, and herself reduced to surrender her person into the power of her rebellious subjects. the battle of langside put all the power of the country into the hands of the insurgent nobles; but they were much divided in opinion as to the use to be made of their victory. some wished to restore mary to regal authority under certain limitations;--others wanted to depose her and proclaim her infant son in her place;--some proposed to detain her in perpetual imprisonment;--others threatened to bring her to trial and capital punishment as an accessary to the death of the king. meantime she was detained a prisoner in loch leven castle, subjected to various indignities, and a prey to the most frightful apprehensions. but there was an eye which watched over her for her safety; and it was that of elizabeth. fears and rivalries, ancient offences and recent provocations,--all the imprudence which she had censured, and all the guilt which she had imputed, vanished from the thought of this princess the moment that she beheld a woman, a kinswoman, and, what was much more, a sister-queen, reduced to this extremity of distress, and exposed to the menaces and insults of her own subjects. for a short time the cause of mary seemed to her as her own; she interposed in her behalf in a tone of such imperative earnestness, that the scotch nobles, who feared her power and sought her friendship, did not dare to withstand her; and in all probability mary at this juncture owed no less than her life to the good offices of her who was destined finally to bring her, with more injustice and after many years of sorrow, to an ignominious death. it was not however within the power, if indeed it were the wish, of elizabeth to restore the queen of scots to the enjoyment either of authority or of freedom. all scotland seemed at this period united against her; she was compelled to sign a deed of abdication in favor of her son, who was crowned king in july . the earl of murray was declared regent: and a parliament assembled about the close of the year confirmed all these acts of the confederate lords, and sanctioned the detention of the deposed queen in a captivity of which none could then foresee the termination. elizabeth ordered her ambassador to abstain from countenancing by his presence the coronation of the king of scots, and she continued to negotiate for the restoration of mary: but her ministers strongly represented to her the danger of driving the lords, by a further display of her indignation at their proceedings, into a confederacy with france; and throgmorton, her ambassador in scotland, urged her to treat with them to deliver their young king into her hands, in order to his being educated in england. some proposal of this nature she accordingly made: but the lords, whom former experience had rendered suspicious of her dealings, absolutely refused to give up their prince without the pledge of a recognition of his right of succession to the english throne; and elizabeth, reluctant as ever to come to a declaration on this point, reluctant also to desert entirely the interests of mary, with whose remaining adherents she still maintained a secret intercourse, seems to have abstained for some time from any very active interference in the perplexed affairs of the neighbour kingdom. the recent occurrences in scotland had procured elizabeth some respite from the importunities of her subjects relative to the succession; but it was not the less necessary for her to take some steps in discharge of her promise respecting marriage. accordingly the earl of sussex, in this cause a negotiator no less zealous than able, was dispatched in solemn embassy to vienna, to congratulate the emperor maximilian on his coronation, and at the same time to treat with his brother the archduke charles respecting his long agitated marriage with the queen. two obstacles were to be surmounted,--the attachment of the archduke to the catholic faith, and the repugnance of elizabeth to enter into engagements with a prince whose person was unknown to her. both are attempted to be obviated in two extant letters from the ambassador to the queen, which at the same time so well display the manly spirit of the writer, and present details so interesting, that it would be an injury to give their more important passages in other language than his own. in the first (dated vienna, october ,) the earl of sussex acquaints her majesty with the arrival of the archduke in that city, and his admission to a first audience, which was one of ceremony only; after which he thus proceeds:-- "on michaelmas day in the afternoon, the emperor rode in his coach to see the archduke run at the ring; who commanded me to run at his side, and my lord north, mr. cobham, and mr. powel on the other side: and after the running was done, he rode on a courser of naples: and surely his highness, in the order of his running, the managing of his horse and the manner of his seat, governed himself exceedingly well, and so as, in my judgement, it was not to be amended. since which time i have had diverse conferences with the emperor, and with his highness apart, as well in times of appointed audience as in several huntings; wherein i have viewed, observed, and considered of his person and qualities as much as by any means i might; and have also by good diligence enquired of his state; and so have thought fit to advertise your majesty what i conceive of myself, or understand by others, which i trust your majesty shall find to be true in all respects. "his highness is of a person higher surely a good deal than my lord marquis; his hair and beard of a light auburn; his face well proportioned, amiable, and of a good complexion, without show of redness, or over paleness; his countenance and speech cheerful, very courteous, and not without some state; his body well shaped, without deformity or blemish: his hands very good and fair; his legs clean, well proportioned, and of sufficient bigness for his stature; his foot as good as may be. "so as, upon my duty to your majesty, i find not one deformity, mis-shape, or any thing to be noted worthy disliking in his whole person; but contrariwise, i find his whole shape to be good, worthy commendation and liking in all respects, and such as is rarely to be found in such a prince. "his highness, besides his natural language of dutch, speaketh very well spanish and italian, and, as i hear, latin. his dealings with me be very wise; his conversation such as much contenteth me; and, as i hear, none returneth discontented from his company. he is greatly beloved here of all men: the chiefest gallants of these parts be his men, and follow his court; the most of them have travelled other countries, speak many languages, and behave themselves thereafter; and truly we cannot be so glad there to have him come to us, as they will be sad here to have him go from them. he is reported to be wise, liberal, valiant, and of great courage, which in the last wars he well showed, in defending all his countries free from the turk with his own force only, and giving them divers overthrows when they attempted any thing against his rules; and he is universally (which i most weigh) noted to be of such virtue as he was never spotted or touched with any notable vice of crime, which is much in a prince of his years, endued with such qualities. he delighteth much in hunting, riding, hawking, exercise of feats of arms, and hearing of music, whereof he hath very good. he hath, as i hear, some understanding in astronomy and cosmography, and taketh pleasure in clocks that set forth the course of the planets. "he hath for his portion the countries of styria, carinthia, friola, treiste, and histria, and hath the government of that is left in croatia, wherein, as i hear, he may ride without entering into any other man's territories, near three hundred miles... surely he is a great prince in subjects, territories, and revenues; and liveth in great honor and state, with such a court as he that seeth it will say is fit for a great prince." &c. on october th he writes thus:--"since the writing of my other letters, upon the resolution of the emperor and the archduke, i took occasion to go to the archduke, meaning to sound him to the bottom in all causes, and to feel whether such matter as he had uttered to me before (contained in my other letters) proceeded from him _bona fide_, or were but words of form.... after some ordinary speech, used to minister occasion, i began after this sort. 'sir, i see it is a great matter to deal in the marriage of princes; and therefore it is convenient for me, that by the queen my mistress' order intermeddle in this negotiation, to foresee that i neither deceive you, be deceived myself, nor, by my ignorance, be the cause that she be deceived; in respect whereof, i beseech your highness to give me leave to treat as frankly with you in all things, now i am here, as it pleased her majesty to give me leave to deal with her before my coming from thence; whereby i may be as well assured of your disposition, upon your assured word, as i was of hers upon her word, and so proceed in all things thereafter:' whereunto his highness answered me that he thanked me for that kind of dealing, and he would truly utter to me what he thought and meant in all things that i should demand; which upon his word he willed me to credit, and i should not be abused myself, nor abuse your majesty. i then said that (your licence granted) i was bold humbly to beseech your majesty to let me understand your inward disposition in this cause; and whether you meant a lingering entertaining of the matter, or a direct proceeding to bring it to a good end, with a determination to consummate the marriage if conveniently you might; whereupon your majesty not only used such speeches to me as did satisfy me of your plain and good meaning to proceed in this matter without delay, if by convenient means you might, but also gave me in commission to affirm, upon your word, to the emperor, that ye had resolved to marry. ye were free to marry where god should put it in your heart to like; and you had given no grateful ear to any motion of marriage but to this, although you had received sundry great offers from others; and therefore your majesty by your letters, and i by your commandment, had desired of his majesty some determinate resolution whereby the matter might one ways or another grow to an end with both your honors; the like whereof i had also said to his highness before, and did now repeat it. and for that his highness had given me the like licence. i would be as bold with him as i had been with your majesty; and therefore beseeched him to let me, upon his honor, understand whether he earnestly desired, for love of your person, the good success and end of this cause, and had determined in his heart upon this marriage; or else, to satisfy others that procured him thereto, was content to entertain the matter, and cared not what became thereof; that i also might deal thereafter; for in the one i would serve your majesty and him truly, and in the other, i was no person of quality to be a convenient minister. "his highness answered, 'count, i have heard by the emperor of the order of your dealing with him, and i have had dealings with you myself, wherewith he and i rest very well contented; but truly i never rested more contented of any thing than i do of this dealing, wherein, besides your duty to her that hath trusted you, you show what you be yourself, for the which i honor you as you be worthy;' (pardon me, i beseech your majesty, in writing the words he spake of myself, for they serve to utter his natural disposition and inclination.) 'and although i have always had a good hope of the queen's honorable dealing in this matter, yet i have heard so much of her not meaning to marry, as might give me cause to suspect the worst; but understanding by the emperor of your manner of dealing with him, perceiving that i do presently by your words, i think myself bound' (wherewith he put off his cap) 'to honor, love, and serve her majesty while i live, and will firmly credit that you on her majesty's behalf have said: and therefore, so i might hope her majesty would bear with me for my conscience, i know not that thing in the world that i would refuse to do at her commandment: and surely i have from the beginning of this matter settled my heart upon her, and never thought of other wife, if she would think me worthy to be her husband; and therefore be bold to inform her majesty truly herein, for i will not fail of my part in any thing, as i trust sufficiently appeareth to you by that i have heretofore said.' "i thanked his highness of his frank dealing, wherein i would believe him and deal thereafter, 'and now i am satisfied in this, i beseech your highness satisfy me also in another matter, and bear with me though i be somewhat busy, for i mean it for the best. i have many times heard of men of good judgement and friends to this cause, that as the emperor's majesty, being in disposition of the augustan confession, hath been forced in these great wars of the turk to temporise in respect of christendom; so your highness, being of his mind inwardly, hath also upon good policy forborne to discover yourself until you might see some end of your own causes; and expecting, by marriage or other means, a settling of yourself in further advancement of state than your own patrimony, you temporise until you see on which side your lot will fall; and if you find you shall settle in this marriage, ye will, when ye are sure thereof, discover what ye be. if this be true, trust me, sir, i beseech you, and i will not betray you, and let me know the secret of your heart, whereby you may grow to a shorter end of your desire; and as i will upon my oath assure you, i will never utter your counsel to any person living but to the queen my mistress, so do i deliver unto you her promise upon her honor not to utter it to any person without your consent; and if you will not trust me herein, commit it to her majesty's trust by your own letters or messenger of trust, and she will not deceive you.' "'surely,' said his highness, 'whoever hath said this of me to the queen's majesty, or to you, or to any other, hath said more than he knoweth, god grant he meant well therein. my ancestors have always holden this religion that i hold, and i never knew other, and therefore i never could have mind hitherto to change; and i trust, when her majesty shall consider my case well, my determination herein shall not hurt me towards her in this cause. for, count,' said he, 'how could you with reason give me counsel to be the first of my race that so suddenly should change the religion that all my ancestors have so long holden when i know no other; or how can the queen like of me in any other thing, that should be so light in changing of my conscience? where on the other side, in knowing my duty constantly to god for conscience, i have great hope that her majesty, with good reason, will conceive that i will be the more faithful and constant to her in all that honor and conscience bindeth. and therefore i will myself crave of her majesty, by my letters, her granting of this my only request; and i pray you with all my heart to further it in all you may; and shrink not to assure her majesty, that if she satisfy me in this, i will never slack to serve and satisfy her, while i live, in all the rest.' "in such like talk, to this effect, his highness spent almost two hours with me, which i thought my duty to advertise your majesty; and hereupon i gather that reputation ruleth him much for the present in this case of religion, and that if god couple you together in liking, you shall have of him a true husband, a loving companion, a wise counsellor and a faithful servant; and we shall have as virtuous a prince as ever ruled: god grant (though you be worthy a great deal better than he, if he were to be found) that our wickedness be not such as we be unworthy of him, or of such as he is.[ ]" &c. [note : lodge's "illustrations," vol. i.] it may be matter as much of surprise as regret to the reader of these letters, that a negotiation should have failed of success, which the manly plainness of the envoy on one hand and the honourable unreserve of the prince on the other had so quickly freed from the customary intricacies of diplomatic transactions. religion furnished, to appearance, the only objection which could be urged against the union; and on this head the archduke would have been satisfied with terms the least favorable to himself that could be devised. he only stipulated for the performance of catholic worship in a private room of the palace, at which none but himself and such servants of his own persuasion as he should bring with him should have permission to attend. he consented regularly to accompany the queen to the services of the church of england, and for a time to intermit the exercise of his own religion should any disputes arise; and he engaged that neither he nor his attendants should in any manner contravene, or give countenance to such as contravened, the established religion of the country. in short, he asked no greater indulgence on this head than what was granted without scruple to the ambassadors of catholic powers. but even this, it was affirmed, was more than the queen could with safety concede; and on this ground the treaty was finally closed. there is great room, however, to suspect that the real and the ostensible reasons of the failure of this marriage were by no means the same. it could scarcely have been expected or hoped that a prince of the house of austria would consent to desert the religion of his ancestors, which he must have regarded himself as pledged by the honor of his birth to maintain; and without deserting it he could not go beyond the terms which charles actually offered. this religion, as a system of faith and worship, was by no means regarded by elizabeth with such abhorrence as would render it irksome to her to grant it toleration in a husband, though on political grounds she forbade under heavy penalties its exercise to her subjects. it is true that to the puritans the smallest degree of indulgence to its idolatrous rites appeared a heinous sin, and from them the austrian match would have had to encounter all the opposition that could prudently be made by a sect itself obnoxious to the rod of persecution. the duke of norfolk is said to have given great offence to this party, with which he was usually disposed to act, by the cordial approbation which he was induced, probably by his friendship for the earl of sussex, to bestow on this measure. leicester is believed to have thwarted the negotiations by means of one of his creatures, for whom he had procured the second rank in the embassy of the earl of sussex; he also labored in person to fill the mind of the queen with fears and scruples respecting it. but it is probable that, after all, the chief difficulty lay in elizabeth's settled aversion to the married state; and notwithstanding all her professions to her ambassador, the known dissimulation of her character permits us to believe, not only that small obstacles were found sufficient to divert her from accomplishing the union which she pretended to have at heart; but that from the very beginning she was insincere, and that not even the total sacrifice of his religion would have exempted her suitor from final disappointment. the decease of sir richard sackville in called his son, the accomplished poet, to the inheritance of a noble fortune, and opened to him the career of public life. at the time of his father's death he was pursuing his travels through france and italy, and had been subjected to a short imprisonment in rome, "which trouble," says his eulogist, "was brought upon him by some who hated him for his love to religion and his duty to his sovereign." immediately on his return to his native country the duke of norfolk, by the queen's command, conferred upon him the honor of knighthood, and on the same day he was advanced by her to the degree of a baron by the style of lord buckhurst. the new peer immediately shone forth one of the brightest ornaments of the court: but carried away by the ardor of his imagination, he plunged so deeply into the expensive pleasures of the age as seriously to injure his fortune, and in part his credit: timely reflection however, added, it is said, to the counsels of his royal kinswoman, cured him of the foible of profusion, and he lived not only to retrieve, but to augment his patrimony to a vast amount. amid the factions of the court, lord buckhurst, almost alone, preserved a dignified neutrality, resting his claims to consideration and influence not on the arts of intrigue, but on his talents, his merit, his extensive possessions, and his interest in his royal kinswoman. leicester was jealous of his approach, as of that of every man of honor who affected an independence on his support; but it was not till many years afterwards, and on an occasion in which his own reputation and safety were at stake, that the wily favorite ventured a direct attack upon the credit of lord buckhurst. at present they preserved towards each other those exteriors of consideration and respect which in the world, and especially at courts, are found so perfectly compatible with fear, hatred, or contempt. it was about this time, that in one of her majesty's summer progresses an incident occurred which the painter or the poet might seize and embellish. passing through northamptonshire, she stopped to visit her royal castle of fotheringay, then, or soon after, committed by her to the keeping of sir william fitzwilliam several times lord-deputy of ireland. the castle was at this time entire and magnificent, and must have been viewed by elizabeth with sentiments of family pride. it was erected by her remote progenitor edmund of langley, son of king edward iii. and founder of the house of york. by his directions the keep was built in the likeness of a fetter-lock, the well known cognisance of that line, and in the windows the same symbol with its attendant falcon was repeatedly and conspicuously emblazoned. from edmund of langley it descended to his son edward duke of york, slain in the field of agincourt, and next to the son of his unfortunate brother the decapitated earl of cambridge; to that richard who fell at wakefield in the attempt to assert his title to the crown, which the victorious arms of his son edward iv. afterwards vindicated to himself and his posterity. in a collegiate church adjoining were deposited the remains of edward and richard dukes of york, and of cecily wife to the latter, who survived to behold so many bloody deeds of which her children were the perpetrators or the victims. elizabeth, attended by all the pomp of royalty, proceeded to visit the spot of her ancestors' interment: but what was her indignation and surprise on discovering, that the splendid tombs which had once risen to their memory, had been involved in the same destruction with the college itself, of which the rapacious northumberland had obtained a grant from edward vi., and that scarcely a stone remained to protect the dust of these descendants and progenitors of kings! she instantly gave orders for the erection of suitable monuments to their honor: but her commands were ill obeyed, and a few miserable plaster figures were all that the illustrious dead obtained at last from her pride or her piety. these monuments however, such as they are, remain to posterity, whilst of the magnificent castle, the only adequate commemoration of the power and greatness of its possessors, one stone is not left upon another:--it was levelled with the ground by order of james i., that not a vestige might remain of the last prison of his unhappy mother, the fatal scene of her trial, condemnation, and ignominious death. the close of the year had left the queen of scots a prisoner in lochleven-castle, her infant son declared king, and the regent murray,--a man of vigor, prudence, and in the main of virtue,--holding the reins with a firm hand. for the peace and welfare of scotland, for the security of reformed religion, and for the ends of that moral retribution from which the crimes and vices of the rulers of mankind ought least of all to be exempt, nothing could be more desirable than that such a state of things should become permanent, by the acquiescence of the potentates of europe, and of that powerful aristocracy which in scotland was unhappily superior to the whole force of the laws and the constitution. but for its destruction many interests, many passions and prejudices conspired. it was rather against bothwell than against the queen that many of the nobles had taken arms; and more favorable terms would at first have been granted her, could she have been brought to consent as a preliminary to divorce and banish him for ever from her presence. the flight of bothwell and the prolongation of her own captivity had subdued her obstinacy on this point: it was understood that she was now willing that her marriage should be dissolved, and this concession alone sufficed to bring her many partisans. sentiments of pity began to arise in favor of an unfortunate queen and beauty, and to cause her crimes to be extenuated or forgotten. all the catholics in scotland were her earnest friends, and the foreign princes of the same persuasion were unceasingly stimulating them to act openly in her behalf. with these elizabeth, either by her zeal for the common cause of sovereigns, or by some treacherous designs of her own, was brought into most preposterous conjunction, and she had actually proposed to the court of france that they should by joint consent cut off all communication with scotland till the queen should be reinstated. the haughty and unconciliating temper of murray had embittered the animosity entertained against him by several nobles of the blood-royal, each of whom regarded himself as the person best entitled to the office of regent; and an insurrection against his authority was already in contemplation, when mary, having by her promises and blandishments bribed an unthinking youth to effect her liberation, suddenly reappeared in readiness to put herself at the head of such of her countrymen as still owned her allegiance. several leading nobles flocked hastily to her standard; a bond was entered into for her defence, and in a few days she saw herself at the head of six thousand men. elizabeth made her an immediate offer of troops and succour, stipulating however, from a prudent jealousy of the french, that no foreign forces should be admitted into scotland; and further, that all disputes between mary and her subjects should be submitted to her arbitration. fortunately for scotland, though disastrously for the future days of mary and the fame of elizabeth, this formidable rising in favor of the deposed sovereign was crushed at a single blow. murray, with inferior forces, marched courageously against the queen, gained a complete and easy victory, and compelled her to a hasty flight. accompanied only by a few attendants, the defeated princess reached the english border. what should she do? behind her was the hostile army, acting in the name of her son to whom she had signed an abdication of the throne, in virtue of which her late attempt to reinstate herself might lawfully be visited with the rigors of perpetual imprisonment, or even with death itself. before her lay the dominions of a princess whose titles she had once usurped, and whose government she had never ceased to molest by her intrigues,--of one who had hated her as a competitor in power and in beauty,--as an enemy in religion, and most of all as the heiress of her crown. but this very princess had interfered, generously interfered, to save her life; she had shown herself touched by her situation; she had offered her, under certain conditions, succours and protection. perhaps she would no longer remember in the suppliant who embraced her knees, the haughty rival who had laid claim to her crown;--perhaps she would show herself a real friend. the english people too,--could they behold unmoved "a queen, a beauty," hurled from her throne, chased from her country by the rude hands of her rebellious subjects, and driven to implore their aid? no surely,--ten thousand swords would spring from their scabbards to avenge her injuries;--so she hoped, so she reasoned; for merited misfortune had not yet impaired her courage or abated her confidence, nor had the sense of guilt impressed upon her mind one lesson of humility. her situation, also, admitted of no other alternative than to confide herself to elizabeth or surrender to murray,--a step not to be thought of. time pressed; fear urged; and resolved to throw herself at the feet of her kinswoman, she crossed, never to return, the rubicon of her destiny. a common fishing-boat, the only vessel that could be procured, landed her on may th , with about twenty attendants, at workington in cumberland, whence she was conducted with every mark of respect to carlisle-castle; and from this asylum she instantly addressed to elizabeth a long letter, relating her fresh reverse of fortune, complaining of the injuries which she had received at the hands of her subjects, and earnestly imploring her favor and protection. with what feelings this important letter was received it would be deeply interesting to inquire, were there any possibility of arriving at the knowledge of a thing so secret. if indeed the professions of friendship and offers of effectual aid lavished by elizabeth upon mary during the period of her captivity, were nothing else than a series of stratagems by which she sought to draw an unwary victim within her toils, and to wreak on her the vengeance of an envious temper and unpitying heart, we might now imagine her exulting in the success of her wiles, and smiling over the atrocious perfidy which she was about to commit. if, on the other hand, we judge these demonstrations to have been at the time sincere, and believe that elizabeth, though profoundly sensible of mary's misconduct, was yet anxious to save her from the severe retribution which her exasperated subjects had taken upon them to exact, we must imagine her whole soul agitated at this crisis by a crowd of conflicting thoughts and adverse passions. in the first moments, sympathy for an unhappy queen, and the intuitive sense of generosity and honor, would urge her to fulfil every promise, to satisfy or surpass every hope which her conduct had excited. but soon the mingled suggestions of female honor, of policy, of caution, uniting with the sentiment of habitual enmity, would arise, first to moderate, then to extinguish, her ardor in the cause of her supplicant. further reflection, enforced perhaps by the reasonings of her most trusted counsellors, would serve to display in tempting colors the advantages to be taken of the now defenceless condition of a competitor once formidable and always odious; and gradually, but not easily, not without reluctance and shame and secret pangs of compunction, she would suffer the temptation,--one, it must be confessed, of no common force and aided by pleas of public utility not a little plausible,--to become victorious over her first thoughts, her better feelings, her more virtuous resolves. for the honor of human nature, it may be believed that the latter state of feeling must have been that experienced by a princess whose life had been as yet unsullied by any considerable violations of faith, justice, or humanity: but it must not escape remark, that the first steps taken by her in this business were strong, decided in their character, and almost irretrievable. lady scrope, sister of the duke of norfolk, was indeed sent to attend the illustrious stranger at carlisle, and lord scrope warden of the west marches and sir francis knolles the vice-chamberlain were soon after dispatched thither with letters for her of kind condolence: but when mary applied to these persons for permission to visit their queen, they replied, that, until she should have cleared herself of the shocking imputation of her husband's murder, public decorum and her own reputation must preclude a princess so nearly related to the late king of scots from receiving her into her presence. that it was however with regret that their mistress admitted this delay; and as soon as the queen of scots should have vindicated herself on this point, they were empowered to promise her a reception suited at once to a sovereign and a kinswoman in distress. had not elizabeth previously committed herself in some degree by interference in behalf of mary, and by promises to her of support, no one could reasonably have blamed the caution or the coldness of this reply to a request, which, under all the circumstances, might justly be taxed with effrontery. but in the judgement of mary and her friends, and perhaps even of more impartial judges, the part already taken by elizabeth had deprived her of the right of recurring to former events as a plea for the exclusion of the queen of scots from her presence and favor. tears of grief and anger burst from the eyes of mary on this unexpected check, which struck her heart with the most melancholy forebodings; but aware of the necessity of disguising fears which would pass for an evidence of guilt, she hastily replied, that she was willing to submit her whole conduct to the judgement of the queen her sister, and did not doubt of being able to produce such proofs of her innocence as would satisfy her and confound her enemies. this was enough for elizabeth: she was now constituted umpire between the queen of scots and her subjects, and the future fate of both might be said to lie in her hands; in the mean time she had gained a pretext for treating as a culprit the party who had appealed to her tribunal. we learn that lord scrope and sir francis knolles had from the first received secret instructions not only to watch the motions of mary, but to prevent her departure; her person had also been surrounded with sentinels under the semblance of a guard of honor. but hitherto these measures of precaution had probably remained concealed from their object; they were now gradually replaced by others of a more open and decided character, and it was not much longer permitted to the hapless fugitive to doubt the dismal truth, that she was once more a prisoner. alarmed at her situation, and secretly conscious how ill her conduct would stand the test of judicial inquiry, mary no sooner learned that elizabeth had actually named commissioners to hear the pleadings on both sides, and written to summon the regent to produce before them whatever he could bring in justification of his conduct towards his sovereign, than she hastened to retract her former unwary concession. in a letter full of impotent indignation, assumed majesty and real dismay, she now sought to explain away or evade her late appeal. she repeated her demand of admission to the presence of elizabeth, refused to compromise her royal dignity by submitting to a trial in which her own subjects were to appear as parties against her, and ended by requiring that the queen would either furnish her with that assistance which it behoved her more than any one to grant, or would suffer her to seek the aid of other princes whose delicacy on this head would be less, or their resentment of her wrongs greater. this last proposal might have suggested to elizabeth the safest, easiest, and most honorable mode of extricating herself from the dilemma in which, by further intermeddling in the concerns of scotland, she was likely to become involved. happy would it have been for her credit and her peace of mind, had she suffered her perplexing guest to depart and seek for partisans and avengers elsewhere! but her pride of superiority and love of sway were flattered by the idea of arbitrating in so great a cause; her secret malignity enjoyed the humiliation of her enemy; and her characteristic caution represented to her in formidable colors the danger of restoring to liberty one whom she had already offended beyond forgiveness. she laid mary's letter before her privy-council; and these confidential advisers, after wisely and uprightly deciding that it would be inconsistent with the honor and safety of the queen and her government to undertake the restoration of the queen of scots, were induced to add, that it would also be unsafe to permit her departure out of the kingdom, and that the inquiry into her conduct ought to be pursued. in spite of her remonstrances, mary was immediately removed to bolton-castle in yorkshire, a seat of lord scrope's; her communications with her own country were cut off; her confinement was rendered more strict; and by secret promises from elizabeth of finally causing her to be restored to her throne under certain limitations, she was led to renew her consent to the trial of her cause in england, and to engage herself to name commissioners to confer with those of the regent and of elizabeth at york. it would be foreign from the purpose of the present work to engage in a regular narrative of the celebrated proceedings begun soon after at the city last mentioned, and ended at westminster: some remarkable circumstances illustrative of the character of the english princess, or connected with the fate of her principal noble, will however be related hereafter, as well as their final result;--at present other subjects claim attention. an embassy arrived in london in , from ivan basilowitz czar of muscovy, the second which had been addressed to an english sovereign from that country, plunged as yet in barbarous ignorance, and far from anticipating the day when it should assume a distinguished station in the system of civilized europe. it was by a bold and extraordinary enterprise that the barrier of the frozen sea had been burst, and a channel of communication opened between this country and russia by means of which an intercourse highly beneficial to both nations was now begun: the leading circumstances were the following. during the reign of henry vii., just after the unparalleled achievement of columbus had rendered voyages of discovery the ruling passion of europe, a venetian pilot, named cabot, who had resided long in bristol, obtained from this monarch for himself and his sons a patent for making discoveries and conquests in unknown regions. by this navigator and his son sebastian, newfoundland was soon after discovered; and by sebastian after his father's death a long series of maritime enterprises were subsequently undertaken with various success. for many years he was in the service of spain; but returning to england at the close of henry the eighth's reign, he was received with merited favor at court. young king edward listened with eagerness to the relations of the aged navigator; and touched by the unquenchable ardor of discovery which still burned in the bosom of this contemporary and rival of columbus, granted with alacrity his royal license for the fitting out of three ships to explore a north passage to the east indies. the instructions for this voyage were drawn up in a masterly manner by cabot himself, and the command of the expedition was given to sir hugh willoughby, and under him to richard chancellor, a gentleman who had long been attached to the service of the excellent sir henry sidney, by whom he was recommended to this appointment in the warmest terms of affection and esteem. the ships were separated by a tempest off the norwegian coast; and willoughby, having encountered much foul weather and judging the season too far advanced to proceed on so hazardous a voyage, laid up his vessel in a bay on the shore of lapland, with the purpose of awaiting the return of spring. but such was the rigor of the season on this bleak and inhospitable coast, that the admiral and his whole crew were frozen to death in their cabin. chancellor in the mean time, by dint of superior sailing, was enabled to surmount the perils of the way. he doubled the north cape, a limit never passed by english keel before, and still proceeding eastward, found entrance into an unknown gulf, which proved to be the white sea, and dropped anchor at length in the port of archangel. the rude natives were surprised and terrified by the appearance of a strange vessel much superior in size to any which they had before beheld; but after a time, venturing on an intercourse with the navigators, they acquainted them, that they were subjects of the czar of muscovy, and that they had sent to apprize him of so extraordinary an arrival. on the return of the messenger, chancellor received an invitation to visit the court of moscow. the czar, barbarian as he was in manners and habits, possessed however strong sense and an inquiring mind; he had formed great projects for the improvement of his empire, and he was immediately and fully aware of the advantages to be derived from a direct communication by sea with a people capable of supplying his country with most of the commodities which it now received from the southern nations of europe by a tedious and expensive land-carriage. he accordingly welcomed the englishmen with distinguished honors; returned a favorable answer to the letter from king edward of which they were the bearers, and expressed his willingness to enter into commercial relations with their country, and to receive an ambassador from their sovereign. edward did not live to learn the prosperous success of this part of the expedition, but fortunately his successor extended equal encouragement to the enterprise. a russia company was formed, of which the veteran sebastian cabot was made governor, and chancellor was dispatched on a second voyage, charged with further instructions for the settlement of a commercial treaty. his voyage was again safe and prosperous, and he was accompanied on his return by a russian ambassador; but off the coast of scotland the ship was unhappily wrecked, and chancellor with several other persons was drowned; the ambassador himself reaching the land with much difficulty. the vessel was plundered of her whole cargo by the neighbouring peasantry; but the ambassador and his train were hospitably entertained by the queen-regent of scotland, and forwarded on their way to london, where their grotesque figures and the barbaric pomp of their dress and equipage astonished the court and city. the present embassy, which reached its destination without accident, was one of greater importance, and appeared with superior dignity. it conveyed to the queen, besides all verbal assurances of the friendship of the czar, a magnificent present of the richest furs, and other articles of great rarity; and the ambassadors had it in charge to conclude a treaty of amity and commerce, of which the terms proved highly advantageous for england. they were accompanied by an englishman named jenkinson, who had been sent out several years before, by the russia company, to explore the southern and eastern limits of that vast empire, and to endeavour to open an overland trade with persia. by the assistance of the czar he had succeeded in this object, and was the first englishman who ever sailed upon the caspian, or travelled over the wild region which lies beyond. in return for all favors, he had now undertaken on behalf of the czar to propose to his own sovereign certain secret articles in which this prince was more deeply interested than in any commercial matters, and which he deemed it unsafe to commit to the fidelity or discretion of his own ambassadors. ivan, partly by a marked preference shown to foreigners, which his own barbarians could not forgive, partly by his many acts of violence and cruelty, had highly incensed his subjects against him. in the preceding year, a violent insurrection had nearly hurled him from the throne; and still apprehensive of some impending disaster, he now proposed to the queen of england a league offensive and defensive, of which he was anxious to make it an article, that she should bind herself by oath to grant a kind and honorable reception in her dominions to himself, his wife and children, should any untoward event compel them to quit their country. but that never-failing caution which, in all the complication and diversity of her connexions with foreign powers, withheld elizabeth from ever, in a single instance, committing herself beyond the power of retreat, caused her to waive compliance with the extraordinary proposal of ivan. she entertained his ambassadors however with the utmost cordiality, gratified his wishes in every point where prudence would permit, and finally succeeded, by the adroitness of her management, in securing for her country, without sacrifice or hazard on her own part, every real benefit which an intercourse with such a people and such a sovereign appeared capable of affording. to have come off with advantage in a trial of diplomatic skill with a barbarous czar of muscovy, was however an exploit of which a civilized politician would be ashamed to boast,--on him no glory could be won,--and we may imagine elizabeth turning from him with a kind of disdain to an antagonist more worthy of her talents. the king and court of france were at this time subjected to the guidance of the execrable catherine dei medici. to this woman the religious differences which then agitated europe were in themselves perfectly indifferent, and on more than one occasion she had allowed it to be perceived that they were so: but a close and dispassionate study of the state of parties in her son's kingdom, had at length convinced her that it was necessary to the establishment of his authority and her own consequence, that the hugonot faction should be crushed, and she stood secretly prepared and resolved to procure the accomplishment of this object by measures of perfidy and atrocity from which bigotry itself, in a mind not totally depraved, must have revolted. by the secret league of bayonne, the courts of france and spain had pledged themselves to pursue in concert the great work of the extirpation of heresy; and while catherine was laying hidden trains for the destruction of the hugonots, philip ii., by measures of open force and relentless cruelty, was striving to annihilate the protestants of the low countries, and to impose upon those devoted provinces the detested yoke of the inquisition. elizabeth was aware of all that was going on; and she well knew that when once these worthy associates had succeeded in crushing the reformation in their own dominions, scotland and england would become the immediate theatre of their operations. already were the catholics of the two countries privately encouraged to rely on them for support, and incited to aid the common cause by giving all the disturbance in their power to their respective governments. considerations of policy therefore, no less than of religion, moved her to afford such succours, first to the french protestants and afterwards to the flemings, as might enable them to prolong at least the contest; but her caution and her frugality conspired to restrain her from involving herself in actual warfare for the defence of either. at the very time therefore that she was secretly supplying the hugonots with money and giving them assurances of her support, she was more than ever attentive to preserve all the exteriors of friendship with the court of france. it suited the views of the queen-mother to receive with complacency and encouragement the dissembling professions of elizabeth; by which she was not herself deceived, but which served to deceive and to alarm her enemies the protestants, and in some measure to mask her designs against them. we have seen what high civilities had passed between the courts on occasion of the admission of the french king into the order of the garter,--but this is little to what followed. in , after the remonstrances and intercession of elizabeth, the succours lent by the german protestants, and the strenuous resistance made by the hugonots themselves, had procured for this persecuted sect a short and treacherous peace, catherine, in proof and confirmation of her entire friendship with the queen of england, began to drop hints to her ambassador of a marriage between his mistress and her third son the duke of anjou, then only seventeen years of age. elizabeth was assuredly not so much of a dupe as to believe the queen-mother sincere in this strange proposal; yet it was entertained by her with the utmost apparent seriousness. she even thought proper to give it a certain degree of cautious encouragement, which catherine was doubtless well able rightly to interpret; and with this extraordinary kind of mutual understanding, these two ingenious females continued for months, nay years, to amuse themselves and one another with the representation of carrying on of negotiations for a treaty of marriage. elizabeth, with the most candid and natural air in the world, remarked that difference of religion would present the most serious obstacle to so desirable an union: catherine, with equal plausibility, hoped that on this point terms of agreement might be found satisfactory to both parties; and warming as they proceeded, one began to imagine the conditions to which a catholic prince could with honor accede, and the other to invent the objections which ought to be made to them by a protestant princess. the philosophical inquirer, who has learned from the study of history how much more the high destinies of nations are governed by the permanent circumstances of geographical position and relative force, and the great moral causes which act upon whole ages and peoples, than by negotiations, intrigues, schemes of politicians and tricks of state, will be apt to regard as equally futile and base the petty manoeuvres of dissimulation and artifice employed by each queen to incline in her own favor the political balance. but in justice to the memories of catherine and elizabeth,--women whom neither their own nor any after-times have taxed with folly,--it ought at least to be observed, that in mistaking the excess of falsehood for the perfection of address, the triumphs of cunning for the masterpieces of public wisdom, they did but partake the error of the ablest male politicians of that age of statesmen. the same narrow views of the interest of princes and of states governed them all: they seem to have believed that the right and the expedient were constantly opposed to each other; in the intercourses of public men they thought that nothing was more carefully to be shunned than plain speaking and direct dealings, and in these functionaries they regarded the use of every kind of "indirection" as allowable, because absolutely essential to the great end of serving their country. amongst the wiser and better part of elizabeth's council however, such a profound abhorrence of the measures of the french court at this time prevailed, and such an honest eagerness to join heart and hand with the oppressed hugonots for the redress of their intolerable grievances, that it required all her vigilance and address to keep them within the limits of that temporizing moderation which she herself was bent on preserving. in the correspondence of cecil with sir henry norris, then ambassador in france, the bitterness of his feelings is perpetually breaking out, and he cannot refrain from relating with extreme complacency such words of displeasure as her majesty was at any time moved to let fall against her high allies. in november , when civil war had again broken out in france, he acquaints the ambassador that the queen dislikes to give assistance to condé and his party against their sovereign, but recommends it to him to do it occasionally notwithstanding, as the council are their friends. in september he writes thus: "the french ambassador has sent his nephew to require audience, and that it might be ordered to have her majesty's council present at the bishop's missado. her majesty's answer was, that they forgot themselves, in coming from a king that was but young, to think her not able to conceive an answer without her council: and although she could use the advice of her council, as was meet, yet she saw no cause why they should thus deal with her, being of full years, and governing her realm in better sort than france was. so the audience, being demanded on saturday, was put off till tuesday, wherewith i think they are not contented." again: "monsieur de montausier... was brought to the queen's presence to report the victory which god had given the french king by a battle, as he termed it, wherein was slain the prince of condé; whereunto, as i could conceive, her majesty answered, that of any good fortune happening to the king she was glad; but that she thought it also to be condoled with the king, that it should be counted a victory to have a prince of his blood slain; and so with like speech, not fully to their contentation[ ]." [note : scrinia ceciliana.] with the spanish court the queen was on the worst possible terms short of open hostilities. her ambassador at madrid had been banished from the city to a little village in the neighbourhood; the spanish ambassador at london had been placed under guard for dispersing libels against her person and government; and in consequence of her adroit seizure of a sum of money belonging to some genoese merchants designed as a loan to the duke of alva, to enable him to carry on the war against the protestants in flanders, the king of spain had ordered all commerce to be broken off between those provinces and england. in the midst of these menaces of foreign war, cabals were forming against elizabeth in her own kingdom and court which threatened her with nearer dangers. of all these plots, the scottish queen was, directly or indirectly, the cause or the pretext; and in order to place them in a clear light, it will now be necessary to return to the conferences at york. chapter xvi. to . proceedings of the commissioners at york in the cause of mary.--intrigues of the duke of norfolk with the regent murray.--the conferences transferred to westminster.--mary's guilt disclosed.--fresh intrigues of norfolk.--conspiracy for procuring his marriage with mary.--conduct of throgmorton.--attempt to ruin cecil baffled by the queen.--endeavour of sussex to reconcile norfolk and cecil.--norfolk betrayed by leicester--his plot revealed--committed to the tower.--mary given in charge to the earl of huntingdon.--remarks on this subject.--notice of leonard dacre--of the earls of westmorland and northumberland.--their rebellion.--particulars of the norton family.--severities exercised against the rebels.--conduct of the earl of sussex.--rising under leonard dacre.--his after-fortunes and those of his family.--expedition of the earl of sussex into scotland.--murder of regent murray.--influence of this event on the affairs of elizabeth.--campaign in scotland.--papal bull against the queen.--trifling effect produced by it.--attachment of the people to her government. the three commissioners named by elizabeth to sit as judges in the great cause between mary and her subjects, of which she had been named the umpire, were the duke of norfolk, the earl of sussex, and sir ralph sadler, a very able negotiator and man of business. on the part of the scottish nation, the regent murray, fearing to trust the cause in other hands, appeared in person, attended by several men of talent and consequence. the situation of mary herself was not more critical or more unprecedented, and scarcely more humiliating, than that in which murray was placed by her appeal to elizabeth. acting on behalf of the infant king his nephew, he saw himself called upon to submit to the tribunal of a foreign sovereign such proofs of the atrocious guilt of the queen his sister; as should justify in the eyes of this sovereign, and in those of europe, the degradation of mary from the exalted station which she was born to fill, her imprisonment, her violent expulsion from the kingdom, and her future banishment or captivity for life:--an attempt in which, though successful, there was both disgrace to himself and detriment to the honor and independence of his country; and from which, if unsuccessful, he could contemplate nothing but certain ruin. struck with all the evils of this dilemma; with the danger of provoking beyond forgiveness his own queen, whose restoration he still regarded as no improbable event, and with the imprudence of relying implicitly on the dubious protection of elizabeth, murray long hesitated to bring forward the only charge dreaded by the illustrious prisoner,--that of having conspired with bothwell the murder of her husband. in the mean time maitland, a scottish commissioner secretly attached to mary, found means to open a private communication with the duke of norfolk, and to suggest to this nobleman, now a widower for the third time, the project of obtaining for himself the hand of mary, and of replacing her by force on the throne of her ancestors. the vanity of norfolk, artfully worked upon by the bishop of ross, mary's prime agent, caused him to listen with complacency to this rash proposal; and having once consented to entertain it, he naturally became earnest to prevent murray from preferring that heinous accusation which he had at length apprized the english commissioners that he was provided with ample means of substantiating. after some deliberation on the means of effecting this object, he accordingly resolved upon the step of discovering his views to the regent himself, and endeavouring to obtain his concurrence. murray, who seems to have felt little confidence in the stability of the government of which he was the present head, and who judged perhaps that the return of the queen as the wife of an english protestant nobleman would afford the best prospect of safety to himself and his party, readily acceded to the proposal, and consented still to withhold the "damning proofs" of mary's guilt which he held in his hand. but neither the scottish associates of murray nor the english cabinet were disposed to rest satisfied with this feeble and temporizing conduct. mary's commissioners too, emboldened by his apparent timidity, of which the motives were probably not known to them all, began to push their advantage in a manner which threatened final defeat to his party: the queen of england artfuly incited him to proceed; and in spite of his secret engagements with the duke and his own reluctance, he at length saw himself compelled to let fall the long suspended stroke on the head of mary. he applied to the english court for encouragement and protection in his perilous enterprise; and elizabeth, being at length suspicious of the intrigue which had hitherto baffled all her expectations from the conferences at york, suddenly gave orders for the removal of the queen of scots from bolton-castle and the superintendence of lord scrope, the duke's brother-in-law, to the more secure situation of tutbury-castle in staffordshire and the vigilant custody of the earl of shrewsbury. at the same time she found pretexts for transferring the conferences from york to westminster, and added to the number of her commissioners sir nicholas bacon, lord-keeper, the earls of arundel and leicester, lord clinton, and cecil. anxious to preserve an air of impartiality, elizabeth declined giving to the regent all the assurances for his future security which he required; but on his arrival in london she extended to him a reception equally kind and respectful, and by alternate caresses and hints of intimidation she gradually led him on to the production of the fatal casket containing the letters of mary to bothwell, by which her participation in the murder of her husband was clearly proved. after steps on the part of his sovereign from which the duke might have inferred her knowledge of his secret machinations; after discoveries respecting the conduct of mary which impeached her of guilt so heinous, and covered her with infamy so indelible; prudence and honor alike required that he should abandon for ever the thought of linking his destiny with hers. but in the light and unbalanced mind of norfolk, the ambition of matching with royalty unfortunately preponderated over all other considerations: he speedily began to weave anew the tissue of intrigue which the removal of the conferences had broken off; and turning once more with fond credulity to murray, by whom his cause had been before deserted, he again put confidence in his assurances that the marriage-project had his hearty approbation, and should receive his effectual support. melvil informs us that this fresh compact was brought about by sir nicholas throgmorton, "being a man of a deep reach and great prudence and discretion, who had ever travelled for the union of this isle." but notwithstanding his "deep reach," he was certainly imposed upon in this affair; for the regent, insincere perhaps from the beginning, had now no other object than to secure his present personal safety by lavishing promises which he had no intention to fulfil. melvil, who attended him on his return to scotland, thus explains the secret of his conduct: "at that time the duke commanded over all the north parts of england, where our mistress was kept, and so might have taken her out when he pleased. and when he was angry at the regent, he had appointed the earl of westmorland to lie in his way, and cut off himself and so many of his company as were most bent upon the queen's accusation. but after the last agreement, the duke sent and discharged the said earl from doing us any harm; yet upon our return the earl came in our way with a great company of horse, to signify to us that we were at his mercy." it is difficult to believe, notwithstanding this positive testimony, that the duke of norfolk, a man of mild dispositions and guided in the main by religion and conscience, would have hazarded, or would not have scrupled, so atrocious, so inexpiable an act of violence, as that of cutting off the regent of scotland returning to his own country under sanction of the public faith and the express protection of the queen: but he may have indulged himself in vague menaces, which westmorland, a bigoted papist, ripe for rebellion against the government of elizabeth, would have felt little reluctance to carry into effect, and thus the regent's duplicity might in fact be prompted and excused to himself by a principle of self-defence. whatever degree of confidence norfolk and his advisers might place in murray's sincerity, they were well aware that other steps must be taken, and other confederates engaged, before the grand affair of the marriage could be put in a train to ensure its final success. there was no immediate prospect of mary's regaining her liberty by means of the queen of england, or with her concurrence; for since the production of the great charge against her, to which she had instructed her commissioners to decline making any answer, elizabeth had regarded her as one who had suffered judgement to go against her by default, and began to treat her accordingly. her confinement was rendered more rigorous, and henceforth the still pending negotiations respecting her return to her own country were carried on with a slackness which evidently proceeded from the dread of mary, and the reluctance of elizabeth, to bring to a decided determination a business which could not now be ended either with credit or advantage to the deposed queen. elizabeth had dismissed the regent to his government without open approbation of his conduct as without censure; but he had received from her in private an important supply of money, and such other effectual aids as not only served to establish the present preponderance of his authority, but would enable him, it was thought, successfully to withstand all future attempts for the restoration of mary. evidently then it was only by the raising of a formidable party in the english court that any thing could be effected in behalf of the royal captive; but her agents and those of the duke assured themselves that ample means were in their hands for setting this machine in action. elizabeth, it was now thought, would not marry: the queen of scots was generally admitted to be her legal heir; and it appeared highly important to the welfare of england that she should not transfer her claims, with her hand, to any of the more powerful princes of europe; consequently the duke entertained little doubt of uniting in favor of his suit the suffrages of all those leading characters in the english court who had formerly conveyed to mary assurances of their attachment to her title and interests. his own influence amongst the nobility was very considerable, and he readily obtained the concurrence of the earl of pembroke, the earl of arundel (his first wife's father), and lord lumley (a catholic peer closely connected with the house of howard). the design was now imparted to leicester, who entered into it with an ostentation of affectionate zeal which ought perhaps to have alarmed the too credulous duke. as if impatient to give an undeniable pledge of his sincerity, he undertook to draw up with his own hand a letter to the queen of scots, warmly recommending the duke to her matrimonial choice, which immediately received the signatures of the three nobles above mentioned and the rest of the confederates. by these subscribers it was distinctly stipulated, that the union should not take place without the knowledge and approbation of the queen of england, and that the reformed religion should be maintained in both the british kingdoms;--conditions by which they at first perhaps believed that they had provided sufficiently for the interests of elizabeth and of protestantism: it was however immediately obvious that the duke and his agents had the design of concealing carefully all their measures from their sovereign, till the party should have gained such strength that it would no longer be safe for her to refuse a consent which it was well known that she would always be unwilling to grant. but when, on encouragement being given by mary to the hopes of her suitor, the kings of france and spain, and even the pope himself, were made privy to the scheme and pledged to give it their assistance, all its english, and especially all its protestant supporters, ought to have been aware that their undertaking was assuming the form of a conspiracy with the enemies of their queen and country against her government and personal safety; against the public peace, and the religion by law established; and nothing can excuse the blindness, or palliate the guilt, of their perseverance in a course so perilous and so crooked. private interests were doubtless at the bottom with most or all of the participators in this affair who were not papists; and those,--they were not a few,--who envied or who feared the influence and authority of cecil, eagerly seized the occasion to array against him a body of hostility by which they trusted to work his final and irretrievable ruin. it seems to have been by an ambitious rivalry with the secretary, that sir nicholas throgmorton, whose early life had exhibited so bold a spirit of resistance to tyranny and popery when triumphant and enthroned, had been carried into a faction which all his principles ought to have rendered odious to him. in his intercourses with the queen of scots as ambassador from elizabeth, he had already shown himself her zealous partisan. in advising her to sign for her safety the deed of abdication tendered to her at loch-leven, he had basely suggested that the compulsion under which she acted would excuse her from regarding it as binding: to the english crown he also regarded her future title as incontrovertible. he now represented to his party, that cecil was secretly inclined to the house of suffolk; and that no measure favorable to the reputation or authority of the queen of scots could be carried whilst he enjoyed the confidence of his mistress. by these suggestions, the duke, unfortunately for himself, was led to sanction an attempt against the power and reputation of this great minister. leicester, who had long hated his virtues; the old corrupt statesmen winchester, pembroke, and arundel; and the discontented catholic peers northumberland and westmorland, eagerly joined in the plot. it was agreed to attack the secretary in the privy-council, on the ground of his having advised the detention of the money going into the low countries for the service of the king of spain, and thus exposing the nation to the danger of a war with this potentate; and throgmorton is said to have advised that, whatever he answered, they should find some pretext for sending him to the tower; after which, he said, it would be easy to compass his overthrow. but the penetration of elizabeth enabled her to appretiate justly, with a single exception, the principles, characters, and motives of all her servants; and she knew that, while his enemies were exclusively attached to their own interests, cecil was attached also to the interests of his prince, his country, and his religion; that while others,--with that far-sighted selfishness which involves men in so many intrigues, usually rendered fruitless or needless by the after-course of events,--were bent on securing to themselves the good graces of her successor, he was content to depend on her alone; that while others were the courtiers, the flatterers, or the ministers, of the queen, he, and perhaps he only, was the friend of elizabeth. all the rest she knew that she could replace at a moment;--him never. secret information was carried to her of all that her council were contriving, and had almost executed, against the secretary: full of indignation she hurried to their meeting, where she was not expected, and by her peremptory mandate put an instant stop to their proceedings; making leicester himself sensible, by a warmth which did her honor, that the man who held the first place in her esteem was by no one to be injured with impunity. the earl of sussex, the true friend of norfolk, and never his abettor in designs of which his sober judgement could discern all the criminality and all the rashness, was grieved to the soul that the artifices of his followers should have set him at variance with cecil. he was doubtless aware of the advantage which their disagreement would minister against them both to the malignant leicester, his and their common enemy; and trembling for the safety of the duke and the welfare of both, he addressed to the secretary, from the north, where he was then occupied in the queen's service, a letter on the subject, eloquent by its uncommon earnestness. he tells him that he knows not the occasion of the coldness between him and the duke, of which he had acknowledged the existence; but that he cannot believe other, esteeming both parties as he does, than that it must have had its origin in misrepresentation and the ill offices of their enemies; and he implores him, as the general remedy of all such differences, to resort to a full and fair explanation with the duke himself, in whom he will find "honor, truth, wisdom and plainness." these excellent exhortations were not without effect: it is probable that the incautious duke had either been led inadvertently or dragged unwillingly, by his faction, into the plot against the secretary, whose ruin he was not likely to have sought from any personal motive of enmity; and accordingly a few weeks after (june ) we find sussex congratulating cecil, in a second letter, on a reconciliation between them which he trusts will prove entire and permanent[ ]. [note : "illustrations" &c. by lodge, vol. ii.] hitherto the queen had preserved so profound a silence respecting the intrigues of the duke, that he flattered himself she was without a suspicion of their existence; but this illusion was soon to vanish. in august , the queen being at farnham in her progress and the duke in attendance on her, she took him to dine with her, and in the course of conversation found occasion, "without any show of displeasure," but with sufficient significance of manner, to give him the advice, "to be very careful on what pillow he rested his head." afterwards she cautioned him in plain terms against entering into any marriage treaty with the queen of scots. the duke, in his first surprise, made no scruple to promise on his allegiance that he would entertain no thoughts of her; he even affected to speak of such a connexion with disdain, declaring that he esteemed his lands in england worth nearly as much as the whole kingdom of scotland, wasted as it was by wars and tumults, and that in his tennis-court at norwich he reckoned himself equal to many a prince.--these demonstrations were all insincere; the duke remained steady to his purpose, and his correspondence with the queen of scots was not for a single day intermitted in submission to his sovereign. but he felt that it was now time to take off the mask; and fully confiding in the strength of his party, he requested the earl of leicester immediately to open the marriage proposal to her majesty, and solicit her consent. this the favorite promised, but for his own ends continued to defer the business from day to day. cecil, who had recently been taken into the consultations of the duke, urged upon him with great force the expediency of being himself the first to name his wishes to the queen; but norfolk, either from timidity, or, more probably, from an ill-founded reliance on leicester's sincerity, and a distrust, equally misplaced, of that of cecil, whom he was conscious of having ill treated, neglected to avail himself of this wise and friendly counsel, by which he might yet have been preserved. leicester, who watched all his motions, was at length satisfied that his purpose was effected,--the victim was inveigled beyond the power of retreat or escape, and it was time for the decoy-bird to slip out of the snare. he summoned to his aid a fit of sickness, the never-failing resource of the courtiers of elizabeth in case of need. his pitying mistress, as he had doubtless anticipated, hastened to pay him a charitable visit at his own house, and he then suffered her to discover that his malady was occasioned by some momentous secret which weighed upon his spirits; and after due ostentation of penitence and concern, at length revealed to her the whole of the negotiations for the marriage of the duke with the queen of scots, including the part which he had himself taken in that business. elizabeth, who seems by no means to have suspected that matters had gone so far, or that so many of her nobles were implicated in this transaction, was moved with indignation, and commanded the immediate attendance of the duke, who, conscious of his delinquency, and disquieted by the change which he thought he had observed in the countenance of her majesty and the carriage towards him of his brother peers, had sometime before quitted the court, and retired first to his house in london, and afterwards to his seat of kenninghall in norfolk. the duke delayed to appear, not daring to trust himself in the hands of his offended sovereign; and after a short delay, procured for him by the compassion of cecil, who persisted in assuring the queen that he would doubtless come shortly of his own accord, a messenger was sent to bring him up to london. this messenger, on his arrival, found the duke apparently, and perhaps really, laboring under a violent ague; and he suffered himself to be prevailed upon to accept his solemn promise of appearing at court as soon as he should be able to travel, and to return without him. meanwhile the queen, now bent upon sifting this matter to the bottom, had written to require the scottish regent to inform her of the share which he had taken in the intrigue, and whatever else he knew respecting it. murray had become fully aware how much more important it was to his interests to preserve the favor and friendship of elizabeth than to aim at keeping any measures with mary, by whom he was now hated with extreme bitterness; and learning that the confidence of the duke had already been betrayed by the earl of leicester, he made no scruple of acquainting her with all the particulars in which he was immediately concerned. it thus became known to elizabeth, that as early as the conferences at york, the regent had been compelled, by threats of personal violence on his return to scotland, to close with the proposals of the duke relative to his marriage;--that it was with a view to this union that mary had solicited from the states of scotland a sentence of divorce from bothwell, which murray by the exertion of his influence had induced them to refuse, and thus delayed the completion of the contract: but it appeared from other evidence, that written promises of marriage had actually been exchanged between the duke and mary, and committed to the safe keeping of the french ambassador. it was also found to be a part of the scheme to betroth the infant king of scots to a daughter of the duke of norfolk. the anger of elizabeth disdained to be longer trifled with; and she dispatched a messenger with peremptory orders to bring up the duke, "his ague notwithstanding," who found him already preparing to set out on his journey. cecil in one of his letters to sir henry norris, dated october , relates these circumstances at length, and expresses his satisfaction in the last, both for the sake of the state and of the duke himself, whom, of all subjects, he declares he most loved and honored. he then proceeds thus: "the queen's majesty hath willed the earl of arundel and my lord of pembroke to keep their lodgings here, for that they were privy of this marriage intended, and did not reveal it to her majesty; but i think none of them did so with any evil meaning, and of my lord of pembroke's intent herein i can witness, that he meant nothing but well to the queen's majesty; my lord lumley is also restrained: the queen's majesty hath also been grievously offended with my lord of leicester; but considering that he hath revealed all that he saith he knoweth of himself, her majesty spareth her displeasure the more towards him. some disquiets must arise, but i trust not hurtful; for her majesty saith she will know the truth, so as every one shall see his own fault, and so stay.... my lord of huntingdon is joined with the earl of shrewsbury for the scots queen's safety. whilst this matter was in passing, you must not think but the queen of scots was nearer looked to than before." the duke on his arrival was committed to the tower; but neither against him nor any of his adherents did the queen think proper to proceed by course of law, and they were all liberated after a restraint of longer or shorter duration. it is proper to mention, that the adherents of mary in her own time, and various writers since, have conspired to cast severe reflections upon elizabeth for committing her to the joint custody of the earl of huntingdon, because this nobleman, being descended by his mother, a daughter of henry pole lord montacute, from the house of clarence, was supposed to put his right of succession to the crown in competition with hers, and therefore to entertain against her peculiar animosity. but on the part of elizabeth it may be observed, first, that there is not the slightest ground to suspect that this nobleman, who was childless, entertained the most distant idea of reviving the obsolete claims of his family; and certainly if elizabeth had suspected him of it, he would never have held so high a place in her confidence. secondly, nothing less than the death of mary would have served any designs that he might have formed; and by joining him in commission with others for her safe keeping, elizabeth will scarcely be said to have put it in his power to make away with her. thirdly, the very writers who complain of the vigilance and strictness with which the queen of scots was now guarded, all acknowledge that nothing less could have baffled the plans of escape which the zeal of her partisans was continually setting on foot. amongst the warmest of these partisans was leonard dacre, a gentleman whose personal qualities, whose errors, injuries and misfortunes, all conspire to render him an object of attention, illustrative as they also are of the practices and sentiments of his age. leonard was the second son of william lord dacre of gilsland, descended from the ancient barons vaux who had held lordships in cumberland from the days of the conqueror. in , on the death without issue of his nephew, a minor in wardship to the duke of norfolk, leonard as heir male laid claim to the title and family estates, but the three sisters of the last lord disputed with him this valuable succession; and being supported by the interest of the duke of norfolk their step-father, to whose three sons they were married, they found means to defeat the claims of their uncle, though indisputably good in law;--one instance in a thousand of the scandalous partiality towards the rich and powerful exhibited in the legal decisions of that age. stung with resentment against the government and the queen herself, by whom justice had been denied him, leonard dacre threw himself, with all the impetuosity of his character, into the measures of the malcontents and the interests of the queen of scots, and he laid a daring plan for her deliverance from tutbury-castle. this plan the duke on its being communicated to him had vehemently opposed, partly from his repugnance to measures of violence, partly from the apprehension that mary, when at liberty, might fall into the hands of a foreign and catholic party, and desert her engagements with him for a marriage with the king of spain. dacre, however, was not to be diverted from his design, especially by the man with whom he was at open enmity, and he assembled a troop of horse for its execution; but suspicions had probably been excited, and the sudden removal of the prisoner to wingfield frustrated all his measures. this was not the only attempt of that turbulent and dangerous faction of which the inconsiderate ambition of the duke had rendered him nominally the head but really the tool and victim, which he had now the grief to find himself utterly unable to guide or restrain. the earls of northumberland and westmorland, heads of the ancient and warlike families of percy and nevil, were the first to break that internal tranquillity which the kingdom had hitherto enjoyed, without the slightest interruption, under the wise and vigorous rule of elizabeth. the remoteness of these noblemen from the court and capital, with the poverty and consequent simplicity, almost barbarism, of the vassals over whom they bore sway, and whose homage they received like native and independent princes, appears to have nourished in their minds ideas of their own importance better suited to the period of the wars of the roses than to the happier age of peace and order which had succeeded. the offended pride of the earl of westmorland, a man destitute in fact of every kind of talent, seems on some occasion to have conducted him to the discovery that at the court of elizabeth the representative of the king-making warwick was a person of very slender consideration. the failure of the grand attack upon the secretary, in which he had taken part, confirmed this mortifying impression; and the committal of his brother-in-law, the great and powerful duke of norfolk himself, must subsequently have carried home to the bottom of his heart unwilling conviction that the preponderance of the ancient aristocracy of the country was subverted, and its proudest chieftains fast sinking to the common level of subjects. his attachment to the religion, with the other practices and prejudices of former ages, gave additional exasperation to his discontent against the established order of things: the incessant invectives of romish priests against a princess whom the pope was on the point of anathematizing, represented the cause of her enemies as that of heaven itself; and the spirit of the earl was roused at length to seek full vengeance for all the injuries sustained by his pride, his interests, or his principles. every motive of disaffection which wrought upon the mind of westmorland, affected equally the earl of northumberland; and to the cause of popery the latter was still further pledged by the example and fate of his father, that sir thomas percy who had perished on the scaffold for his share in aske's rebellion. the attainder of sir thomas had debarred his son from succeeding to the titles and estates of the last unhappy earl his uncle, and he had suffered the mortification of seeing them go to raise the fortunes of the house of dudley; but on the accession of mary, by whom his father was regarded as a martyr, he had been restored to all the honors of his birth, and treated with a degree of favor which could not but strengthen his predilection for the faith of which she was the patroness. it appears, however, that the attachment of the earl to the cause of popery had not on all occasions been proof against immediate personal interest. soon after the marriage of the queen of scots with darnley, that rash and ill-judging pair esteeming their authority in the country sufficiently established to enable them to venture on an attempt for the restoration of the old religion, the pope, in furtherance of their pious designs, had remitted the sum of eight thousand crowns. "but the ship wherein the said gold was," says james melvil in his memoirs, "did shipwrack upon the coast of england, within the earl of northumberland's bounds, who alleged the whole to appertain to him by just law, which he caused his advocate to read unto me, when i was directed to him for the demanding restitution of the said sum, in the old norman language, which neither he nor i understood well, it was so corrupt. but all my entreaties were ineffectual, he altogether refusing to give any part thereof to the queen, albeit he was himself a catholic, and professed secretly to be her friend." and through this disappointment mary was compelled to give up her design. an additional trait of the earl's character is furnished by the same author, in transcribing the instructions which he carried home from his brother sir robert melvil, then ambassador to england, on his return from that country, after announcing the birth of the prince of scotland. "_item_, that her majesty cast not off the earl of northumberland, albeit as a fearful and facile man he delivered her letter to the queen of england; neither appear to find fault with sir henry percy as yet for his dealing with mr. ruxbie," (an english spy in scotland) "which he doth to gain favor at court, being upon a contrary faction to his brother the earl." the machinations of the two earls, however cautiously carried on, did not entirely escape the penetration of the earl of sussex, lord president of the north, who sent for them both and subjected them to some kind of examination; but no sufficient cause for their detention then appearing, he dismissed them, hoping probably that the warning would prove efficacious in securing their peaceable behaviour. in this idea, however, he was deceived: on their return they instantly resumed their mischievous designs; and they were actually preparing for an insurrection, which was to be supported by troops from flanders promised by the duke of alva, when a summons from the queen for their immediate attendance at court disconcerted all their measures. to comply with the command seemed madness in men who were conscious that their proceedings had already amounted to high treason;--but to refuse obedience, and thus set at defiance a power to which they were as yet unprepared to oppose any effectual resistance, seemed equally desperate. they hesitated; and it is said that the irresolution of northumberland was only ended by the stratagem of some of his dependents, who waked him one night with a false alarm that his enemies were upon him, and thus hurried him into the irretrievable step of quitting his home and joining westmorland, on which the country flocked in for their defence, and they found themselves compelled to raise their standard. the enterprise immediately assumed the aspect of a holy war, or crusade against heresy: on the banners of the insurgents were displayed the cross, the five wounds of christ, and the cup of the eucharist: mass was regularly performed in their camp; and on reaching durham, they carried off from the cathedral and committed to the flames the bible and the english service books. the want of money to purchase provisions compelled the earls to relinquish their first idea of marching to london; they took however a neighbouring castle, and remained masters of the country as long as no army appeared to oppose them; but on the approach of the earl of sussex and lord hunsdon from york, with a large body of troops, they gradually retreated to the scotch borders; and there disbanded their men without a blow. the earl of westmorland finally made his escape to flanders, where he dragged out a tedious existence in poverty and obscurity, barely supplied with the necessaries of life by a slender pension from the king of spain. northumberland, being betrayed for a reward by a scottish borderer to whom, as to a friend, he had fled for refuge, was at length delivered up by the regent morton to the english government, and was beheaded at york. posterity is not called upon to respect the memory of these rebellious earls as martyrs even to a mistaken zeal for the good of their country, or to any other generous principle of action. the objects of their enterprise, as assigned by themselves, were the restoration of the old religion, the removal of evil counsellors, and the liberation of the duke of norfolk and other imprisoned nobles. but even their attachment to popery appears to have been entirely subservient to their views of personal interest; and so little was the duke inclined to blend his cause with theirs, that he exerted himself in every mode that his situation would permit to strengthen the hands of government for their overthrow; and it was in consideration of the loyal spirit manifested by him on occasion of this rebellion, and of a subsequent rising in norfolk, that he soon after obtained his liberty on a solemn promise to renounce all connexion with the queen of scots. in the northern counties, however, the cause and the persons of the two earls, who had well maintained the hospitable fame of their great ancestors, were alike the objects of popular attachment: the miserable destiny of the outlawed and ruined westmorland, and the untimely end of northumberland through the perfidy of the false friend in whom he had put his trust, were long remembered with pity and indignation, and many a minstrel "tuned his rude harp of border frame" to the fall of the percy or the wanderings of the nevil. there was also an ancient gentleman named norton, of norton in yorkshire, who bore the banner of the cross and the five wounds before the rebel army, whose tragic fall, with that of his eight sons, has received such commemoration and embellishment as the pathetic strains of a nameless but probably contemporary bard could bestow. the excellent ballad entitled "the rising in the north[ ]" impressively describes the mission of percy's "little foot page" to norton, to pray that he will "ride in his company;" the council held by richard norton with his nine sons, when "eight of them did answer make, eight of them spake hastily, o father! till the day we die we'll stand by that good earl and thee;" while francis, the eldest, seeks to dissuade his father from rebellion, but finding him resolved, offers to accompany him "unarmed and naked." their standard is then mentioned: and after recording the flight of the two earls, the minstrel adds, "thee norton with thine eight good sons they doomed to die, alas for ruth! thy reverend locks thee could not save, nor them their fair and blooming youth!" [note : see percy's "reliques," vol. ii.] but how slender is the authority of a poet in matters of history! it is quite certain that richard norton did not perish by the hands of the executioner, and it is uncertain whether any one of his sons did. it is true that the old man with three more of the family was attainted, that his great estates were confiscated, and that he ended his days a miserable exile in flanders. we also know that two gentlemen of the name of norton were hanged at london: but some authorities make them brothers of the head of the family; and two of the sons of richard norton, francis, and edmund ancestor of the present lord grantley, certainly lived and died in peace on their estates in yorkshire. it is little to the honor of elizabeth's clemency, that a rebellion suppressed almost without bloodshed should have been judged by her to justify and require the unmitigated exercise of martial law over the whole of the disaffected country. sir john bowes, marshal of the army, made it his boast, that in a tract sixty miles in length and forty in breadth, there was scarcely a town or village where he had not put some to death; and at durham the earl of sussex caused sixty-three constables to be hanged at once;--a severity of which it should appear that he was the unwilling instrument; for in a letter written soon after to cecil he complains, that during part of the time of his command in the north he had nothing left to him "but to direct hanging matters." but the situation of this nobleman at the time was such as would by no means permit him at his own peril to suspend or evade the execution of such orders as he received from court. egremond ratcliffe his half-brother was one of about forty noblemen and gentlemen attainted for their concern in this rebellion; he had in the earl of leicester an enemy equally vindictive and powerful; and some secret informations had infused into the mind of the queen a suspicion that there had been some wilful slackness in his proceedings against the insurgents. there was however at the bottom of elizabeth's heart a conviction of the truth and loyalty of her kinsman which could not be eradicated, and he soon after took a spirited step which disconcerted entirely the measures of his enemies, and placed him higher than ever in her confidence and esteem. cecil thus relates the circumstance in one of his letters to norris, dated february . "the earl of sussex... upon desire to see her majesty, came hither unlooked for; and although, in the beginning of this northern rebellion, her majesty sometimes uttered some misliking of the earl, yet this day she, meaning to deal very princely with him, in presence of her council, charged him with such things as she had heard to cause her misliking, without any note of mistrust towards him for his fidelity; whereupon he did with such humbleness, wisdom, plainness and dexterity, answer her majesty, as both she and all the rest were fully satisfied, and he adjudged by good proofs to have served in all this time faithfully, and so circumspectly, as it manifestly appeareth that if he had not so used himself in the beginning, the whole north part had entered into the rebellion." a formidable mass of discontent did in fact subsist among the catholics of the north, and it was not long before a new and more daring leader found means to set it again in fierce and violent action. leonard dacre had found no opportunity to take part in the enterprise of the two earls, though a deep participator in their counsels; for knowing that their design could not yet be ripe for execution, and foreseeing as little as the rest of the faction those measures of the queen by which their affairs were prematurely brought to a crisis, he had proceeded to court on his private concerns, and was there amusing her majesty with protestations of his unalterable fidelity and attachment, while his associates in the north were placing their lands and lives on the hazard of rebellion. learning on his journey homewards the total discomfiture of the earls, he carefully preserved the semblance of a zealous loyalty, till, having armed the retainers of his family on pretence of preserving the country in the queen's obedience, and having strongly garrisoned its hereditary castles of naworth and greystock, which he wrested from the custody of the howards, he declared himself, and broke out into violent rebellion. the late severities had rather exasperated than subdued the spirit of disaffection in this neighbourhood, and three thousand men ranged themselves under the scallop-shells of dacre;--a well known ensign which from age to age had marshalled the hardy borderers to deeds of warlike prowess. lord hunsdon, the governor of berwick, marched promptly forth with all the force he could muster to disperse the rebels; but this time they stood firmly on the banks of the little river gelt, to give him battle. such indeed was the height of fanaticism or despair to which these unhappy people were wrought up, that the phrensy gained the softer sex; and there were seen in their ranks, says the chronicler, "many desperate women that gave the adventure of their lives, and fought right stoutly." after a sharp action in which about three hundred were left dead on the field, victory at length declared for the queen's troops; and leonard dacre, who had bravely sustained, notwithstanding the deformity of his person, the part of soldier as well as general, seeing that all was lost, turned his horse's head and rode off full speed for scotland, whence he passed into flanders and took up at lovain his melancholy abode. the treason of this unfortunate gentleman was, it must be confessed, both notorious and heinous; and had he been intercepted in making his escape, no blame could have attached to elizabeth in exacting the full penalty of his offence. but when, five-and-twenty years after this time, we find his aged mother at court "an earnest suitor" for the pardon of her two sons[ ]; obtaining, probably by costly bribes, a promise of admission to the queen's presence, and at length gaining nothing more,--it is impossible not to blame or lament that relentless severity of temper which rendered elizabeth so much a stranger to the fairest attribute of sovereign power. the case of francis dacre indeed was one which ought to have appealed to her sense of justice rather than to her feelings of mercy. this gentleman, after the expatriation and attainder of his elder brother, had prosecuted at law the claims to the honors and lands of the barony of gilsland which had thus devolved upon him; but being baffled in all his appeals to the equity of the courts, he had withdrawn in disgust to flanders, and on this account suffered a sentence of outlawry. he lived and died in exile, leaving a son, named ranulph, heir only to poverty and misfortunes, to noble blood, and to rights which he was destitute of the power of rendering available. lord dacre of the south, as he was usually called, settled on this poor man, his very distant relation, a small annuity; and on his death the following lord dacre, becoming the heir male of the family, received by way of compromise from the howards no less than thirteen manors which they had enjoyed to the prejudice of leonard dacre, of his brother and of his nephew. [note : letter of r. whyte in "sidney papers."] on the suppression of this second rising in the north, the queen, better advised or instructed by experience, granted a general pardon to all but its leader; and such was the effect of this lenity, or of the example of repeated failure on the part of the insurgents, that the internal tranquillity of her kingdom was never more disturbed from this quarter, the most dangerous of all from the vicinity of scotland. the earl of sussex had been kept for some time in a state of dissatisfaction, as appears from one of his letters to cecil, by her majesty's dilatoriness in conferring upon him such a mark of her special favor as she had graciously promised at the conclusion of his satisfactory defence of himself before the council; but she appeased at length his wounded feelings, by admitting him to the council-board and giving him the command of a strong force appointed to act on the scottish border. the occasion for this military movement arose out of the tragical incident of the assassination of the regent murray, which had proved the signal for a furious inroad upon the english limits by some of the southern clans, who found themselves immediately released from the restraints of an administration vigorous enough to make the lawless tremble. sussex was ordered to chastize their insolence; and he performed the task thoroughly and pitilessly, laying waste with fire and sword the whole obnoxious district. besides recognising in murray a valuable coadjutor, neighbour and ally, elizabeth appears to have loved and esteemed him as a man and a friend, and she bewailed his death with an excess of dejection honorable surely to her feelings, though regarded by some as derogatory from the dignity of her station. it was indeed an event which broke all her measures, and which, at a period when difficulties and dangers were besetting her on all hands, added fresh embarrassment to her perplexity and presented new chances of evil to her fears. what degree of compunction she felt for her unjustifiable detention of mary may be doubtful; but it is certain that her mind was now shaken with perpetual terrors and anxieties for the consequences of that irrevocable step, and that there was nothing which she more earnestly desired than to transfer to other hands the custody of so dangerous a prisoner. she had nearly concluded an agreement for this purpose with murray, to whom she was to have surrendered the person of the captive queen, receiving six scottish noblemen as hostages for her safe keeping; and though the interference of the french and spanish ambassadors had obliged her to suspend its execution, there is no reason to suppose that the design was relinquished, when this unexpected stroke rendered it for ever impracticable. the regency of scotland, too, was now to be contested by the enraged factions of that distracted country, and it was of great importance to elizabeth that the victory should fall to the party of the young king; yet such were the perplexities of her political situation, that it was some time before she could satisfy herself that there would not be too great a hazard in supporting by arms the election of the earl of lenox, to whom she gave her interest. her first recourse was to her favorite arts of intrigue; and she sent randolph, her chosen instrument for these occasions, to tamper with various party-leaders, while sussex, whose character inclined him more to measures of coercion, exhorted her to put an end to her irresolution and throw the sword into the scale of lenox. she at length found reason to adopt this counsel; and the earl, re-entering scotland with his army, laid waste the lands and took or destroyed the castles of mary's adherents. sir william drury, marshal of the army, was afterwards sent further into the country to chastize the hamiltons, of which clan was the assassin of murray. the contemporary accounts of this expedition, amid many lamentable particulars of ravages committed, afford one amusing trait of manners. lord fleming, who held out dumbarton castle for the queen of scots, had demanded a parley with sir william drury, during which he treacherously caused him to be fired upon; happily without effect. sir george cary, burning to avenge the injury offered to his commander, sent immediately a letter of defiance to lord fleming, challenging him to meet him in single combat on this quarrel, when, where and how he dares; concluding thus: "otherwise i will baffle your good name, sound with the trumpet your dishonor, and paint your picture with the heels upward and bear it in despite of yourself." that this was not the only species of affront to which portraits were in these days exposed, we learn from an expression of ben jonson's:--"take as unpardonable offence as if he had torn your mistress's colors, or _breathed on her picture_[ ]." [note : see "every man out of his humour."] the scotch war was terminated a few months after, by an agreement between elizabeth and mary, by virtue of which the former consented to withdraw her troops from the country on the engagement of the latter that no french forces should enter it in support of her title. after this settlement, elizabeth returned to her usual ambiguous dealing in the affairs of scotland; and so far from insisting that lenox should be named regent, she sent a request to the heads of the king's party that they would refrain for a time from the nomination of any person to that office. in consequence of this mandate, which they dared not disobey, lenox was only chosen lieutenant for a time; an appointment which served equally well the purposes of the english queen. connected with all the other measures adopted by the zeal of the great catholic combination for the destruction of elizabeth and the ruin of the protestant cause, was one from which their own narrow prejudices or sanguine wishes, rather than any just views of the state of public opinion in england, led them to anticipate important results. this was the publication of a papal bull solemnly anathematizing the queen, and dispensing her subjects from their oath of allegiance. a fanatic named fulton was found willing to earn the crown of martyrdom by affixing this instrument to the gate of the bishop of london's palace. he was taken in the fact, and suffered the penalty of treason without exciting a murmur among the people. a trifling insurrection in norfolk ensued, of which however the papal bull was not openly assigned as the motive, and which was speedily suppressed with the punishment of a few of the offenders according to law. even the catholic subjects of elizabeth for the most part abhorred the idea of lifting their hands against her government and the peace of their native land; and several of them were now found among the foremost and most sincere in their offers of service against the disaffected. on the whole, the result of the great trial of the hearts of her people afforded to the queen by the alarms of this anxious period, was satisfactory beyond all example. henceforth she knew, and the world knew, the firmness of that rock on which her throne was planted;--based on religion, supported by wisdom and fortitude and adorned by every attractive art, it stood dear and venerable to her people, defying the assaults of her baffled and malignant enemies. the anniversary of her accession began this year to be celebrated by popular festivals all over the country;--a practice which was retained not only to the end of the reign, but for many years afterwards, during which the th of november continued to be solemnly observed under designation of the birthday of the gospel. end of the first volume. _printed by r. and a. taylor, shoe-lane._ * * * * * memoirs of the court of queen elizabeth. vol. ii. chapter xvii. to . notice of sir t. gresham.--building of his exchange.--the queen's visit to it.--cecil created lord burleigh and lord-treasurer.--justs at westminster.--notices of the earl of oxford, charles howard, sir h. lee, sir chr. hatton.--fresh negotiations for the marriage of elizabeth with the duke of anjou.--renewal of the intrigues of norfolk.--his re-committal, trial, and conviction.--death of throgmorton.--sonnet by elizabeth.--norfolk beheaded.--his character and descendants.--hostility of spain.--wylson's translation of demosthenes.--walsingham ambassador to france.--treaty with that country.--massacre of paris.--temporizing conduct of elizabeth.--burleigh's calculation of the queen's nativity.--notice of philip sidney. from the intrigues and violences of crafty politicians and discontented nobles, we shall now turn to trace the prosperous and honorable career of a private english merchant, whose abilities and integrity introduced him to the notice of his sovereign, and whose patriotic munificence still preserves to him the respectful remembrance of posterity. this merchant was thomas gresham. born of a family at once enlightened, wealthy and commercial, he had shared the advantage of an education at the university of cambridge previously to his entrance on the walk of life to which he was destined, and which, fortunately for himself, his superior acquirements did not tempt him to desert or to despise. his father, sir richard gresham, had been agent to henry viii. for the negotiation of loans with the merchants of antwerp, and in he himself was nominated to act in a similar capacity to edward vi., when he was eminently serviceable in redeeming the credit of the king, sunk to the lowest ebb by the mismanagement of his father's immediate successor in the agency. under elizabeth he enjoyed the same appointment, to which was added that of queen's merchant; and it appears by the official letters of the time, that political as well as pecuniary affairs were often intrusted to his discreet and able management. he was also a spirited promoter of the infant manufactures of his country, several of which owed to him their first establishment. by his diligence and commercial talents he at length rendered himself the most opulent subject in the kingdom, and the queen showed her sense of his merit and consequence by bestowing on him the honor of knighthood. gresham had always made a liberal and patriotic use of his wealth; but after the death of his only son, in , he formed the resolution of making his country his principal heir. the merchants of london had hitherto been unprovided with any building in the nature of a burse or exchange, such as gresham had seen in the great commercial cities of flanders; and he now munificently offered, if the city would give him a piece of ground, to build them one at his own expense. the edifice was begun accordingly in , and finished within three years. it was a quadrangle of brick, with walks on the ground floor for the merchants, (who now ceased to transact their business in the middle aisle of st. paul's cathedral,) with vaults for warehouses beneath and a range of shops above, from the rent of which the proprietor sought some remuneration for his great charges. but the shops did not immediately find occupants; and it seems to have been partly with the view of bringing them into vogue that the queen promised her countenance to the undertaking. in january , attended by a splendid train, she entered the city; and after dining with sir thomas at his spacious mansion in bishopsgate-street (still remaining), she repaired to the burse, visited every part of it, and caused proclamation to be made by sound of trumpet that henceforth it should bear the name of the royal exchange. gresham offered the shops rent-free for a year to such as would furnish them with wares and wax lights against the coming of the queen; and a most sumptuous display was made of the richest commodities and manufactures of every quarter of the globe. afterwards the shops of the exchange became the favorite resort of fashionable customers of both sexes: much money was squandered here, and, if we are to trust the representations of satirists and comic writers, many reputations lost. the building was destroyed in the fire of london; and the divines of that day, according to their custom, pronounced this catastrophe a judgement on the avarice and unfair dealing of the merchants and shopkeepers, and the pride, prodigality and luxury of the purchasers and idlers by whom it was frequented and maintained. elizabeth soon after paid homage to merit in another form, by conferring on her invaluable servant cecil,--whose wisdom, firmness and vigilance had most contributed to preserve her unhurt amid the machinations of her implacable enemies,--the dignity of baron of burleigh; an elevation which might provoke the envy or resentment of some of the courtiers his opponents, but which was hailed by the applauses of the people. before the close of the year, the death, at a great but not venerable age, of that corrupt and selfish statesman the marquis of winchester, afforded her an opportunity of apportioning to the new dignity of her secretary a suitable advance in office and emolument, by conferring on him the post of lord-high-treasurer, which he continued to enjoy to the end of his life. on the first of may and the two following days solemn justs were held before the queen at westminster; in which the challengers were the earl of oxford, charles howard, sir henry lee and sir christopher hatton,--all four deserving of biographical commemoration. edward earl of oxford was the seventeenth of the illustrious family of vere who had borne that title, and his character presented an extraordinary union of the haughtiness, violence and impetuosity of the feudal baron, with many of the elegant propensities and mental accomplishments which adorn the nobleman of a happier age. it was probably to his travels in italy that he owed his more refined tastes both in literature and in luxury, and it was thence that he brought those perfumed and embroidered gloves which he was the first to introduce into england. a superb pair which he presented to her majesty were so much approved by her, that she sat for her portrait with them on her hands. these gloves became of course highly fashionable, but those prepared in spain were soon found to excel in scent all others; and the importance attached to this discovery may be estimated by the following commission given by sir nicholas throgmorton, then in france, to sir thomas chaloner ambassador in spain:--"i pray you, good my lord ambassador, send me two pair of perfumed gloves, perfumed with orange-flowers and jasmin, the one for my wife's hand, the other for mine own; and wherein soever i can pleasure you with any thing in this country, you shall have it in recompense thereof, or else so much money as they shall cost you; provided always that they be of the best choice, wherein your judgement is inferior to none[ ]." [note : "burleigh papers" by haynes.] the earl of oxford enjoyed in his own times a high poetical reputation; but his once celebrated comedies have perished, and two or three fugitive pieces inserted in collections are the only legacy bequeathed to posterity by his muse. of these, "the complaint of a lover wearing black and tawny" has ceased, in the change of manners and fashions, to interest or affect the reader. "fancy and desire" may still lay claim to the praise of ingenuity, though the idea is perhaps not original even here, and has since been exhibited with very considerable improvements both in french and english, especially in ben jonson's celebrated song, "tell me where was fancy bred?" two or three stanzas may bear quotation. "where wert thou born desire?" "in pomp and pride of may." "by whom sweet boy wert thou begot?" "by fond conceit men say." "tell me who was thy nurse?" "fresh youth in sugred joy." "what was thy meat and daily food?" "sad sighs with great annoy." "what had'st thou then to drink?" "unsavoury lovers' tears." "what cradle wert thou rocked in?" "in hope devoid of fears." &c. in the chivalrous exercises of the tilt and tournament the earl of oxford had few superiors: he was victor in the justs both of this year and of the year , and on the latter occasion he was led by two ladies into the presence-chamber, all armed as he was, to receive a prize from her majesty's own hand. afterwards, by gross misconduct, he incurred from his sovereign a disgrace equally marked and public, being committed to the tower for an attempt on one of her maids of honor. on other occasions his lawless propensities broke out with a violence which elizabeth herself was scarcely able to restrain. he had openly begun to muster his friends, retainers and servants, to take vengeance on sir thomas knevet, by whom he had been wounded in a duel; and the queen, who interfered to prevent the execution of this savage design, was obliged for some time to appoint knevet a guard in order to secure his life. he also publicly insulted sir philip sidney in the tennis-court of the palace; and her majesty could discover no other means of preventing fatal consequences than compelling sir philip sidney, as the inferior in rank, to compromise the quarrel on terms which he regarded as so inequitable and degrading, that after transmitting to her majesty a spirited remonstrance against encouraging the insolence of the great nobles, he retired to penshurst in disgust. the duke of norfolk was the nephew of this earl of oxford, who was very strongly attached to him, and used the utmost urgency of entreaty with burleigh, whose daughter he had married, to prevail on him to procure his pardon: "but not succeeding," says lord orford, "he was so incensed against that minister, that in most absurd and unjust revenge (though the cause was amiable) he swore he would do all he could to ruin his daughter; and accordingly not only forsook her bed, but sold and consumed great part of the vast inheritance descended to him from his ancestors[ ]." [note : "royal and noble authors."] this remarkable person died very aged early in the reign of james i. sir charles howard, eldest son of lord howard of effingham, was at this period of his life chiefly remarkable for the uncommon beauty of his person,--a species of merit never overlooked by her majesty,--for grace and agility in his exercises, and for the manners of an accomplished courtier. at no time was he regarded as a person of profound judgement, and of vanity and self-consequence he is said to have possessed an abundant share. he was however brave, courteous, liberal, and diligent in affairs; and the favor of the queen admitted him in to succeed his father in the office of lord-high-admiral. his intrepid bearing, in the year , encouraged his sailors to meet the terrible armada with stout hearts and cheerful countenances, and the glory of its defeat was as much his own as the participation of winds and waves would allow. in consideration of this distinguished piece of service he was created earl of nottingham; and the queen's partiality towards her relations increasing with her years, he became towards the end of the reign one of the most considerable persons at her court, where his hostility to essex grew equally notorious with the better grounded antipathy entertained by sussex, also a royal kinsman, against leicester, the earlier favorite of her majesty. the earl of nottingham survived to the year , the th of his age. sir henry lee was one of the finest courtiers and certainly the most complete knight-errant of his time. he was now in the fortieth year of his age, had travelled, and had seen some military service; but the tilt-yard was ever the scene of his most conspicuous exploits and those in which he placed his highest glory. he had declared himself the queen's own knight and champion, and having inscribed upon his shield the constellation of ariadne's crown, culminant in her majesty's nativity, bound himself by a solemn vow to appear armed in the tilt-yard on every anniversary of her happy accession till disabled by age. this vow gave origin to the annual exercises of the knights-tilters, a society consisting of twenty-five of the most gallant and favored of the courtiers of elizabeth. the modern reader may wonder to find included in this number so grave an officer as bromley lord chancellor; but under the maiden reign neither the deepest statesman, the most studious lawyer, nor the rudest soldier was exempted from the humiliating obligation of accepting, and even soliciting, those household and menial offices usually discharged by mere courtiers, nor from the irksome one of assuming, for the sake of their sovereign lady, the romantic disguise of armed champions and enamoured knights. sir henry lee, however, appears to have devoted his life to these chivalrous pageantries rather from a quixotical imagination than with any serious views of ambition or interest. he was a gentleman of ancient family and plentiful fortune, little connected, as far as appears, with any court faction or political, party, and neither capable nor ambitious of any public station of importance. it is an amiable and generous trait of his character, that he attended the unfortunate duke of norfolk even to the scaffold, received his last embrace, and repeated to the assembled multitude his request that they would assist him with their prayers in his final agony. his royal dulcinea rewarded his fatigues and his adoration by the lieutenancy of woodstock manor, the office of keeper of the armoury, and especially by the appropriate meed of admission into the most noble order of the garter. he resigned the championship at the approach of old age with a solemn ceremony hereafter to be described, died at his mansion of quarendon in bucks, in , in his st year, and was interred in the parish church under a splendid tomb hung round with military trophies, and inscribed with a very long, very quaint and very tumid epitaph. christopher hatton, the last of this undaunted band of challengers, was a new competitor for the smiles of royalty, and bright was the dawn of fortune and of favor which already broke upon him. he was of a decayed family of northamptonshire gentry, and had just commenced the study of the law at one of the inns of court, when hope or curiosity stimulated him to gain admittance at some court-festival, where he had an opportunity of dancing before the queen in a mask. his figure and his performance so captivated her fancy, that she immediately bestowed upon him some flattering marks of attention, which encouraged him to quit his profession and turn courtier. this showy outside and these gay accomplishments were unexpectedly found in union with a moderate and cautious temper, enlightened views, and a solid understanding; and after due deliberation, elizabeth, that penetrating judge of men, decided, in spite of ridicule, that she could not do better than make this superlatively-excellent dancer of galliards her lord-chancellor. the enemies of hatton are said to have promoted this appointment in expectation of his disgracing himself by ignorance and incapacity; but their malice was disappointed; whatever he did not know, he was able to learn and willing to be taught; he discharged the duties of his high office with prudence first and afterwards with ability, and died in in possession of it and of the public esteem. it is remarkable, considering the general predilection of the queen in favor of celibacy, that hatton was the only one of her ministers who lived and died a bachelor. early in this year the king of france married a daughter of the emperor maximilian; and elizabeth, desirous at this time of being on the best terms both with the french and imperial courts, sent lord buckhurst to paris on a splendid embassy of congratulation. catherine de' medici took this opportunity of renewing proposals of marriage to the queen of england on the part of her son the duke of anjou, and they were listened to with an apparent complacency which perplexed the politicians. it is certainly to this negotiation, and to the intrigues of the duke of norfolk and other nobles with the queen of scots, that shakespear alludes in the following ingenious and exquisite passage. ..."once i sat upon a promontory, and heard a _mermaid_ on a _dolphin_'s back uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, that the rude sea grew civil at her song; and _certain stars shot madly from their spheres_, to hear the sea-maid's music. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * that very time i saw, but thou could'st not, flying between the cold moon and the earth, cupid all-arm'd: a certain aim he took at _a fair vestal throned by the west_, and loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow, as it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts; but i might see young cupid's fiery shaft quench'd in the chaste beams of the watry moon, and the imperial votress passed on, in maiden meditation, fancy-free." _midsummer night's dream._ unfortunately for himself, the duke of norfolk had not acquired, even from the severe admonition of a long imprisonment, resolution sufficient to turn a deaf ear to the enchantments of this syren. his situation was indeed perplexing: he had entered into the most serious engagements with his sovereign to abstain from all further intercourse with the queen of scots: at the same time the right of elizabeth to interdict him an alliance so flattering to his vanity might plausibly be questioned, and the previous interchange between himself and mary of solemn promises of marriage, seemed to have brought him under obligations to her too sacred to be dissolved by any subsequent stipulation of his, though one to which mary herself had been compelled to become a party. neither had chivalrous ideas by any means lost their force in this age; and as a knight and a gentleman the duke must have esteemed himself bound in honor to procure the release of the captive princess, and to claim through all perils the fair hand which had been plighted to him. impressed by such sentiments, he returned to a letter of eloquent complaint which she found means to convey to him, an answer filled with assurances of his inviolable constancy; and the intrigues of the party were soon renewed with as much activity as ever. but the vigilance of the ministry of elizabeth could not long be eluded. an important packet of letters written by ridolfi, a florentine who had been sent abroad by the party to confer with the pope and with the duke of alva, was intercepted; and in consequence of the plots thus unfolded, the bishop of ross, who bore the character of mary's ambassador in england, was given into private custody. soon after, a servant of the duke's, intrusted by him with the conveyance of a sum of money from the french ambassador to mary's adherents in scotland, carried the parcel containing it to the secretary of state. the duke's secretary was then sent for and examined. this man, who was probably in the pay of government, not only confessed with readiness all that he knew, but produced some letters from the queen of scots which his lord had commanded him to burn after decyphering them. other concurring indications of the duke's guilt appearing, he was recommitted to the tower in september . after various consultations of civilians on the extent of an ambassador's privilege, and the title which the agent of a deposed sovereign might have to avail himself of that sacred character, it was determined that the laws of nations did not protect the bishop of ross, and he was carried to the tower, where, in fear of death, he made full confession of all his machinations against the person and state of elizabeth. in the most guilty parts of these designs he affirmed that the duke had constantly refused his concurrence;--and in fact, weak and infatuated as he was, the agents of mary seem to have found it impracticable, by all their artifices, to bring this unfortunate nobleman entirely to forget that he was a protestant and an englishman. he would never consent directly to procure the death or dethronement of elizabeth; though it must have been perfectly evident to any man of clear and unbiassed judgement, that, under all the circumstances, the accomplishment of his wishes could by no other means be attained. this affair was regarded in so very serious a light, that the queen thought it necessary, before the duke was put on his trial, to lay all the circumstances of his case before the court of france; and the parliament, which was again assembled after an interval of five years, passed some new laws for the protection of the queen's person from the imminent perils by which they saw her environed. the illustrious prisoner was now brought before the tribunal of his brother-peers; and a perfectly fair and regular trial, according to the practices of that age, was accorded him. whatever his intentions might have been, his actions appear to have come clearly within the limits of treason; and the earl of shrewsbury, as lord-high-steward for the day, pronounced upon him, with tears, a verdict of guilty. but the queen hesitated or deferred, from clemency or caution, to sign his death warrant, and he was remanded to the tower under some uncertainty whether or not the last rigor of the offended laws awaited him. the name of sir nicholas throgmorton was so mixed up in the confessions of the bishop of ross, that it was perhaps an indulgent fate which had removed him some months previously from the sphere of human action. he died at the house of the earl of leicester, and certainly of a pleurisy; but the malevolent credulity of that age seldom allowed a person of any eminence to quit the world without imputing the occurrence in some manner, direct or indirect, to the malice of his enemies. it was rumored that throgmorton had fallen a victim to the hostility of leicester, which he was thought to have provoked by quitting the party of the earl to reconcile himself with burleigh, his secret enemy; and the suspicion of proficiency in the art of poisoning, which had so long rested upon the favorite, obtained credit to this absurd report. possibly there might be more truth in the general opinion, that it was in some measure owing to the enmity of burleigh that a person of such acknowledged abilities in public affairs, and one who had conducted himself so skilfully in various important negotiations, should never have been advanced to any considerable office of trust or profit. but the lofty and somewhat turbulent spirit of throgmorton himself, ought probably to bear the chief blame both of this enmity, and of his want of success at the court of a princess who exacted from her servants the exercise of the most refined and cautious policy, as well as an entire and implicit submission to all her views and wishes. it is highly probable that she never entirely pardoned throgmorton for giving the lie to her declarations respecting the promises made to the earl of murray and his party, by the open production of his own diplomatic instructions. the hostility of leicester extended, as we shall see hereafter, to other branches of the unfortunate family of throgmorton, whom an imprudent or criminal zeal in the cause of popery exposed without defence to the whole weight of his vengeance. on some slight pretext he procured the dismissal of sir john throgmorton, the brother of sir nicholas; from his office of chief justice of chester, who did not long survive the disgrace though apparently unmerited. puttenham, author of the "art of english poesie," ventured, though a professed courtier, to compose an epitaph on this victim of oppression, of which he has preserved to us the following lines in the work above mentioned: "whom virtue reared envy hath overthrown, and lodged full low under this marble stone: ne never were his values so well known whilst he lived here, as now that he is gone. no sun by day that ever saw him rest free from the toils of his so busy charge, no night that harboured rancour in his breast, nor merry mood made reason run at large. his head a source of gravity and sense, his memory a shop of civil art: his tongue a stream of sugred eloquence, wisdom and meekness lay mingled in his heart." &c. the literary propensities of elizabeth have already come under our notice: they had frequently served to divert her mind from the cares of government; but in the state of unremitted anxiety occasioned by her dread of the machinations relative to the queen of scots, in which she had found the first peer of her realm a principal actor, her thoughts, even in the few leisure hours which she found means to bestow on these soothing recreations, still hovered about the objects from which she most sought to withdraw them. the following sonnet of her composition will illustrate this remark: it was published during her lifetime in puttenham's "arte of english poesie," and its authenticity, its principal merit, has never been called in question. sonnet _by queen elizabeth_. the doubt of future foes exiles my present joy, and wit me warns to shun such snares as threaten mine annoy. for falsehood now doth flow, and subjects' faith doth ebb; which would not be if reason ruled, or wisdom weaved the web. but clouds of toys untried do cloak aspiring minds, which turn to rain of late repent by course of changed winds. the top of hope supposed the root of ruth will be; and fruitless all their graffed guiles, as shortly ye shall see. those dazzled eves with pride, which great ambition blinds, shall be unseal'd by worthy wights whose foresight falsehood finds. the daughter of debate that eke discord doth sow, shall reap no gain where former rule hath taught still peace to grow. no foreign banish'd wight shall anchor in this port; our realm it brooks no strangers' force, let them elsewhere resort. our rusty sword with rest shall first his edge employ, to poll their tops that seek such change, and gape for joy. the house of commons, in which great dread and hatred of the queen of scots and her adherents now prevailed, showed itself strongly disposed to pass an act by which mary should be declared for ever unworthy and incapable of the english succession: but elizabeth, with her usual averseness to all unqualified declarations and irrevocable decisions, interfered to prevent the completion of a measure which most sovereigns, under all the circumstances, would have been eager to embrace. to the unanimous expression of the opinion of the house, that the execution of the sentence against the duke of norfolk ought not to be longer delayed, she was however prevailed upon to lend a more favorable ear; and on june d, , this nobleman received his death on tower-hill. norfolk was a man of many amiable and several estimable qualities, and much too good for the faction with which he had been enticed to act and the cause in which he suffered. on the scaffold he acknowledged, with great apparent sincerity, the justice of his sentence, and his peculiar guiltiness in breaking the solemn promise which he had pledged to his sovereign. he declared himself to have been an earnest protestant ever since he had had any taste for religion, and in this faith he died very devoutly. he bequeathed by his will his best george to his kinsman and true friend the earl of sussex, whose faithful counsels he too late reproached himself with neglecting. by his attainder the dukedom was lost to the family of howard; but philip, his eldest son, succeeded his maternal grandfather in the earldom of arundel; lord thomas, his second son, (whose mother was the daughter and heiress of lord audley,) was created lord howard of walden by elizabeth and earl of suffolk by james; and lord william, the youngest, who possessed naworth-castle in right of elizabeth dacre his wife, and was known upon the west border (of which he was warden) by the appellation of "belted will," was ancestor to the earls of carlisle[ ]. [note : "his bilboa blade, by marchmen felt, hung in a broad and studded belt; hence in rude phrase the borderers still call noble howard belted will." lay of the last minstrel.] the king of spain had long been regarded in england as the most implacable and formidable of the enemies of elizabeth; and on good grounds. it was believed to be through his procurement that sixtus v. had been led to fulminate his anathema against her;--it was well known that the pope had made a donation to him of the kingdom of ireland, of which he was anxious to avail himself;--there was strong ground to suspect that he had sent one of his ablest generals in embassy to england with no other view than to have taken the command of the northern rebels, had their enterprise prospered;--and the intimate participation of his agents in all the intrigues of the queen of scots was notorious. dr. wylson, a learned civilian, an accomplished scholar, and one of the first refiners of english prose, had published in , with the express view of rousing the spirit of his readers against this formidable tyrant, a version of the orations of demosthenes against the king philip of his day, and had been at the pains of pointing out in the notes coincidences in the situation of athens and of england. the author, who was an earnest protestant, had the further motive in this work of paying a tribute to the memory of the learned and unfortunate cheke, who during his voluntary exile had read gratuitous lectures to his countrymen at padua on the works of the great grecian orator, of which wylson had been an auditor, and who had also made a latin version of them, of which the english translator freely availed himself. it was principally her dread of the spaniards which led elizabeth into those perpetual reciprocations of deceitful professions and empty negotiations with the profligate and perfidious court of france, which in the judgement of posterity have redounded so little to her honor, but which appeared to her of so much importance that she now thought herself peculiarly fortunate in having discovered an agent capable of conducting with all the wariness, penetration and profound address so peculiarly requisite where sincerity and good faith are wanting. this agent was sir francis walsingham, whose rare acquisitions of political knowledge, made principally during the period of his voluntary exile for religion, and still rarer talents for public business, had induced lord burleigh to recommend him to the service and confidence of his mistress. for several years from this time he resided as the queen's ambassador at the court of france, at first as coadjutor to sir thomas smith,--a learned and able man, who afterwards became a principal secretary of state,--the rest of the time alone. there was not in england a man who was regarded as a more sincere and earnest protestant than walsingham; yet such was at this time his sense of the importance to the country of the french alliance, that he expressed himself strongly in favor of the match between elizabeth and the duke of anjou, and, as a minister, spared no pains to promote it. similar language was held on this subject both by leicester and burleigh; but the former was perhaps no more in earnest on the subject than his mistress; and finally all parties, except the french protestants, who looked to the conclusion of these nuptials as their best security, seem to have been not ill pleased when, the marriage treaty being at length laid aside, a strict league of amity between the two countries was agreed upon in its stead. splendid embassies were reciprocally sent to receive the ratifications of this treaty; and burleigh writes to a friend, between jest and earnest, that an unexpected delay of the french ambassador was cursed by all the husbands whose ladies had been detained at great expense and inconvenience in london, to contribute to the splendor of the court on his reception. on the th of june the duke de montmorenci and his suite at length arrived. his entertainment was magnificent; all seemed peace and harmony between the rival nations; and elizabeth even instructed her ambassadors to give favorable ear to a hint which the queen-mother had dropped of a matrimonial treaty between the queen of england and her youngest son, the duke d'alençon, who had then scarcely attained the age of seventeen. lulled by these flattering appearances of tranquillity, her majesty set out on her summer progress, and she was enjoying the festivities prepared by leicester for her reception at his splendid castle of kennelworth, when news arrived of the execrable massacre of paris;--an atrocity not to be paralleled in history! troops of affrighted hugonots, who had escaped through a thousand perils with life, and life alone, from the hands of their pitiless assassins, arrived on the english coast, imploring the commiseration of their brother protestants, and relating in accents of despair their tale of horrors. after such a stroke, no one knew what to expect; the german protestants flew to arms; even the subjects of elizabeth trembled for their countrymen travelling on the continent and for themselves in their island-home. the pope applauded openly the savage deed; the court of spain showed itself united hand and heart with that of france,--to the astonishment of elizabeth, who had been taught to believe them at enmity;--and it seemed as if the signal had been given of a general crusade against the reformed churches of europe. for several days fears were entertained for the safety of walsingham himself, who had not dared to transmit any account of the event except one by a servant of his own, whose passage had been by some accident delayed. even this minister, cautious and crafty and sagacious as he was, assisted by all the spies whom he constantly kept in pay, had been unable to penetrate any part of the bloody secret;--he was completely taken by surprise. but of his personal safety the perfidious young king and his detestable mother were, for their own sakes, careful; and not only were himself and his servants protected from injury, but every englishman who had the presence of mind to take shelter in his house found it an inviolable sanctuary. two persons only of this nation fell victims to the fury of that direful night, but the property of many was plundered. the afflicted remnant of the french protestants prepared to stand upon their defence with all the intrepidity of despair. they closed the gates of rochelle, their strong hold, against the king's troops, casting at the same time an imploring eye towards england, where thousands of brave and generous spirits were burning with impatience to hasten to their succour. no act would have been hailed with such loud and general applause of her people as an instant renunciation by elizabeth of all friendship and intercourse with the perjured and blood-stained charles, the midnight assassin of his own subjects; and it is impossible to contemplate without disdain the coldness and littleness of that character which, in such a case, could consent to measure its demonstrations of indignation and abhorrence by the narrow rules of a self-interested caution. but that early experience of peril and adversity which had formed the mind of this princess to penetration, wariness, and passive courage, and given her a perfect command of the whole art of simulation and dissimulation, had at the same time robbed her of some of the noblest impulses of our nature; of generosity, of ardor, of enterprise, of magnanimity. where more exalted spirits would only have felt, she calculated; where bolder ones would have flown to action, she contented herself with words. charles and his mother, while still in uncertainty how far their master-stroke of policy,--so they regarded it,--would be successful in crushing entirely the hugonots, prudently resolved to spare no efforts to preserve elizabeth their friend, or to prevent her at least from becoming an open enemy. instructions had therefore been in the first instance dispatched to la mothe fenelon, the french ambassador in england, to communicate such an account of the massacre and its motives as suited these views, and to solicit a confirmation of the late treaty of amity. his reception at court on this occasion was extremely solemn: the courtiers and ladies who lined the rooms leading to the presence-chamber were all habited in deep mourning, and not one of them would vouchsafe a word or a smile to the ambassador, though himself a man of honor, and one whom they had formerly received on the footing of cordial intimacy. the queen herself, in listening to his message, assumed an aspect more composed, but extremely cold and serious. she expressed her horror at the idea that a sovereign could imagine himself under a necessity of taking such vengeance on his own subjects; represented the practicability of proceeding with them according to law, and desired to be better informed of the reality of the treasonable designs imputed to the hugonots. she also declared that it would be difficult for her to place reliance hereafter on the friendship of a prince who had shown himself so deadly a foe to those who professed her religion; but, at the suit of the ambassador, she consented to suspend in some degree her judgement of the deed till further information. even these feeble demonstrations of sensibility to crime so enormous were speedily laid aside. in spite of walsingham's declared opinion, that the demonstrations of the french court towards her were so evidently treacherous that its open enmity was less to be dreaded than its feigned friendship, elizabeth suffered her indignation to evaporate in a few severe speeches, restrained her subjects from carrying such aid to the defenders of rochelle as could be made a ground of serious quarrel, and even permitted a renewal of the shocking and monstrous overtures for her marriage with the youngest son of catherine de' medici herself. by this shameless woman various proposals were now made for bringing about a personal interview between herself and elizabeth. she first named england as the place of meeting, then the sea between dover and calais, and afterwards the isle of jersey; but from the first plan she herself departed, and the others were rejected in anger by the english council, who remarked, with a proper and laudable spirit, that they who had ventured upon such propositions must imagine them strangely careless of the personal safety of their sovereign. charles ix. was particularly anxious that elizabeth, as a pledge of friendship, should consent to stand sponsor to his new-born daughter; and with this request, after some difficulties and a few declarations of horror at his conduct, she had the baseness to comply. she refused however to indulge that king in his further desire, that she would appoint either the earl of leicester or lord burleigh as her proxy;--not choosing apparently to trust these pillars of state and of the protestant cause within his reach; and she sent instead her cousin the earl of worcester, "a good simple gentleman," as leicester called him, and a catholic. all this time elizabeth was in her heart as hostile to the court of france as the most zealous of her protestant subjects; for she well knew that it was and ever must be essentially hostile to her and her government; and in the midst of her civilities she took care to supply to the hugonots such secret aids as should enable them still to persevere in a formidable resistance. it is worth recording, on the subject of these negotiations between elizabeth and the royal family of france, that burleigh seems to have been encouraged to expect a successful issue by a calculation of the queen's nativity, seen by strype in his own handwriting, from which it was foretold that she should marry, in middle life, a foreign prince younger than herself; and probably be the mother of a son, who should be prosperous in his middle age. catherine de' medici also, to whom some female fortune-teller had predicted that all her sons should be kings, hoped, after the election of her second son to the throne of poland, to find the full accomplishment of the prophecy in the advancement of the youngest to the matrimonial crown of england. so serious was the belief of that age in the lying oracles of judicial astrology! among the english travellers doomed to be eye-witnesses of the horrors of the massacre of st. bartholomew was the celebrated philip sidney, then a youth of eighteen. he was the eldest son of sir henry sidney, lord-deputy of ireland, and from this excellent man and parent he had received, amongst his earliest and strongest impressions, those elevated principles of honor, veracity and moral purity which regulated and adorned the whole tenor of his after-life. an extraordinary solidity of character with great vivacity of parts had distinguished him from a child, and fortune conspired with genius to bring him early before the public eye. he was nephew and presumptive heir to the earl of leicester, by whom he was in a manner adopted; and thus patronized, his rapid advancement was anticipated as a matter of course. it was the practice of that day for parents in higher life to dispose of their children in marriage at an age now justly accounted immature[ ]; and no sooner had young sidney completed his fourteenth year than arrangements were made for his union with anne cecil, daughter of the secretary. why the connexion never took place we do not learn: sir henry sidney in a letter to cecil says, with reference to this affair; "i am sorry that you find coldness any where in proceeding, where such good liking appeared in the beginning; but, for my part, i was never more ready to perfect that affair than presently i am." &c. shortly after, the lady, unfortunately for herself, became the wife of the earl of oxford; and sidney, still unfettered by matrimonial engagements, obtained license to travel, and reached paris in may . charles ix., in consideration no doubt of the influence of his uncle at the english court, gave him the appointment of a gentleman of his bed-chamber, a fortnight only before the massacre. on that night of horrors sidney took shelter in the house of walsingham, and thus escaped all personal danger; but his after-conduct fully proved how indelible was the impression left upon his mind of the monstrous wickedness of the french royal family, and the disgrace and misery which an alliance with it must entail on his queen and country. [note : thus we find sir george manners, ancestor of the dukes of rutland, who died in , bequeathing to each of his unmarried daughters a portion of three hundred marks to be paid at the time of their marriage, or within _four_ years after if the husband be not twenty-one years of age; or at such time as the husband came of age. collins's "peerage," by sir e. brydges.] he readily obeyed his uncle's directions to quit france without delay; and, proceeding to frankfort, there formed a highly honorable and beneficial friendship with the virtuous hubert languet, who opened to him at once his heart and his purse. the remonstrances of this patron, who dreaded to excess for his youthful friend the artifices of the papal court, deterred him from extending his travels to rome, an omission which he afterwards deeply regretted; but a leisurely survey of the northern cities of italy, during which he became advantageously known to many eminent characters, occupied him profitably and delightfully till his return to his native country in , after which he will again occur to our notice as the pride and wonder of the english court. chapter xviii. to . letters of lord talbot to his father.--connexion of leicester with lady sheffield.--anecdote of the queen and mr. dyer.--queen suspicions of burleigh.--countesses of lenox and shrewsbury imprisoned.--queen refuses the sovereignty of holland.--her remarkable speech to the deputies.--alchemy.--notice of dr. dee--of frobisher.--family of love.--burning of two anabaptists.--entertainment of the queen at kennelworth.--notice of walter earl of essex.--general favor towards his son robert.--letter of the queen to the earl of shrewsbury respecting leicester. great as had been the injustice committed by elizabeth in the detention of the queen of scots, it must be confessed that the offence brought with it its own sufficient punishment in the fears, jealousies and disquiets which it entailed upon her. where mary was concerned, the most approved loyalty, the longest course of faithful service, and the truest attachment to the protestant cause, were insufficient pledges to her oppressor of the fidelity of her nobles or ministers. the earl of shrewsbury, whom she had deliberately selected from all others to be the keeper of the captive queen, and whose vigilance had now for so long a period baffled all attempts for her deliverance, was, to the last, unable so to establish himself in the confidence of his sovereign as to be exempt from such starts of suspicion and fits of displeasure as kept him in a state of continual apprehension. feeling with acuteness all the difficulties of his situation, this nobleman judged it expedient to cause gilbert lord talbot, his eldest son, to remain in close attendance on the motions of the queen; charging him to study with unremitting attention all the intrigues of the court, on which in that day so much depended, and to acquaint him with them frequently and minutely. to this precaution of the earl's we owe several extant letters of lord talbot, which throw considerable light on the minor incidents of the time. in may , this diligent news-gatherer acquaints his father, that the earl of leicester was much with her majesty, that he was more than formerly solicitous to please her, and that he was as high in favor as ever: but that two sisters, lady sheffield and lady frances howard, were deeply in love with him and at great variance with each other; that the queen was on this account very angry with them, and not well pleased with him, and that spies were set upon him. to such open demonstrations of feminine jealousy did this great queen condescend to have recourse! yet she remained all her life in ignorance of the true state of this affair, which, in fact, is not perfectly cleared up at the present day. it appears that a criminal intimacy was known to subsist between leicester and lady sheffield even before the death of her lord, in consequence of which, this event, which was sudden, and preceded it is said by violent symptoms, was popularly attributed to the italian arts of leicester. during this year, lady sheffield bore him a son, whose birth was carefully concealed for fear of giving offence to the queen, though many believed that a private marriage had taken place. afterwards he forsook the mother of his child to marry the countess of essex, and the deserted lady became the wife of another. in the reign of james i., many years after the death of leicester, sir robert dudley his son, to whom he had left a great part of his fortune, laid claim to the family honors, bringing several witnesses to prove his mother's marriage, and among others his mother herself. this lady declared on oath that leicester, in order to compel her to form that subsequent marriage in his lifetime which must deprive her of the power of claiming him as her husband, had employed the most violent menaces, and had even attempted her life by a poisonous potion which had thrown her into an illness by which she lost her hair and nails. after the production of all this evidence, the heirs of leicester exerted all their interest to stop proceedings;--no great argument of the goodness of their cause;--and sir robert dudley died without having been able to bring the matter to a legal decision. in the next reign the evidence formerly given was reviewed, and the title of duchess dudley conferred on the widow of sir robert, the patent setting forth that the marriage of the earl of leicester with lady sheffield had been satisfactorily proved. so close were the contrivances, so deep, as it appears, the villanies of this celebrated favorite! but his consummate art was successful in throwing over these and other transactions of his life, a veil of doubt and mystery which time itself has proved unable entirely to remove. hatton was at this time ill, and lord talbot mentions that the queen went daily to visit him, but that a party with which leicester was thought to co-operate, was endeavouring to bring forwards mr. edward dyer to supplant him in her majesty's favor. this gentleman, it seems, had been for two years in disgrace; and as he had suffered during the same period from a bad state of health, the queen was made to believe that the continuance of her displeasure was the cause of his malady, and that his recovery was without her pardon hopeless. this was taking her by her weak side; she loved to imagine herself the dispenser of life and death to her devoted servants, and she immediately dispatched to the sick gentleman a comfortable message, on receipt of which he was made whole. the letter-writer observes, to the honor of lord burleigh, that he concerned himself as usual only in state affairs, and suffered all these love-matters and petty intrigues to pass without notice before his eyes. all the caution, however, and all the devotedness of this great minister were insufficient to preserve him, on the following occasion, from the unworthy suspicions of his mistress. the queen of scots had this year with difficulty obtained permission to resort to the baths of buxton for the recovery of her health; and a similar motive led thither at the same time the lord-treasurer. elizabeth marked the coincidence; and when, a year or two afterwards, it occurred for the second time, her displeasure broke forth: she openly accused her minister of seeking occasions of entering into intelligence with mary by means of the earl of shrewsbury and his lady, and it was not without difficulty that he was able to appease her. this striking fact is thus related by burleigh himself in a remarkable letter to the earl of shrewsbury. * * * * * _lord burleigh to the earl of shrewsbury._ "my very good lord, "my most hearty and due commendations done, i cannot sufficiently express in words the inward hearty affection that i conceive by your lordship's friendly offer of the marriage of your younger son; and that in such a friendly sort, by your own letter, and, as your lordship writeth, the same proceeding of yourself. now, my lord, as i think myself much beholding to you for this your lordship's kindness, and manifest argument of a faithful good will, so must i pray your lordship to accept mine answer, with assured opinion of my continuance in the same towards your lordship. there are specially two causes why i do not in plain terms consent by way of conclusion hereto; the one for that my daughter is but young in years; and upon some reasonable respects i have determined, notwithstanding i have been very honorably offered matches, not to treat of marrying of her, if i may live so long, until she shall be above fifteen or sixteen; and if i were of more likelihood myself to live longer than i look to do, she should not, with my liking, be married before she were near eighteen or twenty. "the second cause why i defer to yield to conclusion with your lordship, is grounded upon such a consideration as, if it were not truly to satisfy your lordship, and to avoid a just offence which your lordship might conceive of my forbearing, i would not by writing or message utter, but only by speech to your lordship's self. my lord, it is over true and over much against reason, that upon my being at buckstones last, advantage was sought by some that loved me not, to confirm in her majesty a former conceit which had been labored to be put into her head, that i was of late time become friendly to the queen of scots, and that i had no disposition to encounter her practises; and now, at my being at buckstones, her majesty did directly conceive that my being there was, by means of your lordship and my lady, to enter into intelligence with the queen of scots; and hereof at my return to her majesty's presence i had very sharp reproofs for my going to buckstones, with plain charging of me for favoring the queen of scots, and that in so earnest a sort as i never looked for, knowing my integrity to her majesty; but, specially, knowing how contrariously the queen of scots conceived of me for many things past to the offence of the said queen of scots. and yet, true it is, i never indeed gave just cause by any private affection of my own, or for myself, to offend the queen of scots; but whatsoever i did was for the service of mine own lady and queen, which if it were yet again to be done i would do. and though i know myself subject to contrary workings of displeasure, yet i will not, for remedy of any of them both, decline from the duty i owe to god and my sovereign queen; for i know, and do understand, that i am in this contrary sort maliciously depraved, and yet in secret sort; on the one part, and that of long time, that i am the most dangerous enemy and evil willer to the queen of scots; on the other side, that i am also a secret well willer to her and her title; and that i have made my party good with her. now, my lord, no man can make both these true together; but it sufficeth for such as like not me in doing my duty to deprave me, and yet in such sort is done in darkness as i cannot get opportunity to convince them in the light. in all these crossings, my good lord, i appeal to god, who knoweth, yea, i thank him infinitely, who directeth my thoughts to intend principally the service and honor of god, and, jointly with that, the surety and greatness of my sovereign lady the queen's majesty; and for any other respect but that may tend to those two, i appeal to god to punish me if i have any. as for the queen of scots, truly i have no spot of evil meaning to her; neither do i mean to deal with any titles to the crown. if she shall intend any evil to the queen's majesty my sovereign, for her sake i must and will mean to impeach her; and therein i may be her unfriend or worse. "well now, my good lord, your lordship seeth i have made a long digression from my answer, but i trust your lordship can consider what moveth me thus to digress: surely it behoveth me not only to live uprightly, but to avoid all probable arguments that may be gathered to render me suspected to her majesty, whom i serve with all dutifulness and sincerity; and therefore i gather this, that if it were understood that there were a communication, or a purpose of a marriage between your lordship's son and my daughter, i am sure there would be an advantage sought to increase these former suspicions [word missing] purpose. considering the young years of our two children [word missing] as if the matter were fully agreed betwixt us, the parents, the marriage could not take effect, i think it best to refer the motion in silence, and yet so to order it with ourselves, that, when time shall hereafter be more convenient, we may, and then also with less cause of vain suspicion, renew it. and, in the meantime, i must confess myself much bounden to your lordship for your goodness; wishing your lordship's son all the good education that may be mete to teach him to fear god, love your lordship his natural father, and to know his friends; without any curiosity of human learning, which, without the fear of god, i see doth much hurt to all youth in this time and age. my lord, i pray you bear with my scribbling, which i think your lordship shall hardly read, and yet i would not use my man's hand in such a matter as this is. [from hampton court, th dec. .] "your lordship's most assured at command "w. burleigh[ ]." [note : "illustrations" by lodge.] * * * * * a similar caution to that of lord burleigh was not observed in the disposal of her daughters by the countess of shrewsbury; a woman remarkable above all her contemporaries for a violent, restless and intriguing spirit, and an inordinate thirst of money and of sway. she brought to effect in a marriage between elizabeth cavendish, her daughter by a former husband, and charles stuart, brother of darnley and next to the king of scots in the order of succession to the crowns both of england and scotland. notwithstanding the rooted enmity between mary and the house of lenox, this union was supposed to be the result of some private intrigue between lady shrewsbury and the captive queen; and in consequence of it elizabeth committed to custody for some time, both the mother of the bride and the unfortunate countess of lenox, doomed to expiate by such a variety of sufferings the unpardonable offence, in the eyes of elizabeth, of having given heirs to the british sceptres. a signal occasion presented itself to the queen in of demonstrating to all neighbouring powers, that whatever suspicions her close and somewhat crooked system of policy might now and then have excited, self-defence was in reality its genuine principle and single object; and that the clear and comprehensive view which she had taken of her own true interests, joined to the habitual caution of her character, would ever restrain her from availing herself of the most tempting opportunities of aggrandizement at their expense. the provinces of holland and zealand, goaded into revolt by the bigotry and barbarity of philip of spain, had from the first experienced in the english nation, and even in elizabeth herself, a disposition to encourage and shelter them; and despairing of being able longer to maintain alone the unequal contest which they had provoked, yet resolute to return no more under the tyranny of a detested master, they now embraced the resolution of throwing themselves entirely upon her protection. it was urged that elizabeth,--as descended from philippa wife of edward iii., a daughter of that count of hainalt and holland from one of whose co-heiresses the king of spain derived the flemish part of his dominions,--might claim somewhat of a hereditary title to their allegiance, and a solemn deputation was appointed to offer to her the sovereignty of the provinces on condition of defending them from the spaniards. there was much in the proposal to flatter the pride and tempt the ambition of a prince; much also to gratify that desire of retaliation which the encouragement given by philip to the northern rebellion and to certain movements in ireland, as well as to all the machinations of the queen of scots, may reasonably be supposed to have excited in the bosom of elizabeth. zeal for the protestant cause, had she ever entertained it separately from considerations of personal interest and safety, might have proved a further inducement with her to accept the patronage of these afflicted provinces:--but not all the motives which could be urged were of force to divert her from her settled plan of policy; and after a short interval of anxious hesitation, she resolved to dismiss the envoys with an absolute refusal. the speech which she addressed to them on this occasion was highly characteristic, and in one point extremely remarkable. she reprobated, doubtless with great sincerity, the principle, that there were cases in which subjects might be justified in throwing off allegiance to their lawful prince; and protested that, for herself, nothing could ever tempt her to usurp upon the dominions either of her good brother of spain or any other prince. finally, she took upon her to advert to the religious scruples which had produced the revolt of the hollanders, in a tone of levity which it is difficult to understand her motive for assuming: since it could not fail, from her lips especially, to give extreme scandal to the deputies and to all other serious men. she said, that it was unreasonable in the dutch to have stirred up so great a commotion merely on account of the celebration of mass; and that so contumacious a resistance to their king could never redound to their honor, since they were not compelled to believe in the divinity of the mass, but only to be spectators of its performance,--as at a public spectacle. "what!" said she, "if i were to begin to act some scene in a dress like this," (for she was clad in white like a priest,) "should you regard it as a crime to behold it?[ ]" was the queen here making the apology of her own compliances under the reign of her sister, or was she generously furnishing a salvo for others? in any case, the sentiment, as coming from the heroine of protestantism, is extraordinary. [note : reidani "annal." vide bayle's "dictionary," art. _elizabeth_.] an ineffectual remonstrance, addressed by elizabeth to the king of spain, was the only immediate result of this attempt of the provinces to engage her in their concerns. she kept a watchful eye, however, upon their great and glorious struggle; and the time at length came, when she found it expedient to unite more closely her interest with theirs. england now enjoyed profound tranquillity, internal and external, and our annalists find leisure to advert to various circumstances of domestic history. they mention a corporation formed for the transmutation of iron into copper by the method of one medley an alchemist, of which the learned but credulous sir thomas smith, secretary of state, was a principal promoter, and in which both leicester and burleigh embarked some capital. the master of the mint ventured to express a doubt of the success of the experiment, because the adept had engaged that the weight of copper procured should exceed that of all the substances employed in its production; but nobody seems to have felt the force of this simple objection, and great was the disappointment of all concerned when at length the bubble burst. about the same time the famous dr. dee, mathematician, astrologer, and professor of the occult sciences, being pressed by poverty, supplicated burleigh to procure her majesty's patronage for his infallible method of discovering hidden treasures. this person, who stood at the head of his class, had been early protected by leicester, who employed him to fix a lucky day for the queen's coronation. he had since been patronized by her majesty, who once visited him at his house at mortlake, took lessons of him in astronomy, and occasionally supplied him with money to defray the expenses of his experiment. she likewise presented him to some ecclesiastical benefices; but he often complained of the delay or non-performance of her promises of pensions and preferment. on one occasion he was sent to the continent, ostensibly for the purpose of consulting physicians and philosophers on the state of her majesty's health; but probably not without some secret political commission. after a variety of wild adventures in different countries of europe, in which he and his associate kelly discovered still more knavery than credulity in the exercise of their various false sciences and fallacious arts, dee was invited home by her majesty in , and was afterwards presented by her with the wardenship of manchester-college. but he was hated and sometimes insulted by the people as a conjurer; quarrelled with the fellows of his college, quitted manchester in disgust, and failing to obtain the countenance of king james died at length in poverty and neglect;--the ordinary fate of his class of projectors. elizabeth performed a more laudable part in lending her support to the enterprise of that able and spirited navigator martin frobisher, who had long been soliciting in vain among the merchants the means of attempting a northwest passage to the indies, and was finally supplied by the queen with two small vessels. with these he set sail in june , and though unsuccessful in the prime object of his voyage, extended considerably the previous acquaintance of navigators with the coasts of greenland, and became the discoverer of the straits which still bear his name. a sect called "the family of love" had lately sprung up in england. its doctrines, notwithstanding the frightful reports raised of them, were probably dangerous neither to the established church, with the rites of which the brethren willingly complied, nor yet to the state; and it may be doubted whether they were in any respect incompatible with private morals; but no innovations in religion were regarded as tolerable or venial under the rigid administration of elizabeth; and the leaders of the new heresy were taken into custody, and compelled to recant. some anabaptists were apprehended about the same time, who acknowledged their error at paul's cross, bearing faggots,--the tremendous symbol of the fate from which their recantation had rescued them. two of these unhappy men, however, repented of the disingenuous act into which human frailty had betrayed them; and returning to the open profession of their opinions were burned in smithfield, to the eternal opprobrium of protestant principles and the deep disgrace of the governess and institutress of the anglican church. the observation of lord talbot, that the earl of leicester showed himself more than ever solicitous to improve the favor of his sovereign, received confirmation from the unparalleled magnificence of the reception which he provided for her when, during her progress in the summer of , she honored him with a visit in warwickshire. the "princely pleasures of kennelworth," were famed in their day as the quintessence of all courtly delight, and very long and very pompous descriptions of these festive devices have come down to our times. they were conducted on a scale of grandeur and expense which may still surprise; but taste as yet was in its infancy, and the whole was characterized by the unmerciful tediousness, the ludicrous incongruities, and the operose pedantry of a semi-barbarous age. a temporary bridge feet in length was thrown across a valley to the great gate of the castle, and its posts were hung with the offerings of seven of the grecian deities to her majesty; displaying in grotesque assemblage, cages of various large birds, fruits, corn, fishes, grapes, and wine in silver vessels, musical instruments of many kinds and weapons and armour hung trophy-wise on two ragged staves. a poet standing at the end of the bridge explained in latin verse the meaning of all. the lady of the lake, invisible since the disappearance of the renowned prince arthur, approached on a floating island along the moat to recite adulatory verses. arion, being summoned for the like purpose, appeared on a dolphin four-and-twenty feet long, which carried in its belly a whole orchestra. a sibyl, a "salvage man" and an echo posted in the park, all harangued in the same strain. music and dancing enlivened the sunday evening. splendid fireworks were displayed both on land and water;--a play was performed;--an italian tumbler exhibited his feats;--thirteen bears were baited;--there were three stag-hunts, and a representation of a country bridal, followed by running at the quintin: finally, the men of coventry exhibited, by express permission, their annual mock fight in commemoration of a signal defeat of the danes. nineteen days did the earl of leicester sustain the overwhelming honor of this royal visit;--a demonstration of her majesty's satisfaction in her entertainment quite unexampled, but which probably awakened less envy than any other token of her peculiar grace by which she might have been pleased to distinguish her favorite. no domestic incident had for a long time excited so strong a sensation as the death of walter devereux earl of essex, which took place at dublin in the autumn of the year . this nobleman is celebrated for his talents, his virtues, his unfortunate and untimely death, and also as the father of a son still more distinguished and destined to a fate yet more disastrous. he was of illustrious descent, deriving a part of his hereditary honors from the lords ferrers of chartley, and the rest from the noble family of bourchier, through a daughter of thomas of woodstock youngest son of edward iii. in his nineteenth year he succeeded his grandfather as viscount hereford, and coming to court attracted the merited commendations of her majesty by his learning, his abilities, and his ingenuous modesty. during a short period the viscount was joined in commission with the earls of huntingdon and shrewsbury for the safe keeping of the queen of scots. on the breaking out of the northern rebellion, he joined the royal army with all the forces he could raise; and in reward of this forwardness in her service her majesty conferred on him the garter, and subsequently invested him, after the most solemn and honorable form of creation, with the dignity of earl of essex, long hereditary in the house of bourchier. by these marks of favor the jealousy of leicester and of other courtiers was strongly excited; but with little cause. the spirit of the earl had too much of boldness, of enterprise, of a high-souled generosity, to permit him to take root and flourish in that scene of treachery and intrigue--a court; it quickly prompted him to seek occupation at a distance, in the attempt to subdue and civilize a turbulent irish province. he solicited and obtained from the queen, by a kind of agreement then not unusual, a grant to himself and the adventurers under him of half of the district of clandeboy in ulster, on condition of his rescuing and defending the whole of it from the rebels and defraying half the expenses of the service. great things were expected from his expedition, on which he embarked in august : but sir william fitzwilliams, deputy of ireland, viewed the arrival of the earl with sentiments which led him to oppose every possible obstacle to his success. probably, too, essex himself found, on trial, the task of subduing the _irishry_ (as the natives of the island were then called) a more difficult one than he had anticipated. some brilliant service, however, amid many delays and disappointments, he performed in various parts of the country; and having returned to england in to lay all his grievances before the queen, and face the court faction which injured him in his absence, he was sent back with the title of marshal of ireland, an appointment which leicester, for his own purposes, is said to have been active in procuring him. sir henry sidney had now succeeded fitzwilliams as lord-deputy; and from him it does not appear that essex had the same systematic opposition to encounter: on the contrary, having been applied to by the queen for his opinion of the expediency of granting several requests of the earl relative to this service, sir henry advised her majesty to comply with most of them, prefacing his counsel with the following sentence: "of the earl i must say, that he is so noble and worthy a personage, and so forward in all his actions, and so complete a gentleman wherein he may either advance your honor or service, as you may take comfort to have in store so rare a subject, who hath nothing in greater regard than to show himself such an one indeed as the common fame reporteth him; which hath been no more, in troth, than his due deserts and painful travels in the worst parts of this miserable country have deserved[ ]." [note : "sidney papers," vol. i.] such in fact was the apparent cordiality between the deputy and the marshal, that a proposal passed for the marriage of philip sidney to the lady penelope devereux daughter of the earl: but if this friendship were ever sincere on the part of sir henry, it was at least short-lived; for, writing a few months after essex's death to leicester respecting the earl of ormond, whom the favorite regarded as his enemy, he says.... "in fine, my lord, i am ready to accord with him; but, my most dear lord and brother, be you upon your keeping for him; for, if essex had lived, you should have found him as violent an enemy as his heart, power and cunning would have served him to have been; and for that their malice, i take god to record, i could brook neither of them both[ ]." [note : "sidney papers," vol. i.] ireland was, during the whole of elizabeth's reign, that part of her dominions which it cost her most trouble to govern, and with which her system of policy prospered the least. without a considerable military force it was impossible to bring into subjection those parts of the country which still remained in a state of barbarism under the sway of native chieftains, or even to preserve in safety and civility such districts as were already reclaimed and brought within the english pale. but the queen's parsimony, or, more truly, the narrowness of her income, caused her perpetually to repine at the great expenses to which she was put for this service, and frequently to run the risk of losing all that had been slowly gained, by a sudden withdrawment, or long delay, of the necessary supplies. her suspicious temper caused her likewise to lend ready ear to the complaints, whether founded or not, brought by the disaffected irish against her officers. sir henry sidney himself, the deputy whom she most favored and trusted, and continued longer in office than any other, supported as he was at court by the potent influence of leicester and the steady friendship of burleigh, had many causes offered him of vexation and discontent; and those who held inferior commands, and were less ably protected from the attacks of their enemies, experienced almost insupportable anxieties from counteractions, difficulties and hardships of every kind. of these the unfortunate earl of essex had his full share. the hopes of improving his fortune, with which he had entered upon the service, were so far from being realized that he found himself sinking continually deeper in debt. his efforts against the rebels were by no means uniformly successful. his court enemies contrived to divert most of the succours designed him by his sovereign, and the perplexities of his situation went on accumulating instead of diminishing. the bodily fatigue which he endured in the prosecution of his designs, joined to the anguish of a wounded spirit, undermined at length the powers of his constitution, and after repeated attacks he was carried off by a dysentery in september . essex was liberal, affable, brave and eloquent, and generally beloved both in england and ireland. the symptoms of his disease, though such as exposure alone to the pestilential damps of the climate might well have produced, were also susceptible of being ascribed to poison; and one of his attendants, a divine who likewise professed medicine, seeing him in great pain, suddenly exclaimed, "by the mass, my lord, you are poisoned!" the report spread like wild-fire. to common minds it is a relief under irremediable misfortune to find an object for blame; and accordingly, though no direct evidence of the fact was produced, it was universally believed that some villain had administered to him "an ill drink." as leicester was known to be his enemy, strongly suspected of an intrigue with his wife, and believed capable of any enormity, the friends and partisans of essex seem immediately to have pointed at him as the contriver of his death; yet i find no contemporary evidence of the imputation, except in the conduct of sir henry sidney on this occasion, which indicates great anxiety for the reputation of his patron and brother-in-law. the lord-deputy was unfortunately absent from dublin at the time of the earl of essex's death, and before he could institute a regular examination into the manner of it, a thousand false tales had been circulated which were greedily received by the public. on his return, however, he entered into the investigation with great zeal and diligence:--the decisive test of an examination of the body was not indeed applied, for it was one with which that age seems to have been unacquainted; but many witnesses were called, reports were traced to their source and in some instances disproved, and the result of the whole was transmitted by the deputy to the privy-council in a letter which appears satisfactorily to prove that there was no solid ground to ascribe the event to any but natural causes. that the deputy himself was convinced of the correctness of this representation is seen from one of his private letters to leicester, published long after in the "sidney papers." in all probability, posterity would scarcely have heard of this imputation on the character of leicester, had not his marriage with the widow of essex served as corroboration of the charge, and given occasion to the malicious comments of the author of "leicester's commonwealth." this union, however, was not publicly celebrated till two years afterwards; and we have no certain authority for the fact of the criminal connexion of the parties during the life of the earl of essex, nor for the private marriage said to have been huddled up with indecent precipitation on his decease. walter earl of essex left robert his son and successor, then in the tenth year of his age, to the care and protection of the earl of sussex and lord burleigh; but mr. edward waterhouse, a person of great merit and abilities, then employed in ireland and distinguished by the favor both of lord burleigh and sir henry sidney, had the immediate management of the fortune and affairs of the minor. of this friend essex is related to have taken leave in his last moments with many kisses, exclaiming, "o my ned, my ned, farewell! thou art the faithfulest and friendliest gentleman that ever i knew." he proved the fidelity of his attachment by attending the body of the earl to wales, whither it was conveyed for interment, and it was thence that he immediately afterwards addressed to sir henry sidney a letter, of which the following is an extract. "the state of the earl of essex, being best known to myself, doth require my travel for a time in his causes; but my burden cannot be great when every man putteth to his helping hand. her majesty hath bestowed upon the young earl his marriage, and all his father's rules in wales, and promiseth the remission of his debt. the lords do generally favor and further him; some for the trust reposed, some for love to the father, other for affinity with the child, and some for other causes. all these lords that wish well to the children, and, i suppose, all the best sort of the english lords besides, do expect what will become of the treaty between mr. philip and my lady penelope. "truly, my lord, i must say to your lordship, as i have said to my lord of leicester and mr. philip, the breaking off of this match, if the default be on your parts, will turn to more dishonor than can be repaired with any other marriage in england. and i protest unto your lordship, i do not think that there is at this day so strong a man in england of friends as the little earl of essex; nor any man more lamented than his father since the death of king edward[ ]." [note : "sidney papers."] under such high auspices, and with such a general consent of men's minds in his favor, did the celebrated, the rash, the lamented essex commence his brief and ill-starred course! the match between philip sidney and lady penelope devereux was finally broken off, as waterhouse seems to have apprehended. she married lord rich, and afterwards charles blount earl of devonshire, on whose account she had been divorced from her first husband. how little all the dark suspicions and sinister reports to which the death of the earl of essex had given occasion, were able to influence the mind of elizabeth against the man of her heart, may appear by the tenor of an extraordinary letter written by her in june to the earl and countess of shrewsbury. * * * * * "our very good cousins; "being given to understand from our cousin of leicester how honorably he was not only lately received by you our cousin the countess at chatsworth, and his diet by you both discharged at buxtons, but also presented with a very rare present, we should do him great wrong (holding him in that place of favor we do) in case we should not let you understand in how thankful sort we accept the same at both your hands, not as done unto him but to our own self; reputing him as another self; and therefore ye may assure yourselves that we, taking upon us the debt, not as his but our own, will take care accordingly to discharge the same in such honorable sort as so well deserving creditors as ye shall never have cause to think ye have met with an ungrateful debtor." &c. * * * * * lord talbot, on another occasion, urged upon his father the policy of ingratiating himself with leicester by a pressing invitation to chatsworth, adding moreover, that he did not believe it would greatly either further or hinder his going into that part of the country. chapter xix. to . relations of the queen with france and spain.--she sends succours to the dutch--is entertained by leicester, and celebrated in verse by p. sidney.--her visit to norwich.--letter of topcliffe.--notice of sir t. smith.--magical practices against the queen.--duke casimir's visit to england.--duke of anjou urges his suit with the queen.--simier's mission.--leicester's marriage.--behaviour of the queen.--a shot fired at her barge.--her memorable speech.--first visit of anjou in england.--opinions of privy-councillors on the match.--letter of philip sidney.--stubbs's book.--punishment inflicted on him.--notice of sir n. bacon.--drake's return from his circumnavigation.--jesuit seminaries.--arrival of a french embassy.--a triumph.--notice of fulk greville.--marriage-treaty with anjou.--his second visit.--his return and death. about the middle of the year , walsingham in a letter to sir henry sidney thus writes: "here at home we live in security as we were wont, grounding our quietness upon other harms." the harms here alluded to,--the religious wars of france, and the revolt of the dutch provinces from spain,--had proved indeed, in more ways than one, the safeguard of the peace of england. they furnished so much domestic occupation to the two catholic sovereigns of europe, most formidable by their power, their bigotry, and their unprincipled ambition, as effectually to preclude them from uniting their forces to put in execution against elizabeth the papal sentence of deprivation; and by the opportunity which they afforded her of causing incalculable mischiefs to these princes through the succours which she might afford to their rebellious subjects, they long enabled her to restrain both philip and charles within the bounds of respect and amity. but circumstances were now tending with increased velocity towards a rupture with spain, clearly become inevitable; and in the queen of england saw herself compelled to take steps in the affairs of the low countries equally offensive to that power and to france. the states of holland, after the rejection of their sovereignty by elizabeth, cast their eyes around in search of another protector: and charles ix., suffering his ambition and his rivalry with philip ii. to overpower all the vehemence of his zeal for the catholic religion, showed himself eager to become their patron. his brother the duke d'alençon, doubtless with his concurrence, offered on certain terms to bring a french army for the expulsion of don john of austria, governor of the low countries; and this proposal he urged with so much importunity, that the hollanders, notwithstanding their utter antipathy to the royal family of france, seemed likely to accede to it, as the lightest of that variety of evils of which their present situation offered them the choice. but elizabeth could not view with indifference the progress of a negotiation which might eventually procure to france the annexation of these important provinces; and she encouraged the states to refuse the offers of alençon by immediately transmitting for their service liberal supplies of arms and money to duke casimir, son of the elector palatine, then at the head of a large body of german protestants in the low countries. at the same time she endeavoured to repress the catholics in her own dominions by a stricter enforcement of the penal laws, and two or three persons in this year suffered capitally for their denial of the queen's supremacy[ ]. [note : dr. whitgift, then bishop of worcester and vice-president of the marches of wales under sir henry sidney, peculiarly distinguished himself by his activity in detecting secret meetings of catholics for the purpose of hearing mass and practising other rites of their religion. the privy-council, in reward of his zeal, promised to direct to him and to some of the welsh bishops a special commission for the trial of these delinquents. they further instructed him, in the case of one morice who had declined answering directly to certain interrogatories tending to criminate himself in these matters, that if he remained obstinate, and the commissioners saw cause, they might at their discretion cause some kind of torture to be used upon him. the same means he was also desired to take with others; in order to come to a full knowledge of all reconcilements to the church of rome, and other practices of the papists in these parts. see strype's "whitgift," p. .] these steps on the part of elizabeth threatened to disconcert entirely the plans of the french court; but it still seemed practicable, to the king and to his brother, to produce a change in her measures; and two or three successive embassies arrived in london during the spring and summer of , to renew with fresh earnestness the proposals of marriage on the part of the duke d'alençon. the earl of sussex and his party favored this match, leicester and all the zealous protestants in the court and the nation opposed it. the queen "sat arbitress," and perhaps prolonged her deliberations on the question, for the pleasure of receiving homage more than usually assiduous from both factions. the favorite, anxious to secure his ascendency by fresh efforts of gallantry and instances of devotedness, entreated to be indulged in the privilege of entertaining her majesty for several days at his seat of wanstead-house; a recent and expensive purchase, which he had been occupied in adorning with a magnificence suited to the ostentatious prodigality of his disposition. it was for the entertainment of her majesty on this occasion that philip sidney condescended to task a genius worthy of better things with the composition of a mask in celebration of her surpassing beauties and royal virtues, entitled "the lady of may." in defence of this public act of adulation, the young poet had probably the particular request of his uncle and patron to plead, as well as the common practice of the age; but it must still be mortifying under any circumstances, to record the abasement of such a spirit to a level with the vulgar herd of elizabethan flatterers. unsatiated with festivities and homage, the queen continued her progress from wanstead through the counties of essex, suffolk and norfolk, receiving the attendance of numerous troops of gentry, and making visits in her way to all who felt themselves entitled, or called, to solicit with due humility the costly honor of entertaining her. her train was numerous and brilliant, and the french ambassadors constantly attended her motions. about the middle of august she arrived at norwich. this ancient city, then one of the most considerable in the kingdom, yielded to none in a zealous attachment to protestant principles and to the queen's person; and as its remote situation had rendered the arrival of a royal visitant within its walls an extremely rare occurrence, the magistrates resolved to spare nothing which could contribute to the splendor of her reception. at the furthest limits of the city she was met by the mayor, who addressed her in a long and very abject latin oration, in which he was not ashamed to pronounce that the city enjoyed its charters and privileges "by her only clemency." at the conclusion he produced a large silver cup filled with gold pieces, saying, "sunt hic centum libræ puri auri:" welcome sounds, which failed not to reach the ear of her gracious majesty, who, lifting up the cover with alacrity, said audibly to the footman to whose care it was delivered, "look to it, there is a hundred pound." pageants were set up in the principal streets, of which one had at least the merit of appropriateness, since it accurately represented the various processes employed in those woollen manufactures for which norwich was already famous. two days after her majesty's arrival, mercury, in a blue satin doublet lined with cloth of gold, with a hat of the same garnished with wings, and wings at his feet, appeared under her chamber window in an extraordinarily fine painted coach, and invited her to go abroad and see more shows; and a kind of mask, in which venus and cupid with wantonness and riot were discomfited by the goddess of chastity and her attendants, was performed in the open air. a troop of nymphs and fairies lay in ambush for her return from dining with the earl of surry; and in the midst of these heathenish exhibitions, the minister of the dutch church watched his opportunity to offer to her the grateful homage of his flock. to these deserving strangers, protestant refugees from spanish oppression, the policy of elizabeth, in this instance equally generous and discerning, had granted every privilege capable of inducing them to make her kingdom their permanent abode. at norwich, where the greater number had settled, a church was given them for the performance of public worship in their own tongue, and according to the form which they preferred; and encouragement was held out to them to establish here several branches of manufacture which they had previously carried on to great advantage at home. this accession of skill and industry soon raised the woollen fabrics of england to a pitch of excellence unknown in former ages, and repaid with usury to the country this exercise of public hospitality. it appears that the inventing of masks, pageants and devices for the recreation of the queen on her progresses had become a distinct profession. george ferrers, formerly commemorated as master of the pastimes to edward vi., one goldingham, and churchyard, author of "the worthiness of wales," of some legends in the "mirror for magistrates," and of a prodigious quantity of verse on various subjects, were the most celebrated proficients in this branch; all three are handed down to posterity as contributors to "the princely pleasures of kennelworth," and the two latter as managers of the norwich entertainments. they vied with each other in the gorgeousness, the pedantry and the surprisingness of their devices; but the palm was surely due to him of the number who had the glory of contriving a battle between certain allegorical personages, in the midst of which, "legs and arms of men, well and lively wrought, were to be let fall in numbers on the ground as bloody as might be." the combat was to be exhibited in the open air; but the skies were unpropitious, and a violent shower of rain unfortunately deprived her majesty of the satisfaction of witnessing the effect of so extraordinary and elegant a device. richard topcliffe, a lincolnshire gentleman employed by government to collect informations against the papists, and so much distinguished in the employment, that _topcliffizare_ became the cant term of the day for _hunting a recusant_, was at this time a follower of the court; and a letter addressed by him to the earl of shrewsbury contains some particulars of this progress worth preserving.... "i did never see her majesty better received by two counties in one journey than suffolk and norfolk now; suffolk of gentlemen and norfolk of the meaner sort, with exceeding joy to themselves and well liking to her majesty. great entertainment at the master of the rolls'; greater at kenninghall, and exceeding of all sorts at norwich. "the next good news, (but in account the highest) her majesty hath served god with great zeal and comfortable examples; for by her council two notorious papists, young rookwood (the master of euston-hall, where her majesty did lie upon sunday now a fortnight) and one downes, a gentleman, were both committed, the one to the town prison at norwich, the other to the county prison there, for obstinate papistry; and seven more gentlemen of worship were committed to several houses in norwich as prisoners....for badness of belief. this rookwood is a papist of kind, newly crept out of his late wardship. her majesty, by some means i know not, was lodged at his house, euston, far unmeet for her highness, but fitter for the black guard; nevertheless, (the gentleman brought into her majesty's presence by like device) her excellent majesty gave to rookwood ordinary thanks for his bad house, and her fair hand to kiss; after which it was braved at. but my lord chamberlain, nobly and gravely, understanding that rookwood was excommunicated for papistry, called him before him; demanded of him how he durst to attempt her royal presence, he, unfit to accompany any christian person? forthwith said he was fitter for a pair of stocks; commanded him out of the court, and yet to attend her council's pleasure, and at norwich he was committed. and, to decypher the gentleman to the full; a piece of plate being missed in the court and searched for in his hay-house, in the hayrick such an image of our lady was there found, as for greatness, for gayness, and workmanship, i did never see a match; and after a sort of country dances ended, in her majesty's sight the idol was set behind the people, who avoided. she rather seemed a beast raised upon a sudden from hell by conjuring, than the picture for whom it had been so often and so long abused. her majesty commanded it to the fire, which in her sight by the country folks was quickly done, to her content, and unspeakable joy of every one, but some one or two who had sucked of the idol's poisoned milk. "shortly after, a great sort of good preachers, who had been commanded to silence for a little niceness, were licensed, and again commanded to preach; a greater and more universal joy to the counties, and the most of the court, than the disgrace of the papists; and the gentlemen of those parts, being great and hot protestants (almost before by policy discredited and disgraced), were greatly countenanced." the letter writer afterwards mentions in a splenetic style the envoy from monsieur, one baqueville a norman, "with four or five of monsieur's youths," who attended the queen and were "well entertained and regarded." after them, he says, came m. rambouillet from the french king, brother of the cardinal, who had not long before written vilely against the queen, and whose entertainment, it seemed to him, was not so good as that of the others[ ]. [note : "illustrations," by lodge, vol. ii. p. .] the queen was about this time deprived by death of an old and faithful counsellor, in the person of sir thomas smith one of the principal secretaries of state. this eminent person, the author of a work "on the commonwealth of england," still occasionally consulted, and in various ways a great benefactor to letters in his day, was one of the few who had passed at once with safety and credit through all the perils and revolutions of the three preceding reigns. his early proficiency at college obtained for smith the patronage of henry viii., at whose expense he was sent to complete his studies in italy; and he took at padua the degree of doctor of laws. resuming on his return his residence at cambridge, he united his efforts with those of cheke for reforming the pronunciation of the greek language. afterwards he furnished an example of attachment to his mother-tongue which among classical scholars has found too few imitators, by giving to the public a work on english orthography and pronunciation; objects as yet almost totally neglected by his countrymen, and respecting which, down to a much later period, no approach to system or uniformity prevailed, but, on the contrary, a vagueness, a rudeness and an ignorance disgraceful to a lettered people. though educated in the civil law, smith now took deacon's orders and accepted a rectory, and the deanery of carlisle. his principles secretly began to incline towards the reformers, and he lent such protection as he was able to those who in the latter years of henry viii. underwent persecution for the avowal of similar sentiments. protector somerset patronized him: under his administration he was knighted notwithstanding his deacon's orders, and became the colleague of cecil as secretary of state. on the accession of mary he was stripped of the lucrative offices which he held, but a small pension was assigned him on condition of his remaining in the kingdom; and he contrived to pass away those days of horror in an unmolested obscurity. he was among the first whom mary's illustrious successor recalled to public usefulness; being summoned to take his place at her earliest privy-council. in the important measures of the beginning of the reign for the settlement of religion, he took a distinguished part: afterwards he was employed with advantage to his country in several difficult embassies; he was then appointed assistant and finally successor to burleigh in the same high post which they had occupied together so many years before under the reign of edward, and in this station he died at the age of sixty-three. no statesman of the age bore a higher character than sir thomas smith for rectitude and benevolence, and nothing of the wiliness and craft conspicuous in most of his coadjutors is discernible in him. there was one foible of his day, however, from which he was by no means exempt: on certain points he was superstitious beyond the ordinary measure of learned credulity in the sixteenth century. of his faith in alchemical experiments a striking instance has already occurred; he was likewise a great astrologer, and gave himself much concern in conjecturing what direful events might be portended by the appearance of a comet which became visible in the last year of his life. during a temporary retirement from court, he had also distinguished himself as a magistrate by his extraordinary diligence in the prosecution of suspected witches. but the date of these and similar delusions had not yet expired. great alarms were excited in the country during the year by the prevalence of certain magical practices, which were supposed to strike at the life of her majesty. there were found at islington, concealed in the house of a catholic priest who was a reputed sorcerer, three waxen images, formed to represent the queen and two of her chief counsellors; other dealings also of professors of the occult sciences were from time to time discovered. "whether it were the effect of this magic," says strype, who wrote in the beginning of the eighteenth century, "or proceeded from some natural cause, but the queen was in some part of this year under excessive anguish by pains of her teeth: insomuch that she took no rest for divers nights, and endured very great torment night and day." in this extremity, a certain "outlandish" physician was consulted, who composed on the case, with much solemnity of style, a long latin letter, in which, after observing with due humility that it was a perilous attempt in a person of his slender abilities to prescribe for a disease which had caused perplexity and diversity of opinion among the skilful and eminent physicians ordinarily employed by her majesty, he ventured however to suggest various applications as worthy of trial; finally hinting at the expediency of having recourse to extraction on the possible failure of all other means to afford relief. how this weighty matter terminated we are not here informed; but it is upon record that aylmer bishop of london once submitted to have a tooth drawn, in order to encourage her majesty to undergo that operation; and as the promotion of the learned prelate was at this time recent, and his gratitude, it may be presumed, still lively, we may perhaps be permitted to conjecture that it was the bishop who on this occasion performed the part of exorcist. the efforts of duke casimir for the defence of the united provinces had hitherto proved eminently unfortunate; and in the autumn of he judged it necessary to come over to england to apologize in person to elizabeth for the ill success of his arms, and to make arrangements for the future. he was very honorably received by her majesty, who recollected perhaps with some little complacency that he had formerly been her suitor. justings, tilts, and runnings at the ring were exhibited for his entertainment, and he was engaged in hunting-parties, in which he greatly delighted. leicester loaded him with presents; the earl of pembroke also complimented him with a valuable jewel. the earl of huntingdon, a nobleman whose religious zeal, which had rendered him the peculiar patron of the puritan divines, interested him also in the cause of holland, escorted him on his return as far as gravesend; and sir henry sidney attended him to dover. the queen willingly bestowed on her princely guest the cheap distinction of the garter; but her parting present of two golden cups, worth three hundred pounds a-piece, was extorted from her, after much murmuring and long reluctance, by the urgency of walsingham, who was anxious, with the rest of his party, that towards this champion of the protestant cause, though unfortunate, no mark of respect should be omitted. the spanish and french ambassadors repined at the favors heaped on casimir; but in the mean time the french faction was not inactive. the earl of sussex, whose generally sound judgement seems to have been warped in this instance by his habitual contrariety to leicester, wrote in august a long letter to the queen, in which, after stating the arguments for and against the french match, he summed up pretty decidedly in its favor. what was of more avail, monsieur sent over to plead his cause an agent named simier, a person of great dexterity, who well knew how to ingratiate himself by a thousand amusing arts; by a sprightly style of conversation peculiarly suited to the taste of the queen; and by that ingenious flattery, the talent of his nation, which is seldom entirely thrown away even upon the sternest and most impenetrable natures. elizabeth could not summon resolution to dismiss abruptly a suit which was so agreeably urged, and in february lord talbot sends the following information to his father: "her majesty continueth her very good usage of m. simier and all his company, and he hath conference with her three or four times a week, and she is the best disposed and pleasantest when she talketh with him (as by her gestures appeareth) that is possible." he adds, "the opinion of monsieur's coming still holdeth, and yet it is secretly bruited that he cannot take up so much money as he would on such a sudden, and therefore will not come so soon[ ]." [note : "illustrations," &c. vol. ii.] the influence of simier over the queen became on a sudden so potent, that leicester and his party reported, and perhaps believed, that he had employed philters and other unlawful means to inspire her with love for his master. simier on his side amply retaliated these hostilities by carrying to her majesty the first tidings of the secret marriage of her favorite with the countess of essex;--a fact which none of her courtiers had found courage to communicate to her, though it must have been by this time widely known, as sir francis knowles, the countess's father, had insisted, for the sake of his daughter's reputation, that the celebration of the nuptials should take place in presence of a considerable number of witnesses. the rage of the queen on this disclosure transported her beyond all the bounds of justice, reason, and decorum. it has been already remarked that she was habitually, or systematically, an open enemy to matrimony in general; and the higher any persons stood in her good graces and the more intimate their access to her, the greater was her resentment at detecting in them any aspirations after this state; because a kind of jealousy was in these cases superadded to her malignity, and it offended her pride that those who were honored with her favor should find themselves at leisure to covet another kind of happiness of which she was not the dispenser. but that leicester, the dearest of her friends, the first of her favorites, after all the devotedness to her charms which he had so long professed, and which she had requited by a preference so marked and benefits so signal,--that he,--her opinion unconsulted, her sanction unimplored, should have formed,--and with her own near relation,--this indissoluble tie, and having formed it should have attempted to conceal the fact from her when known to so many others,--appeared to her the acme of ingratitude, perfidy, and insult. she felt the injury like a weak disappointed woman, she resented it like a queen and a tudor. she instantly ordered leicester into confinement in a small fort then standing in greenwich park, and she threw out the menace, nay actually entertained the design, of sending him to the tower. but the lofty and honorable mind of the earl of sussex revolted against proceedings so violent, so lawless, and so disgraceful in every point of view to his royal kinswoman. he plainly represented to her, that it was contrary to all right and all decorum that any man should be punished for lawful matrimony, which was held in honor by all; and his known hostility to the favorite giving weight to his remonstrance, the queen curbed her anger, gave up all thoughts of the tower, and soon restored the earl to liberty. in no long time afterwards, he was readmitted to her presence; and so necessary had he made himself to her majesty, or so powerful in the state, that she found it expedient insensibly to restore him to the same place of trust and intimacy as before; though it is probable that he never entirely regained her affections; and his countess, for whom indeed she had never entertained any affection, remained the avowed object of her utter antipathy even after the death of leicester, and in spite of all the intercessions in her behalf with which her son essex, in the meridian of his favor, never ceased to importune his sovereign. the quarrel of leicester against simier proceeded to such extremity after this affair, that the latter believed his life in danger from his attempts. it was even said that the earl had actually hired one of the queen's guard to assassinate the envoy, and that the design had only miscarried by chance. however this might be, her majesty, on account of the spirit of enmity displayed towards him by the people, to whom the idea of the french match was ever odious, found it necessary, by a proclamation, to take simier under her special protection. it was about this time that as the queen was taking the air on the thames, attended by this frenchman and by several of her courtiers, a shot was fired into her barge, by which one of the rowers was severely wounded. some supposed that it was aimed at simier, others at the queen herself; but the last opinion was immediately silenced by the wise and gracious declaration of her majesty, "that she would believe nothing of her subjects that parents would not believe of their children." after due inquiry the shot was found to have been accidental, and the person who had been the cause of the mischief, though condemned to death, was pardoned. such at least is the account of the affair transmitted to us by contemporary writers; but it still remains a mystery how the man came to be capitally condemned if innocent, or to be pardoned if guilty. leicester, from all these circumstances, had incurred so much obloquy at court, and found himself so coldly treated by the queen herself, that in a letter to burleigh he offered, or threatened, to banish himself; well knowing, perhaps, that the proposal would not be accepted; while the french prince, now created duke of anjou, adroitly seized the moment of the earl's disgrace to try the effect of personal solicitations on the heart of elizabeth. he arrived quite unexpectedly, and almost without attendants, at the gate of her palace at greenwich; experienced a very gracious reception; and after several long conferences with the queen alone, of which the particulars never transpired, took his leave and returned home, re-committing his cause to the skilful management of his own agent, and the discussion of his brother's ambassadors. long and frequent meetings of the privy-council were now held, by command of her majesty, for the discussion of the question of marriage; from the minutes of which some interesting details may be recovered. the earl of sussex was still, as ever, strongly in favor of the match; and chiefly, as it appears, from an apprehension that france and spain might otherwise join to dethrone the queen and set up another in her place. lord hunsdon was on the same side, as was also the lord-admiral (the earl of lincoln), but less warmly. burleigh labored to find arguments in support of the measure, but evidently against his judgement and to please the queen. leicester openly professed to have changed his opinion, "for her majesty was to be followed." sir walter mildmay reasoned freely and forcibly against the measure, on the ground of the too advanced age of the queen, and the religion, the previous public conduct and the family connexions of anjou. sir ralph sadler subscribed to most of the objections of mildmay, and brought forward additional ones. sir henry sidney approved all these, and subjoined, "that the marriage could not be made good by all the counsel between england and rome; a mass might not be suffered in the court;" meaning, probably, that the marriage rite could not by any expedient be accommodated to the consciences of both parties and the law of england. on the whole, with the single exception perhaps of the earl of sussex, those counsellors who pronounced in favor of the marriage in this debate, did so, almost avowedly, in compliance with the wishes of the queen, whose inclination to the alliance had become very evident since the visit of her youthful suitor; while such as opposed it were moved by strong and earnest convictions of the gross impropriety and thorough unsuitableness of the match, with respect to elizabeth herself, and the dreadful evils which it was likely to entail on the nation. how entirely the real sentiments of this body were adverse to the step, became further evident when the council, instead of immediately obeying her majesty's command, that they should come to a formal decision on the question and acquaint her with the same, hesitated, temporized, assured her of their readiness to be entirely guided on a matter so personal to herself, by her feelings and wishes; requested to be further informed what these might be, and inquired whether, under all the circumstances, she was desirous of their coming to a full determination. "this message was reported to her majesty in the forenoon," (october th ) "and she allowed very well of the dutiful offer of their services. nevertheless, she uttered many speeches, and that not without shedding of many tears, that she should find in her councillors, by their long disputations, any disposition to make it doubtful, whether there could be any more surety for her and her realm than to have her marry and have a child of her own body to inherit, and so to continue the line of king henry the eighth; and she said she condemned herself of simplicity in committing this matter to be argued by them, for that she thought, to have rather had an universal request made to her to proceed in this marriage, than to have made doubt of it; and being much troubled herewith she requested" the bearers of this message "to forbear her till the afternoon." on their return, she repeated her former expressions of displeasure; then endeavoured at some length to refute the objections brought against the match; and finally, her "great misliking" of all opposition, and her earnest desire for the marriage, being reported to her faithful council, they agreed, after long consultations, to offer her their services in furtherance of it, should such really be her pleasure[ ]. [note : "burleigh papers," by murdin, _passim._] but the country possessed some men less obsequious than privy-councillors, who could not endure to stand by in silence and behold the great public interests here at stake surrendered in slavish deference to the fond fancy of a romantic woman, caught by the image of a passion which she was no longer of an age to inspire, and which she ought to have felt it an indecorum to entertain. of this number, to his immortal honor, was philip sidney. this young gentleman bore at the time the courtly office of cup-bearer to the queen, and was looking for further advancement at her hands; and as on a former occasion he had not scrupled to administer some food to her preposterous desire of personal admiration, elizabeth, when she applied to him for his opinion on her marriage, assuredly did so in the hope and expectation of hearing from him something more graceful to her ears than the language of truth and wisdom. but sidney had beheld with his own eyes the horrors of the paris massacre; he had imbibed with all the eagerness of a youthful and generous mind the principles of his friend the excellent hubert languet, one of the ablest advocates of the protestant cause; and he had since, on his embassy to germany and holland, enjoyed the favor and contemplated the illustrious virtues of william prince of orange its heroic champion. to this sacred cause the purposed marriage must prove, as he well knew, deeply injurious, and to the reputation of his sovereign fatal:--this was enough to decide his judgement and his conduct; and magnanimously disdaining the suggestions of a selfish and servile policy, he replied to the demand of her majesty, by a letter of dissuasion, almost of remonstrance, at once the most eloquent and the most courageous piece of that nature which the age can boast. every important view of the subject is comprised in this letter, which is long, but at the same time so condensed in style, and so skilfully compacted as to matter, that it well deserves to be read entire, and must lose materially either by abridgement or omission. yet it may be permitted to detach from political reasonings, foreign to the nature and object of this work, a few sentences referring more immediately to the personal character of anjou, and displaying in a strong light the enormous unfitness of the connexion; and also the animated and affectionate conclusion by which the writer seems desirous to atone for the enunciation of so many unwelcome truths. "these," speaking of her majesty's protestant subjects... "these, how will their hearts be galled, if not aliened, when they shall see you take a husband, a frenchman and a papist, in whom (howsoever fine wits may find further dealings or painted excuses) the very common people well know this, that he is the son of a jezabel of our age; that his brother made oblation of his own sister's marriage, the easier to make massacres of our brethren in belief: that he himself, contrary to his promise and all gratefulness, having his liberty and principal estate by the hugonots' means, did sack la charité, and utterly spoil them with fire and sword! this, i say, even at first sight, gives occasion to all truly religious to abhor such a master, and consequently to diminish much of the hopeful love they have long held to you." "now the agent party, which is monsieur. whether he be not apt to work on the disadvantage of your estate, he is to be judged by his will and power: his will to be as full of light ambition as is possible, besides the french disposition and his own education, his inconstant temper against his brother, his thrusting himself into the low country matters, his sometimes seeking the king of spain's daughter, sometimes your majesty, are evident testimonies of his being carried away with every wind of hope; taught to love greatness any way gotten; and having for the motioners and ministers of the mind only such young men as have showed they think evil contentment a ground of any rebellion; who have seen no commonwealth but in faction, and divers of which have defiled their hands in odious murders. with such fancies and favorites what is to be hoped for? or that he will contain himself within the limits of your conditions?" ...."against contempt, if there be any, which i will never believe, let your excellent virtues of piety, justice and liberality, daily, if it be possible, more and more shine. let such particular actions be found out (which be easy, as i think, to be done) by which you may gratify all the hearts of your people. let those in whom you find trust, and to whom you have committed trust, in your weighty affairs, be held up in the eyes of your subjects: lastly, doing as you do, you shall be as you be, the example of princes, the ornament of this age, and the most excellent fruit of your progenitors, and the perfect mirror of your posterity." such had ever been the devoted loyalty of philip sidney towards elizabeth, and so high was the place which he held in her esteem, that she appears to have imputed the boldness of this letter to no motives but good ones; and instead of resenting his interference in so delicate a matter, she is thought to have been deeply moved by his eloquence, and even to have been influenced by it in the formation of her final resolve. but far other success attended the efforts of a different character, who labored with equal zeal, equal reason, and probably not inferior purity of intention, though for less courtliness of address, to deter rather than dissuade her from the match, on grounds much more offensive to her feelings, and by means of what was then accounted a seditious appeal to the passions and prejudices of the nation. the work alluded to was entitled "the discovery of a gaping gulf wherein england is like to be swallowed by another french marriage, if the lord forbid not the banns by letting her see the sin and punishment thereof." its author was a gentleman named stubbs, then of lincoln's inn, and previously of bene't college cambridge, where we are told that his intimacies had been formed among the more learned and ingenious class of students, and where the poet spenser had become his friend. he was known as a zealous puritan, and had given his sister in marriage to the celebrated edmund cartwright the leader of the sect. it is probable that neither his religious principles nor this connexion were forgotten by the queen in her estimate of his offence. a furious proclamation was issued against the book, all the copies of which were ordered to be seized and burned; and the author and publisher, being proceeded against on a severe statute of philip and mary, which many lawyers held to be no longer in force, were found guilty, and condemned to the barbarous punishment of amputation of the right hand. the words of stubbs on being brought to the scaffold to undergo his sentence have been preserved, and well merit transcription. "what a grief it is to the body to lose one of his members you all know. i am come hither to receive my punishment according to the law. i am sorry for the loss of my hand, and more sorry to lose it by judgement; but most of all with her majesty's indignation and evil opinion, whom i have so highly displeased. before i was condemned, i might speak for my innocency; but now my mouth is stopped by judgement, to the which i submit myself, and am content patiently to endure whatsoever it pleaseth god, of his secret providence, to lay upon me, and take it justly deserved for my sins; and i pray god it may be an example to you all, that it being so dangerous to offend the laws, without an evil meaning, as breedeth the loss of a hand, you may use your hands holily, and pray to god for the long preservation of her majesty over you, whom god hath used as an instrument for a long peace and many blessings over us; and specially for his gospel, whereby she hath made a way for us to rest and quietness to our consciences. for the french i force not; but my greatest grief is, in so many weeks and days of imprisonment, her majesty hath not once thought me worthy of her mercy, which she hath often times extended to divers persons in greater offences. for my hand, i esteem it not so much, for i think i could have saved it, and might do yet; but i will not have a guiltless heart and an infamous hand. i pray you all to pray with me, that god will strengthen me to endure and abide the pain that i am to suffer, and grant me this grace, that the loss of my hand do not withdraw any part of my duty and affection toward her majesty, and because, when so many veins of blood are opened, it is uncertain how they may be stayed, and what wilt be the event thereof.".... the hand ready on the block to be stricken off, he said often to the people: "pray for me now my calamity is at hand." and so, with these words, it was smitten off, whereof he swoonded[ ]." [note : "nugæ."] in this speech, the language of which is so remarkably contrasted with those abject submissions which fear extorted from the high-born victims of the tyranny of henry viii., the attentive reader will discern somewhat of the same spirit which combated popery and despotism under the stuarts, though tempered by that loyal attachment towards the restorer and protectress of reformed religion which dwelt in the hearts of all the protestant subjects of elizabeth without exception. after the execution of the more painful part of his sentence, stubbs was further punished by an imprisonment of several months in the tower: but under all these inflictions, his courage and his cheerfulness were supported by a firm persuasion of the goodness of the cause in which he suffered. he wrote many letters to his friends with the left hand, signing them scævola; a surname which it was his pleasure to adopt in memory of a circumstance by which he did not feel himself to be the person dishonored. such was the opinion entertained by burleigh of the theological learning of this eminent person and the soundness of his principles, that he engaged him in to answer cardinal allen's violent book entitled "the english justice;" a task which he is said to have performed with distinguished ability. during the whole of the year , the important question of the queen's marriage remained in an undecided state. the court of france appears to have suffered the treaty to languish, and elizabeth, conscious no doubt that her fond inclination could only be gratified at the expense of that popularity which it had been the leading object of her policy to cherish, sought not to revive it. various circumstances occurred to occupy public attention during the interval. 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 . 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 , 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 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 , 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[ ]. 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 : strype's "whitgift."] a friend of anthony bacon's sends him this warning to bordeaux in : "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[ ]: &c." [note : 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[ ]." a plausible evasion, doubtless, of requests with which that cautious minister judged it inexpedient to comply. [note : "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 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[ ]. [note : 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_[ ]. 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 , 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'[ ]." [note : berkenhout's "biographia literaria," p. , note _a_.] [note : "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 or . 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[ ]." [note : "illustrations," vol. ii. p. .] 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'alençon 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 alençon 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. to . 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. the disposition of elizabeth was originally deficient in benevolence and sympathy, and prone to suspicion, pride and anger; and we observe with pain in the progress of her history, how much the influences to which her high station and the peculiar circumstances of her reign inevitably exposed her, tended in various modes to exasperate these radical evils of her nature. the extravagant flattery administered to her daily and hourly, was of most pernicious effect; it not only fostered in her an absurd excess of personal vanity, but, what was worse, by filling her with exaggerated notions both of her own wisdom and of her sovereign power and prerogative, it contributed to render her rule more stern and despotic, and her mind on many points incapable of sober counsel. this effect was remarked by one of her clergy, who, in a sermon preached in her presence, had the boldness to tell her, that she who had been meek as lamb was become an untameable heifer; for which reproof he was in his turn reprehended by her majesty on his quitting the pulpit, as "an over confident man who dishonored his sovereign." the decay of her beauty was an unwelcome truth which all the artifices of adulation were unable to hide from her secret consciousness; since she could never behold her image in a mirror, during the latter years of her life, without transports of impotent anger; and this circumstance contributed not a little to sour her temper, while it rendered the young and lovely the chosen objects of her malignity. on this head the following striking anecdote is furnished by sir john harrington.... "she did oft ask the ladies around her chamber, if they loved to think of marriage? and the wise ones did conceal well their liking hereto, as knowing the queen's judgement in this matter. sir matthew arundel's fair cousin, not knowing so deeply as her fellows, was asked one day hereof, and simply said, she had thought much about marriage, if her father did consent to the man she loved. 'you seem honest, i'faith,' said the queen; 'i will sue for you to your father.'... the damsel was not displeased hereat; and when sir robert came to court, the queen asked him hereon, and pressed his consenting, if the match was discreet. sir robert, much astonied at this news, said he never heard his daughter had liking to any man, and wanted to gain knowledge of her affection; but would give free consent to what was most pleasing to her highness will and advice. 'then i will do the rest,' saith the queen. the lady was called in, and the queen told her that her father had given his free consent. 'then,' replied the lady, 'i shall be happy, and please your grace'. 'so thou shalt, but not to be a fool and marry; i have his consent given to me, and i vow thou shalt never get it into thy possession. so go to thy business, i see thou art a bold one to own thy foolishness so readily[ ].'" [note : "nugæ."] the perils of many kinds, from open and secret enemies, by which elizabeth had found herself environed since her unwise and unauthorized detention of the queen of scots, aggravated the mistrustfulness of her nature; and the severities which fear and anger led her to exercise against that portion of her subjects who still adhered to the ancient faith, increased its harshness. it is true that, since the fulmination of the papal anathema, the zealots of this church had kept no measures with respect to her either in their words, their writings, or their actions. plans of insurrection and even of assassination were frequently revolved in their councils, but as often disappointed by the extraordinary vigilance and sagacity of her ministers; while the courage evinced by herself under these circumstances of severe probation was truly admirable. bacon relates that "the council once represented to her the danger in which she stood by the continual conspiracies against her life, and acquainted her that a man was lately taken who stood ready in a very dangerous and suspicious manner to do the deed; and they showed her the weapon wherewith he thought to have acted it. and therefore they advised her that she should go less abroad to take the air, weakly attended, as she used. but the queen answered, 'that she had rather be dead than put in custody.'" "ireland," says naunton, "cost her more vexation than any thing else; the expense of it pinched her, the ill success of her officers wearied her, and in that service she grew hard to please." she also arrived at a settled persuasion that the extreme of severity was safer than that of indulgence; an opinion which, being communicated to her officers and ministers, was the occasion, especially in ireland, of many a cruel and arbitrary act. when angry, she observed little moderation in the expression of her feelings. in the private letters even of cecil, whom she treated on the whole with more consideration than any other person, we find not unfrequent mention of the harsh words which he had to endure from her, sometimes, as he says, on occasions when he appeared to himself deserving rather of thanks than of censure. the earl of shrewsbury often complains to his correspondents of her captious and irascible temper; and we find walsingham taking pains to console sir henry sidney under some manifestations of her displeasure, by the assurance that they had proceeded only from one of those transient gusts of passion for which she was accustomed to make sudden amends to her faithful servants by new and extraordinary tokens of her favor. there was no branch of prerogative of which elizabeth was more tenacious than that which invested her with the sole and supreme direction of ecclesiastical affairs. the persevering efforts therefore of the puritans, to obtain various relaxations or alterations of the laws which she in her wisdom had laid down for the government of the church,--on failure of which they scrupled not to recall to her memory the strong denunciations of the jewish prophets against wicked and irreligious princes,--at once exasperated and alarmed her, and led her to assume continually more and more of the incongruous and odious character of a protestant persecutor of protestants. but the puritans themselves must have seemed guiltless in her eyes compared with a new sect, the principles of which, tending directly to the abrogation of all authority of the civil magistrate in spiritual concerns, called forth about this time her indignation manifested by the utmost severity of penal infliction. it was in the year that robert brown, having completed his studies in divinity at cambridge, began to preach at norwich against the discipline and ceremonies of the church of england, and to promulgate a scheme which he affirmed to be more conformable to the apostolical model. according to his system, each congregation of believers was to be regarded as a separate church, possessing in itself full jurisdiction over its own concerns; the _liberty of prophesying_ was to be indulged to all the brethren equally, and pastors were to be elected and dismissed at the pleasure of the majority, in whom he held that all power ought of right to reside. on account of these opinions brown was called before certain ecclesiastical commissioners, who imprisoned him for contumacy; but the interference of his relation lord burleigh procured his release, after which he repaired to holland, where he founded several churches and published a book in defence of his system, in which he strongly inculcated upon his disciples the duty of separating themselves from what he stated antichristian churches. for the sole offence of distributing this work, two men were hanged in suffolk in ; to which extremity of punishment they were subjected as having impugned the queen's supremacy, which was declared felony by a late statute now for the first time put in force against protestants. brown himself, after his return from holland, was repeatedly imprisoned, and, but for the protection of his powerful kinsman might probably have shared the fate of his two disciples. at length, the terror of a sentence of excommunication drove him to recant, and joining the established church he soon obtained preferment. but the brownist sect suffered little by the desertion of its founder, whose private character was far from exemplary: in spite of penal laws, of persecution, and even of ridicule and contempt, it survived, increased, and eventually became the model on which the churches not only of the sect of independents but also of the two other denominations of english protestant dissenters remain at the present day constituted. the death of archbishop grindal in afforded the queen the long desired opportunity of elevating to the primacy a prelate not inclined to offend her, like his predecessor, by any remissness in putting in force the laws against puritans and other nonconformists. she nominated to this high dignity whitgift bishop of worcester, known to polemics as the zealous antagonist of cartwright the puritan, and further recommended to her majesty by his single life, his talents for business, whether secular or ecclesiastical, his liberal and hospitable style of living, and the numerous train of attendants which swelled the pomp of his appearance on occasions of state and ceremony, when he even claimed to be served on the knee. this promotion forms an important æra in the ecclesiastical history of the reign of elizabeth: but only a few circumstances more peculiarly illustrative of the sentiments and disposition of whitgift, of the queen herself, and of some of her principal counsellors, can with propriety find a place in a work like the present. to bring back the clergy to that exact uniformity with respect to doctrines, rites, and ceremonies, from which the lenity of his predecessor had suffered them in many instances to recede, appeared to the new primate the first and most essential duty of his office; and the better to enforce obedience, he eagerly demanded to be armed with that plenitude of power which her majesty as head of the church was authorized to delegate at her pleasure. his request was granted with alacrity, and the work of intolerance began. subscriptions were now required of the whole clerical body to the supremacy; to the book of common-prayer; and to the articles of religion settled by the convocation of . in consequence of this first step alone, so large a number of zealous preachers and able divines attached to the calvinistic model were suspended from their functions for non-compliance, that the privy-council took alarm, and addressed a letter to the archbishop requesting a conference; but he loftily reproved their interference in matters of this nature, declaring himself amenable in the discharge of his functions to his sovereign alone. in the following year he prevailed upon her majesty to appoint a second high-commission court, the members of which were authorized, _ex officio_, to administer interrogatories on oath in matters of faith;--an assumption of power not merely cruel and oppressive, but absolutely illegal, if we are to rely on beal, clerk of the council, an able and learned but somewhat intemperate partisan of the puritans, who published on this occasion a work against the archbishop. to enter into controversy was now no part of the plan of whitgift; he held it as a maxim, that it was safer and better for an established church to silence than to confute; and a book of calvinistic discipline having issued from the cambridge press, he procured a star-chamber decree for lessening and limiting the number of presses; for restraining any man from exercising the trade of a printer without a special license; and for subjecting all works to the censorship, of the archbishop or the bishop of london. at the same time he vehemently declared that he would rather lie in prison all his life, or die, than grant any indulgence to puritans; and he expressed his wonder, as well as indignation, that men high in place should countenance the factious portion of the clergy, low and obscure individuals and not even considerable by their numbers, against him the second person of the state. the earl of leicester was not however to be intimidated from extending to these conscientious sufferers a protection which was in many instances effectual: walsingham occasionally interceded in behalf of calvinistic preachers of eminence; and sir francis knolles, whose influence with the queen was considerable, never failed to encounter the measures of the primate with warm, courageous, and persevering opposition. even burleigh, whom whitgift had regarded as a friend and patron and hoped to number among his partisans, could not forbear expressing to him on various occasions his serious disapprobation of the rigors now resorted to; nor was he to be silenced by the plea of the archbishop, that he acted entirely by the command of her majesty. on the contrary, as instances multiplied daily before his eyes of the tyranny and persecution exercised, through the extraordinary powers of the ecclesiastical commission, on ministers of unblemished piety and often of exemplary usefulness, his remonstrances assumed a bolder tone and more indignant character: as in the following instance. "but when the said lord treasurer understood, that two of these ministers, living in cambridgeshire, whom for the good report of their modesty and peaceableness he had a little before recommended unto the archbishop's favor, were by the archbishop in commission sent to a register in london, to be strictly examined upon those four and twenty articles before mentioned, he was displeased. and reading over the articles himself, disliked them as running in a romish style, and making no distinction of persons. which caused him to write in some earnestness to the archbishop, and in his letter he told him, that he found these articles so curiously penned, so full of branches and circumstances, as he thought the inquisitors of spain used not so many questions to comprehend and to trap their preys. and that this juridical and canonical sifting of poor ministers was not to edify and reform. and that in charity he thought, they ought not to answer to all these nice points, except they were very notorious offenders in papistry or heresy: begging his grace to bear with that one fault, if it were so, that he had willed these ministers not to answer those articles, except their consciences might suffer them[ ]." [note : "life of whitgift" by strype.] the archbishop, in a long and labored answer, expressed his surprise at his lordship's "vehement speeches" against the administering of interrogatories, "seeing it was the ordinary course in other courts: as in the star-chamber, in the courts of the marches, and in other places:" and he advanced many arguments, or assertions, in defence of his proceedings, none of which proved satisfactory to the lord treasurer, as appeared by his reply. in the end, the archbishop found himself obliged to compromise this dispute by engaging that in future the twenty-four articles should only be administered to students in divinity previously to their ordination; and not to ministers already settled in cures, unless they should have openly declared themselves against the church-government by law established. but this instance of concession extorted by the urgency of walsingham appears to have been a solitary one; the high commission, with the archbishop at its head, proceeded unrelentingly in the work of establishing conformity, and crushing with a strong hand all appeals to the sense of the public on controverted points of discipline or doctrine. the queen, vehemently prepossessed with the idea that the opposers of episcopacy must ever be ill affected also to monarchy, made no scruple of declaring, after some years experience of the untameable spirit of the sect, that the puritans were greater enemies of hers than the papists; and in the midst of her greatest perils from the machinations of the latter sect, she seldom judged it necessary to conciliate by indulgence the attachment of the former. several calvinistic ministers, during the course of the reign, were subjected even to capital punishment on account of the scruples which they entertained respecting the lawfulness of acknowledging the queen's supremacy: on the other hand, the attempts of sir francis knowles to inspire her majesty with jealousy of the designs of the archbishop, by whom some advances were made towards claiming for the episcopal order an authority by divine right, independently of the appointment of the head of the church, failed entirely of success. no ecclesiastic had ever been able to acquire so great an ascendency over the mind of elizabeth as whitgift; there was a conformity in their views, and in some points a sympathy in their characters; which seem to have secured to the primate in all his undertakings the sanction and approval of his sovereign: his favor continued unimpaired to the latest hour of her life: it was from his lips that she desired to receive the final consolations of religion; and regret for her loss, from the apprehension of unwelcome changes in the ecclesiastical establishment under the auspices of her successor, is believed to have contributed to the attack which carried off the archbishop within a year after the decease of his gracious and lamented mistress. elizabeth took an important though secret part in the struggles for power among the scottish nobles of opposite factions by which that kingdom was now agitated during several years. it has been suspected, but seems scarcely probable, that she was concerned in the conspiracy of the earl of gowry for seizing the person of the young king; she certainly however interposed afterwards to mitigate his just anger against the participators in that dark design. on the whole, she was generally enabled to gain all the influence in the court of scotland which she found necessary to her ends; for james could always be intimidated, and his minions most frequently bribed or cajoled. she regarded it however as an object of some consequence to gain an accurate knowledge of the character and capacity of her young kinsman, from one on whom she could rely; and for this purpose she prevailed on walsingham, notwithstanding his age and infirmities, to undertake an embassy into scotland, of which the ostensible objects were so trifling that its real purpose became perfectly evident to the more sagacious of james's counsellors. melvil confesses, that it cost him prodigious pains to equip the king, at short notice, with so much of artificial dignity and borrowed wisdom as might enable him to pass successfully through the ordeal of walsingham's examination. but his labor was not thrown away; for james, who really possessed considerable quickness of parts and a competent share of book learning, played with such plausibility the part assigned him, that even this sagacious statesman is believed to have returned impressed with a higher opinion of his abilities than any part of his after conduct was found to warrant. her increasing apprehensions from the hostility of the king of spain, caused elizabeth to cultivate with added zeal the friendship of the northern powers of europe, and in she sent the garter to the king of denmark as a pledge of amity; making at the same time a fruitless endeavour to obtain for english merchant ships some remission of the duties newly levied by the danish sovereign on the passage of the sound. it was the prudent practice of her majesty to intrust these embassies of compliment to young noblemen lately come into possession of their estates, who, for her favor and their own honor, were willing to discharge them in a splendid manner at their private expense. the danish mission was the price which she exacted from peregrine bertie, lately called up to the house of peers as lord willoughby of eresby in right of his mother, for her reluctant and ungracious recognition of his undeniable title to this dignity. on the occurrence of this first mention of a high-spirited nobleman, afterwards celebrated for a brilliant valor which rendered him the idol of popular fame, the remarkable circumstances of his birth and parentage must not be omitted. his mother, only daughter and heir of the ninth lord willoughby by a spanish lady of high birth who had been maid of honor to queen catherine of arragon, was first the ward and afterwards the third wife of charles brandon duke of suffolk, by whom she had two sons, formerly mentioned as victims to the sweating-sickness. few ladies of that age chose long to continue in the unprotected state of widowhood; and the duchess had already re-entered the matrimonial state with richard bertie, a person of obscure birth but liberal education, when the accession of mary exposed her to all the cruelties and oppressions exercised without remorse by the popish persecutors of that reign upon such of their private enemies as they could accuse of being also the enemies of the catholic church. the duchess, during the former reign, had drawn upon herself the bitter enmity of gardiner by some imprudent and insulting manifestations of her abhorrence of his character and contempt for his religion; and she now learned with dismay that it was his intention to subject her to a strict interrogatory on the subject of her faith. except apostasy, there was no other resource than the hazardous and painful one of voluntary banishment, and this she without hesitation adopted. bertie first obtained license for quitting the country on some pretended business; and soon after, the duchess, attended only by two or three domestics, escaped by night with her infant daughter from her house in barbican, and taking boat on the thames arrived at a port in kent. here she embarked; and through many perils,--for stress of weather compelled her to put back into an english port, and the search was every where very strict,--she reached at length a more hospitable shore, and rejoined her husband at santon in the duchy of cleves. from this town, however, they were soon chased by the imminent apprehension of molestation from the bishop of arras. it was on an october evening that, followed only by two maid-servants, on foot, through rain and mire and darkness, bertie carrying a bundle and the duchess her child, the forlorn wanderers began their march for wesel one of the hanse-towns, about four miles distant. on their arrival, their wild and wretched appearance, with the sword which bertie carried, gave them in the eyes of the inhabitants so suspicious an appearance, that no one would harbour them; and while her husband ran from inn to inn vainly imploring admittance, the afflicted duchess was compelled to betake herself to the shelter of a church porch; and there, in that misery and desolation and want of every thing, was delivered of a child, to whom, in memory of the circumstance, she gave the name of peregrine. bertie meantime, addressing himself in latin to two young scholars whom he overheard speaking together in that language, obtained a direction to a walloon minister, to whom the duchess had formerly shown kindness in england. by his means such prompt and affectionate succour was administered as served to restore her to health; and here for some time they found rest for the sole of their foot. a fresh alarm then obliged them to remove into the dominions of the palsgrave, where they had remained till the supplies which they had brought with them in money and jewels were nearly exhausted; when a friend of the duchess's having interested the king of poland in their behalf, they fortunately received an invitation from this sovereign. arriving in his country, after great hardships and imminent danger of their lives from the brutality of some soldiers on their way, a large demesne was assigned them by their princely protector, on which they lived in great honor and tranquillity till the happy accession of elizabeth recalled them to their native land. peregrine lord willoughby found many occasions of distinguishing himself in the wars of flanders, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant-general. he was not less magnanimous than brave; and disdaining the servility of a court life, is thought to have enjoyed on this account less of the queen's favor than her admiration of military merit would otherwise have prompted her to bestow upon him. he died governor of berwick in ; his son was afterwards created earl of lindsey, and the title of duke of ancaster is now borne by his descendants. the king of sweden, conducted to the brink of ruin by an unequal contest with the arms of russia, sent in a solemn embassy to the queen of england to entreat her to mediate a peace for him. this good work, in which she cheerfully engaged, was speedily brought to a happy issue; and the czar seized the opportunity of the negotiations to press for the conclusion of that league offensive and defensive with england, which he had formerly proposed in vain. the objection that such an alliance was inconsistent with the laws of nations, since it might engage the queen to commit hostilities on princes against whom she had never declared war, made, as might be expected, little impression on this barbarian; and elizabeth had considerable difficulty in escaping from the intimate embrace of his proffered friendship, to the cool civilities of a commercial treaty. another perplexing circumstance occurred. the czar had set his heart upon an english wife; some say he ventured to address the queen herself; but however this might be, she was about to gratify his wish by sending him for a bride a lady of royal blood, sister of the earl of huntingdon, when the information which she received of the unlimited privilege of divorce exercised by his muscovite majesty, deterred her from completing her project. she was in consequence obliged to excuse the failure on the ground of the delicate health of the young lady, the reluctance of her brother to part with her, and, what must have filled the despot with astonishment, her own inability to dispose of her female subjects in marriage against the consent of their own relations. about this time died the earl of sussex. in him the queen was deprived of a faithful and honorable counsellor and an affectionate kinsman; leicester lost the antagonist whom he most dreaded, and the nobility one of its principal ornaments. dying childless, his next brother succeeded him, in whom the race ended; for egremond ratcliffe, his youngest brother, had already completed his disastrous destiny. this unfortunate gentleman, it will be remembered, was rendered a fugitive and an outlaw by the part which he had taken, at a very early age, in the northern rebellion. for several years he led a forlorn and rambling life, sometimes in flanders, sometimes in spain, deriving his sole support from an ill paid pension and occasional donations of philip ii., and often enduring extremities of poverty and hardship. wearied with so many sufferings in a desperate cause, he then employed all his endeavours to make his peace at home; and impatient at length of the suspense which he endured, he took the step of returning to england at all hazards and throwing himself on the compassion of lord burleigh. the treasurer, touched with his misery and his expressions of penitence, interceded with the queen for his pardon; but she, on some fresh occasion of suspicion, caused him to be advised to steal out of the kingdom again; and neglecting this intimation, he was committed to the tower. after some months he was released, possibly under a promise of attempting some extraordinary piece of service to his country, and was sent back to flanders, where he was soon after apprehended on a charge of conspiring against the life of don john of austria: some say, and some deny, that he confessed his guilt, and accused the english ministry of a participation in the design: however this might be, he perished by the hand of public justice, a lamentable victim to the guilty violence of the popish faction which first beguiled his inexperience; to the relentless policy of elizabeth, which forbade the return of offenders perhaps not incorrigible; and to the desperation which gaining dominion over his mind had subverted all its moral principles. ireland had been as usual the scene of much danger and disturbance. in an attempt was made by the king of spain to incite the catholic inhabitants to a general rebellion, by throwing on the coast a small body of troops seconded by a very considerable sum of money, and attended by a number of priests prepared to preach up his title to the sovereignty of the island in virtue of the papal donation. but the vigorous measures of arthur lord grey the deputy, by holding the irish in check, rendered this effort abortive. the spaniards, unable to penetrate into the country, raised a fort near the place of their landing, which they hoped to be able to hold out till the arrival of reinforcements. they obstinately refused the terms of surrender first offered them by the deputy; and the fort being afterwards taken by assault, the whole garrison, with the exception of the officers, was put to the sword: an act of cruelty which the deputy is said to have commanded with tears, in obedience to the decision of a court-martial from which he could not venture to depart; and which elizabeth publicly reprobated, perhaps without internally condemning. the earl of desmond, who on the arrival of the spanish troops had risen in arms against the government with all the power he could muster, was excepted from the general pardon granted to other irish insurgents, and thus remaining by necessity in a state of rebellion, gave for some time considerable disquiet, if not alarm, to the english government. but his resources of every kind gradually falling off, he was hunted about through bogs and forests, from one fastness or lurking-place to another, enduring every kind of privation and hardship, and often foiling his pursuers by hair-breadth scapes. it is even related that he and his countess on one occasion being roused from their bed in the middle of the night, found no other mode of concealment than that of wading up to their necks in the river which bathed the walls of their retreat. at length, a small party of soldiers having entered by surprise a solitary cabin, they there found one old man sitting alone, to whom their brutal leader gave a blow with his sword, which nearly cut off his arm, and another on the side of his head; on which he cried out, "i am the earl of desmond." the name was no protection; for perceiving that he bled fast and was unable to march, the ruthless soldier, bidding him prepare for instant death, struck off his head and brought it away as a trophy; leaving the mangled trunk to the chance of interment by any faithful follower of the house of fitzgerald who might venture from his hiding-place to explore the fate of his chief. the head was sent to england as a present to the queen, and placed by her command on london bridge. from this time, the beginning of , ireland enjoyed a short respite from scenes of violence and blood under the vigorous yet humane administration of sir john perrot, the new deputy. the petty warfare of this turbulent province, amid the many and great evils of various kinds which it brought forth, was productive however of some contingent advantage to the queen's affairs, by serving as a school of military discipline to many an officer of merit whose abilities she afterwards found occasion to employ in more important enterprises to check the power of spain. ireland was, in particular, the scene of several of the early exploits of that brilliant and extraordinary genius walter raleigh; and it was out of his service in this country that an occasion arose for his appearing before her majesty, which he had the talent and dexterity so to improve as to make it the origin of all his favor and advancement. raleigh was the poor younger brother of a decayed but ancient family in devonshire. his education at oxford was yet incomplete, when the ardor of his disposition impelled him to join a gallant band of one hundred volunteers led by his relation henry champernon, in , to the aid of the french protestants. here he served a six-years apprenticeship to the art of war, after which, returning to his own country, he gave himself for a while to the more tranquil pursuits of literature; for "both minervas" claimed him as their own. in he resumed his arms under general norris, commander of the english forces in the netherlands; the next year, ambitious of a new kind of glory, he accompanied that gallant navigator sir humphrey gilbert, his half brother, in a voyage to newfoundland. this expedition proving unfortunate, he obtained in a captain's commission in the irish service; and recommended by his vigor and capacity, rose to be governor of cork. he was the officer appointed to carry into effect the bloody sentence passed upon the spanish garrison; a cruel service, but one which the military duty of obedience rendered matter of indispensable obligation. a quarrel with lord grey put a stop to his promotion in ireland; and on his following this nobleman to england, their difference was brought to a hearing before the privy-council, when the great talents and uncommon flow of eloquence exhibited by raleigh in pleading his own cause, by raising the admiration of all present, proved the means of introducing him to the presence of the queen. his comely person, fine address, and prompt proficiency in the arts of a courtier, did all the rest; and he rapidly rose to such a height of royal favor as to inspire with jealousy even him who had long stood foremost in the good graces of his sovereign. it is recorded of raleigh during the early days of his court attendance, when a few handsome suits of clothes formed almost the sum total of his worldly wealth, that as he was accompanying the queen in one of her daily walks,--during which she was fond of giving audience, because she imagined that the open air produced a favorable effect on her complexion,--she arrived at a miry spot, and stood in perplexity how to pass. with an adroit presence of mind, the courtier pulled off his rich plush cloak and threw it on the ground to serve her for a footcloth. she accepted with pleasure an attention which flattered her, and it was afterwards quaintly said that the spoiling of a cloak had gained him many _good suits_. it was in ireland too that edmund spenser, one of our first genuine poets, whose rich and melodious strains will find delighted audience as long as inexhaustible fertility of invention, truth, fluency and vivacity of description, copious learning, and a pure, amiable and heart-ennobling morality shall be prized among the students of english verse, was now tuning his enchanting lyre; and the ear of raleigh was the first to catch its strains. this eminent person was probably of obscure parentage and slender means, for it was as a sizer, the lowest order of students, that he was entered at cambridge; but that his humble merit early attracted the notice of men of learning and virtue is apparent from his intimacy with stubbs, already commemorated, and from his friendship with that noted literary character gabriel hervey, by whom he was introduced to the acquaintance of philip sidney. his leaning towards puritanical principles, clearly manifested by various passages in the shepherd's calendar, had probably betrayed itself to his superiors at the university, by his choice of associates, or other circumstances, previously to the publication of that piece; and possibly might have some share in the disappointment of his hopes of a fellowship which occurred in . quitting college on this occurrence, he retired for some time into the north of england; but the friendship of sidney drew him again from his solitude, and it was at penshurst that he composed much of his shepherd's calendar, published in under the signature of immerito, and dedicated to this generous patron of his muse. the earl of leicester, probably at his nephew's request, sent spenser the same year on some commission to france; and in the next he obtained the post of secretary to lord grey, and attended him to ireland. though the child of fancy and the muse, spenser now showed that business was not "the contradiction of his fate;" he drew up an excellent discourse on the state of ireland, still read and valued, and received as his reward the grant of a considerable tract of land out of the forfeited desmond estates, and of the castle of kilcolman, which henceforth became his residence, and where he had soon the satisfaction of receiving a first visit from raleigh. both pupils of classical antiquity, both poets and aspirants after immortal fame, they met in this land of ignorance and barbarity as brothers; and so strong was the impression made on the mind of raleigh, that even on becoming a successful courtier he dismissed not from his memory or his affection the tuneful shepherd whom he had left behind tending his flocks "under the foot of mole, that mountain hoar." he spoke of him to the queen with all the enthusiasm of kindred genius; obtained for him some favors, or promises of favors; and on a second visit which he made to ireland, probably for the purpose of inspecting the large grants which he had himself obtained, he dragged his friend from his obscure retreat, carried him over with him to england, and hastened to initiate him in those arts of pushing a fortune at court which with himself had succeeded so prosperously. but bitterly did the disappointed poet learn to deprecate the mistaken kindness which had taught him to exchange leisure and independence, though in a solitude so barbarous and remote, for the servility, the intrigues and the treacheries of this heart-sickening scene. he put upon lasting record his grief and his repentance, in a few lines of energetic warning to the inexperienced in the ways of courts, and hastened back to earn in obscurity his title to immortal fame by the composition of the faery queen. this great work appeared in , with a preface addressed to raleigh and a considerable apparatus of recommendatory poems; one of which, a sonnet of great elegance, is marked with initials which assign it to the same patronizing friend. the proceedings of the administration against papists accused of treasonable designs or practices, began about this time to excite considerable perturbation in the public mind; for though circumstances were brought to light which seemed to justify in some degree the worst suspicions entertained of this faction, a system of conduct on the part of the government also became apparent which no true englishman could without indignation and horror contemplate. the earl of leicester, besides partaking with the other confidential advisers of her majesty in the blame attached to the general character of the measures now pursued, lay under the popular imputation of making these acts of power subservient, in many atrocious instances, to his private purposes of rapacity or vengeance, and a cloud of odium was raised against him which the breath of his indulgent sovereign was in vain exerted to disperse. there was in warwickshire a catholic gentleman named somerville, a person of violent temper and somewhat disordered in mind, who had been worked up, by the instigations of one hall his confessor, to such a pitch of fanatical phrensy, that he set out for london with the fixed purpose of killing the queen; but falling furiously upon some of her protestant subjects by the way, he was apprehended, and readily confessed the object of his journey. being closely questioned, perhaps with torture, he is said to have dropped something which touched mr. arden his father-in-law; and hall on examination positively declared that this gentleman had been made privy to the bloody purpose of somerville. on this bare assertion of the priest, unconfirmed, as appears, by any collateral evidence, arden was indicted, found guilty, and underwent the whole sentence of the law. it happened to be publicly known that arden was the personal enemy of leicester, for he had refused to wear his livery;--a base kind of homage which was paid him without scruple, as it seems, by other neighbouring gentlemen;--and he was also in the habit of reproaching him with the murder of his first wife. the wife also of arden was the sister of sir nicholas throgmorton, whom leicester was vulgarly supposed to have poisoned, and of the chief justice of chester lately displaced. when therefore, in addition to these circumstances of suspicion, it was further observed that somerville, instead of being produced to deny or confirm on the scaffold the evidence which he was said to have given against arden, died strangled in prison, by his own hand as was affirmed;--when it was seen that hall, who was confessedly the instigator of the whole, and further obnoxious to the laws as a catholic priest, was quietly sent out of the kingdom by leicester's means, in spite of the opposition of sir christopher hatton;--and finally, when it appeared that the forfeited lands of arden went to enrich a creature of the same great man,--this victim of law was regarded as a martyr, and it was found impossible to tie up the tongues of men from crying shame and vengeance on his cruel and insidious destroyer. the plot thickened when francis throgmorton, son of the degraded judge of chester, was next singled out. some intercepted letters to the queen of scots formed the first ground of this gentleman's arrest; but being carried to the tower, he was there racked to extort further discoveries, and lord paget and charles arundel, a courtier, quitted the kingdom in haste as soon as they knew him to be in custody. after this many of the leading catholics fell into suspicion, particularly the earls of northumberland and arundel, who were ordered to confine themselves to their houses; lord william howard, brother to the latter nobleman, and his uncle lord henry howard, were likewise subjected to several long and rigorous examinations, but were dismissed at length on full proof of their perfect innocence. the confessions of throgmorton further implicated the spanish ambassador; who replied in so high a tone to the representations made him on the subject, that her majesty commanded him to quit the kingdom. francis throgmorton was condemned, and suffered as a traitor, and, it is probable, not undeservedly: there was reason also to believe that a dangerous activity was exercised by the queen of scots and her agents, and that the letters which she was continually finding means of conveying not only to the heads of the popish party, but to all whose connexions led her to imagine them in any degree favorable to the cause, had shaken the allegiance of numbers. on the other hand, the catholics complained, and certainly not without reason, of dark and detestable means employed by the ministry to betray and ensnare them. counterfeited letters, it seems, were often addressed to gentlemen of this persuasion, purporting to come either from the queen of scots or from certain english exiles, and soliciting concurrence in some scheme for her deliverance, or some design against the government. if the unwary receivers either answered the letters, or simply forbore to deliver them up to the secretary of state, their houses were entered; search was made for these papers by the emissaries of government, who were themselves the fabricators of them; the unfortunate owners were dragged to prison as suspected persons; and interrogated, and perhaps tortured, till they discovered all that they knew of the secrets of the party. spies were planted upon them, every unguarded word was caught up and interpreted in the worst sense, and false or frivolous accusations were greedily entertained. walsingham, next to leicester, bore the chief odium of these proceedings; but to him no corrupt motives or private ends ever appear to have been imputed in particular cases, though an anxiety to preserve his place, and to recommend himself to the queen his mistress by an extraordinary manifestation of care for her safety and zeal in her service, may not unfairly be supposed to have influenced the general character of his policy. the loud complaints of the catholics had excited so strong and so widely diffused a sentiment of compassion for them and indignation against their oppressors, that it was judged expedient to publish an apology for the measures of government, written either by lord burleigh himself or under his direction, which bore the title of "a declaration of the favorable dealing of her majesty's commissioners appointed for the examination of certain traitors, and of tortures unjustly reported to be done upon them for matters of religion." it thus begins: "good reader, although her majesty's most mild and gracious government be sufficient to defend itself against those most slanderous reports of heathenish and unnatural tyranny and cruel tortures pretended to have been exercised upon certain traitors who lately suffered for their treason, and others; as well as spread abroad by rungates, jesuits, and seminary men in their seditious books, letters and libels, in foreign countries and princes courts, as also intimated into the hearts of some of our own countrymen and her majesty's subjects.... i have conferred with a very honest gentleman whom i knew to have good and sufficient means to deliver the truth." &c. and the following are the heads of this "honest gentleman's" testimony. "it is affirmed for truth, and is offered upon due examination to be proved," "that the forms of torture in their severity or rigor of execution have not been such as is slanderously represented"... "that even the principal offender campion himself"... "before the conference had with him by learned men in the tower, wherein he was charitably used, was never so racked but that he was presently able to walk and to write, and did presently write and subscribe all his confessions." that briant, a man said to, have been reduced to such extremities of hunger and thirst in prison, that he ate the clay out of the walls and drank the droppings of the roof, was kept in that state by his own fault; for certain treasonable writings being found upon him, he was required to give a specimen of his handwriting; which refusing, he was told he should have no food till he wrote for what he wanted, and after fasting nearly two days and nights he complied. also, that both with respect to these two and others, it might be affirmed, that the warders, whose office it is to use the rack, "were ever by those that attended the examinations specially charged to use it in as charitable a manner as such a thing might be." secondly, that none of those catholics who have been racked during her majesty's reign were, "upon the rack or in any other torture," demanded of any points of faith and doctrine merely, "but only with what persons, at home or abroad, and touching what plots and practises they had dealt... about attempts against her majesty's estate or person, or to alter the laws of the realm for matters of religion, by treason or by force; and how they were persuaded themselves and did persuade others, touching the pope's pretence of authority to depose kings and princes; and namely for deprivation of her majesty, and to discharge subjects from their allegiance." &c. "thirdly, that none of them have been put to the rack or torture, no not for the matters of treason, or partnership of treason, or such like, but where it was first known and evidently probable, by former detections, confessions, and otherwise, that the party was guilty, and could deliver truth of the things wherewith he was charged; so as it was first assured that no innocent was at any time tormented, and the rack was never used to wring out confessions at adventure upon uncertainties." &c. "fourthly, that none of them hath been racked or tortured unless he had first said expressly, or amounting to as much, that he will not tell the truth though the queen did command him." &c. "fifthly, that the proceeding to torture was always so slowly, so unwillingly, and with so many preparations of persuasions to spare themselves, and so many means to let them know that the truth was by them to be uttered, both in duty to her majesty, and in wisdom for themselves, as whosoever was present at those actions must needs acknowledge in her majesty's ministers a full purpose to follow the example of her own gracious disposition."... "thus it appeareth, that albeit, by the more general laws of nations, torture hath been and is lawfully judged to be used in lesser cases, and in sharper manner, for inquisition of truth in crimes not so near extending to public danger as these ungracious persons have committed, whose conspiracies, and the particularities thereof, it did so much import and behove to have disclosed; yet even in that necessary use of such proceeding, enforced by the offenders notorious obstinacy, is nevertheless to be acknowledged the sweet temperature of her majesty's mild and gracious clemency, and their slanderous lewdness to be the more condemned, that have in favor of heinous malefactors and stubborn traitors spread untrue rumours and slanders, to make her merciful government disliked, under false pretence and rumors of sharpness and cruelty to those against whom nothing can be cruel, and yet upon whom nothing hath been done but gentle and merciful." this is a document which speaks sufficiently for itself. torture, in any shape, was even at this time absolutely contrary to the law of the land; and happily, there was enough of true english feeling in the country, even under the rule of a tudor, to render it expedient for elizabeth, soon after the exposition of these "favorable dealings" of her commissioners, to issue an order that no species of it should in future be applied to state-prisoners on any pretext whatsoever. parsons the jesuit, who had been fortunate enough to make his escape when his associate campion was apprehended, is believed to have been the papist who sought to avenge his party on its capital enemy by the composition of that virulent invective called "leicester's commonwealth:" a pamphlet which was printed in flanders in , and of which a vast number of copies were imported into england, where it obtained, from the color of the leaves and the supposed author, the familiar title of "father parsons' green-coat." in this work all the current stories against the unpopular favorite were collected and set forth as well attested facts; and they were related with that circumstantiality and minuteness of detail which are too apt to pass upon the common reader as the certain and authentic characters of truth. the success of this book was prodigious; it was read universally and with the utmost avidity. all who envied leicester's power and grandeur; all who had smarted under his insolence, or felt the gripe of his rapacity; all who had been scandalized, or wounded in family honor, by his unbridled licentiousness; all who still cherished in their hearts the image of the unfortunate duke of norfolk, whom he was believed to have entangled in a deadly snare; all who knew him for the foe and suspected him for the murderer of the gallant and lamented earl of essex;--finally, all, and they were nearly the whole of the nation, who looked upon him as a base and treacherous miscreant, shielded by the affection of his sovereign and wrapped in an impenetrable cloud of hypocrisy and artifice, who aimed in the dark his envenomed weapons against the bosom of innocence;--exulted in this exposure of his secret crimes, and eagerly received and propagated for truth even the grossest of the exaggerations and falsehoods with which the narrative was intermixed. elizabeth, incensed to the last degree at so furious an attack upon the man in whom her confidence was irremoveably fixed, caused her council to write letters to all persons in authority for the suppression of these books, and punishment of such as were concerned in their dispersion; adding at the same time the declaration, that her majesty "testified in her conscience before god, that she knew in assured certainty the books and libels against the earl to be most malicious, false and scandalous, and such as none but an incarnate devil himself could dream to be true." the letters further stated, that her majesty regarded this publication as an attempt to discredit her own government, "as though she should have failed in good judgement and discretion in the choice of so principal a councillor about her, or to be without taste or care of all justice or conscience, in suffering such heinous and monstrous crimes, as by the said books and libels be infamously imputed, to pass unpunished; or finally, at the least, to want either good will, ability or courage, if she knew these enormities were true, to call any subject of hers whatsoever to render sharp account of them, according to the force of her laws." the councillors in their own persons afterwards went on to declare, that they, "to do his lordship but right, of their sincere consciences must needs affirm these strange and abominable crimes to be raised of a wicked and venomous malice against the said earl, of whose good service, sincerity of religion, and all other faithful dealings towards her majesty and the realm, they had had long and true experience." these letters said too much; it was not credible that either her majesty or her privy-councillors should each individually know to be false all the imputations thrown upon leicester in the libels written against him; there was even good reason to believe that many of them were firmly believed to be well founded by several, and perhaps most, of the privy-councillors; at all events nothing like exculpatory evidence was brought, or attempted to be brought, on the subject, consequently no effect was produced on public opinion; the whole was regarded as an _ex-parte_ proceeding. philip sidney, who probably set out with a sincere disbelief of these shocking accusations brought against any uncle who had shown for him an affection next to parental, eagerly took up the pen in his defence. but the only point on which his refutation appears to have been triumphant, was unfortunately one of no moral moment,--the antiquity and nobility of the dudley family, falsely, as it seems, impugned by the libeller. some inconsistencies and contradictions he indeed pointed out in other matters; but, on the whole, the answer was miserably deficient in every thing but invective, of which there was far too much; and either from a gradual perception of the badness of his cause or the weakness of his performance, or perhaps for other reasons with which we are unacquainted, he abandoned his design; and the fragment never saw the light till the publication of the sidney papers about sixty years ago. but whatever might be the private judgements of men concerning the character and conduct of the earl of leicester; the support of the queen, and the strength of the party which the long possession of power, and a remarkable fidelity in the observance of his engagements towards his own adherents, had enabled him to form, effectually protected him from experiencing any decline of his political influence. of this a proof appeared soon after, when in consequence of further disclosures of the dangerous designs of the catholics, a form of association, by which the subscribers bound themselves to pursue, to the utmost of their power, even to the death, all who should attempt any thing against the queen in favor of any pretender to the crown, was drawn up by this nobleman and obtained the signatures of all orders of men. this was a measure which the queen of scots perceived to be aimed expressly against herself, and of which she sought to divert the ill effects by all the means still within her power. she desired to be one of the first to whom the association should be offered for subscription; and she begged that this act might form the basis of a treaty by which all differences between herself and elizabeth might be finally composed, and her long captivity exchanged at length, if not for absolute freedom, at least for a state of comparative independence under articles guarantied by the principal powers of europe. these articles, far different from the former claims of mary, appeared to walsingham so advantageous to his mistress, by the exemption which they seemed to promise her from future machinations on the part of the queen of scots, that he strenuously urged their acceptance; but it was in vain. mutual injuries, dissimulation on both sides, and causes of jealousy on the part of elizabeth from which all her advantages over her captive enemy had not served to set her free, now, as ever, opposed the conclusion of any terms of agreement; and the imprudent and violent conduct of mary served to confirm elizabeth in her unrelentingness. even while the terms were under discussion, a letter was intercepted addressed by the queen of scots to sir francis englefield, an english exile and pensioner in spain, in which she thus wrote: "of the treaty between the queen of england and me, i may neither hope nor look for good issue. whatsoever shall become of me, by whatsoever change of my state and condition, let the execution of the _great plot_ go forward, without any respect of peril or danger to me. for i will account my life very happily bestowed, if i may with the same help and relieve so great a number of the oppressed children of the church.... and further, i pray you, use all possible diligence and endeavour to pursue and promote, at the pope's and other kings' hand, such a speedy execution of their former designments, that the same may be effectuated sometime this next spring." &c. it must be confessed, that after such a letter mary had little right to complain of the failure of these negotiations. the countess of shrewsbury, now at open variance with her husband, had employed every art to infuse into the queen suspicions of a too great intimacy subsisting between the earl and his prisoner; and elizabeth, either from a jealousy which the long fidelity of shrewsbury to his arduous trust was unable to counteract, or, as was believed, at the instigation of some who meant further mischief to mary, ordered about this time her removal to the custody of sir amias paulet and sir drugo drury. this change filled the mind of the captive queen with terror, which prepared her to listen with avidity to any schemes, however desperate, for her own deliverance and the destruction of her enemy; and proved the prelude to that tragical castastrophe which was now advancing fast upon her. a violent quarrel between mary and the countess of shrewsbury had naturally resulted from the conduct of this furious woman; and mary, whose passions, whether fierce or tender, easily hurried her beyond the bounds of decency and of prudence, gratified her resentment at once against the countess and the queen by addressing to elizabeth a letter which could never be forgiven or forgotten. in this piece, much too gross for insertion in the present work, she professes to comply with the request of her royal sister, by acquainting her very exactly with all the evil of every kind that the countess of shrewsbury had ever spoken of her majesty in her hearing. she then proceeds to repeat or invent all that the most venomous malice could devise against the character of elizabeth: as, that she had conferred her favors on a nameless person (probably leicester) to whom she had promised marriage; on the duke of anjou, on simier, on hatton and others; that the latter was quite disgusted with her fondness; that she was generous to none but these favorites, &c. that her conceit of her beauty was such, that no flattery could be too gross for her to swallow; and that this folly was the theme of ridicule to all her courtiers, who would often pretend that their eyes were unable to sustain the radiance of her countenance,--a trait, by the way, which stands on other and better authority than this infamous letter. that her temper was so furious that it was dreadful to attend upon her;--that she had broken the finger of one lady, and afterwards pretended to the courtiers that it was done by the fall of a chandelier, and that she had cut another across the hand with a knife;--stories very probably not entirely unfounded in fact, since we find the earl of huntingdon complaining, in a letter still preserved in the british museum, that the queen, on some quarrel, had pinched his wife "very sorely." that she interfered in an arbitrary manner with the marriage of one of the countess of shrewsbury's daughters, and wanted to engross the disposal of all the heiresses in the kingdom;--in which charge there was also some truth. this insulting epistle concluded with assurances of the extreme anxiety of the writer to see a good understanding restored between herself and elizabeth. meantime, the most alarming manifestations of the inveterate hostility of the persecuted papists against the queen, continued to agitate the minds of a people who loved and honored her; and who anticipated with well founded horror the succession of another mary, which seemed inevitable in the event of her death. a book was written by a romish priest, exhorting the female attendants of her majesty to emulate the merit and glory of judith by inflicting on her the fate of holophernes. dr. allen, afterwards cardinal, published a work to justify and recommend the murder of a heretic prince; and by this piece a gentleman of the name of parry was confirmed, it is said, in the black design which he had several times revolved in his mind, but relinquished as often from misgivings of conscience. in the history of this person there are some circumstances very remarkable. he was a man of considerable learning, but, being vicious and needy, had some years before this time committed a robbery, for which he had received the royal pardon. afterwards he went abroad, and was reconciled to the romish church, though employed at the same time by the ministers of elizabeth to give intelligence respecting the english exiles, whom he often recommended to pardon or favor, and sometimes apparently with success. returning home, he gained access to the queen, who admitted him to several private interviews; and he afterwards declared, that fearing he might be tempted to put in act the bloody purpose which perpetually haunted his mind, he always left his dagger at home when he went to wait upon her. on these occasions he apprized her majesty of the existence of many designs against her life, and endeavoured, with great earnestness and plainness of speech, to convince her of the cruelty and impolicy of those laws against the papists which had rendered them her deadly foes: but finding his arguments thrown away upon the queen, he afterwards procured a seat in parliament, where he was the sole opponent of a severe act passed against the jesuits. on account of the freedom with which he expressed himself on this occasion, he was for a few days imprisoned. soon after a gentleman of the family of nevil, induced it is said by the hope of obtaining as his reward the honors and lands of the rebel earl of westmorland lately dead, disclosed to the government a plot for assassinating the queen, in which he affirmed that parry had engaged his concurrence. parry confessed in prison that he had long deliberated on the means of effectually serving his church, and it appeared that he had come to the decision that the assassination of the queen's greatest subject might be lawful: a letter was also found upon him from cardinal como, expressing approbation of some design which he had communicated to him. on this evidence he was capitally condemned; but to the last he strongly denied that the cardinal's letter, couched in general terms, referred to any attempt on the queen's person, or that he had ever entertained the design charged upon him. unlike all the other martyrs of popery at this time, he died,--not avowing and glorying in the crime charged upon him,--but earnestly protesting his innocence, his loyalty, his warm attachment to her majesty. an account of his life was published immediately afterwards by the queen's printer, written in a style of the utmost virulence, and filled with tales of his monstrous wickedness which have much the air of violent calumnies. parry was well known to lord burleigh, with whom he had corresponded for several years; and the circumstance of his being brought by him to the presence of the queen, proves that this minister was far from regarding him either as the low, the infamous, or the desperate wretch that he is here represented. that he had sometimes _imagined_ the death of the queen, he seems to have acknowledged; but most probably he had never so far conquered the dictates of loyalty and conscience as to have laid any plan for her destruction, or even to have resolved upon hazarding the attempt. the case therefore was one in which mercy and even justice seem to have required the remission of a harsh and hasty sentence; but the panic terror which had now seized the queen, the ministry, the parliament, and the nation, would have sufficed to overpower the pleadings of the generous virtues in hearts of nobler mould than those of elizabeth, of leicester, or of walsingham. nevil, the accuser of parry, far from gaining any reward, was detained prisoner in the tower certainly till the year , and whether he even then obtained his liberation does not appear. the severe enactments of the new parliament against papists, which included a total prohibition of every exercise of the rites of their religion, so affected the mind of philip howard earl of arundel, already exasperated by the personal hardships to which the suspicions of her majesty and the hostility of her ministers had exposed him, that he formed the resolution of banishing himself for ever from his native land. having secretly prepared every thing for his departure, he put his whole case upon record in a letter addressed to her majesty, and left behind at his house in london. this piece ought, as it appears, to have excited in the breast of his sovereign sentiments of regret and compunction rather than of indignation. the writer complains, that without any offence given on his part, or even objected against him by her majesty, he had long since fallen into her disfavor, as by her "bitter speeches" had become publicly known; so that he was generally accounted, "nay in a manner pointed at," as one whom her majesty least favored, and in most disgrace as a person whom she did deeply suspect and especially mislike." that after he had continued for some months under this cloud, he had been called sundry times by her command before the council, where charges had been brought against him, some of them ridiculously trifling, others incredible, all so untrue, that even his greatest enemies could not, after his answers were made, reproach him with any disloyal thought;--yet was he in the end ordered to keep his house. that his enemies still continued to pursue him with interrogatories, and continued his restraint; and that even after the last examination had failed to produce any thing against him, he was still kept fifteen weeks longer in the same state, though accused of nothing. that when, either his enemies being ashamed to pursue these proceedings further, or her majesty being prevailed upon by his friends to put an end to them, he had at length recovered his liberty, he had been led to meditate on the fates of his three unfortunate ancestors, all circumvented by their enemies, and two of them (the earl of surry his grandfather and the duke of norfolk his father) brought for slight causes to an untimely end. and having weighed their cases with what had just befallen himself, he concluded that it might well be his lot to succeed them in fortune as in place. his foes were strong to overthrow, he weak to defend himself, since innocence, he had found, was no protection; her majesty being "easily drawn to an ill opinion of" his "ancestry;" and moreover, he had been "charged by the council to be of the religion which was accounted odious and dangerous to her estate." "lastly," he adds, "but principally, i weighed in what miserable doubtful case my soul had remained if my life had been taken, as it was not unlikely, in my former troubles. for i protest, the greatest burden that rested on my conscience at that time was, because i had not lived according to the prescript rule of that which i undoubtedly believed." &c. the earl had actually embarked at a small port in sussex, when, his project having been betrayed to the government by the mercenary villany of the master of the vessel and of one of his own servants, orders were issued for his detention, and he was brought back in custody and committed to the tower. the letter just quoted was then produced against him; it was declared to reflect on the justice of the country; and for the double offence of having written it and of attempting to quit the kingdom without license, he underwent a long imprisonment, and was arbitrarily sentenced to a fine of one thousand pounds, which he proved his inability to pay. the barbarous tyranny which held his body in thraldom, served at the same time to rivet more strongly upon his mind the fetters of that stern superstition which had gained dominion over him. the more he endured for his religion, the more awful and important did it appear in his eyes; while in proportion to the severity and tediousness of his sufferings from without, the scenery within became continually more cheerless and terrific; and learning to dread in a future world the prolonged operation of that principle of cruelty under which he groaned in this, he sought to avert its everlasting action by practising upon himself the expiatory rigors of asceticism. the sequel of his melancholy history we shall have occasion to contemplate hereafter. thomas percy earl of northumberland, brother to that earl who had suffered death on account of the northern rebellion,--by his participation in which he had himself also incurred a fine, though afterwards remitted,--was naturally exposed at this juncture to vehement suspicions. after some examinations before the council, cause was found for his committal to the tower; and here, according to the iniquitous practice of the age, he remained for a considerable time without being brought to trial. at length the public was informed that another prisoner on a like account having been put to the torture to force disclosures, had revealed matters against the earl of northumberland amounting to treason, on which account he had thought fit to anticipate the sentence of the law by shooting himself through the heart. that the earl was really the author of his own death was indeed proved before a coroner's jury by abundant and unexceptionable testimony, as well as by his deliberate precautions for making his lands descend to his son, and his indignant declaration that the queen, on whom he bestowed a most opprobrious epithet, should never have his estate; though it may still bear a doubt whether a consciousness of guilt, despair of obtaining justice, or merely the misery of an indefinite captivity, were the motive of the rash act: but the catholics, actuated by the true spirit of party, added without scruple the death of this nobleman to the "foul and midnight murders" perpetrated within these gloomy walls. meantime the opposition to popery, which had now become the reigning principle of english policy, was to be maintained on other ground, and with other weapons than those with which an inquisitorial high-commission, or a fierce system of penal enactments, had armed the hands of religious intolerance, political jealousy, or private animosity; and all the more generous and adventurous spirits prepared with alacrity to draw the sword in the noble cause of belgian independence, against the united tyranny and bigotry of the detestable philip ii. the death of that patriot hero william prince of orange by the hand of a fanatical assassin, had plunged his country in distress and dismay, and the states-general had again made an earnest tender of their sovereignty to elizabeth. she once more declined it, from the same motives of caution and anxiety to avoid the imputation of ambitious encroachment on the rights of neighbouring princes, which had formerly determined her. but more than ever aware how closely her own safety and welfare were connected with the successful resistance of these provinces, she now consented to send over an army to their succour, and to grant them supplies of money; in consideration of which several cautionary towns were put into her hands. of these, flushing was one; and elizabeth gratified at once the protestant zeal of philip sidney and his aspirations after military glory, by appointing him its governor. it was in november that he took possession of his charge. meanwhile the earl of leicester, whose haughty and grasping spirit led him to covet distinction and authority in every line, was eagerly soliciting the supreme command of this important armament; and in spite of the general mediocrity of his talents and his very slight experience in the art of war, his partial mistress had the weakness to indulge him in this unreasonable and ill-advised pretension. the title of general of the queen's auxiliaries in holland was conferred upon him, and with it a command over the whole english navy paramount to that of the lord-high-admiral himself. he landed at flushing, and was received first by its governor and afterwards by the states of holland and zealand with the highest honors, and with the most magnificent festivities which it was in their power to exhibit. a splendid band of youthful nobility followed in his train:--the foremost of them all was his stepson robert earl of essex, now in his th year, who had already made his appearance at court, and experienced from her majesty a reception which clearly prognosticated, to such as were conversant in the ways of the court, the height of favor to which he was predestined. it was highly characteristic of the jealous haughtiness of elizabeth's temper, that the extraordinary honors lavished by the states upon leicester instantly awakened her utmost indignation. she regarded them as too high for any subject, even for him who enjoyed the first place in her royal favor, whom she had invested with an amplitude of authority quite unexampled, and who represented herself in the council of the states-general. she expressed her anger in a tone which made both leicester and the belgians tremble; and the explanations and humble submissions of both parties were found scarcely sufficient to appease her. at the same time, the incapacity and misconduct of leicester as a commander were daily becoming more conspicuous and offensive in the eyes of the dutch authorities; and the most serious evils would immediately have ensued, but for the prudence, the magnanimity, the conciliating behaviour, and the strenuous exertions, by which his admirable nephew labored unceasingly to remedy his vices and cover his deficiencies. the brilliant valor of the english troops, and particularly of the young nobility and gentry who led them on, was conspicuous in every encounter; but the want of a chief able to cope with that accomplished general the prince of parma, precluded them from effecting any important object. philip sidney distinguished himself by a well-conducted surprise of the town of axel, and received in reward among a number of others the honor of knighthood from the hands of his uncle. afterwards, having made an attack with the horse under his command on a reinforcement which the enemy was attempting to throw into zutphen, a hot action ensued, in which though the advantage remained with the english, it was dearly purchased by the blood of their gallant leader, who received a shot above the knee, which after sixteen days of acute suffering brought his valuable life to its termination. thus perished at the early age of thirty-two sir philip sidney, the pride and pattern of his time, the theme of song, the favorite of english story. the beautiful anecdote of his resigning to the dying soldier the draught of water with which he was about to quench his thirst as he rode faint and bleeding from the fatal field, is told to every child, and inspires a love and reverence for his name which never ceases to cling about the hearts of his countrymen. he is regarded as the most perfect example which english history affords of the _preux chevalier_; and is named in parallel with the spotless and fearless bayard the glory of frenchmen, whom he excelled in all the accomplishments of peace as much as the other exceeded him in the number and splendor of his military achievements. the demonstrations of grief for his loss, and the honors paid to his memory, went far beyond all former example, and appeared to exceed what belonged to a private citizen. the court went into mourning for him, and his remains received a magnificent funeral in st. paul's, the united provinces having in vain requested permission to inter him at their own expense, with the promise that he should have as fair a tomb as any prince in christendom. elizabeth always remembered him with affection and regret. cambridge and oxford published three volumes of "_lachrymæ_" on the melancholy event. spenser in verse, and camden in prose, commemorated and deplored their friend and patron. a crowd of humbler contemporaries pressed emulously forward to offer up their mite of panegyric and lamentation; and it would be endless to enumerate the poets and other writers of later times, who have celebrated in various forms the name of sidney. foreigners of the highest distinction claimed a share in the general sentiment. du plessis mornay condoled with walsingham on the loss of his incomparable son-in-law in terms of the deepest sorrow. count hohenlo passionately bewailed his friend and fellow-soldier, to whose representations and intercessions he had sacrificed his just indignation against the proceedings of leicester. even the hard heart of philip ii. was touched by the untimely fate of his godson, though slain in bearing arms against him. we are told that on the next tilt-day after the last wife of the earl of leicester had borne him a son, sidney appeared with a shield on which was the word "_speravi_" dashed through. this anecdote,--if indeed the allusion of the motto be rightly explained, which it is difficult to believe,--would serve to show how publicly he had been regarded, both by himself and others, as the heir of his all-powerful uncle. the death of this child, on which occasion adulatory verses were produced by the university of cambridge, restored sidney, the year before his death, to this brilliant expectancy; and it cannot reasonably be doubted, that the academic honors paid to his memory were, like the court-mourning, a homage to the power of the living rather than the virtues of the dead. but though he should be judged to have owed to his connexion with a royal favorite much of his contemporary celebrity, and even in some measure his enduring fame, no candid estimator will suffer himself to be hurried, under an idea of correcting the former partiality of fortune, into the clear injustice of denying to this accomplished character a just title to the esteem and admiration of posterity. on the contrary, it will be considered, that the very circumstances which rendered him so early conspicuous, would also expose him to the shafts of malice and envy; and that if his spirit had not been in reality noble, and his conduct irreproachable, it would have exceeded all the power of leicester to shield the reputation of his nephew against attacks similar to those from which he had found it impracticable to defend his own. philip sidney was educated, by the cares of a wise and excellent father, in the purest and most elevated moral principles and in the best learning of the age. a letter of advice addressed to him by this exemplary parent at the age of twelve, fully exemplifies both the laudable solicitude of sir henry respecting his future character, and the soundness of his views and maxims: in the character of his son, as advancing to manhood, he saw his hopes exceeded and his prayers fulfilled. nothing could be more correct than his conduct, more laudable than his pursuits, while on his travels; young as he was, he merited the friendship of hubert languet. he also gained just and high reputation for the manner in which he acquitted himself of an embassy to the protestant princes of germany, though somewhat of the ostentation and family pride of a dudley was apparent in the port which he thought it necessary to assume on the occasion. after his return, he commenced the life of a courtier; and that indiscriminate thirst for glory which was in some measure the foible of his character, led him into an ostentatious profusion, which, by involving his affairs, rendered it necessary for him to solicit the pecuniary favors of her majesty, and to earn them by some acts of adulation unworthy of his spirit: for all these, however, he made large amends by his noble letter against the french marriage. he afterwards took up, with a zeal and ability highly honorable to his heart and his head, the defence of his father, accused, but finally acquitted, of some stretches of power as lord-deputy of ireland. this business involved him in disputes with the earl of ormond, his father's enemy, who seems to have generously overlooked provocations which might have led to more serious consequences, in consideration of the filial feelings of his youthful adversary. these indications of a bold and forward spirit appear however to have somewhat injured him in the mind of her majesty; his advancement by no means kept pace either with his wishes or his wants; and a subsequent quarrel with the earl of oxford,--in which he refused to make the concessions required by the queen, reminding her at the same time that it had been her father's policy, and ought to be hers, rather to countenance the gentry against the arrogance of the great nobles than the contrary,--sent him in disgust from court. retiring to wilton, the seat of his brother-in-law the earl of pembroke, he composed the arcadia. this work he never revised or completed; it was published after his death, probably contrary to his orders; and it is of a kind long since obsolete. under all these disadvantages, however, though faulty in plan and as a whole tedious, this romance has been found to exhibit extensive learning, a poetical cast of imagination, nice discrimination of character, and, what is far more, a fervor of eloquence in the cause of virtue, a heroism of sentiment and purity of thought, which stamp it for the offspring of a noble mind,--which evince that the workman was superior to his work. but the world re-absorbed him; and baffled at court he meditated, in correspondence with one of his favorite mottoes,--"_aut viam inveniam aut faciam_,"--to join one of the almost piratical expeditions of drake against the spanish settlements. perhaps he might then be diverted from his design by the strong and kind warning of his true friend languet, "to beware lest the thirst of lucre should creep into a mind which had hitherto admitted nothing but the love of truth and an anxiety to deserve well of all men." after the death of this monitor, however, he engaged in a second scheme of this very questionable nature, and was only prevented from embarking by the arrival of the queen's peremptory orders for his return to court and that of fulke greville who accompanied him. it would certainly be difficult to defend in point of dignity and consistency his conspicuous appearance, as formerly recorded, at the triumph held in honor of the french embassy, or his attendance upon the duke of anjou on his return to the netherlands. the story of his nomination to the throne of poland deserves little regard; it is certain that such an elevation was never within his possibilities of attainment. his reputation on the continent was however extremely high; don john of austria himself esteemed him; the great prince of orange corresponded with him as a real friend; and du plessis mornay solicited his good offices on behalf of the french protestants. nothing but the highest praise is due to his conduct in holland; to the valor of a knight-errant he added the best virtues of a commander and counsellor. leicester himself apprehended that it would be scarcely possible for him to sustain his high post without the countenance and assistance of his beloved nephew; and the event showed that he was right. his death was worthy of the best parts of his life; he showed himself to the last devout, courageous, and serene. his wife, the beautiful daughter of walsingham; his brother robert, to whom he had performed the part rather of an anxious and indulgent parent than of a brother; and many sorrowing friends, surrounded his bed. their grief was beyond a doubt sincere and poignant, as well as that of the many persons of letters and of worth who gloried in his friendship and flourished by his bountiful patronage. on the whole, though justice claims the admission that the character of sidney was not entirely free from the faults most incident to his age and station, and that neither as a writer, a scholar, a soldier, or a statesman,--in all which characters during the course of his short life he appeared, and appeared with distinction,--is he yet entitled to the highest rank; it may however be firmly maintained that, as a _man_, an accomplished and high-souled man, he had among his contemporary countrymen neither equal nor competitor. such was the verdict in his own times not of flatterers only, or friends, but of england, of europe; such is the title of merit under which the historian may enroll him, with confidence and with complacency, among the illustrious few whose name and example still serve to kindle in the bosom of youth the animating glow of virtuous emulation. leicester never appears in an amiable light except in connexion with his nephew, for whom his affection was not only sincere but ardent. a few extracts from a letter written by him to sir thomas heneage, captain of the queen's guards, giving an account of the action in which sidney received his mortal wound, will illustrate this remark, while it records the gallant exploits of several of his companions in arms. after relating that sir philip had gone out with a party to intercept a convoy of the enemy's, he adds, "many of our horses were hurt and killed, among which was my nephew's own. he went and changed to another, and would needs to the charge again, and once passed those musqueteers, where he received a sore wound upon his thigh, three fingers above his knee, the bone broken quite in pieces; but for which chance, god did send such a day as i think was never many years seen, so few against so many." the earl then enumerates the other commanders and distinguished persons engaged in the action. colonel norris, the earl of essex, sir thomas perrot; "and my unfortunate philip, with sir william russell, and divers gentlemen; and not one hurt but only my nephew. they killed four of their enemy's chief leaders, and carried the valiant count hannibal gonzaga away with them upon a horse; also took captain george cressier, the principal soldier of the camp, and captain of all the albanese. my lord willoughby overthrew him at the first encounter, man and horse. the gentleman did acknowledge it himself. there is not a properer gentleman in the world towards than this lord willoughby is; but i can hardly praise one more than another, they all did so well; yet every one had his horse killed or hurt. and it was thought very strange that sir william stanley with three hundred of his men should pass, in spite of so many musquets, such troops of horse three several times, making them remove their ground, and to return with no more loss than he did. albeit, i must say it, it was too much loss for me; for this young man, he was my greatest comfort, next her majesty, of all the world; and if i could buy his life with all i have, to my shirt i would give it. how god will dispose of him i know not, but fear i must needs, greatly, the worst; the blow in so dangerous a place and so great; yet did i never hear of any man that did abide the dressing and setting of his bones better than he did; and he was carried afterwards in my barge to arnheim, and i hear this day, he is still of good heart, and comforteth all about him as much as may be. god of his mercy grant me his life! which i cannot but doubt of greatly. i was abroad that time in the field giving some order to supply that business, which did endure almost two hours in continual fight; and meeting philip coming upon his horseback, not a little to my grief. but i would you had stood by to hear his most loyal speeches to her majesty; his constant mind to the cause; his loving care over me, and his most resolute determination for death, not one jot appalled for his blow; which is the most grievous i ever saw with such a bullet; riding so a long mile and a half upon his horse, ere he came to the camp; not ceasing to speak still of her majesty, being glad if his hurt and death might any way honor her majesty; for hers he was whilst he lived, and god's he was sure to be if he died. prayed all men to think the cause was as well her majesty's as the country's; and not to be discouraged; for you have seen such success as may encourage us all; and this my hurt is the ordinance of god by the hap of the war. well, i pray god, if it be his will, save me his life; even as well for her majesty's service sake, as for mine own comfort[ ]." [note : "sidney papers."] sir henry sidney was spared the anguish of following such a son to the grave, having himself quitted the scene a few months before. it was in that he received orders to resign the government of ireland, having become obnoxious to the gentlemen of the english pale by his rigor in levying certain assessments for the maintenance of troops and the expenses of his own household, which they affirmed to be illegally imposed. there is every reason to believe that their complaint was well founded; but elizabeth, refusing as usual to allow her prerogative to be touched, imprisoned several irish lawyers, who came to england to appeal against the tax; and sir henry, being able to prove that he had royal warrant for what he had done, was finally exonerated by the privy-council from all the charges which had been preferred against him, and retained to the last his office of lord-president of wales. the sound judgement of sir henry sidney taught him, that his near connexion with the earl of leicester had its dangers as well as its advantages; and observing the turn for show and expense with which it served to inspire the younger members of his family, he would frequently enjoin them "to consider more whose sons than whose nephews they were." in fact, he was not able to lay up fortunes for them;--the offices he held were higher in dignity than emolument; his spirit was noble and munificent; and the following, among other anecdotes, may serve to show that he himself was not averse to a certain degree of parade; at least on particular occasions. the queen, standing once at a window of her palace at hampton-court, saw a gentleman approach escorted by two hundred attendants on horseback; and turning to her courtiers, she asked with some surprise, who this might be? but on being informed that it was sir henry sidney, her lord deputy of ireland and president of wales, she answered, "and he may well do it, for he has two of the best offices in my kingdom." the following letter, addressed to sir henry as lord-president of wales, discloses an additional trait of his character, which cannot fail to recommend him still more to the esteem of a humane and enlightened age;--his reluctance, namely, to lend his concurrence to the measures of religious persecution which the queen and her bishops now urged upon all persons in authority as their incumbent duty. * * * * * _sir francis walsingham to sir h. sidney lord president of wales_. "my very good lord; "my lords of late calling here to remembrance the commission that was more than a year ago given out to your lordship and certain others for the reformation of the recusants and obstinate persons in religion, within wales and the marches thereof, marvelled very much that in all this time they have heard of nothing done by you and the rest; and truly, my lord, the necessity of this time requiring so greatly to have these kind of men diligently and sharply proceeded against, there will here a very hard construction be made, i fear me, of you, to retain with you the said commission so long, doing no good therein. of late now i received your lordship's letter touching such persons as you think meet to have the custody and oversight of montgomery castle, by which it appeareth you have begun, in your present journeys in wales, to do somewhat in causes of religion; but having a special commission for that purpose, in which are named special and very apt persons to join with you in those matters, it will be thought strange to my lords to hear of your proceeding in those causes without their assistance; and therefore, to the end their lordships should conceive no otherwise than well of your dealing without them, i have forborne to acquaint them with our late letter, wishing your lordship, for the better handling and success of those matters in religion, you called unto you the bishop of worcester, mr. philips, and certain others specially named in the commission. they will, i am sure, be glad to wait on you in so good a service, and your proceeding together with them in these matters will be better allowed of here, &c. "p.s. your lordship had need to walk warily, for your doings are narrowly observed, and her majesty is apt to give ear to any that shall ill you. great hold is taken by your enemies for neglecting the execution of this commission. "oatlands, august th [ ]." [note : "sidney papers," vol. i. p. .] * * * * * leicester, soon after the death of his nephew, placed his army in winter-quarters, having effected no one object of importance. the states remonstrated with him in strong terms on the various and grievous abuses of his administration; he answered them in the tone of graciousness and conciliation which it suited his purpose to assume; and publicly surrendering up to them the whole apparent authority of the provinces, whilst by a secret act of restriction he in fact retained for himself full command over all the governors of towns and provinces, he set sail for england. elizabeth received her favorite with her usual complacency, either because his abject submissions had in reality succeeded in banishing from her mind all resentment of his conduct in holland, or because she required the support of his long-tried counsels under the awful responsibilities of that impending conflict with the whole collected force of the spanish monarchy for which she felt herself summoned to prepare. the king of denmark, astonished to behold a princess of elizabeth's experienced caution involving herself with seeming indifference in peril so great and so apparent, exclaimed, that she had now taken the diadem from her brow to place it on the doubtful cast of war; and trembling for the fate of his friend and ally, he dispatched an ambassador in haste to offer her his mediation for the adjustment of all differences arising out of the revolt of the netherlands. but elizabeth firmly, though with thanks, declined all overtures towards a reconciliation with a sovereign whom she now recognised as her implacable and determined foe. she was far, however, from despising the danger which she braved; and with a prudence and diligence equal to her fortitude, she had begun to assemble and put in action all her means, internal and external, of defence and annoyance. she linked herself still more closely, by benefits and promises, with the prince of condé, chief of the hugonots now in arms against the league, or catholic association, formed in france under the auspices of the king of spain. with the king of scots also she entered into an intimate alliance; and she had previously secured the friendship of all the protestant princes of germany and the northern powers of europe. she now openly avowed the enterprises of drake, which she had hitherto only encouraged underhand, or on certain pretexts of retaliation; and she sent him with a fleet of twenty-one ships, carrying above eleven thousand soldiers, to make war upon the spanish settlements in the west indies. but if all these measures seemed likely to afford her kingdom sufficient means of protection against the attacks of a foreign enemy, it was difficult for her to regard her own person as equally well secured against the dark conspiracies of her catholic subjects, instigated as they were by the sanguinary maxims of the romish see, fostered by the atrocious activity of the emissaries of philip, and sanctioned by the authority of the queen of scots, to whom homage was rendered by her party as rightful sovereign of the british isles. during the festival of easter , some english priests of the seminary at rheims had encouraged a fanatical soldier named savage to vow the death of the queen. about the same time ballard, also a priest of this seminary, was concerting in france, with mendoça and the fugitive lord paget, the means of procuring an invasion of the country during the absence of its best troops in flanders. repairing to england, ballard communicated both these schemes to anthony babington, a gentleman who had been gained over on a visit to france by the bishop of glasgow, mary's ambassador there, and whose vehement attachment to her cause had rendered him capable of any enterprise, however criminal or desperate, for her deliverance. babington entered into both plots with eagerness; but he suggested, that so essential a part of the action as the assassination of the queen ought not to be intrusted to one adventurer; and he lost no time in associating five others in the vow of savage, himself undertaking the part of setting free the captive mary. with her he had previously been in correspondence, having frequently taken the charge of transmitting to her by secret channels her letters from france; and he immediately imparted to her this new design for her restoration to liberty and advancement to the english throne. there is full evidence that mary approved it in all its parts; that in several successive letters she gave babington counsels or directions relative to its execution; and that she promised to the perpetrators of the murder of elizabeth every reward which it should hereafter be in her power to bestow. all this time the vigilant eye of walsingham was secretly fixed on the secure conspirators. he held a thread which vibrated to their every motion, and he was patiently awaiting the moment of their complete entanglement to spring forth and seize his victims. to the queen, and to her only, he communicated the daily intelligence which he received from a spy who had introduced himself into all their secrets; and elizabeth had the firmness to hasten nothing, though a picture was actually shown her, in which the six assassins had absurdly caused themselves to be represented with a motto underneath intimating their common design. these dreadful visages remained however so perfectly impressed on her memory, that she immediately recognised one of the conspirators who had approached very near her person as she was one day walking in her garden. she had the intrepidity to fix him with a look which daunted him; and afterwards, turning to her captain of the guards, she remarked that she was well guarded, not having a single armed man at the time about her. at length walsingham judged it time to interpose and rescue his sovereign from her perilous situation. ballard was first seized, and soon after babington and his associates. all, overcome by terror or allured by vain hopes, severally and voluntarily confessed their guilt and accused their accomplices. the nation was justly exasperated against the partakers in a plot which comprised foreign invasion, domestic insurrection, the assassination of a beloved sovereign, the elevation to the throne of her feared and hated rival, and the restoration of popery. the traitors suffered, notwithstanding the interest which the extreme youth and good moral characters of most or all of them were formed to inspire, amid the execrations of the protestant spectators. but what was to be the fate of that "pretender to the crown," on whose behalf and with whose privity this foul conspiracy had been entered into, and who was by the late statute, passed with a view to this very case, liable to condign punishment? this was now the important question which awaited the decision of elizabeth, and divided the judgements of her most confidential counsellors. some advised that the royal captive should be spared the ignominy of any public proceeding; but that her attendants should be removed, and her custody rendered so severe as to preclude all possibility of her renewing her pestilent intrigues. leicester, in conformity with the baseness and atrocity of his character, is related to have suggested the employment of treachery against the life of a prisoner whom it appeared equally dangerous to spare or to punish; and to have sent a divine to convince walsingham of the lawfulness of taking her off by poison. but that minister rejected the proposal with abhorrence, and concurred with the majority of the council in urging the queen to bring her without fear or scruple to an open trial. in favor of this measure elizabeth at length decided, and steps were taken accordingly. by means of well concerted precautions, mary had been kept in total ignorance of the apprehension of the conspirators, till their confessions had been made and their fates decided:--a gentleman was then sent to her from the court to announce that all was discovered. it was just as she had mounted her horse to take her usual exercise with her keepers, that this alarming message was delivered to her; and for obvious reasons she was compelled to proceed on her excursion, instead of returning, as she desired, to her chamber. meantime all her papers were seized, sealed up, and conveyed to the queen. amongst them were letters from a large proportion of the nobility and other leading characters of the english court, filled with expressions of attachment to the person of the queen of scots and sympathy in her misfortunes, not unmixed, in all probability, with severe reflections on the conduct of her rival and oppressor. all these elizabeth perused, and no doubt stored up in her memory; but her good sense and prudence supplied on this occasion the place of magnanimity; and well knowing that the conscious fears of the writers would be ample security for their future conduct, she buried in lasting silence and apparent oblivion all the discoveries which had reached her through this channel. the principal domestics of mary were now apprehended, and committed to different keepers; and nau and curl her two secretaries were sent prisoners to london. she herself was immediately removed from tutbury, and conveyed with a great attendance of the neighbouring gentry, and with pauses at several noblemen's houses by the way, to the strong castle of fotheringay in northamptonshire. this part of the business was safely and prudently conducted by sir amias paulet; and he received for his encouragement and reward the following characteristic letter, subscribed by the hand of her majesty, and surely of her own inditing. * * * * * "to my faithful amias. "amias, my most careful servant, god reward thee treble fold in the double for thy most troublesome charge so well discharged! if you knew, my amias, how kindly, besides dutifully, my grateful heart accepteth your double labors and faithful actions, your wise orders and safe conduct performed in so dangerous and crafty a charge, it would ease your troubles and rejoice your heart. and (which i charge you to carry this most just thought) that i cannot balance in any weight of my judgement the value i prize you at: and suppose no treasure to countervail such a faith: and condemn myself in that fault which i have committed, if i reward not such deserts. yea, let me lack when i have most need, if i acknowledge not such a merit with a reward '_non omnibus datum_.' "but let your wicked mistress know, how with hearty sorrow her vile deserts compel those orders; and bid her from me ask god forgiveness for her treacherous dealing toward the saver of her life many years, to the intolerable peril of her own. and yet, not content with so many forgivenesses, must fall again so horribly, far passing a woman, much more a princess. instead of excusing thereof, not one can serve, it being so plainly confessed by the authors of my guiltless death. "let repentance take place; and let not the fiend possess so as her best part be lost. which i pray, with hands lifted up to him that may both save and spill. with my loving adieu and prayer for thy long life, "your assured and loving sovereign in heart, by good desert induced, "eliz. r." * * * * * soon, after the arrival of mary at fotheringay, elizabeth, according to the provisions of the late act, issued out a commission to forty noblemen and privy-councillors, empowering them to try and pass sentence upon mary daughter and heir of king james v. and late queen of scots; for it was thus that she was designated, with a view of intimating to her that she was no longer to be regarded as possessing the rights of a sovereign princess. thirty-six of the commissioners repaired immediately to fotheringay, where they arrived on october th , and cited mary to appear before them. this summons she refused to obey, on the double ground, that as an absolute princess she was free from all human jurisdiction, since kings only could be her peers; and that having been detained in england as a prisoner, she had not enjoyed the protection of the laws, and consequently ought not in equity to be regarded as amenable to their sentence. weighty as these objections may appear, the commissioners refused to admit them, and declared that they would proceed to judge her by default. this menace she at first disregarded; but soon after, overcome by the artful representations of hatton on the inferences which must inevitably be drawn from her refusal to justify herself for the satisfaction of a princess who had declared that she desired nothing so much as the establishment of her innocence, she changed her mind and consented to plead. none of her papers were restored, no counsel was assigned her; and her request that her two secretaries, whose evidence was princicipally relied on by the prosecutors, might be confronted with her, was denied. but all these were hardships customarily inflicted on prisoners accused of high treason and it does not appear that, with respect to its forms and modes of proceedings, mary had cause to complain that her trial was other than a regular and legal one. on her first appearance she renewed her protestation against the competence of the tribunal. bromley lord-chancellor answered her, showing the jurisdiction of the english law over all persons within the country; and the commissioners ordered both the objection and the reply to be registered, as if to save the point of law; but it does not appear that it was ever referred for decision to any other authority. intercepted letters, authenticated by the testimony of her secretaries, formed the chief evidence against mary. from these the crown lawyers showed, and she did not attempt to deny, that she had suffered her correspondents to address her as queen of england; that she had endeavoured by means of english fugitives to incite the spaniards to invade the country; and that she had been negotiating at rome the terms of a transfer of all her claims, present and future, to the king of spain, disinheriting by this unnatural act her own schismatic son. the further charge of having concurred in the late plot for the assassination of elizabeth, she strongly denied and attempted to disprove; but it stood on equally good evidence with all the rest; and in spite of some suggestions of which her modern partisans have endeavoured to give her the benefit, there appears no solid foundation on which an impartial inquirer can rest any doubt of the fact. the deportment of mary on this trying emergency exhibited somewhat of the dignity, but more of the spirit and adroitness, for which she has been famed. she justified her negotiations, or intrigues, with foreign princes, on the ground of her inalienable right to employ all the means within her power for the recovery of that liberty of which she had been cruelly and unjustly deprived. with great effrontery she persisted in denying that she had ever entertained with babington any correspondence whatever; and she urged that his pretending to receive, or having in fact received, letters written in her cipher, was no conclusive proof against her; since it was the same which she used in her french correspondence, and might have fallen into other hands. but finding herself hard pressed by evidence on this part of the subject, she afterwards hazarded a rash attempt to fix on walsingham the imputation of having suborned witnesses and forged letters for her destruction. the aged minister, greatly moved by this attack upon his character, immediately rose and asserted his innocence in a manner so solemn, and with such circumstantial corroboration, as compelled her to retract the accusation with an apology. on some mention of the earl of arundel and lord william howard his brother, which occurred in the intercepted letters, she sighed, and exclaimed with a feeling which did her honor, "alas, what has not the noble house of howard suffered for my sake!" on the whole, her presence of mind was remarkable; though the quick sensibilities of her nature could not be withheld from breaking out at times, either in vehement sallies of anger or long fits of weeping, as the sense of past and present injuries, or of her forlorn and afflicted state and the perils and sufferings which still menaced her, rose by turns upon her agitated and affrighted mind. the commissioners, after a full hearing, of the cause, quitted fotheringay, and, meeting again in the star-chamber summoned before them the two secretaries, who voluntarily confirmed on oath the whole of their former depositions: after this, they proceeded to an unanimous sentence of death against mary, which was immediately transmitted to the queen for her approbation. on the same day a declaration was published on the part of the commissioners and judges, importing, that the sentence did in no manner derogate from the titles and honors of the king of scots. most of the subsequent steps taken by elizabeth in this unhappy business are marked with the features of that intense selfishness which, scrupling nothing for the attainment of its own mean objects, seldom fails by exaggerated efforts and overstrained manoeuvres to expose itself to detection and merited contempt. never had she enjoyed a higher degree of popularity than at this juncture: the late discoveries had opened to view a series of popish machinations which had fully justified, in the eyes of an alarmed and irritated people, even those previous measures of severity on the part of her government which had most contributed to provoke these attempts. the queen was more than ever the heroine of the protestant party; and the image of those imminent and hourly perils to which her zeal in the good cause had exposed her, inflamed to enthusiasm the sentiment of loyalty. on occasion of the detection of babington's plot, the whole people gave themselves up to rejoicings. sixty bonfires, says the chronicler, were kindled between ludgate and charing-cross, and tables were set out in the open streets at which happy neighbours feasted together. the condemnation of the queen of scots produced similar demonstrations. after her sentence had been ratified by both houses of parliament, it was thought expedient, probably by way of feeling the pulse of the people, that solemn proclamation of it should be made in london by the lord-mayor and city officers, and by the magistrates of the county in westminster. the multitude, untouched by the long misfortunes of an unhappy princess born of the blood-royal of england and heiress to its throne,--insensible too of every thing arbitrary, unprecedented, or unjust, in the treatment to which she had been subjected, received the notification of her doom with expressions of triumph and exultation truly shocking. bonfires were lighted, church bells were rung, and every street and lane throughout the city resounded with psalms of thanksgiving[ ]. [note : hollinshed's castrations.] it is manifest, therefore, that no deference for the opinions or feelings of her subjects compelled elizabeth to hesitate or to dissemble in this matter. had she permitted the execution of the sentence simply, and without delay, all orders of men attached to the protestant establishment would have approved it as an act fully justified by state-expediency and the law of self-defence; and though misgivings might have arisen in the minds of some on cooler reflection, when alarm had subsided and the bitterness of satiated revenge had begun to make itself felt,--these "compunctious visitings" could have led to no consequences capable of alarming her. it must have been felt as highly inequitable to reproach the queen, when all was past and irrevocable, for the consent which she had afforded to a deed sanctioned by a law, ratified by the legislature and applauded by the people, and from which both church and state had reaped the fruits of security and peace. foreign princes also would have respected the vigor of this proceeding; they would not have been displeased to see themselves spared by a decisive act the pain of making disregarded representations on such a subject; and a secret consciousness that few of their number would have scrupled under all the circumstances to take like vengeance on a deadly foe and rival, might further have contributed to reconcile them to the fact. even as it was, pope sixtus v. himself could scarcely restrain his expressions of admiration at the completion of so strong a measure as the final execution of the sentence: his holiness had indeed a strange passion for capital punishments, and he is said to have envied the queen of england the glorious satisfaction of cutting off a royal head:--a sentiment not much more extraordinary from such a personage, than the ardent desire which he is reported to have expressed, that it were possible for him to have a son by this heretic princess; because the offspring of such parents could not fail, he said, to make himself king of the world. but it was the weakness of elizabeth to imagine, that an extraordinary parade of reluctance, and the interposition of some affected delays, would change in public opinion the whole character of the deed which she contemplated, and preserve to her the reputation of feminine mildness and sensibility, without the sacrifice of that great revenge on which she was secretly bent. the world, however, when it has no interest in deceiving itself, is too wise to accept of words instead of deeds, or in opposition to them; and the sole result of her artifices was to aggravate in the eyes of all mankind the criminality of the act, by giving it rather the air of a treacherous and cold-blooded murder, than of solemn execution done upon a formidable culprit by the sentence of offended laws. the parliament which elizabeth had summoned to partake the odium of mary's death, met four days after the judges had pronounced her doom, and was opened by commission. an unanimous ratification of the sentence by both houses was immediately carried, and followed by an earnest address to her majesty for its publication and execution; to which she returned a long and labored answer. she began with the expression of her fervent gratitude to providence for the affections of her people; adding protestations of her love towards them, and of her perfect willingness to have suffered her own life still to remain exposed as a mark to the aim of enemies and traitors, had she not perceived how intimately the safety and well-being of the nation was connected with her own. with regard to the queen of scots, she said, so severe had been the grief which she had sustained from her recent conduct, that the fear of renewing this sentiment had been the cause, and the sole cause, of her withholding her personal appearance at the opening of that assembly, where she knew that the subject must of necessity become matter of discussion; and not, as had been suggested, the apprehension of any violence to be attempted against her person;--yet she might mention, that she had actually seen a bond by which the subscribers bound themselves to procure her death within a month. so far was she from indulging any ill will against one of the same sex, the same rank, the same race as herself,--in fact her nearest kinswoman,--that after having received full information of certain of her machinations, she had secretly written with her own hand to the queen of scots, promising that, on a simple confession of her guilt in a private letter to herself, all should be buried in oblivion. she doubted not that the ancient laws of the land would have been sufficient to reach the guilt of her who had been the great artificer of the recent treasons; and she had consented to the passing of the late statute, not for the purpose of ensnaring her, but rather to give her warning of the danger in which she stood. her lawyers, from their strict attachment to ancient forms, would have brought this princess to trial within the county of stafford, have compelled her to hold up her hand at the bar, and have caused twelve jurymen to pass judgement upon her. but to her it had appeared more suitable to the dignity of the prisoner and the importance of the cause to refer the examination to the judges, nobles, and counsellors of the realm;--happy if even thus she could escape that ready censure to which the conspicuous station of sovereigns on all occasions exposed them. the statute, by requiring her to pronounce judgement upon her kinswoman, had involved her in anxiety and difficulties. amid all her perils, however, she must remember with gratitude and affection the voluntary association into which her subjects had entered for her defence. it was never her practice to decide hastily on any matter; in a case so rare and important some interval of deliberation must be allowed her; and she would pray heaven to enlighten her mind, and guide it to the decision most beneficial to the church, to the state, and to the people. twelve days after the delivery of this speech, her majesty sent a message to both houses, entreating that her parliament would carefully reconsider the matter, and endeavour to hit upon some device by which the life of the queen of scots might be rendered consistent with her own safety and that of the country. her faithful parliament, however, soon after acquainted her, that with their utmost diligence they had found it impracticable to form any satisfactory plan of the kind she desired; and the speakers of the two houses ended a long representation of the mischiefs to be expected from any arrangement by which mary would be suffered to continue in life, with a most earnest and humble petition, that her majesty would not longer deny to the united wishes and entreaties of all england, what it would be iniquitous to refuse to the meanest individual; the execution of justice. elizabeth, after pronouncing a second long harangue designed to display her own clemency, to upbraid the malice of her libellers, and to refute the suspicion, which her conscience no doubt helped her to anticipate, that all this irresolution was but feigned, and that the decisions of the two houses were influenced by a secret acquaintance with her wishes,--again dismissed their petitions without any positive answer. soon after, however, she permitted herself to authorize the proclamation of the sentence, and sent lord buckhurst, and beal clerk of the council, to announce it to mary herself. during the whole of this time, the kings of france and of scotland were interceding by their ambassadors for the pardon of the illustrious prisoner. how the representations of henry iii. were received, we do not find minutely recorded; but elizabeth knew that they might be safely disregarded: that monarch was himself too much a sufferer by the arrogance and ambition of the house of guise, to be very strenuous in his friendship towards any one so nearly connected with it; and it is even said that, while a sense of decorum extorted from him in public some energetic expressions of the interest taken by him in the fate of a sister-in-law and queen-dowager of france, a sentiment of regard for elizabeth, his friend and ally, prompted him to counsel her, through a secret agent, to execute the sentence with the least possible delay. of the treatment experienced by the master of gray, the envoy of james, we gain some particulars from an original memorial drawn up by himself. he appears to have reached ware on december th, whence he sent to desire keith and douglas, the resident scotch ambassadors, to announce to the queen his approach; and she voluntarily promised that the life of mary should be spared till his proposals were heard. his reception in london was somewhat ungracious;--no one was sent to welcome or convoy him, and it was ten days before he and sir robert melvil his coadjutor were admitted to an audience. elizabeth's first address to them was, "a thing long looked for should be welcome when it comes; i would now see your master's offers." gray desired first to be assured that the cause for which those offers were made was "still extant;" that is, that the life of mary was still safe, and should be so till their mission had been heard. she answered, "i think it be extant yet, but i will not promise for an hour." they then brought forward certain proposals, not here recited, which she rejected with contempt; and calling in leicester, the lord-admiral, and hatton, "very despitefully" repeated them in hearing of them all. gray then propounded his last offer:--that the queen of scots should resign all her claims upon the english succession to her son, by which means the hopes of the papists would, as he said, be cut off. the terms in which this overture was made elizabeth affected not to understand; leicester explained their meaning to be, that the king of scots should be put in his mother's place. "is it so?" the queen answered; "then i put myself in a worse case than before:--by god's passion, that were to cut my own throat; and for a duchy or an earldom to yourself, you, or such as you, would cause some of your desperate knaves to kill me. no, by god, he shall never be in that place!" gray answered, "he craves nothing of your majesty, but only of his mother." "that," said leicester, "were to make him _party_ (rival or adversary) to the queen my mistress." "he will be far more party," replied gray, "if he be in her place through her death." her majesty exclaimed, that she should not have a worse in his mother's place, and added; "tell your king what good i have done for him in holding the crown on his head since he was born, and that i _mind_ (intend) to keep the league that now stands between us, and if he break it, it shall be a double fault." with this speech she would have left them; but they persisted in arguing the matter further, though in vain. gray then requested that mary's life might be spared for fifteen days; the queen refused: sir robert melvil begged for only eight days; she said not for an hour, and so quitted them. after this, the scotch ambassadors assumed a tone of menace: but the perfidious gray secretly fortified elizabeth's resolution with the proverb, "the dead cannot bite;" and undertook soon to pacify, in any event, the anger of his master, whose minion he at this time was. no sooner had elizabeth silenced with this show of inflexibility all the pleadings or menaces by which others had attempted to divert her from her fatal aim, than she began, as in the affair of the french marriage, to feel her own resolution waver. it appears unquestionable that to affected delays a real hesitation succeeded. when her pride was no longer irritated by opposition, she had leisure to survey the meditated deed in every light; and as it rose upon her view in all its native deformity, anxious fears for her own fame and credit, yet untainted by any crime, and perhaps genuine scruples of conscience, forcibly assailed her resolution. but her ministers, deeply sensible that both she and they had already gone too far to recede with reputation or with safety, encountered her growing reluctance with a proportional increase in the vehemence of their clamors for what they called, and perhaps thought, justice. all the hazards to which her excess of clemency might be imagined to expose her, were conjured up in the most alarming forms to repel her scruples. a plot for her assassination was disclosed, to which the french ambassador was ascertained to have been privy;--rumors were raised of invasions and insurrections; and it may be suspected that the queen, really alarmed in the first instance by the representations of her council, voluntarily contributed afterwards to keep up these delusions for the sake of terrifying the minds of men into an approval of the deed of blood. at length, on february st , her majesty ordered secretary davison to bring her the warrant, which had remained ready drawn in his hands for some weeks; and having signed it, she told him to get it sealed with the great seal, and in his way to call on walsingham and tell him what she had done; "though," she added smiling, "i fear he will die of grief when he hears of it;"--this minister being then sick. davison obeyed her directions, and the warrant was sealed. the next day he received a message from her, purporting that he should forbear to carry the warrant to the lord keeper till further orders. surprised and perplexed, he immediately waited upon her to receive her further directions; when she chid him for the haste he had used in this matter, and talked in a fluctuating and undetermined manner respecting it which greatly alarmed him. on leaving the queen, he immediately communicated the circumstances to burleigh and hatton; and thinking it safest for himself to rid his hands of the warrant, he delivered it up to burleigh, by whom it had been drawn and from whom he had at first received it. a council was now called, consisting of such of the ministers as either the queen herself or davison had made acquainted with the signing of the warrant; and it was proposed that, without any further communication with her majesty, it should be sent down for immediate execution to the four earls to whom it was directed. davison appears to have expressed some fears that he should be made to bear the blame of this step; but all his fellow-councillors then present joined to assure him that they would share the responsibility: it was also said, that her majesty had desired of several that she might not be troubled respecting any of the particulars of the last dismal scene; consequently it was impossible that she could complain of their proceeding without her privity. by these arguments davison was seduced to give his concurrence; and beal, a person noted for the vehemence of his attachment to the protestant cause and to the title of the countess of hertford, was dispatched with the instrument; in obedience to which mary underwent the fatal stroke on february th. the news of this event was received by elizabeth with the most extraordinary demonstrations of astonishment, grief, and anger. her countenance changed, her voice faltered, and she remained for some moments fixed and motionless; a violent burst of tears and lamentations succeeded, with which she mingled expressions of rage against her whole council. they had committed, she said, a crime never to be forgiven; they had put to death without her knowledge her dear kinswoman and sister, against whom they well knew that it was her fixed resolution never to proceed to this fatal extremity. she put on deep mourning, kept herself retired among her ladies abandoned to sighs and tears, and drove from her presence with the most furious reproaches such of her ministers as ventured to approach her. she caused several of the councillors to be examined as to the share which they had taken in this transaction. burleigh was of the number; and against him she expressed herself with such peculiar bitterness that he gave himself up for lost, and begged permission to retire with the loss of all his employments. this resignation was not accepted; and after a considerable interval, during which this great minister deprecated the wrath of his sovereign in letters of penitence and submission worthy only of an oriental slave, she condescended to be reconciled to a man whose services she felt to be indispensable. but the manes of mary, or the indignation of her son, could not be appeased, it seems, without a sacrifice; and a fit victim was at hand. from some words dropped by lord burleigh on his examination, it had appeared that it was the declaration of davison respecting the sentiments of the queen, as expressed to himself, which had finally decided the council to send down the warrant; and on this ground proceedings were instituted against the unfortunate secretary. he was stripped of his office, sent to the tower in spite of the warm and honest remonstrances of burleigh, and after several examinations subjected to a process in the star-chamber for a twofold contempt. first, in revealing her majesty's counsels to others of her ministers;--secondly, in giving up to them an instrument which she had committed to him in special trust and secrecy, to be kept in case of any sudden emergency which might require its use. davison demanded that his own examination, which with that of burleigh formed the whole evidence against him, should be read entire, instead of being picked and garbled by the crown lawyers; but this piece of justice the queen's counsel refused him, on the ground that they contained matter unfit to be divulged. he was found guilty, and sentenced to a fine of ten thousand marks and imprisonment during the queen's pleasure, by judges who at the same time expressed a high opinion both of his abilities and his integrity, and who certainly regarded his offence as nothing more than an error of judgement or want of due caution. elizabeth ordered a copy of his sentence to be immediately transmitted to the king of scots, as triumphant evidence of that perfect innocence in the tragical _accident_ of his mother's death, of which she had already made solemn protestation. james complied so far with obvious motives of policy as to accept her excuses without much inquiry; but impartial posterity will not be disposed to dismiss so easily an important and curious investigation which it possesses abundant means of pursuing. the record of burleigh's examination is still extant, and so likewise is davison's apology; a piece which was composed by himself at the time and addressed to walsingham, who could best judge of its accuracy; and which after being communicated to camden, who has inserted an extract from it in his annals, has at length been found entire among the original papers of sir amias paulet. from this authentic source we derive the following very extraordinary particulars. it was by the lord-admiral that the queen first sent a message to davison requiring him to bring the warrant for her signature; after subscribing it, she asked him if he were not heartily sorry it were done? to which he replied by a moderate and cautious approval of the act. she bade him tell the chancellor when he carried the warrant to be sealed, that he must "use it as secretly as might be." she then signed other papers which he had brought; dispatching them all "with the best disposition and willingness that could be." afterwards she recurred to the subject; mentioned that she had delayed the act so long that the world might see "that she had not been violently or maliciously drawn unto it;" but that she had all along perceived the necessity of it to her own security. she then said, that she would have it done as secretly as might be, and not in the open court or green of the castle, but in the hall. just as davison was gathering up his papers to depart, "she fell into some complaint of sir amias paulet and others that might have eased her of this burthen;" and she desired that he would yet "deal with secretary walsingham to write jointly to sir amias and sir drue drury to sound them in this matter; "aiming still at this, that it might be so done as the blame might be removed from herself." this nefarious commission davison strangely consented to execute, though he declares that he had always before refused to meddle therein "upon sundry of her majesty's motions,"--as a thing which he utterly disapproved; and though he was fully persuaded that the wisdom and integrity of sir amias would render the application fruitless. the queen repeated her injunctions of secrecy in the matter, and he departed. he went to walsingham, told him that the warrant was signed for executing the sentence against the queen of scots; agreed with him at the same time about the letter to be written to sir amias for her private assassination;--then got the warrant sealed, then dispatched the letter. the next morning, the queen sent him word to forbear going to the chancellor till she had spoken with him again. he went directly to acquaint her that he had already seen him. she asked, "what needed such haste?" he pleaded her commands, and the danger of delay. the queen particularized some other form in which she thought it would be safer and better for her to have the thing done. davison answered, that the just and honorable way would, he thought, be the safest and the best, if she meant to have it done at all. the queen made no reply, but went to dinner.--it appears from another statement of davison's case, also drawn up by himself, that it was on this very day, without waiting either for paulet's answer or for more explicit orders from her majesty, that he had the incredible rashness to deliver up the warrant to burleigh, and to concur in the subsequent proceedings of the council; though aware that the members were utterly ignorant of the queen's application to paulet. a day or two after, her majesty called him to her in the privy chamber, and told him smiling, that she had been troubled with him in a dream which she had had the night before, that the queen of scots was put to death; and which so disturbed her, that she thought she could have run him through with a sword. he answered at first jestingly, but, on recollection, asked her with great earnestness, whether she did not intend that the matter should go forward? she answered vehemently and with an oath, that she did; but again harped upon the old string;--that this mode would cast all the blame upon herself, and a better might be contrived. the same afternoon she inquired if he had received an answer from sir amias; which at the time he had not, but he brought it to her the next morning. it contained an absolute refusal to be concerned in any action inconsistent with justice and honor. at this the queen was much offended; she complained of what she called the "dainty perjury" of him and others, who contrary to their oath of association cast the burthen upon herself. soon after, she again blamed "the niceness of these precise fellows;" but said she would have the thing done without them, and mentioned one wingfield who would undertake it. davison remonstrated against this design; and also represented the dangerous dilemma in which paulet and drury would have been placed by complying with her wishes; since, if she avowed their act, she took it upon herself, "with her infinite dishonor;" if she disavowed it, they were ruined. it is absolutely inconceivable how a man who understood so well the perils which these persons had skilfully avoided, should have remained so blind to those which menaced himself; yet davison, by his own account, still suffered the queen to go on devising new schemes for the taking off of mary, without either acquainting her that the privy-council had already sent off beal with the warrant, or interfering with them to procure, if possible, the recall of this messenger of death. even on his next interview with her, which he believes to have been on tuesday, the very day before the execution of the sentence, when her majesty, after speaking of the daily peril in which she lived, swore a great oath, that it was a shame for them all that the thing was not yet done, and spoke to him to write a letter to paulet for the dispatch of the business; he contented himself with observing generally, that the warrant was, he thought, sufficient; and though the queen still inclined to think the letter requisite, he left her without even dropping a hint that it was scarcely within the limits of possibility that it should arrive before the sentence had been put in execution. of this unaccountable imprudence the utmost advantage was taken against him by his cruel and crafty mistress; whose chief concern it had all along been to discover by what artifice she might throw the greatest possible portion of the blame from herself upon others. davison underwent a long imprisonment; the fine, though it reduced him to beggary, was rigorously exacted; some scanty supplies for the relief of his immediate necessities, while in prison, were all that her majesty would vouchsafe him; and neither the zealous attestations of burleigh in the beginning to his merit and abilities and the importance of his public services, nor the subsequent earnest pleadings of her own beloved essex for his restoration, could ever prevail with elizabeth to lay aside the appearances of perpetual resentment which she thought good to preserve against him. she would neither reinstate him in office nor ever more admit him to her presence; unable perhaps to bear the pain of beholding a countenance which carried with it an everlasting reproach to her conscience. from the formidable responsibilities of this unprecedented action, the wary walsingham had withdrawn himself by favor of an opportune fit of sickness, which disabled him from taking part in any thing but the application to sir amias paulet, by which he could incur, as he well knew, no hazard. a still more crafty politician, leicester, after throwing out in the privy-council hints of her majesty's wishes, which served to accelerate the decisive steps there taken, had artfully contrived to escape from all further participation in their proceedings. both ministers, in secret letters to scotland, washed their hands of the blood of mary. but leicester, not content with these defensive measures, sought to improve the opportunity to the destruction of a rival whom he had never ceased to hate and envy. to his insidious arts the temporary disgrace of burleigh is probably to be imputed; and it seems to have been from the apprehension of his malignant misconstructions that the lord treasurer refused to put on paper the particulars of his defence, and never ceased to implore admission to plead his cause before his sovereign in person. his perseverance at length prevailed: the queen saw him; heard his justification, and restored him to her wonted grace; after which the tacit compromise between the minister and the favorite was restored;--that compromise by which, during eight-and-twenty years, each had vindicated to himself an equality of political power, personal influence, and royal favor, with the secret enemy whom he vainly wished, or hoped, or plotted, to displace. to relate again those melancholy details of mary's closing scene, on which the historians of england and of scotland, as well as the numerous biographers of this ill-fated princess, have exhausted all the arts of eloquence, would be equally needless and presumptuous. it is, however, important to remark, that she died rather with the triumphant air of a martyr to her religion, the character which she falsely assumed, than with the meekness of a victim or the penitence of a culprit. she bade melvil tell her son that she had done nothing injurious to his rights or honor; though she was actually in treaty to disinherit him, and had also consented to a nefarious plot for carrying him off prisoner to rome; and she denied with obstinacy to the last the charge of conspiring the death of elizabeth, though by her will, written the day before her death, she rewarded as faithful servants the two secretaries who had borne this testimony against her. a spirit of self-justification so haughty and so unprincipled, a perseverance in deliberate falsehood so resolute and so shameless, ought under no circumstances and in no personage, not even in a captive beauty and an injured queen, to be confounded, by any writer studious of the moral tendencies of history and capable of sound discrimination, with genuine religion, true fortitude, or the dignity which renders misfortune respectable. let due censure be passed on the infringement of morality committed by elizabeth, in detaining as a captive that rival kinswoman, and pretender to her crown, whom the dread of still more formidable dangers had compelled to seek refuge in her dominions: let it be admitted, that the exercise of criminal jurisdiction over a person thus lawlessly detained in a foreign country was another sacrifice of the just to the expedient, which none but a profligate politician will venture to defend; and let the efforts of mary to procure her own liberty, though with the destruction of her enemy and at the cost of a civil war to england, be held, if religion will permit, justifiable or venial;--but let not our resentment of the wrongs, or compassion for the long misfortunes, of this unhappy woman betray us into a blind concurrence in eulogiums lavished, by prejudice or weakness, on a character blemished by many foibles, stained by some enormous crimes, and never under the guidance of the genuine principles of moral rectitude. chapter xxi. and . small political effect of the death of mary.--warlike preparations of spain destroyed by drake.--case of lord beauchamp.--death and character of the duchess of somerset.--hatton appointed chancellor.--leicester returns to holland--is again recalled.--disgrace of lord buckhurst.--rupture with spain.--preparations against the armada.--notices of the earls of cumberland and northumberland--t. and r. cecil--earl of oxford--sir c. blount--w. raleigh--lord howard of effingham--hawkins--frobisher--drake.--leicester appointed general.--queen at tilbury.--defeat of the armada.--introduction of newspapers.--death of leicester. it is well deserving of remark, that the strongest and most extraordinary act of the whole administration of elizabeth,--that which brought the blood of a sister-queen upon her head and indelible reproach upon her memory,--appears to have been productive of scarcely any assignable political effect. it changed her relations with no foreign power, it altered very little the state of parties at home, it recommended no new adviser to her favor, it occasioned the displacement of davison alone. she may appear, it is true, to have obtained by this stroke an immunity from that long series of dark conspiracies by which, during so many years, she had been disquieted and endangered. to deliver the queen of scots was an object for which many men had been willing to risk their lives; but none were found desperate or chivalrous enough to run the same hazard in order to avenge her. but the recent detection of babington and his associates, and the rigorous justice executed upon them, was likely, even without the death of mary, to have deterred from the speedy repetition of similar practices; and a crisis was now approaching fitted to suspend the machinations of faction, to check the operation even of religious bigotry, and to unite all hearts in the love, all hands in the protection, of their native soil. philip of spain, though he purposely avoided as yet a declaration of war, was known to be intently occupied upon the means of taking signal vengeance on the queen of england for all the acts of hostility on her part of which he thought himself entitled to complain. already in the summer of the ports of spain and portugal had begun to be thronged with vessels of various sorts and every size, destined to compose that terrible armada from which nothing less than the complete subjugation of england was anticipated;--already had the pope showered down his benedictions on the holy enterprise; and, by a bull declaring the throne of the schismatic princess forfeited to the first occupant, made way for the pretensions of philip, who claimed it as the true heir of the house of lancaster. but elizabeth was not of a temper so timid or so supine as to suffer these preparations to advance without interruption. she ordered drake to sail immediately for the coast of spain, and put in practice against her enemy every possible mode of injury and annoyance. to the four great ships which she allotted to him for this service, the english merchants, instigated by the hopes of plunder, cheerfully added twenty-six more of different sizes; and with this force the daring leader steered for the port of cadiz, where a richly-laden fleet lay ready to sail for lisbon, the final rendezvous for the whole armada. by the impetuosity of his attack, he compelled six galleys which defended the mouth of the harbour to seek shelter under its batteries; and having thus forced an entrance, he took, burned and destroyed about a hundred store-ships and two galleons of superior size. this done, he returned to cape st. vincent; then took three castles; and destroying as he proceeded every thing that came in his way, even to the fishing-boats and nets, he endeavoured to provoke the spanish admiral to come out and give him battle off the mouth of the tagus. but the marquis of santa croce deemed it prudent to suffer him to pillage the coast without molestation. having fully effected this object, he made sail for the azores, where the capture of a bulky carrack returning from india amply indemnified the merchants for all the expenses of the expedition, and enriched the admiral and his crews. drake returned to england in a kind of triumph, boasting that he had "singed the whiskers" of the king of spain: nor was his vaunt unfounded; the destruction of the store-ships, and the havoc committed by him on the magazines of every kind, was a mischief so great, and for the present so irreparable, that it crippled the whole design, and compelled philip to defer, for no less than a year, the sailing of his invincible armada. the respite thus procured was diligently improved by elizabeth for the completion of her plans of defence against the hour of trial, which she still anticipated.--the interval seems to afford a fit occasion for the relation of some incidents of a more private nature, but interesting as illustrative of the manners and practices of the age. it has been already mentioned, that the secret marriage of the earl of hertford with lady catherine gray, notwithstanding the sentence of nullity which the queen had caused to be so precipitately pronounced and the punishment which she had tyrannically inflicted on the parties, had at length been duly established by a legal decision in which her majesty was compelled to acquiesce. the eldest son of the earl assumed in consequence his father's second title of lord beauchamp, and became undoubted heir to all the claims of the suffolk line. about the year , this young nobleman married, unknown to his father, a daughter of sir richard rogers, of brianston, a gentleman of ancient family, whose son had already been permitted to intermarry with a daughter of the house of seymour. it might have been hoped that the earl of hertford, from his own long and unmerited sufferings on a similar account, would have learned such a lesson of indulgence towards the affections of his children, that a match of greater disparity might have received from him a ready forgiveness. but he inherited, it seems, too much of the unfeeling haughtiness of his high-born mother; and in the fury of his resentment on discovery of this connexion of his son's, he made no scruple of separating by force the young couple, in direct defiance of the sacred tie which bound them to each other. lord beauchamp bore in the beginning this arbitrary treatment with a dutiful submission, by which he flattered himself that the heart of his father must sooner or later be touched; but at length, finding all entreaties vain, and seeing reason to believe that a settled plan was entertained by the earl of estranging him for ever from his wife, he broke on a sudden from the solitary mansion which had been assigned him as his place of abode, or of banishment, and was hastening to london to throw himself at the feet of her majesty and beseech her interposition, when a servant of his father's overtook and forcibly detained him. well aware that his nearness to the crown must have rendered peculiarly offensive to the queen what she would regard as his presumption in marrying without her knowledge and consent, he at first suspected her majesty as the author of this attack on his liberty; but being soon informed of her declaration, "that he was no prisoner of hers, and the man had acted without warrant," he addressed to lord burleigh an earnest petition for redress. in this remarkable piece, after a statement of his case, he begs to submit himself by the lord-treasurer's means to the queen and council, hoping _that they will grant him the benefit of the laws of the realm_; that it would please his lordship to send for him by his warrant; and that he might not be injured by his father's men, though hardly dealt with by himself. such were the lengths to which, in this age, a parent could venture to proceed against his child, and such the measures which it was then necessary to take in order to obtain the protection of the laws. it is not stated whether lord beauchamp was at this time a minor; but if so, he probably made application to burleigh as master of the wards. apparently his representations were not without effect; for he procured in the end both a re-union with his wife and a reconciliation with his father. the grandmother of this young nobleman, anne duchess-dowager of somerset, died at a great age in . maternally descended from the plantagenets, and elevated by marriage to the highest rank of english nobility, she perhaps gloried in the character of being the proudest woman of her day. it has often been repeated, that her repugnance to yield precedence to queen catherine parr, when remarried to the younger brother of her husband, was the first occasion of that division in the house of seymour by which northumberland succeeded in working its overthrow. in the misfortune to which she had thus contributed, the duchess largely shared. when the protector was committed to the tower, she also was carried thither amid the insults of the people, to whom her arrogance had rendered her odious; and rigorous examinations and an imprisonment of considerable duration here awaited her. she saw her husband stripped of power and reputation, convicted of felony, and led by his enemies to an ignominious death; and what to a woman of her temper was perhaps a still severer trial, she beheld her son,--that son for whose aggrandizement she had without remorse urged her weak husband to strip of his birthright his own eldest born,--dispossessed in his turn of title and estates, and reduced by an act of forfeiture to the humble level of a private gentleman. her remarriage to an obscure person of the name of newdigate, may prove, either that ambition was not the only inordinate affection to which the disposition of the duchess was subject, or that she was now reduced to seek safety in insignificance. during the reign of mary, no favor beyond an unmolested obscurity was to be expected by the protestant house of seymour; but it was one of the earliest acts of elizabeth generously to restore to edward seymour the whole of the protector's confiscated estates not previously granted to his elder half-brother, and with them the title of earl of hertford, the highest which his father had received from henry viii., and that with which he ought to have rested content. still no door was opened for the return of the duchess of somerset to power or favor; elizabeth never ceasing to behold in this haughty woman both the deadly enemy of admiral seymour,--that seymour who was the first to touch her youthful heart, and whose pretensions to her hand had precipitated his ruin,--and that rigid censor of her early levities, who, dressed in a "brief authority," had once dared to assume over her a kind of superiority, which she had treated at the time with disdain, and apparently continued to recollect with bitterness. it appears from a letter in which the duchess earnestly implores the intercession of cecil in behalf of her son, when under confinement on account of his marriage, that she was at the time of writing it excluded from the royal presence; and it was nine whole years before all the interest she could make, all the solicitations which she compelled herself to use towards persons whom she could once have commanded at her pleasure, proved effectual in procuring his release. the vast wealth which she had amassed must still, however, have maintained her ascendency over her own family and numerous dependents, though with its final disposal her majesty evinced a strong disposition to intermeddle. learning that she had appointed her eldest son sole executor, to the prejudice of his brother sir henry seymour, whom she did not love, the queen sent a gentleman to expostulate with her, and urge her strongly to change this disposition. the aged duchess, after long refusal, agreed at length to comply with the royal wish: but this promise she omitted to fulfil, and some obstruction was in consequence given to the execution of her last will. we possess a large inventory of her jewels and valuables, among which are enumerated "two pieces of unicorn's horn," an article highly valued in that day, from its supposed efficacy as an antidote, or a test, for poisons. the extreme smallness of her bequests for charitable purposes was justly remarked as a strong indication of a harsh and unfeeling disposition, in an age when similar benefactions formed almost the sole resource of the sick and needy. in this year lord-chancellor bromley died: and it should appear that there was at the time no other lawyer of eminence who had the good fortune to stand high in the favor of the queen and her counsellors, for we are told that she had it in contemplation to appoint as his successor the earl of rutland; a nobleman in the thirtieth year of his age, distinguished indeed among the courtiers for his proficiency in elegant literature and his knowledge of the laws of his country, but known to the public only in the capacity of a colonel of foot in the bloodless campaign of the earl of sussex against the northern rebels. how far this young man might have been qualified to do honor to so extraordinary a choice, remains matter of conjecture; his lordship being carried off by a sudden illness within a week of bromley himself, after which her majesty thought proper to invest with this high office sir christopher hatton her vice-chamberlain. this was a nomination scarcely less mortifying to lawyers than that of the earl of rutland. hatton's abode at one of the inns of court had been so short as scarcely to entitle him to a professional character; and since his fine dancing had recommended him to the favor of her majesty, he had entirely abandoned his legal pursuits for the life and the hopes of a courtier. it is asserted that his enemies promoted his appointment with more zeal than his friends, in the confident expectation of seeing him disgrace himself: what may be regarded as more certain is, that he was so disquieted by intimations of the queen's repenting of her choice, that he tendered to her his resignation before he entered on the duties of his office; and that in the beginning of his career the serjeants refused to plead before him. but he soon found means both to vanquish their repugnance and to establish in the public mind an opinion of his integrity and sufficiency, which served to redeem his sovereign from the censure or ridicule to which this extraordinary choice seemed likely to expose her. he had the wisdom to avail himself, in all cases of peculiar difficulty, of the advice of two learned serjeants;--in other matters he might reasonably regard his own prudence and good sense as competent guides. in fact, it was only since the reformation that this great office had begun to be filled by common-law lawyers: before this period it was usally exercised by some ecclesiastic who was also a civilian, and instances were not rare of the seals having been held in commission by noblemen during considerable intervals;--facts which, in justice to hatton and to elizabeth, ought on this occasion to be kept in mind. the pride of leicester had been deeply wounded by the circumstances of that forced return from holland which, notwithstanding all his artful endeavours to color it to the world, was perfectly understood at court as a disgraceful recall. the queen, in the first emotions of indignation and disappointment called forth by his ill-success, had in public made use of expressions respecting his conduct, of which he well knew that the effect could only be obviated by some mark of favor equally public; and he spared no labor for the accomplishment of this object. by an extraordinary exertion of that influence over her majesty's affections which enabled him to hold her judgement in lasting captivity, he was at length successful, and the honorable and lucrative place of chief justice in eyre of all the forests south of trent was bestowed upon him early in . so far was well; but he disdained to rest satisfied with less than the restitution of that supreme command over the dutch provinces which had flattered his vanity with a title never borne by englishman before; that of _excellence_. his usual arts prevailed in this instance likewise. by means of the authority which he had surreptitiously reserved to himself, he held the governors of towns and forts in holland in complete dependence, whilst his solemn ostentation of religion had secured the zealous attachment of the protestant clergy; an order which then exerted an important influence over public opinion. it had thus been in his power to raise a strong faction in the country, through the instrumentality of which he raised such impediments to the measures of administration, that the states-general saw themselves at length compelled, as the smaller of two evils, to solicit the queen for his return. it was a considerable time before she could be brought to sanction a step of which her sagest counsellors, secretly hostile to leicester, labored to demonstrate the entire inexpediency. the affairs of holland suffered at once by the dissensions which the malice of leicester had sown, and by the long irresolution of elizabeth; and she at length sent over lord buckhurst to make inquiry into some measures of the states which had given her umbrage, and to report upon the whole matter. the sagacious and upright statesman was soon satisfied where the blame ought to rest, and he suggested a plan for the government of the country which excluded the idea of leicester's return. but the intrigues of the favorite finally prevailed, and he was authorized in june to resume a station of which he had proved himself equally incapable and unworthy, having previously been further gratified by her majesty with the office of lord high-steward, and with permission to resign that of master of the horse to his stepson the earl of essex. but fortune disdained to smile upon his arms; and his failure in an attempt to raise the siege of sluys produced such an exasperation of his former quarrel with the states, that in the month of november the queen found herself compelled to supersede him, appointing the brave lord willoughby captain-general in his place. on his return to england, leicester found lord buckhurst preparing against him a charge of malversation in holland, and he received a summons to justify himself before the privy-council; but he better consulted his safety by flying for protection to the footstool of the throne. the queen, touched by his expressions of humility and sorrow, and his earnest entreaties "that she would not receive with disgrace on his return, him whom she had sent forth with honor, nor bring down alive to the grave one whom her former goodness had raised from the dust," consented once again to receive him into wonted favor. nor was this all; for on the day when he was expected to give in his answer before the council, he appeared in his place, and by a triumphant appeal to her majesty, whose secret orders limited, as he asserted, his public commission, baffled at once the hopes of his enemies and the claims of public justice. what was still more gross, he was suffered to succeed in procuring a censure to be passed upon lord buckhurst, who continued in disgrace for the nine remaining months of leicester's life, during which a royal command restrained him within his house. elizabeth must in this instance have known her own injustice even while she was committing it; but by the loyal and chivalrous nobility, who knelt before the footstool of the maiden-queen, "her buffets and rewards were ta'en with equal thanks;" and abbot, the chaplain of lord buckhurst, has recorded of his patron, that "so obsequious was he to this command, that in all the time he never would endure, openly or secretly, by day or night, to see either wife or child." he had his reward; for no sooner was the queen restored to liberty by the death of her imperious favorite, than she released her kinsman, honored him with the garter, procured, two years after, his election to the chancellorship of the university of oxford, and finally appointed him burleigh's successor in the honorable and lucrative post of lord treasurer. during the unavoidable delay which the expedition of drake had brought to the designs of philip ii., the prince of parma had by his master's directions been endeavouring to amuse the vigilance of elizabeth with overtures of negotiation. the queen, at the request of the prince, sent plenipotentiaries to treat with him in flanders; and though the hollanders absolutely refused to enter into the treaty, they proceeded with apparent earnestness in the task of settling preliminaries. some writers maintain, that there was, from the beginning, as little sincerity on one side as on the other; to gain time for the preparations of attack or defence, being the sole object of both parties in these manoeuvres. yet the cautious and pacific character of the policy of elizabeth, and the secret dread which she ever entertained of a serious contest with the power of spain, seem to render it more probable that the wish and hope of an accommodation was at first on her side real; and that the fears of the states that their interests might become the sacrifice, must have been by no means destitute of foundation. leicester is said to have had the merit of first opening the eyes of his sovereign to the fraudulent conduct of the prince of parma,--who in fact was furnished with no powers to treat,--and to have earned for himself by this discovery the restoration of her favor. in march these conferences broke off abruptly. it was impossible for either party longer to deceive or to act the being deceived; for all europe now rang with the mighty preparations of king philip for the conquest of england;--preparations which occupied the whole of his vast though disjointed empire, from the flemish provinces which still owned his yoke, to the distant ports of sicily and naples. the spirit of the english people rose with the emergency. all ranks and orders vied with each other in an eager devotedness to the sacred cause of national independence; the rich poured forth their treasures with unsparing hand; the chivalrous and young rushed on-board ships of their own equipment, a band of generous volunteers; the poor demanded arms to exterminate every invader who should set foot on english ground; while the clergy animated their audience against the pope and the spaniard, and invoked a blessing on the holy warfare of their fellow-citizens. elizabeth, casting aside all her weaknesses, showed herself worthy to be the queen and heroine of such a people. her prudence, her vigilance, her presence of mind, which failed not for a moment, inspired unbounded confidence, while her cheerful countenance and spirited demeanour breathed hope and courage and alacrity into the coldest bosoms. never did a sovereign enter upon a great and awful contest with a more strenuous resolution to fulfil all duties, to confront all perils; never did a people repay with such ardor of gratitude, such enthusiasm of attachment, the noblest virtues of a prince. the best troops of the country were at this time absent in flanders; and there was no standing army except the queen's guard and the garrisons kept in a few forts on the coast or the scottish border. the royal navy was extremely small, and the revenues of the crown totally inadequate to the effort of raising it to any thing approaching a parity with the fleets of spain. the queen possessed not a single ally on the continent capable of affording her aid; she doubted the fidelity of the king of scots to her interests, and a formidable mass of disaffection was believed to subsist among her own subjects of the catholic communion. it was on the spontaneous efforts of individuals that the whole safety of the country at this momentous crisis was left dependent: if these failed, england was lost;--but in such a cause, at such a juncture, they could not fail; and the first appeal made by government to the patriotism of the people was answered with that spirit in which a nation is invincible. a message was sent by the privy-council to inquire of the corporation of london what the city would be willing to undertake for the public service? the corporation requested to be informed what the council might judge requisite in such a case. fifteen ships and five thousand men, was the answer. two days after, the city "humbly intreated the council, in sign of their perfect love and loyalty, to prince and country, to accept ten thousand men and thirty ships amply furnished." "and," adds the chronicler, "even as london, london like, gave precedent, the whole kingdom kept true rank and equipage." at this time, the able-bodied men in the capital between the ages of eighteen and sixty amounted to no more than , . without entering into further detail respecting the particular contributions of different towns or districts to the common defence, it is sufficient to remark, that every sinew was strained, and that little was left to the charge of government but the task of arranging and applying the abundant succours furnished by the zeal of the country. one trait of the times, however, it is essential to commemorate. terror is perhaps the most merciless of all sentiments, and that which is least restrained either by shame or a sense of justice; and under this debasing influence some of the queen's advisers did not hesitate to suggest, that in a crisis so desperate, she ought to consult her own safety and that of the country, by seeking pretexts to take away the lives of some of the leading catholics. they cited in support of this atrocious proposal the example of henry viii. her father, who, before his departure for the french wars, had without scruple brought to the block his own cousin the marquis of exeter and several others, whose chief crime was their attachment to the ancient faith and their enjoying a degree of popularity which might enable them to raise commotions in his absence. elizabeth rejected with horror these suggestions of cowardice and cruelty, at the same time that she omitted no measures of precaution which she regarded as justifiable. the existing laws against priests and seminary-men were enforced with vigilance and severity, all popish recusants were placed under close inspection, and a considerable number of those accounted most formidable were placed under safe custody in wisbeach-castle. to these gentlemen, however, the queen caused it to be intimated, that the step which she had taken was principally designed for their protection, since it was greatly to be apprehended that, in the event of landing of the spaniards, the roman catholics might become the victims of some ebullition of popular fury which it would not then be in the power of government to repress. this lenient proceeding on the part of her majesty was productive of the best effects; the catholics who remained at liberty became earnest to prove themselves possessed of that spirit of patriotism and loyalty for which she had given them credit. some entered the ranks as volunteers; others armed and encouraged their tenantry and dependants for the defence of their country; several even fitted out vessels at their own expense, and intrusted the command of them to protestant officers on whom the government could entirely rely. after the defeat of the armada, the prisoners at wisbeach-castle, having signed the submission required by law of such as had offended in hearing mass and absenting themselves from church, petitioned the privy-council for their liberty; but a bond for good behaviour being further demanded of them, with the condition of being obedient to such orders as six members of the privy-council should write down respecting them, they refused to comply with such terms of enlargement, and remained in custody. as the submission which they had tendered voluntarily was in terms apparently no less strong than the bond which they refused, it was conjectured that the former piece had been drawn up by their ghostly fathers with some private equivocation or mental reservation; a suspicion which receives strong confirmation from the characters and subsequent conduct of some of these persons,--the most noted fanatics certainly of their party,--and amongst whom we read the names of talbot, catesby, and tresham, afterwards principal conspirators in the detestable gunpowder plot[ ]. [note : life of whitgift, by strype.] the ships equipped by the nobility and gentry to combat the armada amounted in the whole to forty-three, and it was on-board these vessels that young men of the noblest blood and highest hopes now made their first essay in arms. in this number may be distinguished george clifford third earl of cumberland, one of the most remarkable, if not the greatest, characters of the reign of elizabeth. the illustrious race of clifford takes origin from william duke of normandy; in a later age its blood was mingled with that of the plantagenets by the intermarriage of the seventh lord de clifford and a daughter of the celebrated hotspur by elizabeth his wife, whose father was edward mortimer earl of march. notwithstanding this alliance with the house of york, two successive lords de clifford were slain in the civil wars fighting strenuously on the lancastrian side. it was to the younger of these, whose sanguinary spirit gained him the surname of the butcher, that the barbarous murder of the young earl of rutland was popularly imputed; and a well-founded dread of the vengeance of the yorkists caused his widow to conceal his son and heir under the lowly disguise of a shepherd-boy, in which condition he grew up among the fells of westmorland totally illiterate, and probably unsuspicious of his origin. at the end of five-and-twenty years, the restoration of the line of lancaster in the person of henry vii. restored to lord de clifford the name, rank, and large possessions of his ancestors; but the peasant-noble preferred through life that rustic obscurity in which his character had been formed and his habits fixed, to the splendors of a court or the turmoils of ambition. he kept aloof from the capital; and it was only on the field of flodden, to which he led in person his hardy tenantry, that this de clifford exhibited some sparks of the warlike fire inherent in his race. his successor, by qualities very different from the homely virtues which had obtained for his father among his tenantry and neighbours the surname of the good, recommended himself to the special favor of henry viii., who created him earl of cumberland, and matched his heir to his own niece lady eleanor brandon. the sole fruit of this illustrious alliance, which involved the earl in an almost ruinous course of expense, was a daughter, who afterwards became the mother of ferdinando earl of derby, a nobleman whose mysterious and untimely fate remains to be hereafter related. by a second and better-assorted marriage, the earl of cumberland became the father of george, his successor, our present subject, who proved the most remarkable of this distinguished family. the death of his father during his childhood had brought him under wardship to the queen; and by her command he was sent to pursue his studies at peterhouse, cambridge, under whitgift, afterwards primate. here he applied himself with ardor to the mathematics, and it was apparently the bent of his genius towards these studies which first caused him to turn his attention to nautical matters. an enterprising spirit and a turn for all the fashionable profusions of the day, which speedily plunged him in pecuniary embarrassments, added incitements to his activity in these pursuits; and in he fitted out three ships and a pinnace to cruise against the spaniards and plunder their settlements. it appears extraordinary that he did not assume in person the command of his little squadron; but combats and triumphs perhaps still more glorious in his estimation awaited him on the smoother element of the court. in the games of chivalry he bore off the prize of courage and dexterity from all his peers; the romantic band of knights-tilters boasted of him as one of its brightest ornaments, and her majesty deigned to encourage his devotedness to her glory by an envied pledge of favor. as he stood or kneeled before her, she dropped her glove, perhaps not undesignedly, and on his picking it up, graciously desired him to keep it. he caused the trophy to be encircled with diamonds, and ever after at all tilts and tourneys bore it conspicuously placed in front of his high-crowned hat. but the emergencies of the year summoned him to resign the fopperies of an antiquated knight-errantry for serious warfare and the exercise of genuine valor. taking upon him the command of a ship, he joined the fleet appointed to hang upon the motions of the spanish armada and harass it in its progress up the british channel; and on several occasions, especially in the last action, off calais, he signalized himself by uncommon exertions. in reward of his services, her majesty granted him her royal commission to pursue a voyage to the south sea, which he had already projected; she even lent him for the occasion one of her own ships; and thus encouraged, he commenced that long series of naval enterprises which has given him an enduring name. after two or three voyages he constantly declined her majesty's gracious offers of the loan of her ships, because they were accompanied with the express condition that he should never lay any vessel of hers on-board a spanish one, lest both should be destroyed by fire. such was the character of mingled penuriousness and timidity which pervaded the maritime policy of this great princess, even after the defeat of the armada had demonstrated that, ship for ship, her navy might defy the world! at this period, all attempts against the power and prosperity of spain were naturally regarded with high favor and admiration; and it cannot be denied that in his long and hazardous expeditions the earl of cumberland evinced high courage, undaunted enterprise, and an extraordinary share of perseverance under repeated failures, disappointments, and hardships of every kind. it is also true that his vigorous attacks embarrassed extremely the intercourse of spain with her colonies; and, besides the direct injury which they inflicted, compelled this power to incur an immense additional expense for the protection of her treasure-ships and settlements. but the benefit to england was comparatively trifling; and to the earl himself, notwithstanding occasional captures of great value, his voyages were far from producing any lasting advantage; they scarcely repaid on the whole the cost of equipment; while the influx of sudden wealth with which they sometimes gratified him, only ministered food to that magnificent profusion in which he finally squandered both his acquisitions and his patrimony. none of the liberal and enlightened views which had prompted the efforts of the great navigators of this and a preceding age appear to have had any share in the enterprises of the earl of cumberland. even the thirst of martial glory seems in him to have been subordinate to the love of gain, and that appetite for rapine to which his loose and extravagant habits had given the force of a passion. he had formed, early in life, an attachment to the beautiful daughter of that worthy character and rare exemplar of old english hospitality, sir william holles, ancestor to the earls of clare of that surname; but her father, from a singular pride of independence, refused to listen to his proposals, saying "that he would not have to stand cap in hand to his son-in-law; his daughter should marry a good gentleman with whom he might have society and friendship." disappointed thus of the object of his affections, he matched himself with a daughter of the earl of bedford; a woman of merit, as it appears, but whom their mutual indifference precluded from exerting over him any salutary influence. as a husband, he proved both unfaithful and cruel; and separating himself after a few years from his countess, on pretence of incompatibility of tempers, he suffered her to pine not only in desertion, but in poverty. we shall hereafter have occasion to view this celebrated earl in the idly-solemn personage of queen's champion; meantime, he must be dismissed with no more of applause than may be challenged by a character signally deficient in the guiding and restraining virtues, and endowed with such a share only of the more active ones as served to render it conspicuous and glittering rather than truly and permanently illustrious. henry earl of northumberland likewise joined the fleet, on-board a vessel hired by himself. immediately after the fatal catastrophe of his father in , this young nobleman, anxious apparently to efface the stigma of popery and disaffection stamped by the rash attempts of his uncle and father on the gallant name of percy, had seized the opportunity of embarking with leicester for the wars of the low countries. he now sought distinction on another element, and in a cause still nearer to the hearts of englishmen. the conversion to protestantism and loyalty of the head of such a house could not but be regarded by elizabeth with feelings of peculiar complacency, and in she was pleased to confer upon the earl the insignia of the garter. he was present in at the siege of ostend, where he considered himself as so much aggrieved by the conduct of sir francis vere, that on the return of this officer to england he sent him a challenge. during the decline of the queen's health, northumberland was distinguished by the warmth with which he embraced the interests of the king of scots, and he was the first privy-councillor named by james on his accession to the english throne. but the fate of his family seemed still to pursue him: on some unsupported charges connected with the gunpowder plot, he was stripped of all his offices, heavily fined, and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment: the tardy mercy of the king procured however his release at the end of fifteen years, and he spent the remnant of his life in tranquil and honorable retirement. this unfortunate nobleman was a man of parts: the abundant leisure for intellectual pursuits afforded by his long captivity was chiefly employed by him in the study of the mathematics, including perhaps the occult sciences; and as he was permitted to enjoy freely the conversation of such men of learning as he wished to assemble around him, he became one of their most bountiful patrons. thomas cecil, eldest son of the lord-treasurer, formerly a volunteer in the expedition to scotland undertaken in favor of the regent murray, and more recently appointed governor of the brill in consideration of his services in the war in flanders, also embarked to repel the invaders; as did robert his half-brother, the afterwards celebrated secretary of state created earl of salisbury by james i. robert cecil was deformed in his person, of a feeble and sickly constitution, and entirely devoted to the study of politics; and nothing, it is to be presumed, but his steady determination of omitting no means of attracting to himself that royal favor which he contemplated as the instrument by which to work out his future fortunes, could have engaged him in a service so repugnant to his habits and pursuits, and for which the hand of nature herself had so evidently disabled him. the earl of oxford, in expiation perhaps of some of those violences of temper and irregularities of conduct by which he was perpetually offending the queen and obstructing his own advancement in the state, equipped on this occasion a vessel which he commanded. sir charles blount, notwithstanding the narrowness of his present fortunes, judged it incumbent on him to give a similar proof of attachment to his queen and country; and the circumstance affords an occasion of introducing to the notice of the reader one of the brightest ornaments of the court of elizabeth. this distinguished gentleman, now in the twenty-fifth year of his age, was the second son of james sixth lord montjoy of the ancient norman name of le blonde, corruptly written blount. the family history might serve as a commentary on the reigning follies of the english court during two or three generations. his grandfather, a splendid courtier, consumed his resources on the ostentatious equipage with which he attended to the french wars his master henry viii. with whom he had the misfortune to be a favorite. his father squandered a diminished patrimony still more absurdly in his search after the philosopher's stone; and the ruin of the family was so consummated by the ill-timed prodigalities of his elder brother, that when his death without children in transmitted the title of lord montjoy to sir charles, a thousand marks was the whole amount of the inheritance by which this honor was to be maintained. it is needless to add that the younger brother's portion with which he set out in life was next to nothing. having thus his own way to make, he immediately after completing his education at oxford entered himself of the inner temple, as meaning to pursue the profession of the law: but fortune had ordained his destiny otherwise; and being led by his curiosity to visit the court, he there found "a pretty strange kind of admission," which cannot be related with more vivacity than in the original words of naunton. "he was then much about twenty years of age, of a brown hair, a sweet face, a most neat composure, and tall in his person. the queen was then at whitehall, and at dinner, whither he came to see the fashion of the court. the queen had soon found him out, and with a kind of an affected frown asked the lady carver who he was? she answered, she knew him not; insomuch that enquiry was made from one to another who he might be, till at length it was told the queen that he was brother to the lord william mountjoy. this inquisition, with the eye of majesty fixed upon him, (as she was wont to do to daunt men she knew not,) stirred the blood of this young gentleman, insomuch as his colour went and came; which the queen observing called him unto her, and gave him her hand to kiss, encouraging him with gracious words and new looks; and so diverting her speech to the lords and ladies, she said, that she no sooner observed him but that she knew there was in him some noble blood, with some other expressions of pity towards his house. and then again, demanding his name, she said, 'fail you not to come to the court, and i will bethink myself how to do you good.' and this was his inlet, and the beginning of his grace." it does not appear what boon the queen immediately bestowed upon her new courtier; but he deserted the profession of the law, sat in the parliaments of and as the representative of two different cornish boroughs, received in the latter year the honor of knighthood, and soon after his present expedition appeared considerable enough at court to provoke the hostility of the earl of essex himself. raleigh, now high in favor, and invested with the offices of captain of the queen's guard and her lieutenant for cornwall, had been actively engaged since the last year in training to arms the militia of that county. he had also been employed, as a member of the council of war, in concerting the general plan of national defence: but his ardent and adventurous valor prompted him to aid his country in her hour of trial on both elements, and with hand as well as head: throwing himself therefore into a vessel of his own which waited his orders, he hastened to share in the discomfiture of her insulting foe. but it would be endless to enumerate all who spontaneously came forward to partake the perils and the glory of this ever-memorable contest; and the naval commanders of principal eminence have higher claims to our notice. the dignity of lord-high-admiral,--customarily conferred on mere men of rank, in whom not the slightest tincture of professional knowledge was required or expected,--at this critical juncture belonged to charles second lord howard of effingham, of whom we have formerly spoken, and who appears never in the whole course of his life to have been at sea but once before, and that only on an occasion of ceremony. he was every way an untried man, and as yet distinguished for nothing except the accomplishments of a courtier: but he exhibited on trial courage, resolution, and conduct; an affability of manner which endeared him to the sailors; and a prudent sense of his own inexperience, which rendered him perfectly docile to the counsels of those excellent sea-officers by whom he had the good fortune to find himself surrounded. he encouraged his crew, and manifested his alacrity in the service, by putting his own hand to the rope which was to tow his ship out of harbour; and he afterwards gave proof of his good sense and his patriotism, by his opposition to the orders which her majesty's excess of oeconomy led her to issue on the first dispersion of the armada by a storm, for laying up four of her largest ships; earnestly requesting that he might be permitted to retain them at his own expense rather than the safety of the country should be risked by their dismissal. john hawkins, one of the ablest and most experienced seamen of the age, was chiefly relied upon for the conduct of the main fleet, in which he acted as vice-admiral. for his good service he was knighted by the lord-admiral on board his own ship immediately after the action, when the like honor was bestowed on that eminent navigator frobisher, who led into action the triumph, one of the three first-rates which were then all that the english navy could boast. to the hero drake, as rear-admiral, a separate squadron was intrusted; and it was by this division that the principal execution was done upon the discomfited armada as it fled in confusion before the valor of the english and the fury of their tempestuous seas. an enormous galleon surrendered without firing a shot to the much smaller vessel of drake, purely from the terror of his name. whilst the lord-admiral, with the principal fleet stationed off plymouth, prepared to engage the armada in its passage up the channel, sir henry seymour, youngest son of the protector, was stationed with a smaller force, partly english partly flemish, off dunkirk, for the purpose of intercepting the duke of parma, who was lying with his veteran forces on the coast, ready to embark and co-operate in the conquest of england. in the midst of these naval preparations, which happily sufficed in the event to frustrate entirely the designs of the enemy, equal activity was exerted to place the land-forces in a condition to dispute the soil against the finest troops and most consummate general of europe. an army of reserve consisting of about thirty-six thousand men was drawn together for the defence of the queen's person, and appointed to march towards any quarter in which the most pressing danger should manifest itself. a smaller, but probably better appointed, force of twenty-three thousand was stationed in a camp near tilbury to protect the capital, against which it was not doubted that the most formidable efforts of the enemy on making good his landing would be immediately directed. owing to the long peace which the country had enjoyed, england possessed at this juncture no general of reputation, though, doubtless, a sufficiency of men of resolution and capacity whom a short experience of actual service would have matured into able officers. under circumstances which afforded to the government so small a choice of men, the respective appointments of arthur lord grey,--distinguished by the vigor which he had exerted in suppressing the last irish rebellion,--to the post of president of the council of war; of lord hunsdon,--a brave soldier long practised in the desultory warfare of the northern border, as well as in several regular campaigns against scotland,--to the command of the army of reserve; and of the earl of essex,--a gallant youth who had fleshed his maiden sword and gained his spurs in the affair of zutphen,--to the post of general of the horse in the main army;--seem to have merited the sanction of public approbation. but the most strenuous defender of the measures of her majesty must have been staggered by her nomination of leicester,--the hated, the disgraced, the incapable leicester,--to the station of highest honor, danger, and importance;--that of commander in chief of the army at tilbury. military experience, indeed, the favorite possessed in a higher degree than most of those to whom the defence of the country was now of necessity intrusted, but of skill and conduct he had proved himself destitute; even his personal courage was doubtful; and his recent failures in holland must have inspired distrust in the bosom of every individual, whether officer or private, appointed to serve under him. something must be allowed for the embarrassments of the time; the deficiency of military talent; the high rank of leicester in the service, which forbade his employment in any inferior capacity: but, with all these palliations, the nomination of such an antagonist to confront the duke of parma must eternally be regarded as the weakest act into which the prudence of elizabeth was ever betrayed by a blind and unaccountable partiality. all these preparations for defence being finally arranged, her majesty resolved to visit in person the camp at tilbury, for the purpose of encouraging her troops. it had been a part of the commendation of elizabeth, that in her public appearances, of whatsoever nature, no sovereign on record had _acted_ the part so well, or with such universal applause. but on this memorable and momentous occasion, when,--like a second boadicea, armed for defence against the invader of her country,--she appeared at once the warrior and the queen, the sacred feelings of the moment, superior to all the artifices of regal dignity and the tricks of regal condescension, inspired her with that impressive earnestness of look, of words, of gesture, which alone is truly dignified and truly eloquent. mounted on a noble charger, with a general's truncheon in her hand, a corselet of polished steel laced on over her magnificent apparel, and a page in attendance bearing her white-plumed helmet, she rode bare-headed from rank to rank with a courageous deportment and smiling countenance; and amid the affectionate plaudits and shouts of military ardor which burst from the animated and admiring soldiery, she addressed them in the following short and spirited harangue. "my loving people; we have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but, assure you, i do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. let tyrants fear: i have always so behaved myself that, under god, i have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects. and therefore i am come amongst you at this time, not as for my recreation or sport, but being resolved in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all; to lay down for my god, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honor and my blood, even in the dust. i know i have but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but i have the heart of a king, and of a king of england too; and think foul scorn that parma or spain, or any prince of europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realms: to which, rather than any dishonor should grow by me, i myself will take up arms; i myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. "i know already by your forwardness, that you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we do assure you, on the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. in the meantime, my lieutenant-general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble and worthy subject; not doubting by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valor in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my god, of my kingdom, and of my people." the extraordinary reliance placed by the queen in this emergency upon the counsels of leicester encouraged the insatiable favorite to grasp at honor and authority still more exorbitant; and he ventured to urge her majesty to invest him with the office of her lieutenant in england and ireland; a dignity paramount to all other commands. she had the weakness to comply; and it is said that the patent was actually drawn out, when the defeat of the armada, by taking away all pretext for the creation of such an officer, gave her leisure to attend to the earnest representations of hatton and burleigh on the imprudence of conferring on any subject powers so excessive, and capable even in some instances of controlling her own prerogative. on better consideration the project therefore was dropped. it is foreign from the business of this work to detail the particulars of that signal victory obtained by english seamanship and english valor against the boasted armament of spain, prodigiously superior as it was in every circumstance of force excepting the moral energies employed to wield it. while the history of the year in all its details must ever form a favorite chapter in the splendid tale of england's naval glory, it will here suffice to mark the general results. not a single spaniard set foot on english ground but as a prisoner; one english vessel only, and that of smaller size, became the prize of the invaders. the duke of parma did not venture to embark a man. the king of scots, standing firm to his alliance with his illustrious kinswoman, afforded not the slightest succour to the spanish ships which the storms and the english drove in shattered plight upon his rugged coasts; while the lord-deputy of ireland caused to be butchered without remorse the crews of all the vessels wrecked upon that island in their disastrous circumnavigation of great britain: so that not more than half of this vaunted _invincible armada_ returned in safety to the ports of spain. never in the records of history was the event of war on one side more entirely satisfactory, and glorious, on the other more deeply humiliating and utterly disgraceful. philip did indeed support the credit of his personal character by the dignified composure with which he heard the tidings of this great disaster; but it was out of his power to throw the slightest veil over the dishonor of the spanish arms, or repair the total and final failure of the great popish cause. by the english nation, this signal discomfiture of its most dreaded and detested foe was hailed as the victory of protestant principles no less than of national independence; and the tidings of the national deliverance were welcomed, by all the reformed churches of europe, with an ardor of joy and thankfulness proportioned to the intenseness of anxiety with which they had watched the event of a conflict where their own dearest interests were staked along with the existence of their best ally and firmest protector. repeated thanksgivings were observed in london in commemoration of this great event: on the anniversary of the queen's birth a general festival was proclaimed and celebrated with "sermons, singing of psalms, bonfires, &c." and on the following sunday her majesty went in state to st. paul's, magnificently attended by her nobles and great officers, and borne along on a sumptuous chariot formed like a throne, with four pillars supporting a canopy, and drawn by a pair of white horses. the streets through which she passed were hung with blue cloth, in honor doubtless of the navy, and the colors taken from the enemy were borne in triumph. her majesty rewarded the lord-admiral with a considerable pension, and settled annuities on the wounded seamen and on some of the more necessitous among the officers; the rest she honored with much personal notice and many gracious terms of commendation, which they were expected to receive in lieu of more substantial remuneration;--for parsimony, the darling virtue of elizabeth, was not forgotten even in her gratitude to the brave defenders of her country. two medals were struck on this great occasion; one, representing a fleet retiring under full sail, with the motto, "_venit, vidit, fugit_;" the other, fire-ships scattering a fleet; the motto, "_dux fæmina facti_;" a compliment to the queen, who is said to have herself suggested the employment of these engines of destruction, by which the armada suffered severely. the intense interest in public events excited in every class by the threatened invasion of spain, gave rise to the introduction in this country of one of the most important inventions of social life,--that of newspapers. previously to this period all articles of intelligence had been circulated in manuscript; and all political remarks which the government had found itself interested in addressing to the people, had issued from the press in the shape of pamphlets, of which many had been composed during the administration of burleigh, either by himself or immediately under his direction. but the peculiar convenience at such a juncture of uniting these two objects in a periodical publication becoming obvious to the ministry, there appeared, some time in the month of april , the first number of _the english mercury_; a paper resembling the present london gazette, which must have come out almost daily; since no. , the earliest specimen of the work now extant, is dated july d of the same year. this interesting relic is preserved in the british museum. in the midst of the public rejoicings an event occurred, which, in whatever manner it might be felt by elizabeth herself, certainly cast no damp on the spirits of the nation at large; the death of leicester. after the frequent notices of this celebrated favorite contained in the foregoing pages, a formal delineation of his character is unnecessary;--a few traits may however be added. speaking of his letters and public papers, naunton says, "i never yet saw a style or phrase more seeming religious and fuller of the streams of devotion;" and notwithstanding the charge of hypocrisy on this head usually brought against leicester in the most unqualified terms, many reasons might induce us to believe his religious faith sincere, and his attachment for certain schemes of doctrine, zealous. on no other supposition does it appear possible to account for that steady patronage of the puritanical party,--so odious to his mistress,--which gave on some occasions such important advantages over him to his adversary hatton,--the only minister of elizabeth who appears to have aimed at the character of a high church-of-england man. the circumstance also of his devoting during his lifetime a considerable sum of ready money, which he could ill spare, to the endowment of a hospital, has much the air of an act of expiation prompted by religious fears. as a statesman leicester appears to have displayed on some occasions considerable acuteness and penetration, but in the higher kind of wisdom he was utterly deficient. his moral insensibility sometimes caused him to offer to his sovereign the most pernicious counsels; and had not the superior rectitude of burleigh's judgement interposed, his influence might have inflicted still deeper wounds on the honor of the queen and the prosperity of the nation. towards his own friends and adherents he is said to have been a religious observer of his promises; a virtue very remarkable in such a man. in the midst of that profusion which rendered him rapacious, he was capable of acts of real generosity, and both soldiers and scholars tasted largely of his bounty. that he was guilty of many detestable acts of oppression, and pursued with secret and unrelenting vengeance such as offended his arrogance by any failure in the servile homage which he made it his glory to exact, are charges proved by undeniable facts; but it has already been observed that the more atrocious of the crimes popularly imputed to him, remain, and must ever remain, matters of suspicion rather than proof. his conduct during the younger part of life was scandalously licentious: latterly he became, says camden, uxorious to excess. in the early days of his favor with the queen, her profuse donations had gratified his cupidity and displayed the fondness of her attachment; but at a later period the stream of her bounty ran low; and following the natural bent of her disposition, or complying with the necessity of her affairs, she compelled him to mortgage to her his barony of denbigh for the expenses of his last expedition to holland. immediately after his death she also caused his effects to be sold by auction, for the satisfaction of certain demands of her treasury. from these circumstances it may probably be inferred, that the influence which leicester still retained over her was secured rather by the chain of habit than the tie of affection; and after the first shock of final separation from him whom she had so long loved and trusted, it is not improbable that she might contemplate the event with a feeling somewhat akin to that of deliverance from a yoke under which her haughty spirit had repined without the courage to resist. leicester died, beyond all doubt, of a fever; but so reluctant were the prejudices of that age to dismiss any eminent person by the ordinary roads of mortality, that it was judged necessary to take examinations before the privy-council respecting certain magical practices said to have been employed against his life. the son of sir james croft comptroller of the household, made no scruple to confess that he had consulted an adept of the name of smith, to learn who were his father's enemies in the council; that smith mentioned the earl of leicester; and that a little while after, flirting with his thumbs, he exclaimed, alluding to this nobleman's cognisance, "the bear is bound to the stake;" and again, that nothing could now save him. but as it might after all have been difficult to show in what manner the flirting of a thumb in london could have exerted a fatal power over the life of the earl at kennelworth, the adept seems to have escaped unpunished, notwithstanding the accidental fulfilment of his denunciations. chapter xxii. from to . effects of leicester's death.--rise of the queen's affection for essex.--trial of the earl of arundel.--letter of walsingham on religious affairs.--death of mildmay.--case of don antonio.--expedition to cadiz.--behaviour of essex.--traits of sir c. blount.--sir h. leigh's resignation.--conduct of elizabeth to the king of scots.--his marriage.--death and character of sir francis walsingham.--struggle between the earl of essex and lord burleigh for the nomination of his successor.--extracts of letters from essex to davison.--inveteracy of the queen against davison.--robert cecil appointed assistant secretary.--private marriage of essex.--anger of the queen.--reform effected by the queen in the collection of the revenue.--speech of burleigh.--parsimony of the queen considered.--anecdotes on this subject.--lines by spenser.--succours afforded by her to the king of france.--account of sir john norris.--essex's campaign in france.--royal progress.--entertainment at coudray--at elvetham--at theobald's.--death and character of sir christopher hatton.--puckering lord-keeper.--notice of sir john perrot.--puttenham's art of poetry.--verses by gascoigne.--warner's albion's england. the death of leicester forms an important æra in the history of the court of elizabeth, and also in that of her private life and more intimate feelings. the powerful faction of which the favorite had been the head, acknowledged a new leader in the earl of essex, whom his step-father had brought forward at court as a counterpoise to the influence of raleigh, and who now stood second to none in the good graces of her majesty. but essex, however gifted with noble and brilliant qualities totally deficient in leicester, was on the other hand confessedly inferior to him in several other endowments still more essential to the leader of a court party. though not void of art, he was by no means master of the profound dissimulation, the exquisite address, and especially the wary coolness by which his predecessor well knew how to accomplish his ends in despite of all opposition. his character was impetuous, his natural disposition frank; and experience had not yet taught him to distrust either himself or others. with the friendships, essex received as an inheritance the enmities also of leicester, and no one at court could have entertained the least doubt whom he regarded as his principal opponent; but it would have been deemed too high a pitch of presumption in so young a man and so recent a favorite as essex, to place himself in immediate and open hostility to the long established and far extending influence of burleigh. with this great minister therefore and his adherents he attempted at first a kind of compromise, and the noted division of the court into the essex and the cecil parties does not appear to have taken place till some years after the period of which we are treating. meantime, the death of walsingham afforded the lord-treasurer an occasion of introducing to the notice and confidence of her majesty, and eventually to the important office of secretary of state, his son robert, whose transcendent talents for affairs, joined to the utmost refinement of intrigue and duplicity, immediately established him in the same independence on the good will of the new favorite, as the elder cecil had ever asserted on that of the former one; and appears finally to have enabled him to prepare in secret that favorite's disastrous fall. with regard to elizabeth herself, it has been a thousand times remarked, that she was never able to forget the woman in the sovereign; and in spite of that preponderating love of sway which all her life forbade her to admit a partner of her bed and throne, her heart was to the last deeply sensible to the want, or her imagination to the charm, of loving and being beloved. the death therefore of the man who had been for thirty years the object of a tenderness which he had long repaid by every flattering profession, every homage of gallantry, and every manifestation of entire devotedness, left, notwithstanding any late disgusts which she might have entertained, a void in her existence which she felt it necessary to supply. it was this situation, doubtless, of her feelings which led to the gradual conversion into a softer sentiment, of that natural and innocent tenderness with which she had hitherto regarded the brilliant and engaging qualities of her youthful kinsman the earl of essex;--a change which terminated so fatally to both. the enormous disproportion of ages gave to the new inclination of the queen a stamp of dotage inconsistent with the reputation for good sense and dignity of conduct which she had hitherto preserved. nor did she long receive from the indulgence of so untimely a sentiment any portion of the felicity which she coveted. the careless and even affronting behaviour in which essex occasionally indulged himself, combined with her own sagacity to admonish her that her fondness was unreturned; and that nothing but the substantial benefits by which it declared itself could have induced its object to meet it with even the semblance of gratitude. as this mortifying conviction came home to her bosom, she grew restless, irritable, and captious to excess; she watched all his motions with a self-tormenting jealousy; she fed her own disquiet by listening to the malicious informations of his enemies; and her heart at length becoming callous by repeated exasperations, she began to visit his delinquencies with an unrelenting sternness. this conduct, attempted too late and persisted in too long, hurried essex to his ruin, and ended by inflicting upon herself the mortal agonies of an unavailing repentance. lord bacon relates, in his apophthegms, that "a great officer about court when my lord of essex was first in trouble, and that he and those that dealt for him would talk much of my lord's friends and of his enemies, answered to one of them; 'i will tell you, i know but one friend and one enemy my lord hath; and that one friend is the queen, and that one enemy, is himself.'" but rather might both have been esteemed his enemies; for what except the imprudent fondness of the queen, and the excess of favor which she at first lavished upon him, was the original cause of that intoxication of mind which finally became the instrument of his destruction? but from observations which anticipate perhaps too much the catastrophe of this melancholy history, it is time to return to a narrative of events. the spanish armament incidentally became the occasion of involving the earl of arundel in a charge of a capital nature. ever since the treachery of his agents, in the year , had baffled his design of quitting for ever a country in which his religion and his political attachments had rendered him an alien, this unfortunate nobleman had remained close prisoner in the tower. such treatment might well be supposed calculated to augment the vehemence of his bigotry and the rancor of his disaffection; and it became a current report that, on hearing news of the sailing of the armada, he had caused a mass of the holy ghost and devotions of twenty-four hours continuance to be celebrated for its success. this rumor being confirmed by one bennet, a priest then under examination, and other circumstances of suspicion coming out, the earl, on april the th, , was brought to the bar of the house of lords on a charge of high treason. bennet, struck with compunction, addressed to him a letter acknowledging his testimony to have been false, and extorted from him solely by the fear of the rack. but it appears that this letter, still extant among the burleigh papers, was intercepted by the government; and the prisoner, by this cruel and iniquitous artifice, was deprived of all means of invalidating the testimony of bennet, who was brought into court as a witness against him. by a second violation of every principle of justice, the matters for which, as contempts, he had already undergone the sentence of the star-chamber, were now introduced into his indictment for high treason, to which the following articles were added;--that he had engaged to assist cardinal allen in the restoration of popery;--that he had intimated the unfitness of the queen to govern;--that he had caused masses to be said for the success of the armada;--that he had attempted to withdraw himself beyond seas for the purpose of serving under the duke of parma;--and that he had been privy to the bull of pope sixtus v. transferring the sovereignty of england from her majesty to the king of spain. to all these articles, which he was not allowed to separate, the earl pleaded not guilty; but afterwards, in his defence, confessed some of them, though with certain extenuations. he asserted, that the prayers and masses which he had caused to be said, were for the averting of a general massacre of the english catholics, alleged to be designed; and not for the success of the armada. the aid to the catholic cause, which he had promised in his correspondence with cardinal allen, he declared to refer only to peaceful attempts at making converts, not to the encouragement of any plan of rebellion. he acknowledged a design of going to serve under the prince of parma, since he was denied the exercise of his religion at home; but he argued his innocence of any view of cooperating in plans of invasion, from the circumstance, that his attempt to leave england had taken place during the year fixed by cardinal allen and the queen of scots for the execution of a scheme of this nature. the crown-lawyers, in order to make out a case of constructive treason, urged the reconcilement of the prisoner with the church of rome, which they held to be of itself a traitorous act; his correspondence with declared traitors; and the high opinion entertained of him by the queen of scots and cardinal allen, as the chief support of popery in england. they likewise exhibited an emblematical picture found in his house, representing in one part a hand shaking off a viper into the fire, with the motto, "if god is for us who can be against us?" and in another part a lion, the cognisance of the howard family, deprived of his claws, under him the words, "yet still a lion." on these charges, none of which, though proved by the most unexceptionable witnesses, could bring him within the true meaning of the old statute of edward iii., on which he was indicted, the peers were base enough to pronounce an unanimous verdict of guilty; which he received, as his father had done before him, with the words "god's will be done!" but here the queen felt herself concerned in honor to interpose. it had ever been her maxim and her boast, to punish none capitally for religious delinquencies unconnected with traitorous designs; and sensible probably how imperfectly in this case the latter had been proved, she was pleased, in her abundant mercy, to commute the capital part of the sentence against her unhappy kinsman for perpetual imprisonment, attended with the forfeiture of the greater part of his estate. in , this victim of the religious dissensions of a fierce and bigoted age ended in his thirty-ninth year an unfortunate life, shortened, as well as embittered, by the more than monkish austerities which he imagined it meritorious to inflict upon himself. from the period of the abortive attempt at insurrection under the earls of northumberland and westmorland, the whole course of public events had tended to increase the difficulties and aggravate the sufferings in which the catholics of england found themselves inextricably involved. their situation was thus forcibly depicted by philip sidney, in a passage of his celebrated letter to her majesty against the french marriage, which at the present day will probably be read in a spirit very different from that in which it was written. "the other faction, most rightly indeed to be called a faction, is the papists; men whose spirits are full of anguish; some being infested by others whom they accounted damnable; some having their ambition stopped because they are not in the way of advancement; some in prison and disgrace; some whose best friends are banished practisers; many thinking you an usurper; many thinking also you had disannulled your right because of the pope's excommunication; all burthened with the weight of their consciences. men of great numbers, of great riches (because the affairs of state have not lain on them), of united minds, as all men that deem themselves oppressed naturally are." a further commentary on the hardships of their condition may be extracted from an apology for the measures of the english government towards both papists and puritans, addressed by walsingham to m. critoy the french secretary of state. * * * * * "sir, "whereas you desire to be advertised touching the proceedings here in ecclesiastical causes, because you seem to note in them some inconstancy and variation, as if we sometimes inclined to one side, sometimes to another, as if that clemency and lenity were not used of late that was used in the beginning, all which you impute to your own superficial understanding of the affairs of this state, having notwithstanding her majesty's doing in singular reverence, as the real pledges which she hath given unto the world of her sincerity in religion and her wisdom in government well meriteth; i am glad of this occasion to impart that little i know in that matter to you, both for your own satisfaction, and to the end you may make use thereof towards any that shall not be so modestly and so reasonably minded as you are. i find therefore her majesty's proceedings to have been grounded upon two principles. " . the one, that consciences are not to be forced, but to be won and reduced by the force of truth, with the aid of time, and use of all good means of instruction and persuasion. " . the other, that the causes of conscience, wherein they exceed their bounds, and grow to be matter of faction, lose their nature; and that sovereign princes ought distinctly to punish the practice in contempt, though coloured under the pretence of conscience and religion. "according to these principles, her majesty, at her coming to the crown, utterly disliking the tyranny of rome, which had used by terror and rigor to settle commandments of men's faiths and consciences; though, as a prince of great wisdom and magnanimity, she suffered but the exercise of one religion, yet her proceedings towards the papists was with great lenity, expecting the good effects which time might work in them. and therefore her majesty revived not the laws made in the and of her father's reign, whereby the oath of supremacy might have been offered at the king's pleasure to any subject, though he kept his conscience never so modestly to himself; and the refusal to take the same oath without further circumstance was made treason. but contrariwise her majesty, not liking to make windows into men's hearts and secret thoughts, except the abundance of them did overflow into overt or express acts or affirmations, tempered her laws so as it restraineth every manifest disobedience in impugning and impeaching advisedly and maliciously her majesty's supreme power, maintaining and extolling a foreign jurisdiction. and as for the oath, it was altered by her majesty into a more grateful form; the hardness of the name and appellation of supreme head was removed; and the penalty of the refusal thereof turned only into disablement to take any promotion, or to exercise any charge, and yet with liberty of being reinvested therein if any man should accept thereof during his life. but when, after pius quintus had excommunicated her majesty, and the bills of excommunication were published in london, whereby her majesty was in a sort proscribed; and that thereupon, as a principal motive or preparative, followed the rebellion in the north; yet because the ill-humors of the realm were by that rebellion partly purged, and that she feared at that time no foreign invasion, and much less the attempt of any within the realm not backed by some potent succour from without, she contented herself to make a law against that special case of bringing and publishing any bulls, or the like instruments; whereunto was added a prohibition, upon pain, not of treason, but of an inferior degree of punishment, against the bringing in of _agnus dei_, hallowed bread, and such other merchandise of rome, as are well known not to be any essential part of the romish religion, but only to be used in practice as love-tokens to inchant the people's affections from their allegiance to their natural sovereign. in all other points her majesty continued her former lenity: but when, about the twentieth year of her reign, she had discovered in the king of spain an intention to invade her dominions, and that a principal part of the plot was, to prepare a party within the realm that might adhere to the foreigner; and after that the seminaries began to blossom, and to send forth daily priests and professed men, who should by vow taken at shrift reconcile her subjects from their obedience, yea, and bind many of them to attempt against her majesty's sacred person; and that, by the poison which they spread, the humors of papists were altered, and that they were no more papists in conscience, and of softness, but papists in faction; then were there new laws made for the punishment of such as should submit themselves to such reconcilements, or renunciations of obedience. and because it was a treason carried in the clouds, and in wonderful secresy, and came seldom to light, and that there was no presupposition thereof so great, as the recusants to come to divine service, because it was set down by their decrees, that to come to church before reconcilement was absolutely heretical and damnable. therefore there were laws added containing punishment pecuniary against such recusants, not to enforce conscience, but to enfeeble and impoverish the means of those of whom it resteth indifferent and ambiguous whether they were reconciled or no. and when, notwithstanding all this provision, this poison was dispersed so secretly, as that there were no means to stay it but by restraining the merchants that brought it in; then, lastly, there was added another law, whereby such seditious priests of new erection were exiled, and those that were at that time within the land shipped over, and so commanded to keep hence on pain of treason. "this hath been the proceeding, though intermingled not only with sundry examples of her majesty's grace towards such as she knew to be papists in conscience, and not in faction and singularity, but also with an ordinary mitigation towards offenders in the highest degree committed by law, if they would but protest, that in case the realm should be invaded with a foreign army, by the pope's authority, for the catholic cause, as they term it, they would take part with her majesty and not adhere to her enemies." &c. * * * * * the country sustained a heavy loss in by the death of sir walter mildmay chancellor of the exchequer, one of the most irreproachable public characters and best patriots of the age. he was old enough to have received his introduction to business in the time of henry viii., under whom he enjoyed a gainful office in the court of augmentations. during the reign of edward he was warden of the mint. under mary, he shrowded himself in that profound obscurity in which alone he could make safety accord with honor and conscience. elizabeth, on the death of sir richard sackville in , advanced mildmay to the important post of chancellor of the exchequer, which he held to the end of his life; but not so, it should appear, the favor of her majesty, some of his _back friends_, or secret enemies, having whispered in her ear, that he was a better patriot than subject, and over-popular in parliament, where he had gone so far as to complain that many subsidies were granted and few grievances redressed. another strong ground of royal displeasure existed in the imputation of puritanism under which he labored. generously sacrificing to higher considerations the aggrandizement of his children, mildmay devoted a large share of the wealth which he had gained in the public service to the erection and endowment of a college;--that of emanuel at cambridge,--an action little agreeable it seems to her majesty,--for, on his coming to court after the completion of this noble undertaking, she said tartly to him; "sir walter, i hear you have erected a puritan foundation." "no, madam," replied he; "far be it from me to countenance any thing contrary to your established laws; but i have set an acorn, which, when it comes to be an oak, god alone knows what will be the fruit of it." that this fruit however proved to be of the flavor so much distasted by her majesty, there is good evidence. "in the house of pure emanuel i had my education, where some surmise i dazzled my eyes with the light of revelation;" says "the distracted puritan," in a song composed in king james's days by the witty bishop corbet. mildmay was succeeded in his office by sir john fortescue, master of the wardrobe, a gentleman whose accomplishments in classical literature had induced the queen to take him for her guide and assistant in the study of the greek and latin writers. in the discharge of his new functions he too was distinguished by moderation and integrity, so that in this important department of administration no oppression was exercised upon the subject during the whole of the reign;--a circumstance highly conducive both to the popularity of the queen, and to the alacrity in granting supplies usually exhibited by her parliaments. the late attempt at invasion, so gloriously and happily frustrated, had given a new impulse to the public mind; the gallant youth of the country were seized with an universal rage for military enterprise, and burned at once for vengeance and renown. the riches and the weakness of the spanish empire, both of them considerably exaggerated in popular opinion, tempted the hopes and the cupidity of adventurers of a different class; and by means of the united stimulus of gain and glory, a numerous fleet was fitted out in the spring of for an expedition to portugal, which was equipped and manned almost entirely by the exertions of individuals, the queen contributing only sixty-six thousand pounds to the expenses, and six of her ships to the armament. it will be remembered, that on the death in of henry king of portugal, philip of spain had possessed himself of that kingdom as rightful heir; having compelled don antonio, an illegitimate nephew of the deceased sovereign, who had ventured to dispute the succession, to quit the country, and take refuge first in france and afterwards in england. this pretender had hitherto received little support or encouragement at the hands of elizabeth; in fact, she had suffered him to languish in the most abject poverty; for there is a letter extant from a person about him to lord burleigh[ ], entreating that he would move her majesty either to advance don antonio two hundred thousand crowns out of her share of the rich portuguese carrack captured by sir francis drake, to enable him to recover his kingdom,--or at least to take upon herself the payment of his debts, amounting to twelve or thirteen pounds, without which his poor creditors are likely to be ruined. the first part of this extraordinary alternative the prudent princess certainly declined; what might be the fate of the second does not in this place appear: but we learn elsewhere, that during the long vacancy of the see of ely which the queen caused to succeed to the death of bishop cox in , a part of its revenues were appropriated to the maintenance of this unfortunate competitor for royalty. it was imagined however, by the projectors of the present expedition, that the discontent of the portuguese under the yoke of spain would now incline them to receive as a deliverer even this spurious representative of their ancient race of monarchs; and don antonio received an invitation, which he joyfully embraced, to embark himself and his fortunes on board the english fleet. [note : strype's annals, vol. iii. p. .] the armament consisted of vessels of all kinds, carrying , men; it set sail from plymouth on april th, sir francis drake being admiral and sir john norris general. the earl of essex, urged by the romantic gallantry of his disposition, afterwards joined the expedition with several ships fitted out at his own expense in support of don antonio's title, though he bore in it no regular command, since he sailed without the consent or privity of her majesty. the first landing of the forces was at corunna; where having captured four ships of war in the harbour, they took and burned the lower town and made some bold attempts on the upper, which was strongly fortified: but after defeating with great slaughter a body of spaniards who were intrenched in the neighbourhood, sir john norris, finding it impracticable to renew his assaults on the upper town, on account of a general want of powder in the fleet, re-embarked his men, already suffering from sickness, and made sail for portugal. after some consultation they landed at penicha, about thirty miles to the north of lisbon, took the castle; and having thrown into it a garrison, every man of which was afterwards put to the sword by the spaniards, they began their march for the capital. so ill was the army provided, that many died on the road for want of food; and others who had fainted with the heat must also have perished, had not essex, with characteristic generosity, caused all his baggage to be thrown out, and the carriages to be filled with the sick and weary. instead of the troops of nobility and gentry by whom don antonio had flattered himself and his companions that he should be joined and recognised, there only appeared upon their march a band of miserable peasants without shoes or stockings, and one gentleman who presented him with a basket of plums and cherries. the english however proceeded, and made themselves masters without difficulty of the suburbs of lisbon, in which they found great riches; but the entreaties of don antonio, and his anxiety to preserve the good will of the people, caused the general, to restrain his men from plunder. essex distinguished himself in every skirmish; and, knocking at the gates of lisbon itself, challenged the governor, or any other of equal rank, to single combat: but this romantic proposal was prudently declined; and though the city was known to be weakly guarded, the total want of battering cannon in the english army precluded the general from making an assault. in the meantime drake, who was to have co-operated with the land forces by an attack upon the city from the water side, found his progress effectually barred by the forts at the mouth of the tagus, and was thus compelled to relinquish all share in the enterprise. this disappointment, joined to the want of ammunition and other necessaries, and the rapid progress of sickness among the men, rendered necessary a speedy retreat and re-embarkation. about sixty vessels lying at the mouth of the tagus, laden with corn and other articles of commerce, were seized by the english, though the property of the hanse towns, and drake and norris in their return burned vigo: but various disasters overtook the fleet on its homeward voyage, subsequently to its dispersion by a violent storm. on the whole, it was computed that not less than eleven thousand persons perished in this unfortunate and ill-planned expedition, by which no one important object had been attained; and that of eleven hundred gentlemen who accompanied it, not more than three hundred and fifty escaped the united ravages of famine, sickness, and the sword. the queen, on discovering that essex had without permission absented himself from her court and from the duties of his office of master of the horse, to embark in the voyage to portugal, had instantly dispatched a peremptory order for his return, enforced by menaces of her utmost indignation in case of disobedience; but even to this pressing mandate he had dared to turn a deaf ear. during the four or five months therefore of his absence, the whole court had remained in fearful or exulting anticipation of the thunderbolt about to fall on his devoted head. but the laurels with which he had encircled his brows proved his safeguard: elizabeth had listened with a secret complacency to the reports of his valor and generosity which reached her through various channels; her tenderness had been strongly excited by the image of the perils to which he was daily exposing himself; and her joy at his safe return, too genuine and too lively for concealment, left her so little of the power or the wish to chide, that his pardon seemed granted even before it could be implored. essex had too much sensibility not to be deeply touched by this affectionate behaviour on the part of his sovereign; he redoubled his efforts to deserve the oblivion of his past offence, and with a success so striking, that it was soon evident to all that the temerity which might have ruined another had but heightened and confirmed his favor. essex possessed, as much as leicester himself, the art of stimulating elizabeth in his own behalf to acts of munificence; and she soon consoled him by some valuable grants for any anxiety which her threatened indignation might have occasioned him, or any disappointment which he might have conceived in seeing sir christopher hatton preferred by her to himself as leicester's successor in the office of chancellor of the university of cambridge. among the gallant adventurers in the cause of don antonio sir walter raleigh had made one, and he also was received by her majesty on his return with tokens of distinguished favor. but not long after he embarked for ireland, in which country he remained without public employment till the spring of , when he undertook an expedition against the spanish settlements in south america. the ostensible purpose of his visit to ireland was to superintend the management of those large estates which had been granted him in that country; but it was the story of the day, that "the earl of essex had chased raleigh from court and confined him into ireland[ ]:" and the length of his absence, with the known enmity between these rival-favorites, lends some countenance to the suggestion. [note : birch's memoirs.] that essex, even in the early days of his favor, already assumed the right of treating as interlopers such as advanced too rapidly in the good graces of his sovereign, we learn from an incident which probably occurred about this time, and is thus related by naunton. "my lord montjoy, being but newly come to court, and then but sir charles blount, had the good fortune one day to run very well a tilt; and the queen therewith was so well pleased, that she sent him a token of her favor, a queen at chess of gold, richly enamelled, which his servants had the next day fastened on his arm with a crimson ribbon; which my lord of essex, as he passed through the privy chamber, espying, with his cloak cast under his arm, the better to commend it to the view, enquired what it was, and for what cause there fixed. sir fulk greville told him that it was the queen's favor, which the day before, and after the tilting, she had sent him: whereat my lord of essex, in a kind of emulation, and as though he would have limited her favor, said, 'now i perceive every fool must have a favor.' "this bitter and public affront came to sir charles blount's ear, who sent him a challenge, which was accepted by my lord; and they went near marybonepark, where my lord was hurt in the thigh and disarmed: the queen, missing the men, was very curious to learn the truth; and when at last it was whispered out, she swore by god's death, it was fit that some one or other should take him down, and teach him better manners, otherwise there would be no rule with him[ ]." [note : fragmenta regalia.] notwithstanding her majesty's ostentation of displeasure against her favorite on this occasion, it is pretty certain that he could not better have paid his court to her than by a duel of which, in spite of her wisdom and her age, she seems to have had the weakness to imagine her personal charms the cause. she compelled however the rivals to be reconciled: from this period all the externals of friendship were preserved between them; and there is even reason to believe, notwithstanding some insinuations to the contrary, that latterly at least the sentiment became a genuine one. if the queen had further insisted on cementing their reconciliation by an alliance, she would have preserved from its only considerable blot the brilliant reputation of sir charles blount. this courtier, whilst he as yet enjoyed no higher rank than that of knighthood, had conceived an ardent passion for a sister of the earl of essex; the same who was once destined to be the bride of philip sidney. she returned his attachment; but her friends, judging the match inferior to her just pretensions, broke off the affair and compelled her to give her hand to lord rich; a man of disagreeable character, who was the object of her aversion. in such a marriage the unfortunate lady found it impossible to forget the lover from whom tyrannical authority had severed her; and some years after, when montjoy returned victorious from the irish wars, she suffered herself to be seduced by him into a criminal connexion, which was detected after it had subsisted for several years, and occasioned her divorce from lord rich. her lover, now earl of devonshire, regarded himself as bound in love and in honor to make her his wife; but to marry a divorced woman in the lifetime of her husband was at this time so unusual a proceeding and regarded as so violent a scandal, that laud, then chaplain to the earl of devonshire, who joined their hands, incurred severe blame, and thought it necessary to observe the anniversary ever after as a day of humiliation. king james, in whose reign the circumstance took place, long refused to avail himself further of the services of the earl; and the disgrace and vexation of the affair embittered, and some say abridged, the days of this otherwise admirable person. whether any incidents connected with this attachment had a share in producing that hostile state of feeling in the mind of essex towards blount which led to their combat, remains matter of conjecture. this year the customary festivities on the anniversary of her majesty's accession were attended by one of those romantic ceremonies which mark so well the taste of the age and of elizabeth. this was no other than the formal resignation by that veteran of the tilt-yard, sir henry leigh, of the office of queen's champion, so long his glory and delight. the gallant earl of cumberland was his destined successor, and the momentous transfer was accomplished after the following fashion. having first performed their respective parts in the chivalrous exercises of the band of knights-tilters, sir henry and the earl presented themselves to her majesty at the foot of the gallery where she was seated, surrounded by her ladies and nobles, to view the games. they advanced to slow music, and a concealed performer accompanied the strain with the following song. my golden locks time hath to silver turn'd, (oh time too swift, and swiftness never ceasing) my youth 'gainst age, and age at' youth hath spurn'd: but spurn'd in vain, youth waneth by increasing, beauty, strength, and youth, flowers fading been, duty, faith, and love, are roots and evergreen. my helmet now shall make a hive for bees, and lovers songs shall turn to holy psalms; a man at arms must now sit on his knees, and feed on pray'rs that are old age's alms. and so from court to cottage i depart; my saint is sure of mine unspotted heart. and when i sadly sit in homely cell, i'll teach my swains this carrol for a song: "blest be the hearts that think my sovereign well, curs'd be the souls that think to do her wrong." goddess, vouchsafe this aged man his right, to be your beadsman now, that was your knight. during this performance, there arose out of the earth a pavilion of white taffeta, supported on pillars resembling porphyry and formed to imitate the temple of the vestal virgins. a superb altar was placed within it, on which were laid some rich gifts for her majesty. before the gate stood a crowned pillar embraced by an eglantine, to which a votive tablet was attached, inscribed "to elizabeth:" the gifts and the tablet being with great reverence delivered to the queen, and the aged knight in the meantime disarmed, he offered up his armour at the foot of the pillar; then kneeling, presented the earl of cumberland to her majesty, praying her to be pleased to accept of him for her knight and to continue these annual exercises. the proposal being graciously accepted, sir henry armed the earl and mounted him on his horse: this done, he clothed himself in a long velvet gown and covered his head, in lieu of a helmet, with "a buttoned cap of the country fashion." the king of scots had now for a considerable time deserved extremely well of elizabeth. during the whole period of the spanish armament he had remained unshaken in his attachment to her cause, resolutely turning a deaf ear to the flattering offers of philip ii. with the shrewd remark, that all the favor he had to expect from this monarch in case of his success against england, was that of polypheme to ulysses;--to be devoured the last. a bon mot which was carefully copied into _the english mercury_. the ambassador to scotland, from an unfounded opinion that the discomfited armada sought shelter in the ports of that country under the faith of some secret engagement with james, had thought it necessary to bribe him to fidelity by some brilliant promises, of which when the danger was past elizabeth unhandsomely evaded the fulfilment; but even on this occasion he abstained from any vehement expressions of indignation: in short, his whole demeanour towards his lofty kinswoman was that of a submissive expectant much more than of a competitor and rival prince. true it is, that he had begun to attach to himself among her nobles and courtiers as many adherents as his means permitted; but besides that his manoeuvres remained for the most part concealed from her knowledge, they certainly carried with them no danger to her government. the partisans of james were not, like those of his mother, the adherents also of a religious faction leagued with the foreign powers most inimical to her rule, and from whose machinations she was exposed to daily peril of her throne and life. they were protestants and englishmen, and many of them possessed of such strong hereditary influence or official rank, that it could never become their interest to throw the country into confusion by ill-timed efforts in favor of the king of scots; whose cause they in fact embraced with no other view than to secure the state from commotion, and themselves from the loss of power on the event of the queen's demise. the puritan party indeed, by whom several attempts were afterwards made in parliament to extort from the queen a settlement of the crown in james's favor, were doubtless actuated in part by discontent with the present church-establishment, and the hope of seeing it superseded under james by a presbyterian form resembling that of scotland. for the present, however, these religionists were sufficiently repressed under the iron rod of the high-commission court, and james had entered with them into no regular correspondence, and engaged their attachment by no promises of future indulgence or support. on the whole, therefore, the violent jealousy with which elizabeth continued to regard this feeble and inoffensive young king, in every point so greatly her inferior, must rather be imputed to her narrowness and malignity of temper than to any dictates of sound policy or advisable precaution; and the measures with which it prompted her were impressed accordingly with every character of spite and meanness. she was peculiarly solicitous to prevent james from increasing his consequence by marriage, and through innumerable intrigues with his ministers and favorites she had hitherto succeeded in her object. when he appeared to have set his mind on a union with the eldest daughter of the king of denmark, she contrived to interpose so many delays and obstacles that this sovereign, conceiving himself trifled with, ended the affair by giving the princess in marriage to another. to embarrass matters still more, she next proposed to james a match with the sister of the king of navarre, a princess much older than himself, destitute of fortune, and whose brother might be influenced to protract the negotiation to any length convenient to his valuable ally the queen of england. this proposal being declined by james, and overtures made in his name to a younger daughter of the danish house, she again set her engines at work to thwart his wishes: but indignation and an amorous impatience for once lent to james resolution sufficient to carry his point. disregarding a declaration of his privy-council against the match, he instigated the citizens of edinburgh to take up arms in his cause, and finally accomplished the sending out of a splendid embassy, by which the marriage-articles were speedily settled, and the princess conducted on board the fleet which was to convey her to scotland. a violent storm having driven her for shelter into a port of norway, the young monarch carried his gallantry so far as to set sail in quest of her; and re-conducting her, at the request of the king her father, to copenhagen, he there passed the winter in great joy and festivity; and as soon as the season would permit, conducted his royal consort home in triumph, and crowned her with all the magnificence that scotland could display. seeing the turn which matters had taken, elizabeth now made a virtue of necessity, and dispatched a solemn embassy to express to her good brother of scotland her hearty congratulations on his nuptials, and her satisfaction in his happy return from so adventurous a voyage. in april died sir francis walsingham, principal secretary of state, whose name is found in such intimate connexion with the whole domestic policy of elizabeth during several eventful years, that his character is in a manner identified with that of the measures at this period pursued. this eminent person, in his youth an exile for the protestant cause, retained through life so serious a sense of religion as sometimes to expose him to the suspicion of puritanism. in his private capacity he was benevolent, friendly, and accounted a man of strict integrity: but it is right that public characters should principally be estimated by that part of their conduct in which the public is concerned; and to walsingham as a minister the unsullied reputation of virtue and honor is not to be conceded. unlike that pure and noble patriot who "would have lost his life with pleasure to serve his country, but would not have done a base thing to save it," this statesman seems to have held that few base things ought to be scrupled by which his queen and country might be served. that walsingham was of unimpeached fidelity towards his sovereign requires no proof; that he was not stimulated by views of private emolument seems also to be satisfactorily evinced, though somewhat to the discredit of his mistress, by the load of debt incurred in his official capacity under the pressure of which he lived and died: but here our praise of his public virtue must end. it is impossible to regard without indignation and disgust the system of artifice and intrigue which he contrived for the purpose of insnaring the persecuted and therefore disaffected catholics; and while due credit is given to his unwearied diligence and remarkable sagacity in detecting dangerous conspiracies, it cannot be doubted that the extraordinary encouragements held out by him to spies and informers,--those pests of a commonwealth,--must in numberless instances have rendered himself the dupe, and innocent persons the victims, of designing villany. looking even to the immediate results of his measures, it may triumphantly be demanded by the philanthropist and the sage, whether a system less artificial, less treacherous and less cruel, would not equally well have succeeded in protecting the person of the queen from the machinations of traitors, with the further and inestimable advantage of preserving her government from reproach, and the national character from degradation. that the system of walsingham was in the main that also of his court and of his age, is indeed true; and this consideration might in some degree plead his excuse, did it not appear that there was in his personal character a native subtilty and talent of insinuation which, aptly conspiring with the nature of his office, might truly be said to render his duty his delight:--a feature of his mind which is thus happily delineated by a witty and ingenious writer. "none alive did better ken the secretary's craft, to get counsels out of others and keep them in himself. marvellous his sagacity in examining suspected persons, either to make them confess the truth, or confound themselves by denying it to their detection. cunning his hands, who could unpick the cabinets in the pope's conclave; quick his ears, who could hear at london what was whispered at rome; and numerous the spies and eyes of this argus dispersed in all places. "the jesuits, being outshot in their own bow, complained that he out equivocated their equivocation, having a mental reservation deeper and further than theirs. they tax him for making heaven bow too much to earth, oft-times borrowing a point of conscience with full intent never to pay it again; whom others excused by reasons of state and dangers of the times. indeed his simulation (which all allow lawful) was as like to dissimulation (condemned by all good men) as two things could be which were not the same. he thought that gold might, but intelligence could not, be bought too dear;--the cause that so great a _statesman_ left so small an _estate_, and so _public_ a person was so _privately_ buried in st. pauls[ ]." [note : fuller's worthies in kent.] the long state of infirmity which preceded the death of walsingham, had afforded abundant opportunity for various intrigues and negotiations respecting the appointment of his successor in office. burleigh hoped to make the choice of her majesty fall on his son robert; essex was anxious to decide it in favor of the discarded davison, who seems to have been performing some part of the functions of a secretary of state during the illness of walsingham, though he did not venture to appear in the sight of his still-offended mistress. no one was more susceptible of generous emotions than essex; and it ought not to be doubted that much of the extraordinary zeal which he manifested, during two or three entire years, in the cause of this unfortunate and ill-treated man, is to be ascribed to genuine friendship: but neither must it be concealed that this struggle for the nomination of a secretary was in effect the great and decisive trial of strength between himself and the cecils. several letters have been printed, written by essex to davison and bearing date between the years and , from which a few extracts may be worth transcribing, both for the excellence of the style and the light which they reflect on the behaviour and sentiments of elizabeth in this matter. "i had speech with her majesty yesternight after my departure from you, and i did find that the success of my speech (although i hoped for good) yet did much overrun my expectation.... i made her majesty see what, in your health, in your fortune, in your reputation in the world, you had suffered since the time that it was her pleasure to commit you; i told her how many friends and well-wishers the world did afford you, and how, for the most part, throughout the whole realm her best subjects did wish that she would do herself the honor to repair for you and restore to you that state which she had overthrown; your humble suffering of these harms and reverend regard to her majesty, must needs move a princess so noble and so just, to do you right; and more i had said, if my gift of speech had been any way comparable to my love. her majesty, seeing her judgement opened by the story of her own actions, showed a very feeling compassion of you, she gave you many praises, and among the rest, that she seemed to please herself in was, that you were a man of her own choice. in truth she was so well pleased with those things that she spake and heard of you, that i dare (if of things future there be any assurance) promise to myself that your peace will be made to your content and the desire of your friends, i mean in her favor and your own fortune, to a better estate than, or at least the same you had, which with all my power i will employ myself to effect." &c. that these sanguine hopes were soon checked, appears by the following passage of a subsequent letter. "i have, as i could, taken my opportunity since i saw you to perform as much as i promised you; and though in all i have been able to effect nothing, yet even now i have had better leisure to solicit the queen than in this stormy time i did hope for. my beginning was, as being amongst others entreated to move her in your behalf; my course was, to lay open your sufferings and your patience; in them you had felt poverty, restraint and disgrace, and yet you showed nothing but faith and humility; faith, as being never wearied nor discouraged to do her service, humbleness, as content to forget all the burdens that had been laid upon you, and to serve her majesty with as frank and willing a heart as they that have received greatest grace from her. to this i received no answer but in general terms, that her honor was much touched; your presumption had been intolerable, and that she could not let it slip out of her mind. when i urged your access she denied it, but so as i had no cause to be afraid to speak again. when i offered in them both to reply, she fell into other discourse, and so we parted." &c. on the death of walsingham he writes thus.... "upon this unhappy accident i have tried to the bottom what the queen will do for you, and what the credit of your solicitor is worth. i urged not the comparison between you and any other, but in my duty to her and zeal to her service i did assure her, that she had not any other in england that would for these three or four years know how to settle himself to support so great a burden. she gave me leave to speak, heard me with patience, confessed with me that none was so sufficient, and would not deny but that which she lays to your charge was done without hope, fear, malice, envy, or any respects of your own, but merely for her safety both of state and person. in the end she absolutely denied to let you have that place and willed me to rest satisfied, for she was resolved. thus much i write to let you know, i am more honest to my friends than happy in their cases." &c. as the fear of giving offence to the king of scots was one reason or pretext for the implacability of the queen towards davison, essex hazarded the step of writing to request, as a personal favor to himself, the forgiveness and good offices of this monarch in behalf of the man who bore the blame of his mother's death. nothing could be more dexterous than the turn of this letter; but what reception it found we do not discover. on the whole, all his efforts were unavailing: the longer elizabeth reflected on the matter, the less she felt herself able to forgive the _presumption_ of the rash man who had anticipated her final resolution on the fate of mary. other considerations probably concurred; as, the apprehension which seems to have been of perpetual recurrence to her mind, of rendering her young favorite too confident and presuming by an uniform course of success in his applications to her; the habitual ascendency of burleigh; and, probably, some distrust of the capacity of davison for so difficult and important a post. in conclusion, no principal secretary was at present appointed; but robert cecil was admitted as an assistant to his father, who resumed on this condition the duties of the office, and held it, as it were in trust, till her majesty, six years afterwards, was pleased to sanction his resignation in favor of his son, now fully established in her confidence and good opinion. of davison nothing further is known; probably he did not long survive. some time in the year , the earl of essex married in a private manner the widow of sir philip sidney, and daughter of walsingham; a step with which her majesty did not scruple to show herself highly offended. the inferiority of the connexion in the two articles of birth and fortune to the just pretensions of the earl, and the circumstance that the union had been formed without that previous consultation of her gracious pleasure,--which from her high nobility and favorite courtiers, and especially from those who, like essex and his lady, shared the honor of her relationship, she expected as a homage and almost claimed as a right,--were the ostensible grounds of her displeasure. but that peculiar compound of ungenerous feelings which rendered her the universal foe of matrimony, exalted on this occasion by a jealousy too humiliating to be owned, but too powerful to be repressed, formed without doubt the more genuine sources of her deep chagrin. the courtiers quickly penetrated the secret of her heart;--for what vice, what weakness, can long lurk unsuspected in a royal bosom? and it is thus that john stanhope, one of her attendants, ventures to write on the subject to lord talbot. "this night, god willing, she will to richmond, and on saturday next to somerset-house, and if she could overcome her passion against my lord of essex for his marriage, no doubt she would be much quieter; yet doth she use it more temperately than was thought for, and, god be thanked, doth not strike all that she threats[ ]. the earl doth use it with good temper, concealing his marriage as much as so open a matter may be: not that he denies it to any, but for her majesty's better satisfaction, is pleased that my lady shall live very retired in her mother's house.[ ]" [note : it may be regarded as dubious whether this expression is to be understood literally or metaphorically.] [note : "illustrations" by lodge.] on the whole, the indignation of the queen against essex stopped very short of the rage with which she had been transported against leicester on a similar occasion; she never even talked of sending him to prison for his marriage. her good sense came to her assistance somewhat indeed too late for her own dignity, but soon enough to intercept any serious mischief to the earl; and having found leisure to reflect on the folly and disgrace of openly maintaining an ineffectual resentment, she soon after readmitted the offender to the same station of seeming favor as before. there has appeared however some ground to suspect that the queen never entirely dismissed her feelings of mortification; or again reposed in essex the same unbounded confidence with which she had once honored him. from a passage of a letter addressed by lord buckhurst to sir robert sidney, then governor of the brill, we learn, that in the autumn of the next year she still retained such displeasure against sir robert for having been present at a banquet given by essex, either on occasion of his marriage, or with a view to the furtherance of some design of his which excited her suspicion, that she could not be induced to grant him leave of absence for a visit to england. but cares and occupations of a nature peculiarly uncongenial with the indulgence of sentimental sorrows, now claimed, and not in vain, the serious thoughts of this prudent and vigilant princess. the low state of her finances, exhausted by no wasteful prodigalities, but by the necessary measures of national defence and the politic aid which she had extended to the united provinces and to the french hugonots, now threatened to place her in a painful dilemma. she must either desert her allies, and suffer her navy to relapse into the dangerous state of weakness from which she had exerted all her efforts to raise it, or summon a new parliament for the purpose of making fresh demands upon the purses of her people; and this at the risk either of shaking their attachment, or,--a humiliation not to be endured,--seeing herself compelled to sacrifice to the importunities of the popular members some of the more oppressive branches of her prerogative; the right of purveyance for instance, or that of granting monopolies; both of which she had suffered to grow into enormous grievances. mature reflection discovered to her, however, a third alternative; that of practising a still stricter oeconomy on one hand, and on the other, of increasing the productiveness to the exchequer of the customs and other branches of revenue, by reforming abuses, by detecting frauds and embezzlements, and by cutting off the exorbitant profits of collectors. this last plan, which best accorded with her disposition, was that adopted by elizabeth. it may be mentioned as a characteristic trait, that a few years before, she had accepted with thanks an offer secretly made to herself by some person holding an inferior station in the customs, of a full disclosure of the impositions practised upon her in that department. she had admitted this voluntary informer several times to her presence; had imposed silence in the tone of a mistress on the remonstrances of leicester, burleigh, and walsingham, who indignantly urged that he was not of a rank to be thus countenanced in accusation of his superiors; and had reaped the reward of this judicious patronage, by finding herself entitled to demand from her farmer of the customs an annual rent of forty-two thousand pounds, instead of the twelve thousand pounds which he had formerly paid. she now exacted from him a further advance of eight thousand pounds per annum; and stimulated burleigh to such a rigid superintendence of all the details of public oeconomy as produced a very important general result. it was probably in the ensuing parliament that a conference being held between the two houses respecting a bill for making the patrimonial estates of accountants liable for their arrears to the queen, and the commons desiring that it might not be retrospective, the lord treasurer pithily said; "my lords, if you had lost your purse by the way, would you look back or forwards to find it? the queen hath lost her purse." this rigid parsimony, at once the virtue and the foible of elizabeth, was attended accordingly with its good and its evil. it endeared her to the people, whom it protected from the imposition of new and oppressive taxes; but, being united in the complex character of this remarkable woman with an extraordinary taste for magnificence in all that related to her personal appearance, it betrayed her into a thousand meannesses, which, in spite of all the arts of graciousness in which she was an adept, served to alienate the affections of such as more nearly approached her. her nobles found themselves heavily burthened by the long and frequent visits which she paid them at their country-seats, attended always by an enormous retinue; as well as by the contributions to her jewelry and wardrobe which custom required of them under the name of new year's gifts, and on all occasions when they had favors, or even justice, to ask at her hands[ ]. there were few of the inferior suitors and court-attendants composing the crowd by which she had a vanity in seeing herself constantly surrounded, who did not find cause bitterly to rue the day when first her hollow smiles and flattering speeches seduced them to long years of irksome, servile, and often profitless assiduity. [note : lists of the new year's gifts received by elizabeth during many years have more than once appeared in print. they show that not only jewels, trinkets, rich robes, and every ornamental article of dress, were abundantly supplied to her from this source, but that sets of body linen worked with black silk round the bosom and sleeves, were regarded as no inappropriate offering from peers of the realm to the maiden-queen. the presents of the bishops and of some of the nobility always consisted of gold pieces, to the value of from five to twenty or thirty pounds, contained in embroidered silk purses. her majesty distributed at the same season pieces of gilt plate; but not always to the same persons from whom she had received presents, nor, apparently, to an equal amount.] bacon in his apophthegms relates on this subject the following anecdote. "queen elizabeth, seeing sir edward---- in her garden, looked out at her window and asked him, in italian, 'what does a man think of when he thinks of nothing?' sir edward, who had not had the effect of some of the queen's grants so soon as he had hoped and desired, paused a little, and then made answer; 'madam, he thinks of a woman's promise.' the queen shrunk in her head, but was heard to say; 'well, sir edward, i must not confute you: anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.'" "queen elizabeth," says the same author, "was dilatory enough in suits of her own nature; and the lord treasurer burleigh, being a wise man, and willing therein to feed her humor, would say to her; 'madam, you do well to let suitors stay; for i shall tell you, _bis dat qui cito dat_; if you grant them speedily, they will come again the sooner.'" it is probable that the popular story of this minister's intercepting the very moderate bounty which her majesty had proposed to herself the honor of bestowing on spenser, is untrue with respect to this great poet; since the four lines relating to the circumstance, "madam, you bid your treasurer on a time to give me reason for my rhime, but from that time and that season i have had nor rhyme nor reason," long attributed to spenser, are now known to be churchyard's. yet that the author of the _faery queen_ had similar injuries to endure, is manifest from those lines of unrivalled energy in which the poet, from the bitterness of his soul, describes the miseries of a profitless court-attendance. few readers will have forgotten a passage so celebrated; but it will here be read with peculiar interest, as illustrative of the character of elizabeth and the sufferings of her unfortunate courtiers. "full little knowest thou that hast not tried what hell it is in suing long to bide; to lose good days that might be better spent; to waste long nights in pensive discontent; to speed today, to be put back tomorrow; to feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow; to have thy prince's grace, yet want her peers; to have thy asking, yet wait many years; to fret thy soul with crosses and with cares; to eat thy heart through comfortless despairs; to fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run; to spend, to give, to want, to be undone." _mother hubbard's tale._ one of the most laudable objects of the parsimony exercised by elizabeth at this period was that of enabling herself to afford effectual aid to henry iv. of france, now struggling, with adverse fortune but invincible resolution, to conquer from the united armies of spain and the league the throne which was his birthright. in the depth of his distress, just when his swiss and german auxiliaries were on the point of disbanding themselves for want of pay, the friendship of elizabeth came in aid of his necessities with a supply of twenty-two thousand pounds; a sum, trifling as it may seem in modern estimation, which sufficed to rescue henry from his immediate embarrassment, and which he frankly avowed to be the largest he had ever seen. the generosity of his ally did not stop here; for she speedily equipped a body of four thousand men and sent them to join him at dieppe under command of the gallant lord willoughby. by this reinforcement henry was enabled to march to paris and possess himself of its suburbs, and subsequently to engage in several other enterprises, in which he gratefully acknowledged the eminent service rendered him by the valor and fidelity of this band of english. the next year elizabeth, alarmed at seeing several of the ports of bretagne opposite to her own shores garrisoned by spanish troops, whom the leaguers had called in to their assistance, readily entered into a new treaty with henry, by virtue of which she sent a fresh supply of three thousand men to assist him in the recovery of this province. her expenses however were to be repaid by the king after the expulsion of the enemy. sir john norris, the appointed leader of this force, ranked among the most eminent of elizabeth's captains; and was also possessed of some hereditary claims to her regard, which she did not fail to acknowledge as far as the jealousy of her favorites would give her leave. one of sir john's grandfathers was that norris who suffered in the cause of anne boleyn; the other was lord williams of tame, to whom she had herself been indebted for so much respectful attention in the days of her greatest adversity. she had called up his father to the house of peers, as lord norris of ricot; and his mother she constantly addressed by a singular term of endearment, "my own crow." this pair had six sons, of whom sir john was the eldest;--all, it is said, brave men, addicted to arms, and much respected by her majesty. but an unfortunate quarrel with the four sons of sir francis knolles, their oxfordshire neighbour, arising out of a tournament in which the two brotherhoods were opposed to each other, procured to the norrises the lasting enmity of this family, which, strong both by its relationship to the queen and its close alliance with leicester, was able to impede their advancement to stations equal to their merits. sir john norris learned the rudiments of military science under the celebrated admiral coligni, to whom in his early youth he acted as a page; and he enlarged his experience as captain of the english volunteers who in generously carried the assistance of their swords to the oppressed netherlanders when they had rushed to arms in the sacred cause of liberty and conscience. this gallant band particularly signalized its valor in the repulse of an assault made by don john of austria upon the dutch camp; a hot action in which norris had three horses shot under him. in he was a distinguished member of the council of war. the expedition to portugal in which he commanded has been already related, and its ill-success was certainly imputable to no want of courage or conduct on his part. in the war of bretagne he gained high praise by a skilful retreat, in which he drew off his small band of english safe and entire amid a host of foes. we shall afterwards hear of him in a high command in ireland. military glory was the darling object of the ambition of essex; and jealous perhaps of the fame which sir john norris was acquiring in the french wars, he prevailed upon the queen to grant him the command of a fresh body of troops destined to assist henry in expelling the leaguers from normandy. the new general was deeply mortified at being obliged to remain for some time inactive at dieppe, while the french king was carrying his arms into another quarter, whither essex was restrained by the positive commands of his sovereign from following him. at length they formed in concert the siege of rouen; but when the town was nearly reduced to extremity, an unexpected march of the duke of parma compelled henry to desert the enterprise. elizabeth made it a subject of complaint against her ally, that the english soldiers were always thrust foremost on every occasion of danger; but by themselves this perilous preeminence was claimed as a privilege due to the brilliancy of their valor; and their leader, delighted with the spirit which they displayed, encouraged and rewarded it by distributing among his officers, with a profusion which highly offended his sovereign, the honor of knighthood, bestowed by herself with so much selection and reserve. essex supported his character for personal courage, and indulged his impetuous temper, by sending an idle challenge to the governor of rouen, who seems to have known his duty too well to accept it; but his sanguine anticipations of some distinguished success were baffled by a want of correspondence between the plans of henry and the commands of elizabeth; perhaps also in some degree by his own deficiency in the skill of a general. he had the further grief to lose by a musket-shot his only brother walter devereux, a young man of great hopes to whom he was fondly attached; and leaving his men before rouen, under the conduct of sir roger williams, a brave soldier, he returned with little glory in the beginning of to soothe the displeasure of the queen and combat the malicious suggestions of his enemies. in this bloodless warfare better success awaited him. his partial mistress received with favor his excuses; and not only restored him to her wonted grace, but soon after testified her opinion of his abilities by granting him admission into the privy-council. the royal progress of this year in sussex and hampshire affords some circumstances worthy of mention. viscount montacute, (now written montagu,) a nobleman in much esteem with elizabeth, though a zealous catholic, solicited the honor of entertaining her at his seat of coudray near midhurst; a mansion splendid enough to attract the curiosity and admiration of a royal visitant. the manor of midhurst, in which coudray is situated, had belonged during several ages to a branch of the potent family of bohun; thence it passed into possession of the nevils, a race second to none in england in the antiquity of its nobility and the splendor of its alliances. it thus became a part of the vast inheritance of margaret countess of salisbury, daughter of george duke of clarence. coudray-house was the principal residence of this illustrious and injured lady, and it was here that the discovery took place of those papal bulls and emblematical banners which afforded a pretext to malice and rapacity to arm themselves against the miserable remnant of her days. by the attainder of the countess, this with the rest of her estates became forfeited to the crown; but the tyrant henry was prevailed upon to regrant it, in exchange for other lands, to the heirs of her great-uncle john nevil marquis montagu. from an heir female of this branch viscount montagu, son of sir anthony brown master of the horse to henry viii., derived it and his title, conferred by queen mary. but to the ancient mansion there had previously been substituted by his half-brother the earl of southampton, a costly structure decorated internally with that profusion of homely art which displayed the wealth and satisfied the taste of a courtier of henry viii. the building was as usual quadrangular, with a great gate flanked by two towers in the centre of the principal front. at the upper end of the hall stood a buck, as large as life, carved in brown wood, bearing on his shoulder the shield of england and under it that of brown with, many quarterings: ten other bucks, in various attitudes and of the size of life, were planted at intervals. there was a parlour more elegantly adorned with the works of holbein and his scholars;--a chapel richly furnished;--a long gallery painted with the twelve apostles;--and a corresponding one hung with family pictures and with various old paintings on subjects religious and military, brought from battle abbey, the spoils of which had been assigned to sir anthony brown as that share of the general plunder of the monasteries to which his long and faithful service had entitled him from the bounty of his master. amongst other particulars of the visit of her majesty at coudray, we are told that on the morning after her arrival she rode in the park, where "a delicate bower" was prepared, and a nymph with a sweet song delivered her a cross-bow to shoot at the deer, of which she killed three or four and the countess of kildare one:--it may be added, that this was a kind of amusement not unfrequently shared by the ladies of that age; an additional trait of the barbarity of manners. viscount montagu died two years after this visit, and, to complete his story, lies buried in midhurst church under a splendid monument of many-colored marbles, on which may still be seen a figure representing him kneeling before an altar, in fine gilt armour, with a cloak and "beard of formal cut." beneath are placed recumbent effigies of his two wives dressed in rich cloaks and ruffs, with chained unicorns at their feet, and the whole is surrounded with sculptured scutcheons laboriously executed with innumerable quarterings. at elvetham in hampshire the queen was sumptuously entertained during a visit of four days by the earl of hertford. this nobleman was reputed to be master of more ready money than any other person in the kingdom; and though the cruel imprisonment of nine years, by which elizabeth had doomed him to expiate the offence of a clandestine union with the blood-royal, could scarcely have been obliterated from his indignant memory, certain considerations respecting the interests of his children might probably render him not unwilling to gratify her by a splendid act of homage, though peculiar circumstances increased beyond measure the expense and inconvenience of her present visit. elvetham, which was little more than a hunting-seat, was far from possessing sufficient accommodation for the court, and the earl was obliged to supply its deficiencies by very extensive erections of timber, fitted up and furnished with all the elegance that circumstances would permit. he likewise found it necessary to cause a large pond to be dug, in which were formed three islands, artificially constructed in the likeness of a fort, a ship, and a mount, for the exhibition of fireworks and other splendid pageantries. the water was made to swarm with swimming and wading sea-gods, who blew trumpets instead of shells, and recited verses in praise of her majesty: finally, a tremendous battle was enacted between the tritons of the pond and certain sylvan deities of the park, which was long and valiantly disputed, with darts on one side and large squirts on the other, and suddenly terminated, to the delight of all beholders, by the seizure and submersion of old sylvanus himself. elizabeth quitted elvetham so highly gratified by the attentions of the noble owner, that she made him a voluntary promise of her special favor and protection; but we shall find hereafter, that her long-enduring displeasure against him relative to his first marriage was not yet so entirely laid aside but that a slight pretext was sufficient to bring it once more into malignant activity. early in the same summer the queen had also paid a visit to lord burleigh at his favorite seat in hertfordshire, of which sir thomas wylks thus speaks in a letter to sir robert sidney: "i suppose you have heard of her majesty's great entertainment at theobalds', of her knighting mr. robert cecil, and of the expectation of his advancement to the secretaryship; but so it is as we say in court, that the knighthood must serve for both[ ]." [note : "sidney papers."] sir christopher hatton died in the latter end of the year . it appears that he had been languishing for a considerable time under a mortal disease; yet the vulgar appetite for the wonderful and the tragical occasioned it to be reported that he died of a broken heart, in consequence of her majesty's having demanded of him, with a rigor which he had not anticipated, the payment of certain moneys received by him for tenths and first fruits: it was added, that struck with compunction on learning to what extremity her severity had reduced him, her majesty had paid him several visits, and endeavoured by her gracious and soothing speeches to revive his failing spirits;--but that the blow was struck, and her repentance came too late. it is indeed certain that the queen manifested great interest in the fate of her chancellor, and paid him during his last illness very extraordinary personal attentions:--but it ought to be mentioned, in refutation of the former part of the story, that she remitted to his nephew and heir, who was married to a grand-daughter of burleigh's, all her claims on the property which he left behind him. during his lifetime, also, hatton seems to have tasted more largely than most of his competitors of the solid fruits of royal favor. elizabeth persevered in the practice originating in the reigns of her father and brother, of endowing her courtiers out of the spoils of the church. sometimes, to the public scandal, she would keep a bishopric many years vacant for the sake of appropriating its whole revenues to secular uses and persons; and still more frequently, the presentation to a see was given under the condition, express or implied, that certain manors should be detached from its possessions, or beneficial leases of lands and tenements granted to particular persons. thus the bishop of ely was required to make a cession to sir christopher hatton of the garden and orchard of ely-house near holborn; on the refusal of the prelate to surrender property which he regarded himself as bound in honor and conscience to transmit unimpaired to his successors, hatton instituted against him a chancery suit; and having at length succeeded in wresting from him the land, made it the site of a splendid house surrounded by gardens, which have been succeeded by the street still bearing his name. he had even sufficient interest with her majesty to cause her to address to the bishop the following violent letter, several times, with some variations, reprinted. * * * * * "proud prelate; "i understand you are backward in complying with your agreement; but i would have you to know, that i who made you what you are can unmake you; and if you do not forthwith fulfil your engagement, by god i will immediately unfrock you. "yours as you demean yourself, "elizabeth." * * * * * sir john harrington, in his brief view of the church of england, accuses the lord-chancellor hatton of coveting likewise a certain manor attached to the see of bath and wells, and of inflaming the queen's indignation against bishop godwin on account of his second marriage, in order to frighten him into compliance; a manoeuvre which in part succeeded, since the bishop was reduced, by way of compromise, to grant him a long lease of another manor somewhat inferior in value. with all this, hatton, as we have formerly observed, was distinguished as the patron of the established church against the puritans: but his zeal in its behalf, whether real or affected, was attended by a spirit of moderation then rare and always commendable. he disliked, and sometimes checked, the oppressions exercised against the papists by the rigid enforcement of recent statutes; and he is reported to have held the doctrine, at that time a novel one, that neither fire nor steel ought ever to be employed on a religious account. the chancellor, besides his other merits and accomplishments, was a cultivator of the drama. in a tragedy was performed before her majesty, and afterwards published, entitled tancred and gismund, or gismonde of salerne, the joint performance of five students of the temple, who appear each to have taken an act; the fourth bears the signature of hatton. it is also probable that he gave the queen some assistance in similar pursuits, as her translation of a part of the tragedy of hercules oetæus, preserved in the bodleian, is in his handwriting. but it was never forgotten by others, nor apparently by himself, that he was brought into notice by his dancing; and we learn from a contemporary letter-writer, that even after he had attained the dignity of lord chancellor he laid aside his gown to dance at the wedding of his nephew. the circumstance is pleasantly alluded to by gray in the description of stoke-pogeis house with which his "long story" opens. "in britain's isle, no matter where, an ancient pile of building stands; the huntingdons and hattons there employed the power of fairy hands to raise the ceiling's fretted height, each pannel in achievements clothing, rich windows that exclude the light, and passages that lead to nothing. full oft within the spacious walls, when he had fifty winters o'er him, my grave lord keeper led the brawls, the seal and maces danced before him. his bushy beard and shoe-strings green, his high-crown'd hat and satin doublet, moved the stout heart of england's queen, though pope and spaniard could not trouble it." as chancellor of oxford, hatton was succeeded by lord buckhurst, to the fresh mortification of essex, who again advanced pretensions to this honorary office, and was a second time baffled by her majesty's open interference in behalf of his competitor. the more important post of lord chancellor remained vacant for some months, the seals being put in commission; after which serjeant pickering was appointed lord keeper,--a person of respectable character, who appears to have performed the duties of his office without taking any conspicuous part in the court factions, or exercising any marked influence over the general administration of affairs. towards one person of considerable note in his day, sir john perrot, some time deputy of ireland, hatton is reported to have acted the part of an industrious and contriving enemy; being provoked by the taunts which sir john was continually throwing out against him as one who "had entered the court in a galliard," and further instigated by the complaints, well or ill founded, against the deputy, of some of his particular friends and adherents. sir john perrot derived from a considerable family of that name seated at haroldstone in pembrokeshire, his name and large estates; but his features, his figure, his air, and common fame, gave him king henry viii. for a father. nor was his resemblance to this redoubted monarch merely external; his temper was haughty and violent, his behaviour _blustering_, his language always coarse, and, in the fits of rage to which he was subject, abusive to excess. yet was he destitute neither of merit nor abilities. as president of munster, he had rendered great services to her majesty in by his vigorous conduct against the rebels. as lord deputy of ireland between the years and , he had made efforts still more praiseworthy towards the pacification of that unhappy and ill-governed country, by checking as much as possible the oppressions of every kind exercised by the english of the pale against the miserable natives, towards whom his policy was liberal and benevolent. but his attempts at reformation armed against him, as usual, a host of foes, amongst whom was particularly distinguished loftus archbishop of dublin, whom he had exasperated by proposing to apply the revenues of st. patrick's cathedral to the foundation of an university in the capital of ireland. forged letters were amongst the means to which the unprincipled malice of his adversaries resorted for his destruction. one of these atrocious fabrications, in which an irish chieftain was made to complain of excessive injustice on the part of the deputy, was detected by the exertions of the supposed writer, whom perrot had in reality attached to himself by many benefits; but a second letter, which contained a protection to a catholic priest and made him employ the words _our_ castle of dublin, _our_ kingdom of ireland, produced a fatally strong impression on the jealous mind of elizabeth. meantime the ill-fated deputy, conscious of his own fidelity and essential loyalty, and unsuspicious of the snares spread around him, was often unguarded enough to give vent in gross and furious invective against the person of majesty itself, to the profound vexation which he, in common with all preceding and following governors of ireland under elizabeth, was destined to endure from the penury of her supplies and the magnitude of her requisitions. his words were all carried to the queen, mingled with such artful insinuations as served to impart to these unmeaning ebullitions of a hasty temper the air of deliberate contempt and meditated disloyalty towards his sovereign. just before the sailing of the armada, perrot was recalled, partly indeed at his own request. a rigid or rather a malicious inquiry was then instituted into all the details of his actions, words and behaviour in ireland, and he was committed to the friendly custody of lord burleigh. afterwards, the lords hunsdon and buckhurst, with two or three other councillors, were ordered to search and seize his papers in the house of the lord treasurer without the participation of this great minister, who was at once offended and alarmed at the step. perrot was carried to the tower, and at length, in april , put upon his trial for high treason. the principal heads of accusation were;--his contemptuous words of the queen;--his secret encouragement of o'rourk's rebellion and the spanish invasion, and his favoring of traitors. of all these charges except the first he seems to have proved his innocence, and on this he excused himself by the heat of his temper and the absence of all ill intention from his mind. he was however found guilty by a jury much more studious of the reputation of loyalty than careful of the rights of englishmen. on leaving the bar, he is reported to have exclaimed, "god's death! will the queen suffer her brother to be offered up as a sacrifice to the envy of my frisking adversaries!" the queen felt the force of this appeal to the ties of blood. it was long before she could be brought to confirm his sentence, and she would never sign a warrant for its execution. burleigh shed tears on hearing the verdict, saying with a sigh, that hatred was always the more inveterate the less it was deserved. elizabeth, when her first emotions of anger had passed away, was now frequently heard to praise that rescript of the emperor theodosius in which it is thus written:-- "should any one have spoken evil of the emperor, if through levity, it should be despised; if through insanity, pitied; if through malice, forgiven." she is likewise said, in language more familiar to her, to have sworn a great oath that they who accused perrot were all knaves, and he an honest and faithful man. it was accordingly presumed that she entertained the design of extending to him the royal pardon; but her mercy, if such it merits to be called, was tardy; and in september , six months after his condemnation, this victim of malice perished in the tower, of disease, according to camden; but, by other accounts, of a broken heart. in either case the story is an affecting one, and worthy to be had in lasting remembrance, as a striking and terrible example of the potency of court-intrigue, and the guilty subserviency of judicial tribunals under the jealous rule of the last of the tudors. english literature, under the auspices of elizabeth and her learned court, had been advancing with a steady and rapid progress; and it may be interesting to contemplate the state of one of its fairest provinces as exhibited by the pen of an able critic, who in the year gave to the world an art of english poesy. this work, though addressed to the queen, was published with a dedication by the printer to lord burleigh; for the author thought proper to remain concealed: on its first appearance its merit caused it to be ascribed to spenser by some, and by others to sidney; but it was traced at length to puttenham, one of her majesty's gentleman-pensioners, the author of some adulatory poems addressed to her and called partheniads, and of various other pieces now lost. the subject is here methodically treated in three books; the first, "of poets and poesy;" the second, "of proportion;" the third, "of ornament." after some remarks on the origin of the art and its earliest professors, and an account of the various kinds of poems known to the ancients,--in which there is an absence of pedantry, of quaintness, and of every species of puerility, very rare among the didactic writers of the age,--the critic proceeds to an enumeration of our principal vernacular poets, or "_vulgar makers_," as he is pleased to anglicize the words. beginning with a just tribute to chaucer, as the father of genuine english verse, he passes rapidly to the latter end of the reign of henry viii., when, as he observes, there "sprung up a new company of courtly makers, of whom sir thomas wyat the elder and henry earl of surry were the two chieftains; who having travelled into italy, and there tasted the sweet and stately measures and style of the italian poesy, as novices newly crept out of the schools of dante, arioste, and petrarch, they greatly polished our rude and homely manner of vulgar poesy, from that it had been before, and for that cause may justly be said the first reformers of our english metre and style[ ]." [note : i have quoted this passage partly for the sake of the express and authentic testimony which it bears to the fact of surry's having visited italy, which mr. chalmers and after him dr. nott, in their respective biographies of the noble poet, have been induced to call in question.] after slight notice of the minor poets, who flourished under edward vi. and mary, he goes on to observe that "in her majesty's time that now is, are sprung up another crew of courtly makers, noblemen and gentlemen of her majesty's own servants, who have written excellently well, as it would appear if their doing could be found out and made public with the rest." and in a subsequent passage he thus awards to each of them his appropriate commendation. "of the latter sort i think thus: that for tragedy the lord buckhurst and master edward ferrys (ferrers), for such doings as i have seen of theirs do deserve the highest price. the earl of oxford and master edwards of her majesty's chapel for comedy and interlude. for eglogue and pastoral poesy, sir philip sidney and master chaloner, and that other gentleman who wrate the late 'shepherd's calendar'[ ]. for dirty and amorous ode i find sir walter raleigh's vein most lofty, insolent and passionate. master edward dyer for elegy, most sweet, solemn and of high conceit. gascoigne for a good metre and for a plentiful vein. phaer and golding for a learned and well corrected verse, specially in translation clear and very faithfully answering their author's intent. others have also written with much facility, but more commendably perchance if they had not written so much nor so popularly[ ]." the passage concludes with a piece of flattery to her majesty in her poetical capacity, unworthy of transcription. [note : spenser published this work under the signature of "immerito."] [note : art of english poesy, book i.] under the head of "poetical proportion" or metre, our author writes learnedly of the measures of the ancients, and on those employed by our native poets with singular taste and judgement, except that the artist-like pride in difficulty overcome has inspired him with an unwarrantable fondness for verses arranged in eggs, roundels, lozenges, triquets, and other ingenious figures, of which he has given diagrams further illustrated by finished specimens of his own construction. great efforts had been made about this period by a literary party, of which stainhurst the translator of virgil, sidney and gabriel hervey were the leaders, to introduce the greek and roman measures into english verse, and puttenham has judged it necessary to compose a chapter thus intituled: "how, if all manner of sudden innovations were not very scandalous, specially in the laws of any language or art, the use of greek and latin feet might be brought into our vulgar poesy, and with good grace enough." but it is evident on the whole, that he bore no good will to this pedantic novelty. in treating of "ornament," our author enumerates, explains and exemplifies all the rhetorical figures of the greeks; adding, for the benefit of courtiers and ladies, to whom his work is principally addressed, translations of their names; several of which would require to be retranslated for the benefit of the modern reader, as for example the three following, all figures of derision:--"the fleering frump;"--"the broad flout;"--"the privy nip." at the present day, however, the work of puttenham is most of all to be valued for the remarks on language and on manners, and the contemporary anecdotes with which it abounds, and of which some examples may be quoted. after observing that "as it hath been always reputed a great fault to use figurative speeches foolishly and indiscreetly, so it is esteemed no less an imperfection in man's utterance, to have none use of figure at all, specially in our writing and speeches public, making them but as our ordinary talk, than which nothing can be more unsavory and far from all civility:--'i remember,' says he, 'in the first year of queen mary's reign a knight of yorkshire was chosen speaker of the parliament, a good gentleman and wise, in the affairs of his shire, and not unlearned in the laws of the realm; but as well for lack of some of his teeth as for want of language, nothing well spoken, which at that time and business was most behoveful for him to have been: this man, after he had made his oration to the queen; which ye know is of course to be done at the first assembly of both houses; a bencher of the temple, both well learned and very eloquent, returning from the parliament house asked another gentleman his friend how he liked mr. speaker's oration; 'mary,' quoth the other, 'methinks i heard not a better alehouse tale told this seven years.'... and though grave and wise councillors in their consultations do not use much superfluous eloquence, and also in their judicial hearings do much mislike all scholastical rhetorics: yet in such a case... if the lord chancellor of england or archbishop of canterbury himself were to speak, he ought to do it cunningly and eloquently, which cannot be without the use of figures: and nevertheless none impeachment or blemish to the gravity of the persons or of the cause: wherein i report me to them that knew sir nicholas bacon lord keeper of the great seal, or the now lord treasurer of england, and have been conversant with their speeches made in the parliament house and star-chamber. from whose lips i have seen to proceed more grave and natural eloquence, than from all the orators of oxford or cambridge; but all is as it is handled, and maketh no matter whether the same eloquence be natural to them or artificial (though i rather think natural); yet were they known to be learned and not unskilful of the art when they were younger men.... i have come to the lord keeper sir nicholas bacon, and found him sitting in his gallery alone with the works of quintilian before him; indeed he was a most eloquent man, and of rare learning and wisdom as ever i knew england to breed; and one that joyed as much in learned men and men of good wits." he mentions being a by-stander when a doctor of civil law, "pleading in a litigious cause betwixt a man and his wife, before a great magistrate, who (as they can tell that knew him) was a man very well learned and grave, but somewhat sour and of no plausible utterance: the gentleman's chance was to say: 'my lord, the simple woman is not so much to blame as her leud abettors, who by _violent_ persuasions have led her into this wilfulness.' quoth the judge; 'what need such eloquent terms in this place?' the gentleman replied, 'doth your lordship mislike the term (_violent_)? and methinks i speak it to great purpose; for i am sure she would never have done it, but by force of persuasion.'" &c. pursuing the subject of language, which, he says, "in our maker or poet must be heedily looked unto that it be natural, pure, and the most usual of all his country," after some other rules or cautions he adds: "our maker therefore at these days shall not follow piers plowman, nor gower, nor lydgate, nor yet chaucer, for their language is now out of use with us: neither shall he take the terms of northern men, such as they use in daily talk, whether they be noblemen or gentlemen or of their best clerks, all is a matter; nor in effect any speech used beyond the river of trent, though no man can deny but that theirs is the purer english saxon at this day, yet it is not so courtly nor so current as our southern english is; no more is the far western man's speech: ye shall therefore take the usual speech of the court, and that of london and the shires lying about london within sixty miles and not much above. i say not this but in every shire of england there be gentlemen and others that speak, but specially write, as good southern as we of middlesex or surry do; but not the common people of every shire, to whom the gentlemen and also their learned clerks do for the most part condescend; but herein we are ruled by the english dictionaries and other books written by learned men, and therefore it needeth none other direction in that behalf. albeit peradventure some small admonition be not impertinent, for we find in our english writers many words and speeches amendable, and ye shall see in some many inkhorn terms so ill affected brought in by men of learning, as preachers and schoolmasters; and many strange terms of other languages by secretaries and merchants and travellers, and many dark words and not usual nor well sounding, though they be daily spoken in court. wherefore great heed must be taken by our maker in this point that his choice be good." he modestly expresses his apprehensions that in some of these respects he may himself be accounted a transgressor, and he subjoins a list of the new, foreign or unusual words employed by him in this tract, with his reasons for their adoption. of this number are; _scientific_, _conduict_, "a french word, but well allowed of us, and long since usual; it sounds something more than this word (leading) for it is applied only to the leading of a captain, and not as a little boy should lead a blind man;" _idiom_, from the greek; _significative_, "borrowed of the latin and french, but to us brought in first by some noblemen's secretary, as i think, yet doth so well serve the turn as it could not now be spared; and many more like usurped latin and french words; as, _method_, _methodical_, _placation_, _function_, _assubtiling_, _refining_, _compendious_, _prolix_, _figurative_, _inveigle_, a term borrowed of our common lawyers: _impression_, also a new term, but well expressing the matter, and more than our english word:" _penetrate_, _penetrable_, _indignity_ in the sense of unworthiness, and a few more[ ]. the whole enumeration is curious, and strikingly exhibits the state of language at this epoch, when the rapid advancement of letters and of all the arts of social life was creating a daily want of new terms, which writers in all classes and individuals in every walk of life regarded themselves as authorized to supply at their own discretion, in any manner and from any sources most accessible to them, whether pure or corrupt, ancient or modern. the pedants of the universities, and the travelled coxcombs of the court, had each a neological jargon of their own, unintelligible to each other and to the people at large; on the other hand, there were a few persons of grave professions and austere characters, who, like cato the censor during a similar period of accelerated progress in the roman state, prided themselves on preserving in all its unsophisticated simplicity, or primitive rudeness, the tongue of their forefathers. the judicious puttenham, uniting the accuracy of scholastic learning with the enlargement of mind acquired by long intercourse among foreign nations, and with the polish of a courtier, places himself between the contending parties, and with a manly disdain of every species of affectation, but especially that of rusticity and barbarism, avails himself, without scruple as without excess, of the copiousness of other languages to supply the remaining deficiencies of his own. [note : art of english poesy, book iii.] several chapters of the book "of ornament" are devoted to the discussion of the decent, or seemly, in words and actions, and prove the author to have been a nice observer of manners as well as a refined critic of style. he severely censures a certain translator of virgil, who said "that Ã�neas was fain to _trudge_ out of troy; which term better became to be spoken of a beggar, or of a rogue, or of a lackey:" and another who called the same hero "by fate a _fugitive_;" and who inquires "what moved juno to _tug_ so great a captain;" a word "the most indecent in this case that could have been devised, since it is derived from the cart, and signifies the draught or pull of the horses." the phrase "a prince's _pelf_" is reprobated, because _pelf_ means properly "the scraps or shreds of taylors and of skinners." he gives strict rules for the decorous behaviour of ambassadors and all who address themselves to princes, being himself a courtier, and having probably exercised some diplomatic function. "i have seen," says he, "foreign ambassadors in the queen's presence laugh so dissolutely at some rare pastime or sport that hath been made there, that nothing in the world could have worse becomen them." with respect to men in other stations of life he is pleased to say, it is decent for a priest "to be sober and sad;" "a judge to be incorrupted, solitary, and unacquainted with courtiers or courtly entertainments... without plait or wrinkle, sour in look and churlish in speech; contrariwise a courtly gentleman to be lofty and curious in countenance, yet sometimes a creeper and a curry favell with his superiors." "and in a prince it is decent to go slowly and to march with leisure, and with a certain grandity rather than gravity; as our sovereign lady and mistress, the very image of majesty and magnificence, is accustomed to do generally, unless it be when she walketh apace for her pleasure, or to catch her a heat in the cold mornings. nevertheless it is not so decent in a meaner person, as i have discerned in some counterfeit ladies of the country, which use it much to their own derision. this comeliness was wanting in queen mary, _otherwise a very good and honorable princess_. and was some blemish to the emperor ferdinando, a most noble-minded man, yet so careless and forgetful of himself in that behalf, as i have seen him run up a pair of stairs so swift and nimble a pace, as almost had not become a very mean man, who had not gone in some hasty business." respecting the poets mentioned by puttenham whose names have not already occurred in the present work, it may be observed, that excepting a few lines quoted by this critic, there is nothing remaining of sir edward dyer's, except, which is highly probable, he is to be reckoned among the anonymous contributors to the popular collections of that day. of gascoigne, on the contrary, enough is left to exhaust the patience of any modern reader. in his youth, neglecting the study of the law for poetry and pleasure, he poured forth an abundance of amatory pieces; some of them sonnets closely imitating the italian ones in style as well as structure. afterwards, during a five-years service in the war of flanders, he found leisure for much serious thought; and discarding the levities of his early years, he composed by way of expiation a moral satire in blank verse called the steel glass, and several religious pieces. notwithstanding however this newly assumed seriousness, he attended her majesty in her progress in the summer of , and composed a large number of courtly verses as a contribution to "the princely pleasures of kennelworth." gascoigne died in october . of his minor poems the following may be cited as a pleasing specimen. the lullaby of a lover. sing lullaby as women do, wherewith they bring their babes to rest, and lullaby can i sing too as womanly as can the best. with lullaby they still the child; and if i be not much beguil'd, full many wanton babes have i, which must be still'd with lullaby. first lullaby my youthful years. it is now time to go to bed, for crooked age and hoary years have won the haven within my head: with lullaby then youth be still, with lullaby content thy will, since courage quails and comes behind, go sleep and so beguile thy mind. next lullaby my gazing eyes, which wonted were to glaunce apace; for every glass may now suffice to shew the furrows in my face. with lullaby then wink awhile, with lullaby your looks beguile: let no fair face or beauty bright entice you eft with vain delight. and lullaby my wanton will, let reason's rule now reign thy thought, since all too late i find by skill, how dear i have thy fancies bought: with lullaby now take thine ease, with lullaby thy doubts appease; for trust to this, if thou be still, my body shall obey thy will. thus lullaby my youth, mine eyes, my will, my ware, and all that was, i can no mo delays devise, but welcome pain, let pleasure pass: with lullaby now take your leave, with lullaby your dreams deceive, and when you rise with waking eye, remember then this lullaby. respecting another poet of greater popularity than gascoigne, and of a more original turn of genius, warner, the author of albion's england, puttenham has preserved a discreet silence; for his great work had been prohibited by the capricious tyranny, or rigid decorum, of archbishop whitgift, and seizure made in of the copies surreptitiously printed. this long and singular poem is a kind of metrical chronicle, containing the remarkable events of _english_ history from the flood,--the starting point of all chroniclers,--to the reign of queen elizabeth. it is written in the common ballad measure, and in a style often creeping and prosaic, sometimes quaint and affected; but passages of beautiful simplicity and strokes of genuine pathos frequently occur to redeem its faults, and the tediousness of the historical narration is relieved by a large intermixture of interesting and entertaining episodes. the ballads of queen eleanor and fair rosamond, argentile and curan, and the patient countess, selected by dr. percy in his relics of ancient poetry, may be regarded by the poetical student of the present day as a sufficient specimen of the talents of warner: but in his own time he was complimented as the homer or virgil of the age; the persevering reader travelled, not only with patience but delight, through his seventy-seven long chapters; and it is said that the work became popular enough, notwithstanding its prohibition by authority, to supersede in some degree its celebrated predecessor the mirror for magistrates. chapter xxiii. from to . naval war against spain.--death of sir richard grenville--notice of cavendish.--establishment of the east india company.--results of voyages of discovery.--transactions between raleigh and the queen.--anecdotes of robert cary--of the holles family.--progress of the drama.--dramatic poets before shakespeare.--notice of shakespeare.--proclamation respecting bear-baiting and acting of plays.--censorship of the drama.--anecdote of the queen and tarleton. the maritime war with spain, notwithstanding the cautious temper of the queen, was strenuously waged during the year , and produced some striking indications of the rising spirit of the english navy. a squadron under lord thomas howard, which had been waiting six months at the azores to intercept the homeward bound ships from spanish america, was there surprised by a vastly more numerous fleet of the enemy which had been sent out for their convoy. the english admiral got to sea in all haste and made good his retreat, followed by his whole squadron excepting the revenge, which was entangled in a narrow channel between the port and an island. sir richard grenville her commander, after a vain attempt to break through the spanish line, determined, with a kind of heroic desperation, to sustain alone the conflict with a whole fleet of fifty-seven sail, and to confront all extremities rather than strike his colors. from three o'clock in the afternoon till day-break he resisted, by almost incredible efforts of valor, all the force which could be brought to bear against him, and fifteen times beat back the boarding parties from his deck. at length, when all his bravest had fallen, and he himself was disabled by many wounds; his powder also being exhausted, his small-arms lost or broken, and his ship a perfect wreck, he proposed to his gallant crew to sink her, that no trophy might remain to the enemy. but this proposal, though applauded by several, was overruled by the majority: the revenge struck to the spaniards; and two days after, her brave commander died on board their admiral's ship of his glorious wounds, "with a joyful and quiet mind," as he expressed himself, and admired by his enemies themselves for his high spirit and invincible resolution. this was the first english ship of any considerable size captured by the spaniards during the whole war, and it did them little good; for, besides that the vessel had been shattered to pieces, and sunk a few days after with two hundred spanish sailors on board, the example of heroic self-devotion set by sir richard grenville long continued in the hour of battle to strike awe and terror to their hearts. thomas cavendish, elated by the splendid success of that first expedition in which, with three slender barks of insignificant size carrying only one hundred and twenty-three persons of every degree, he had plundered the whole coast of new spain and peru, burned paita and acapulco, and captured a spanish admiral of seven hundred tons, besides many other vessels taken or burned;--then crossed the great south sea, and circumnavigated the globe in the shortest time in which that exploit had yet been performed;--set sail again in august on a second voyage. but this time, when his far greater force and more adequate preparations of every kind seemed to promise results still more profitable and glorious, scarce any thing but disasters awaited him. he took indeed the town of santos in brazil, which was an acquisition of some importance; but delaying here too long, he arrived at a wrong season in the straits of magellan, and was compelled to endure the winter of that inhospitable clime; where seeing his numbers thinned by sickness and hardship, and his plans baffled by dissentions and insubordination, he found it necessary to abandon his original design of crossing the south sea, and resolved to undertake the voyage to china by the cape of good hope. first, however, he was fatally prevailed upon to return to the coast of brazil, where he lost many men in rash attempts against various towns, which expecting his attacks were now armed for their defence, and a still greater number by desertion. baffled in all his designs, worn out with fatigue, anxieties, and chagrin, this brave but unfortunate adventurer breathed his last far from england on the wide ocean, and so obscurely that even the date of his death is unknown. at this period, a peculiar education was regarded as not more necessary to enable a gentleman to assume the direction of a naval expedition than the command of a troop of horse; and it is probable that even by cavendish, whose exploits we read with amazement, but a very slender stock of maritime experience was possessed when he first embarked on board the vessel in which he had undertaken to circumnavigate the globe. he was the third son of a suffolk gentleman of large estate; came early to court; and having there consumed his patrimony in the fashionable magnificence of the time, suddenly discovered within himself sufficient courage to attempt the reparation of his broken fortunes by that favorite resource, the plunder of the spanish settlements. on his return from his first voyage he sailed up the thames in a kind of triumph, displaying a top-sail of cloth of gold, and making ostentation of the profit rather than the glory of the enterprise. he appears to have been equally deficient in the enlightened prudence which makes an essential feature of the great commander, and in that lofty disinterestedness of motive which constitutes the hero; but in the activity, the enterprise, the brilliant valor, which now form the spirit of the english navy, he had few equals and especially few predecessors; and amongst the founders of its glory the name of cavendish is therefore worthy of a conspicuous and enduring place. by the failure of the late attempt to seat don antonio on the throne of portugal, the sovereignty of philip ii. over that country and its dependencies had finally been established; and in consequence its trade and settlements in the east offered a fair and tempting prize to the ambition or cupidity of english adventurers. the passage by the cape of good hope, repeatedly accomplished by circumnavigators of this nation, had now ceased to oppose any formidable obstacle to the spirit of maritime enterprise; and the papal donation was a bulwark still less capable of preserving inviolate to the sovereigns of portugal their own rich indies. the first expedition ever fitted out from england for those eastern regions, where it now possesses an extent of territory in comparison of which itself is but a petty province, consisted of three "tall ships," which sailed in this year under the conduct of george raymond and james lancaster. after doubling the cape and refreshing themselves in saldanha bay, which the portuguese had named but not yet settled, the navigators steered along the eastern coast of africa, where the ship commanded by raymond was lost. with the other two, however, they proceeded still eastward; passed without impediment all the stations of the portuguese on the shores of the indian ocean, doubled cape comorin, and extended their voyage to the nicobar isles, and even to the peninsula of malacca. they landed in several parts, where they found means to open an advantageous traffic with the natives; and, after capturing many portuguese vessels laden with various kinds of merchandise, repassed the cape in perfect safety with all their booty. in their way home they visited the west indies, where great disasters overtook them; for here their two remaining ships were lost, and lancaster, with the slender remnant of their crews, was glad to obtain a passage to europe on board a french ship which happily arrived to their relief. but as far as respected the eastern part of the expedition, their success had been such as strongly to invite the attempts of future adventurers; and nine years after its sailing, her majesty was prevailed upon to grant a charter of incorporation with ample privileges to an east india company, under whose auspices lancaster consented to undertake a second voyage. annual fleets were from this period fitted out by these enterprising traders, and factories of their establishment soon arose in surat, in masulipatam, in bantam, in siam, and even in japan. the history of their progress makes no part of the subject of the present work; but the foundation of a mercantile company which has advanced itself to power and importance absolutely unparalleled in the annals of the world, forms a feature not to be overlooked in the glory of elizabeth. these long and hazardous voyages of discovery, of hostility, or of commerce, began henceforth to afford one of the most honorable occupations to those among the youthful nobility or gentry of the country, whose active spirits disdained the luxurious and servile idleness of the court: they also opened a welcome resource to younger sons, and younger brothers, impatient to emancipate themselves from the galling miseries of that necessitous dependence on the head of their house to which the customs of the age and country relentlessly condemned them. thus shakespeare in his two gentlemen of verona, ..."he wondered that your lordship would suffer him to spend his youth at home, while other men of slender reputation put forth their sons to seek preferment out: some to the wars to try their fortune there; _some to discover islands far away_; some to the studious universities. for any or for all these exercises, he said, that protheus your son was meet: and did request me to importune you to let him spend his time no more at home; which would be great impeachment to his age, in having known no travel in his youth." but the advancement of the fortunes of individuals was by no means the principal or most permanent good which accrued to the nation by these enterprises. the period was still indeed far distant, in which voyages of discovery were to be undertaken on scientific principles and with large views of general utility; but new animals, new vegetables, natural productions or manufactured articles before unknown to them, attracted the attention even of these first unskilful explorers. specimens in every kind were brought home, and, recommended as they never failed to be by fabulous or grossly exaggerated descriptions, in the first instance only served to gratify and inflame the vulgar passion for wonders. but the attention excited to these striking novelties gradually became enlightened; a more familiar acquaintance disclosed their genuine properties, and the purposes to which they might be applied at home;--raleigh introduced the potatoe on his irish estates;--an acceptable however inelegant luxury was discovered in the use of tobacco; and somewhat later, the introduction of tea gradually brought sobriety and refinement into the system of modern english manners. many allusions to the prevailing passion for beholding foreign, or, as they were then accounted, monstrous animals, may be found scattered over the works of shakespeare and contemporary dramatists. trinculo says, speaking of caliban, "were i but in england now... and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver. there would this monster _make_ a man; any strange beast there makes a man: when they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead indian." and again; "do you put tricks upon's with savages and men of inde?" &c. the whole play of the tempest, exquisite as it is, must have derived a still more poignant relish, to the taste of that age, from the romantic ideas of desert islands then floating in the imaginations of men. in the following year, , raleigh, weary of his irish exile, and anxious by some splendid exploit to revive the declining favor of the queen, projected a formidable attack on the spanish power in america, and engaged without difficulty in the enterprise a large number of volunteers. but unavoidable obstacles arose, by which the fleet was detained till the proper season for its sailing was past: elizabeth recalled raleigh to court; and the only fortunate result of the expedition, to the command of which martin frobisher succeeded, was the capture of one wealthy carrack and the destruction of another. raleigh, in the meantime, was amusing his involuntary idleness by an intrigue with one of her majesty's maids of honor, a daughter of the celebrated sir nicholas throgmorton. the queen, in the heat of her indignation at the scandal brought upon her court by the consequences of this amour, resorted, as in a thousand other cases, to a vigor beyond the laws; and though sir walter offered immediately to make the lady the best reparation in his power, by marrying her, which he afterwards performed, elizabeth unfeelingly published her shame to the whole world by sending both culprits to the tower. sir walter remained a prisoner during several months. meanwhile his ships returned from their cruise, and the profits from the sale of the captured carrack were to be divided among the queen, the admiral, the sailors, and the several contributors to the outfit. disputes arose; her majesty was dissatisfied with the share allotted her; and taking advantage of the situation into which her own despotic violence had thrown raleigh, she appears to have compelled him to buy his liberty, and the undisturbed enjoyment of all that he held under her, by the sacrifice of no less than eighty thousand pounds due to him as admiral. such was the disinterested purity of that zeal for morals of which elizabeth judged it incumbent on her to make profession! it may be curious to learn, from another incident which occurred about the same time, at what rate her majesty caused her forgiveness of lawful matrimony to be purchased. robert cary, third son of lord hunsdon, created lord leppington by james i. and earl of monmouth by his successor,--from whose memoirs of himself the following particulars are derived,--was at this time a young man and an assiduous attendant on the court of his illustrious kinswoman. being a younger son, he had no patrimony either in possession or reversion; he received from the exchequer only one hundred pounds per annum during pleasure, and by the style of life which he found it necessary to support, had incurred a debt of a thousand pounds. in this situation he married a widow possessed of five hundred pounds per annum and some ready money. his father evinced no displeasure on the occasion; but his other friends, and especially the queen, were so much offended at the match, that he took his wife to carlisle and remained there without approaching the court till the next year. being then obliged to visit london on business, his father suggested the expediency of his paying the queen the compliment of appearing on _her day_. accordingly, he secretly prepared caparisons and a present for her majesty, at the cost of more than four hundred pounds, and presented himself in the tilt-yard in the character of "a forsaken knight who had vowed solitariness." the festival over, he made himself known to his friends in court; but the queen, though she had received his gift, would not take notice of his presence. it happened soon after, that the king of scots sent to cary's elder brother, then marshal of berwick, to beg that he would wait upon him to receive a secret message which he wanted to transmit to the queen. the marshal wrote to his father to inquire her majesty's pleasure in the matter. she did not choose that he should stir out of berwick; but "knowing, though she would not know it," that robert cary was in court, she said at length to lord hunsdon, "i hear your fine son that has married lately so worthily is hereabouts; send him if you will to know the king's pleasure." his lordship answered, that he knew he would be happy to obey her commands. "no," said she, "do you bid him go, for i have nothing to do with him." robert cary thought it hard to be sent off without first seeing the queen; "sir," said he to his father, who urged his going, "if she be on such hard terms with me, i had need be wary what i do. if i go to the king without her license, it were in her power to hang me at my return, and that, for any thing i see, it were ill trusting her." lord hunsdon "merrily" told the queen what he said. "if the gentleman be so distrustful," she answered, "let the secretary make a safe-conduct to go and come, and i will sign it." on his return with letters from james, robert cary hastened to court, and entered the presence-chamber splashed and dirty as he was; but not finding the queen there, lord hunsdon went to her to announce his son's arrival. she desired him to receive the letter, or message, and bring it to her. but the young gentleman knew the court and the queen too well to consent to give up his dispatches even to his father; he insisted on delivering them himself, and at length, with much difficulty gained admission. the first encounter was, as he expresses it, "stormy and terrible," which he passed over with silence; but when the queen had "said her pleasure" of himself and his wife, he made her a courtly excuse; with which she was so well appeased, that she at length assured him all was forgiven and forgotten, and received him into her wonted favor. after this happy conclusion of an adventure so perilous to a courtier of elizabeth, cary returned to carlisle; and his father's death soon occurring, he had orders to take upon himself the government of berwick till further orders. in this situation he remained a year without salary; impairing much his small estate, and unable to obtain from court either an allowance, or leave of absence to enable him to solicit one in person. at length, necessity rendering him bold, he resolved to hazard the step of going up without permission. on his arrival, however, neither secretary cecil nor even his own brother would venture to introduce him to the queen's presence, but advised him to hasten back before his absence should be known, for fear of her anger. at last, as he stood sorrowfully pondering on his case, a gentleman of the chamber, touched with pity, undertook to mention his arrival to her majesty in a way which should not displease her: and he opened the case by telling her, that she was more beholden to the love and service of one man than of many whom she favored more. this excited her curiosity; and on her asking who this person might be, he answered that it was robert cary, who, unable longer to bear his absence from her sight, had posted up to kiss her hand and instantly return. she sent for him directly, received him with greater favor than ever, allowed him after the interview to lead her out by the hand, which seemed to his brother and the secretary nothing less than a miracle; and what was more, granted him five hundred pounds immediately, a patent of the wardenry of the east marches, and a renewal of his grant of norham-castle. it was this able courtier, rather than grateful kinsman, who earned the good graces of king james by being the first to bring him the welcome tidings of the decease of elizabeth. incidental mention has already been made of sir william holles of haughton in nottinghamshire, the gentleman who refused to marry his daughter to the earl of cumberland, because he did not choose "to stand cap in hand" to his son-in-law: this worthy knight died at a great age in the year ; and a few further particulars respecting him and his descendants may deserve record, on account of the strong light which they reflect on several points of manners. sir william was distinguished, perhaps beyond any other person of the same rank in the kingdom, for boundless hospitality and a magnificent style of living. "he began his christmas," says the historian of the family, "at allhallowtide and continued it until candlemas; during which any man was permitted to stay three days, without being asked whence he came or what he was." for each of the twelve days of christmas he allowed a fat ox and other provisions in proportion. he would never dine till after one o'clock; and being asked why he preferred so unusually late an hour, he answered, that "for aught he knew there might a friend come twenty miles to dine with him, and he would be loth he should lose his labor." at the coronation of edward vi. he appeared with fifty followers in blue coats and badges,--then the ordinary costume of retainers and serving-men,--and he never went to the sessions at retford, though only four miles from his own mansion, without thirty "proper fellows" at his heels. what was then rare among the greatest subjects, he kept a company of actors of his own to perform plays and masques at festival times; in summer they travelled about the country. this sir william was succeeded in his estates by sir john holles his grandson, who was one of the band of gentlemen pensioners to elizabeth, and in the reign of james i. purchased the title of earl of clare. his grandfather had engaged his hand to a kinswoman of the earl of shrewsbury; but the young man declining to complete this contract, and taking to wife a daughter of sir thomas stanhope, the consequence was a long and inveterate feud between the houses of holles and of talbot, which was productive of several remarkable incidents. its first effect was a duel between orme, a servant of holles, and pudsey, master of horse to the earl of shrewsbury, in which the latter was slain. the earl prosecuted orme, and sought to take away his life; but sir john holles in the first instance caused him to be conveyed away to ireland, and afterwards obtained his pardon of the queen. for his conduct in this business he was himself challenged by gervase markham, champion and gallant to the countess of shrewsbury; but he refused the duel, because the unreasonable demand of markham, that it should take place in a park belonging to the earl his enemy, gave him just ground to apprehend that some treachery was meditated. anxious however to wipe away the aspersions which his adversary had taken occasion to cast upon his courage, he sought a rencounter which might wear the appearance of accident; and soon after, having met markham on the road, they immediately dismounted and attacked each other with their rapiers; markham fell, severely wounded, and the earl of shrewsbury lost no time in raising his servants and tenantry to the number of one hundred and twenty in order to apprehend holles in case markham's hurt should prove mortal. on the other side lord sheffield, the kinsman of holles, joined him with sixty men. "i hear, cousin," said he on his arrival, "that my lord of shrewsbury is prepared to trouble you; but take my word, before he carry you it shall cost many a broken pate;" and he and his company remained at haughton till the wounded man was out of danger. markham had vowed never to eat supper or take the sacrament till he was revenged, and in consequence found himself obliged to abstain from both to the day of his death[ ]. what appears the most extraordinary part of the story is, that we do not find the queen and council interfering to put a stop to this private war, worthy of the barbarism of the feudal ages. gervase markham, who was the portionless younger son of a nottinghamshire gentleman of ancient family, became the most voluminous miscellaneous writer of his age, using his pen apparently as his chief means of subsistence. he wrote on a vast variety of subjects, and both in verse and prose; but his works on farriery and husbandry appear to have been the most useful, and those on field sports the most entertaining, of his performances. [note : see historical collections, by collins.] the progress of the drama is a subject which claims in this place some share of our attention, partly because it excited in a variety of ways that of elizabeth herself. by the appearance of ferrex and porrex in , and that of gammer gurton's needle five years later, a new impulse had been given to english genius; and both tragedies and comedies approaching the regular models, besides historical and pastoral dramas, allegorical pieces resembling the old moralities, and translations from the ancients, were from this time produced in abundance, and received by all classes with avidity and delight. about twenty dramatic poets flourished between and ; and an inspection of the titles alone of their numerous productions would furnish evidence of an acquaintance with the stores of history, mythology, classical fiction, and romance, strikingly illustrative of the literary diligence and intellectual activity of the age. richard edwards produced a tragi-comedy on the affecting ancient story of damon and pithias, besides his comedy of palamon and arcite, formerly noticed as having been performed for the entertainment of her majesty at oxford. in connexion with this latter piece it may be remarked, that of the chivalrous idea of theseus in this celebrated tale and in the midsummer night's dream, as well as of all the other _gothicized_ representations of ancient heroes, of which shakespeare's troilus and cressida, his rape of lucrece, and some passages of spenser's faery queen, afford further examples, guido colonna's _historia trojana_, written in , was the original: a work long and widely popular, which had been translated, paraphrased and imitated in french and english, and which the barbarism of its incongruities, however palpable, had not as yet consigned to oblivion or contempt. george gascoigne, besides his tragedy from euripides, translated also a comedy from ariosto, performed by the students of gray's inn under the title of the supposes; which was the first specimen in our language of a drama in prose. italian literature was at this period cultivated amongst us with an assiduity unequalled either before or since, and it possessed few authors of merit or celebrity whose works were not speedily familiarized to the english public through the medium of translations. the study of this enchanting language found however a vehement opponent in roger ascham, who exclaims against the "enchantments of circe, brought out of italy to mar men's manners in england; much by examples of ill life, but more by precepts of fond books, of late translated out of italian into english, and sold in every shop in london." he afterwards declares that "there be more of these ungracious books set out in print within these few months than have been seen in england many years before." to these strictures on the moral tendencies of the popular writers of italy some force must be allowed; but it is obvious to remark, that similar objections might be urged with at least equal cogency against the favorite classics of ascham; and that the use of so valuable an instrument of intellectual advancement as the free introduction of the literature of a highly polished nation into one comparatively rude, is not to be denied to beings capable of moral discrimination, from the apprehension of such partial and incidental injury as may arise out of its abuse. italy, in fact, was at once the plenteous store-house whence the english poets, dramatists and romance writers of the latter half of the sixteenth century drew their most precious materials; the school where they acquired taste and skill to adapt them to their various purposes; and the parnassian mount on which they caught the purest inspirations of the muse. elizabeth was a zealous patroness of these studies; she spoke the italian language with fluency and elegance, and used it frequently in her mottos and devices: by her encouragement, as we shall see, harrington was urged to complete his version of the orlando furioso, and she willingly accepted in the year the dedication of fairfax's admirable translation of the great epic of tasso. but to return to our dramatic writers:... thomas kyd was the author of a tragedy entitled jeronimo, which for the absurd horrors of its plot, and the mingled puerility and bombast of its language, was a source of perpetual ridicule to rival poets, while from a certain wild pathos combined with its imposing grandiloquence it was long a favorite with the people. the same person also translated a play by garnier on the story of cornelia the wife of pompey;--a solitary instance apparently of obligation to the french theatre on the part of these founders of our national drama. by thomas hughes the misfortunes of arthur, son of uther pendragon, were made the subject of a tragedy performed before the queen. preston, to whom when a youth her majesty had granted a pension of a shilling a day in consideration of his excellent acting in the play of palamon and arcite, composed on the story of cambyses king of persia "a lamentable tragedy mixed full of pleasant mirth," which is now only remembered as having been an object of ridicule to shakespeare. lilly, the author of euphues, composed six court comedies and other pieces principally on classical subjects, but disfigured by all the barbarous affectations of style which had marked his earlier production. christopher marlow, unquestionably a man of genius, however deficient in taste and judgement, astonished the world with his tamburlain the great, which became in a manner proverbial for its rant and extravagance: he also composed, but in a purer style and with a pathetic cast of sentiment, a drama on the subject of king edward ii., and ministered fuel to the ferocious prejudices of the age by his fiend-like portraiture of barabas in the rich jew of malta. marlow was also the author of a tragedy, in which the sublime and the grotesque were extraordinarily mingled, on the noted story of dr. faustus; a tale of preternatural horrors, which, after the lapse of two centuries, was again to receive a similar distinction from the pen of one of the most celebrated of german dramatists: not the only example which could be produced of a coincidence of taste between the early tragedians of the two countries. of the works of these and other contemporary poets, the fathers of the english theatre, some are extant in print, others have come down to us in manuscript, and of no inconsiderable portion the titles alone survive. a few have acquired an incidental value in the eyes of the curious, as having furnished the ground-work of some of the dramas of our great poet; but not one of the number can justly be said to make a part of the living literature of the country. it was reserved for the transcendent genius of shakespeare alone, in that infancy of our theatre when nothing proceeded from the crowd of rival dramatists but rude and abortive efforts, ridiculed by the learned and judicious of their own age and forgotten by posterity, to astonish and enchant the nation with those inimitable works which form the perpetual boast and immortal heritage of englishmen. by a strange kind of fatality, which excites at once our surprise and our unavailing regrets, the domestic and the literary history of this great luminary of his age are almost equally enveloped in doubt and obscurity. even of the few particulars of his origin and early adventures which have reached us through various channels, the greater number are either imperfectly attested, or exposed to objections of different kinds which render them of little value; and respecting his theatrical life the most important circumstances still remain matter of conjecture, or at best of remote inference. when shakespeare first became a writer for the stage;--what was his earliest production;--whether all the pieces usually ascribed to him be really his, and whether there be any others of which he was in whole or in part the author;--what degree of assistance he either received from other dramatic writers or lent to them;--in what chronological order his acknowledged pieces ought to be arranged, and what dates should be assigned to their first representation;--are all questions on which the ingenuity and indefatigable diligence of a crowd of editors, critics and biographers have long been exerted, without producing any considerable approximation to certainty or to general agreement. on a subject so intricate, it will suffice for the purposes of the present work to state a few of the leading facts which appear to rest on the most satisfactory authorities. william shakespeare, who was born in , settled in london about or , and seems to have almost immediately adopted the profession of an actor. yet his earliest effort in composition was not of the dramatic kind; for in he dedicated to his great patron the earl of southampton, as "the first heir of his invention," his venus and adonis, a narrative poem of considerable length in the six-line stanza then popular. in the subsequent year he also inscribed to the same noble friend his rape of lucrece, a still longer poem of similar form in the stanza of seven lines, and containing passages of vivid description, of exquisite imagery, and of sentimental excellence, which, had he written nothing more, would have entitled him to rank on a level with the author of the faery queen, and far above all other contemporary poets. he likewise employed his pen occasionally in the composition of sonnets, principally devoted to love and friendship, and written perhaps in emulation of those of spenser, who, as one of these sonnets testifies, was at this period the object of his ardent admiration. before the publication however of any one of these poems he must already have attained considerable note as a dramatic writer, since robert green, in a satirical piece printed in , speaking of theatrical concerns, stigmatizes this "player" as "an absolute joannes factotum," and one who was "in his own conceit the only shake-scene in a country." the tragedy of pericles, which was published in with the name of shakespeare in the title-page, and of which dryden says in one of his prologues to a first play, "shakespeare's own muse his pericles first bore," was probably acted in , and appears to have been long popular. romeo and juliet was certainly an early production of his muse, and one which excited much interest, as may well be imagined, amongst the younger portion of theatrical spectators. there is high satisfaction in observing, that the age showed itself worthy of the immortal genius whom it had produced and fostered. it is agreed on all hands that shakespeare was beloved as a man, and admired and patronized as a poet. in the profession of an actor, indeed, his success does not appear to have been conspicuous; but the never-failing attraction of his pieces brought overflowing audiences to the globe theatre in southwark, of which he was enabled to become a joint proprietor. lord southampton is said to have once bestowed on him a munificent donation of a thousand pounds to enable him to complete a purchase; and it is probable that this nobleman might also introduce him to the notice of his beloved friend the earl of essex. of any particular gratuities bestowed on him by her majesty we are not informed: but there is every reason to suppose that he must have received from her on various occasions both praises and remuneration; for we are told that she caused several of his pieces to be represented before her, and that the merry wives of windsor in particular owed its origin to her desire of seeing falstaff exhibited in love. it remains to notice the principal legal enactments of elizabeth respecting the conduct of the theatre, some of which are remarkable. during the early part of her reign, sunday being still regarded principally in the light of a holiday, her majesty not only selected that day, more frequently than any other, for the representation of plays at court for her own amusement, but by her license granted to burbage in authorized the performance of them at the public theatre, _on sundays only_ out of the hours of prayer. five years after, however, gosson in his school of abuse complains that the players, "because they are allowed to play every sunday, make four or five sundays at least every week." to limit this abuse, an order was issued by the privy-council in july , purporting that no plays should be publicly exhibited on thursdays, because on that day bear-baiting and similar pastimes had usually been practised; and in an injunction to the lord mayor four days after, the representation of plays on sunday (or the sabbath as it now began to be called among the stricter sort of people) was utterly condemned; and it was further complained that on "all other days of the week in divers places the players do use to recite their plays, to the great hurt and destruction of the game of bear-baiting, and like pastimes, which are maintained for her majesty's pleasure." in the year her majesty thought proper to appoint commissioners to inspect all performances of writers for the stage, with full powers to reject and obliterate whatever they might esteem unmannerly, licentious, or irreverent:--a regulation which might seem to claim the applause of every friend to public decency, were not the state in which the dramas of this age have come down to posterity sufficient evidence, that to render these impressive appeals to the passions of assembled multitudes politically and not morally inoffensive, was the genuine or principal motive of this act of power. in illustration of this remark the following passage may be quoted: "at supper" the queen "would divert herself with her friends and attendants; and if they made her no answer, she would put them upon mirth and pleasant discourse with great civility. she would then admit tarleton, a famous comedian and pleasant talker, and other such men, to divert her with stories of the town, and the common jests and accidents. tarleton, who was then the best comedian in england, had made a pleasant play; and when it was acting before the queen, he pointed at raleigh, and said, 'see the knave commands the queen!' for which he was corrected by a frown from the queen: yet he had the confidence to add, that he was of too much and too intolerable a power; and going on with the same liberty, he reflected on the too great power of the earl of leicester; which was so universally applauded by all present, that she thought fit to bear these reflections with a seeming unconcernedness. but yet she was so offended that she forbad tarleton and all jesters from coming near her table[ ]." [note : see bohun's character of queen elizabeth. among the various sources whence the preceding dramatic notices have been derived, it is proper to point out dr. drake's memoirs of shakspeare and his age, and warton's history of english poetry.] chapter xxiv. from to . a parliament.--haughty language of the queen.--committal of wentworth and other members--of morice.--his letter to lord burleigh.--act to retain subjects in their due obedience.--debates on the subsidy.--free speeches of francis bacon and sir e. hobby.--queen's speech.--notice of francis bacon--of anthony bacon.--connexion of the two bacons with essex.--francis disappointed of preferment.--conduct of burleigh towards him.--of fulk greville.--reflections.--conversion of henry iv.--behaviour of elizabeth.--war in bretagne.--anecdote of the queen and sir c. blount.--affair of dr. lopez.--squire's attempt on the life of the queen.--notice of ferdinando earl of derby.--letter of the queen to lord willoughby.--particulars of sir walter raleigh.--his expedition to guiana.--unfortunate enterprise of drake and hawkins.--death of hawkins.--death and character of drake.--letters of rowland whyte.--case of the earl of hertford.--anecdote of essex.--queen at the lord keeper's.--anecdote of the queen and bishop rudd.--case of sir t. arundel. notwithstanding all the frugal arts of elizabeth, the state of her finances compelled her in the spring of to summon a parliament. it was four entire years since this assembly had last met: but her majesty took care to let the commons know, that the causes of offence which had then occurred were still fresh in her memory, and that her resolution to preserve her own prerogative in its rigor, and the ecclesiastical commission in all its terrors, was still inflexible. it even appeared, that an apprehension lest her present necessities might embolden the parliament to treat her despotic mandates with a deference less profound than formerly, irritated her temper, and prompted her to assume a more haughty and menacing style than her habitual study of popularity had hitherto permitted her to employ. in answer to the three customary requests made by the speaker, for liberty of speech, freedom from arrests, and access to her person, she replied by her lord keeper, that such liberty of speech as the commons were justly entitled to,--liberty, namely, of aye and no,--she was willing to grant; but by no means a liberty for every one to speak what he listed. and if any idle heads should be found careless enough of their own safety to attempt innovations in the state, or reforms in the church, she laid her injunctions on the speaker to refuse the bills offered for such purposes till they should have been examined by those who were better qualified to judge of these matters. she promised that she would not impeach the liberty of their persons, provided they did not permit themselves to imagine that any neglect of duty would be allowed to pass unpunished under shelter of this privilege; and she engaged not to deny them access to her person on weighty affairs, and at convenient seasons, when she should have leisure from other important business of state. but threats alone were not found sufficient to restrain all attempts on the part of the commons to exercise their known rights and fulfil their duty to the country. peter wentworth, a member whose courageous and independent spirit had already drawn upon him repeated manifestations of royal displeasure, presented to the lord keeper a petition, praying that the upper house would join with the lower in a supplication to the queen for fixing the succession. elizabeth, enraged at the bare mention of a subject so offensive to her, instantly committed to the fleet prison wentworth, sir thomas bromley who had seconded him, and two other members to whom he had imparted the business; and when the house was preparing to petition her for their release, some privy-councillors dissuaded the step, as one which could only prove injurious to these gentlemen by giving additional offence to her majesty. soon after, james morice, an eminent lawyer, who was attorney of the court of wards and chancellor of the duchy, made a motion for redress of the abuses in the bishops' courts, and especially of the monstrous ones committed under the high commission. several members supported the motion: but the queen, sending in wrath for the speaker, required him to deliver up to her the bill; reminded him of her strict injunctions at the opening of the sessions, and testified her extreme indignation and surprise at the boldness of the commons in intermeddling with subjects which she had expressly forbidden them to discuss. she informed him, that it lay in her power to summon parliaments and to dismiss them; and to sanction or to reject any determination of theirs; that she had at present called them together for the twofold purpose, of enacting further laws for the maintenance of religious conformity, and of providing for the national defence against spain; and that these ought therefore to be the objects of their deliberations. as for morice, he was seized by a serjeant at arms in the house itself, stripped of his offices, rendered incapable of practising as a lawyer, and committed to prison, whence he soon after addressed to burleigh the following high-minded appeal: * * * * * "right honorable my very good lord; "that i am no more hardly handled, i impute next unto god to your honorable good will and favor; for although i am assured that the cause i took in hand is good and honest, yet i believe that, besides your lordship and that honorable person your son, i have never an honorable friend. but no matter; for the best causes seldom find the most friends, especially having many, and those mighty, enemies. "i see no cause in my conscience to repent me of that i have done, nor to be dismayed, although grieved, by this my restraint of liberty; for i stand for the maintenance of the honor of god and of my prince, and for the preservation of public justice and the liberties of my country against wrong and oppression; being well content, at her majesty's good pleasure and commandment, (whom i beseech god long to preserve in all princely felicity,) to suffer and abide much more. but i had thought that the judges ecclesiastical, being charged in the great council of the realm to be dishonorers of god and of her majesty, perverters of law and public justice, and wrong-doers unto the liberties and freedoms of all her majesty's subjects, by their extorted oaths, wrongful imprisonments, lawless subscription, and unjust absolutions, would rather have sought means to be cleared of this weighty accusation, than to shrowd themselves under the suppressing of the complaint and shadow of mine imprisonment. "there is fault found with me that i, as a private person, preferred not my complaint to her majesty. surely, my lord, your wisdom can conceive what a proper piece of work i had then made of that: the worst prison had been i think too good for me, since now (sustaining the person of a public counsellor of the realm speaking for her majesty's prerogatives, which by oath i am bound to assist and maintain) i cannot escape displeasure and restraint of liberty. another fault, or error, is objected; in that i preferred these causes before the matters delivered from her majesty were determined. my good lord, to have stayed so long, i verily think, had been to come too late. bills of assize of bread, shipping of fish, pleadings, and such like, may be offered and received into the house, and no offence to her majesty's royal commandment (being but as the tything of mint); but the great causes of the law and public justice may not be touched without offence. well, my good lord, be it so; yet i hope her majesty and you of her honorable privy-council will at length thoroughly consider of these things, lest, as heretofore we prayed, from the tyranny of the bishop of rome, good lord deliver us, we be compelled to say, from the tyranny of the clergy of england, good lord deliver us. "pardon my plain speech, i humbly beseech your honor, for it proceedeth from an upright heart and sound conscience, although in a weak and sickly body: and by god's grace, while life doth last, which i hope now, after so many cracks and crazes, will not be long, i will not be ashamed in good and lawful sort to strive for the freedom of conscience, public justice, and the liberty of my country. and you, my good lord, to whose hand the stern of this commonwealth is chiefly committed, i humbly beseech, (as i doubt not but you do,) graciously respect both me and the causes i have preferred, and be a mean to pacify and appease her majesty's displeasure conceived against me her poor, yet faithful, servant and subject." &c.[ ] [note : nugæ.] * * * * * in october following, the earl of essex ventured to mention to her majesty this persecuted patriot amongst lawyers qualified for the post of attorney-general, when "her majesty acknowledged his gifts, but said his speaking against her in such manner as he had done, should be a bar against any preferment at her hands." he is said to have been kept for some years a prisoner in tilbury castle; and whether he ever recovered his liberty may seem doubtful, since he died in february , aged . the house of commons, unacquainted as yet with its own strength, submitted without further question to regard as law the will of an imperious mistress, and passed with little opposition "an act to retain her majesty's subjects in their due obedience," which vied in cruelty with the noted six articles of her tyrannical father. by this law, any person above sixteen who should refuse during a month to attend the established worship was to be imprisoned; when, should he further persist in his refusal during three months longer, he must abjure the realm; but in case of his rejecting this alternative, or returning from banishment, his offence was declared felony without benefit of clergy. the business of supplies was next taken into consideration, and the commons voted two subsidies and four fifteenths; but this not appearing to the ministry sufficient for the exigencies of the state, the peers were induced to request a conference with the lower house for the purpose of proposing the augmentation of the grant to four subsidies and six fifteenths. the commons resented at first this interference with their acknowledged privilege of originating all money bills; but dread of the well-known consequences of offending their superiors, prevailed at length over their indignation; and first the conference, then the additional supply, was acceded to. some debate, however, arose on the time to be allowed for the payment of so heavy an imposition; and the illustrious francis bacon, then member for middlesex, enlarged upon the distresses of the people, and the danger lest the house, by this grant, should be establishing a precedent against themselves and their posterity, in a speech to which his courtly kinsman sir robert cecil replied with much warmth, and of which her majesty showed a resentful remembrance on his appearing soon after as a candidate for the office of attorney-general. his cousin sir edward hobby also, whose speeches in the former parliament had been ill-received by certain great persons, took such a part in some of the questions now at issue between the crown and the commons, as procured him an imprisonment till the end of the sessions, when he was at length liberated; "but not," as anthony bacon wrote to his mother, "without a notable public disgrace laid upon him by her majesty's royal censure delivered amongst other things, by herself, after my lord keeper's speech[ ]." [note : birch's memoirs, vol. i. p. .] in this parting harangue to her parliament, the queen, little touched by the unprecedented liberality of the supplies which it had granted her, and the passing of her favorite bill against the schismatics and recusants, animadverted in severe terms on the oppositionists, reiterated the lofty claims with which she had opened the sessions, and pronounced an eulogium on the justice and moderation of her own government. she also entered into the grounds of her quarrel with the king of spain; showed herself undismayed by the apprehension of any thing which his once dreaded power could attempt against her; and characteristically added, in adverting to the defeat of the armada, the following energetic warning: "i am informed, that when he attempted this last invasion, some upon the sea coast forsook their towns, fled up higher into the country, and left all naked and exposed to his entrance. but i swear unto you by god, if i knew those persons, or may know hereafter, i will make them know what it is to be fearful in so urgent a cause." the appearance of francis bacon in the house of commons affords a fit occasion of tracing the previous history of this wonderful man, and of explaining his peculiar situation between the two great factions of the court and the influence exerted by this circumstance on his character and after fortunes. that early promise of his genius which in childhood attracted the admiring observation of elizabeth herself, had been confirmed by every succeeding year. in the thirteenth of his age, an earlier period than was even then customary, he was entered, together with his elder brother anthony, of trinity college cambridge. at this seat of learning he remained three years, during which, besides exhibiting his powers of memory and application by great proficiency in the ordinary studies of the place, he evinced the extraordinary precocity of his penetrating and original intellect, by forming the first sketch of a new system of philosophy in opposition to that of aristotle. his father, designing him for public life, now sent him to complete his education in the house of sir amias paulet, the queen's ambassador in france. he gained the confidence of this able and honorable man to such a degree, as to be intrusted by him with a mission to her majesty requiring secrecy and dispatch, of which he acquitted himself with great applause. returning to france, he engaged in several excursions through its different provinces, and diligently occupied himself in the collection of facts and observations, which he afterwards threw together in a "brief view of the state of europe;" a work, however juvenile, which is said to exhibit much both of the peculiar spirit and of the method of its illustrious author. but the death of his father, in , put an end to his travels, and cast a melancholy blight upon his opening prospects. for anthony bacon, the eldest of his sons by his second marriage, the lord keeper had handsomely provided by the gift of his manor of gorhambury, and he had amassed a considerable sum with which he was about to purchase another estate for the portion of the younger, when death interrupted his design; and only one-fifth of this money falling to francis under the provisions of his father's will, he unexpectedly found himself compelled to resort to the practice of some gainful profession for his support. that of the law naturally engaged his preference. he entered himself of gray's inn, and passed within its precincts several studious years, during which he made himself master of the general principles of jurisprudence, as well as of the rules of legal practice in his own country; and he also found leisure to trace the outlines of his new philosophy in a work not now known to exist in a separate state, but incorporated probably in one of his more finished productions. in her majesty, desirous perhaps of encouraging a more entire devotion of his talents to the study of the law, distinguished him by the title of her counsel extraordinary,--an office of little emolument, though valuable as an introduction to practice. but the genius of bacon disdained to plod in the trammels of a laborious profession; he felt that it was given him for higher and larger purposes: yet perceiving, at the same time, that the narrowness of his circumstances would prove an insuperable bar to his ambition of becoming, as he once beautifully expressed it, "the servant of posterity," he thus, in , solicited the patronage of his uncle lord burleigh: "again, the meanness of my estate doth somewhat move me; for though i cannot accuse myself that i am either prodigal or slothful; yet my health is not to spend, nor my course to get: lastly, i confess that i have as vast contemplative ends as i have moderate civil ends; for i have taken all knowledge to be my province; and if i could purge it of two sorts of rovers, whereof the one with frivolous disputations, confutations and verbosities, the other with blind experiments and auricular traditions and impostures, hath committed so many spoils, i hope i should bring in industrious observations, grounded conclusions, and profitable inventions and discoveries, the best state of that province. this, whether it be curiosity, or vain glory, or nature, or, if one take it favorably, _philanthropia_, is so fixed in my mind as it cannot be removed. and i do easily see, that place of any reasonable countenance doth bring commandment of more wits than a man's own; which is the thing i do greatly affect." burleigh was no philosopher, though a lover of learning, and it could not perhaps be expected that he should at once perceive how eminently worthy was this laborer of the hire which he was reduced to solicit. he contented himself therefore with procuring for his kinsman the reversion of the place of register of the star-chamber, worth about sixteen hundred pounds per annum. of this office however, which might amply have satisfied the wants of a student, it was unfortunately near twenty years before bacon obtained possession; and during this tedious time of expectation, he was wont to say, "that it was like another man's ground abutting upon his house, which might mend his prospect, but it did not fill his barn." he made however a grateful return to the lord treasurer for this instance of patronage, by composing an answer to a popish libel, entitled "a declaration of the true causes of the late troubles," in which he warmly vindicated the conduct of this minister, of his own father, and of other members of the administration; not forgetting to make a high eulogium on the talents and dispositions of robert cecil,--now the most powerful instrument at court to serve or to injure. unhappily for the fortunes of bacon, and in some respects for his moral character also, this selfish and perfidious statesman was endowed with sufficient reach of intellect to form some estimate of the transcendent abilities of his kinsman; and struck with dread or envy, he seems to have formed a systematic design of impeding by every art his favor and advancement. unmoved by the eloquent adulation with which bacon sought to propitiate his regard, he took all occasions to represent him to the queen, and with some degree of justice though more of malice, as a man of too speculative a turn to apply in earnest to the practical details of business; one moreover whose head was so filled with abstract and philosophical notions, that he would not fail to perplex any public affairs in which he might be permitted to take a lead. the effect of these suggestions on the mind of elizabeth was greatly aggravated by the conduct of bacon in the parliament of , in consequence of which her majesty for a considerable time denied him that access to her person with which he had hitherto been freely and graciously indulged. some years before this period, francis bacon had become known to the earl of essex, whose genuine love of merit induced him to offer him his friendship and protection. the eagerness with which these were accepted had deeply offended the cecils; and their displeasure was about this time increased, on seeing anthony bacon, by his brother's persuasion, enlist himself under the banner of the same political leader. anthony, whose singular history is on many accounts worthy of notice, was a man of an inquisitive and crafty turn of mind, and seemingly born for a politician. he, like his brother, had been induced to pay a visit to france, as the completion of a liberal education; and not finding himself involved in the same pecuniary difficulties, he had been enabled to make his abode in that country of much longer duration. from paris, which he first visited in , he proceeded to bourges, geneva, montpelier, marseilles, montauban and bordeaux, in each of which cities he resided for a considerable length of time. at the latter place he rendered some services to the protestant inhabitants at great personal hazard. in he visited henry iv., then king of navarre, at bearn, and in he contracted at montauban an intimacy with the celebrated hugonot leader, du plessis de mornay. as anthony bacon was invested with no public character, his continued and voluntary abode in a catholic country began at length to excite a suspicion in the mind of his mother, his friends, and the queen herself, that his conduct was influenced by some secret bias towards the romish faith;--an impression which received confirmation from the intimacies which he cultivated with several english exiles and pensioners of the king of spain. this idea appears, however, to have been unfounded. it was often by the express, though secret, request of burleigh that he formed these connexions; and he had frequently supplied this minister with important articles of intelligence procured from such persons, with whom it was by no means unusual to perform the office of spy to england and to spain alternately, or even to both at the same time. at length, the urgency of his friends and the clamors of his mother, whose protestant zeal, setting a sharper edge on a temper naturally keen, prompted her to employ expressions of great violence, compelled him, after many delays, to quit the continent; and in the beginning of he returned to his native country. his miserable state of health, from the gout and other disorders which rendered him a cripple for life, prevented his encountering the fatigues of the usual court attendance: yet he lost no time in procuring a seat in parliament; and his close connexion with the cecils, joined to the opinion entertained of his political talents, seems to have excited a general expectation of his rising to high importance in the state. but he was not long in discovering, that for some unknown reason the lord treasurer was little his friend; and offended at the coolness with which his secret intelligence from numerous foreign correspondents was received by this minister and his son, in their joint capacity of secretaries of state, he was easily prevailed upon to address himself to essex. the earl had by this time learned, that there was no surer mode of recommending himself to her majesty, and persuading her of his extraordinary zeal for her service, than to provide her with a constant supply of authentic and early intelligence from the various countries of europe, on which she kept a vigilant and jealous eye. he was accordingly occupied in establishing news-agents in every quarter, and the opportune offers of anthony bacon were accepted by him with the utmost eagerness. a connexion was immediately established between them, which ripened with time into so confidential an intimacy, that in the earl prevailed on mr. bacon to accept of apartments in essex-house, which he continued to occupy till commanded by her majesty to quit them on the breaking out of the last rash enterprise of his patron. struck with the boundless affection manifested by anthony towards his brother, with whom he had established an entire community of interests, essex now espoused with more warmth than ever the cause of francis. he strained every nerve to gain for him, in , the situation of attorney-general: but burleigh opposed the appointment; robert cecil openly expressed to the earl his surprise that he should seek to procure it for "a raw youth;" and her majesty declared that, after the manner in which francis bacon had stood up against her in parliament, admission to her presence was the only favor to which he ought to aspire. she added, that in her father's time such conduct would have been sufficient to banish a man the court for life. lowering his tone, essex afterwards sought for his friend the office of solicitor-general; but the same prejudices and antipathies still thwarted him: and finding all his efforts vain to establish him in any public station of honor or emolument, he nobly compensated his disappointment and relieved his necessities by the gift of an estate. the spirit of bacon was neither a courageous nor a lofty one. he too soon repented of his generous exertions in the popular cause, and sought to atone for them by so entire a submission of himself to her majesty, accompanied with such eloquent professions of duty, humility and profound respect, that we can scarcely doubt that a word of solicitation from the lips of burleigh might have gained him an easy pardon. it is painful to think that any party jealousies, or any compliance with the malignant passions of his son, should so have poisoned the naturally friendly and benevolent disposition of this aged minister, that he could bear to withhold the offices of kindness from the nephew of his late beloved wife, and the son of one of his nearest friends and most cordial coadjutors in public life. but according to the maxims of court-factions his desertion of the bacons might be amply justified;--they had made their election, and it was the patronage of essex which they preferred. experience taught them too late, that for their own interests they had chosen wrong. since the death of leicester, the cecils had possessed all the real power at the court of elizabeth: they and they only could advance their adherents. essex, it is true, through the influence which he exerted over the imagination or the affections of the queen, could frequently obtain grants to himself of real importance and great pecuniary value. but her majesty's singular caprice of temper rendered her jealous of every mark of favor extorted from the tender weakness of her heart; and she appears to have almost made it a rule to compensate every act of bounty towards himself, by some sensible mortification which she made him suffer in the person of a friend. so little was his patronage the road to advancement, that sir thomas smith, clerk of the council, is recorded as the solitary instance of a man preferred out of his household to the service of her majesty; and bacon himself somewhere says, speaking of the queen, "against me she is never positive but to my lord of essex." fulk greville was one of the few who did honor to themselves by becoming at this time the advocate of francis bacon with the queen; and his solicitations were heard by her with such apparent complacency, that he wrote to bacon, that he would wager two to one on his chance of becoming attorney, or at least solicitor-general. but essex was to be mortified, and the influence of this generous mæcenas was exerted finally in vain. to his unfortunate choice of a patron then, joined to the indiscreet zeal with which that patron pleaded his cause "in season and out of season," we are to ascribe in part the neglect experienced by bacon during the reign of elizabeth. but other causes concurred, which it may be interesting to trace, and which it would be injustice both to the queen and to burleigh to pass over in silence. at the period when bacon first appealed to the friendship of the lord treasurer in the letter above cited, he was already in the thirtieth year of his age, and had borne for two years the character of queen's counsel extraordinary; but to the courts of law he was so entire a stranger that it was not till one or two years afterwards that we find him pleading his first cause. it was pretty evident therefore in , when he sought the office of attorney-general, that necessity alone had made it the object of his wishes; and his known inexperience in the practice of the law might reasonably justify in the queen and her ministers some scruple of placing him in so responsible a post. as a philosopher indeed, no encouragement could exceed his deserts; but this was a character which very few even of the learned of that day were capable of appretiating. physical science, disgraced by its alliance with the "blind experiments" of alchemy and the deluding dreams of judicial astrology, was in possession of few titles to the respect of mankind; and its professors,--credulous enthusiasts, for the most part, or designing impostors,--usually ended by bringing shame and loss on such persons as greedy hopes or vain curiosity bribed to become their patrons. that general "instauration" of the sciences which the mighty genius of bacon had projected, was a scheme too vast and too profound to be comprehended by the minds of elizabeth and her statesmen; and as it was not of a nature to address itself to their passions and interests, we must not wonder if they should have regarded it with indifference. at this period, too, it existed only in embryo; and so little was the public intellect prepared to seize the first hints thrown out by its illustrious author, that even many years afterwards, when his system had been produced to the world nearly in a state of maturity, the general sentiment seems pretty much to have corresponded with the judgement of king james, "that the philosophy of bacon was like the peace of god, which passeth all understanding." all these considerations, however, are scarcely sufficient to vindicate the boasted discernment of elizabeth from disgrace, in having suffered the most illustrious sage of her reign and country, who was at the same time its brightest wit and most accomplished orator, known to her from his birth, and the son of a wise and faithful servant whose memory she held in honor,--to languish in poverty and discouragement; useless to herself and to the public affairs, and a burthen to his own thoughts. the king of france found it expedient about this time to declare himself a convert to the church of rome. for this change of religion, whether sincere or otherwise, he might plead, not only the personal motive of gaining possession of the throne of his inheritance, which seemed to be denied to him on other terms, but the patriotic one of rescuing his exhausted country from the miseries of a protracted civil war; and whatever might be the decision of a scrupulous moralist on the case, it is certain that elizabeth at least had small title to reprobate a compliance of which, under the reign of her sister, she had herself set the example. but the character of the protestant heroine with which circumstances had invested her, obliged her to overlook this inconsistency; and as demonstrations cost her little, she not only indicted on the occasion a solemn letter of reproof to her ally, but actually professed herself so deeply wounded by his dereliction of principle, that it was necessary for her to tranquillize her mind by the perusal of many pious works, and the study of boethius on consolation, which she even undertook the task of translating. essex, whom she honored with a sight of her performance, was adroit enough to suggest to the royal author, as a principal motive of his urgency with her to restore francis bacon to her favor, the earnest desire which he felt that her majesty's excellent translations should be viewed by those most capable of appretiating their merits. the indignation of elizabeth against henry's apostasy was not however so violent as to exclude the politic consideration, that it was still her interest to support the king of france against the king of spain; and besides continuing her wonted supplies, she soon after entered with him into a new engagement, purporting that they should never make peace but by mutual consent. bretagne was still the scene of action to the english auxiliaries. under sir john norris, their able commander, they shared in the service of wresting from the spaniards, by whom they had been garrisoned, the towns of morlaix, quimpercorentin and brest; their valor was every where conspicuous; and the eagerness of the young courtiers of elizabeth to share in the glory of these enterprises rose to a passion, which she sometimes thought it necessary to repress with a show of severity; as in the following instance related by naunton. sir charles blount, afterwards lord montjoy, "having twice or thrice stolen away into bretagne (where under sir john norris he had then a company) without the queen's leave and privity, she sent a messenger unto him, with a strict charge to the general to see him sent home. when he came into the queen's presence, she fell into a kind of reviling, demanding how he durst go over without her leave? 'serve me so,' quoth she, 'once more, and i will lay you fast enough for running; you will never leave it until you are knocked on the head, as that inconsiderate fellow sidney was. you shall go when i send you, and in the meantime see that you lodge in the court,' (which was then at whitehall) 'where you may follow your book, read and discourse of the wars.'" philip ii., unable to win glory or advantage against elizabeth in open and honorable warfare, sought a base revenge upon her by proposing through secret agents vast rewards to any who could be brought to attempt her destruction. it was no easy task to discover persons sufficiently rash, as well as wicked, to undertake from motives purely mercenary a villany of which the peril was so appalling; but at length fuentes and ibarra, joint governors of the netherlands, succeeded in bribing dr. lopez, domestic physician to the queen, to mix poison in her medicine. essex, whose watchfulness over the life of his sovereign was remarkable, whilst his intelligences were comparable in extent and accuracy to those of walsingham himself, was the first to give notice of this atrocious plot. at his instance lopez was apprehended, examined before himself, the treasurer, the lord admiral, and robert cecil, and committed to custody in the earl's house. but nothing decisive appearing on his first examination, robert cecil took occasion to represent the charge as groundless; and her majesty, sending in heat for essex, called him "rash and temerarious youth," and reproached him for bringing on slight grounds so heinous a suspicion upon an innocent man. the earl, incensed to find his diligent service thus repaid, through the successful artifice of his enemy, quitted the presence in a paroxysm of rage, and, according to his practice on similar occasions, shut himself up in his chamber, which he refused to quit till the queen herself two or three days afterwards sent the lord admiral to mediate a reconciliation. further interrogatories, mingled probably with menaces of the torture, brought lopez to confess the fact of his having received the king of spain's bribe; but he persisted in denying that it was ever in his thoughts to perpetrate the crime. this subterfuge did not, however, save him from an ignominious death, which he shared with two other persons whom fuentes and ibarra had hired for a similar undertaking. the spanish court disdained to return any satisfactory answer to the complaints of elizabeth respecting these designs against her life; but either shame, or more likely the fear of reprisals, seems to have deterred it from any repetition of experiments so perilous. about two years afterwards, however, an english jesuit named walpole, who was settled in spain and intimately connected with the noted father parsons, instigated an attempt worthy of record, partly as a curious instance of the exaggerated ideas then prevalent of the force of poisons. in the last voyage of drake to the west indies, a small vessel of his was captured and carried into a port of spain, on board of which was one squire, formerly a purveyor for the queen's stables. with this prisoner walpole, as a diligent servant of his church, undertook to make himself acquainted; and finding him a resolute fellow, and of capacity and education above his rank, he spared no pains to convert him to popery. this step gained, he diligently plied him with his jesuitical arguments, and so thoroughly persuaded him of the duty and merit of promoting by any kind of means the overthrow of heresy, that squire at length consented to bind himself by a solemn vow to make an attempt against the life of elizabeth in the mode which should be pointed out to him:--an enterprise, as he was assured, which would be attended with little personal danger, and, in case of the worst, would assuredly be recompensed by an immediate admission into the joys of heaven. finally the worthy father presented to his disciple a packet of some poisonous preparation, which he enjoined him to take an opportunity of spreading on the pommel of the queen's saddle. the queen in mounting would transfer the ointment to her hand; with her hand she was likely to touch her mouth or nostrils; and such, as he averred, was the virulence of the poison that certain death must follow. squire returned to england, enlisted for the cadiz expedition, and on the eve of its sailing took the preparation and disposed of it as directed. desirous of adding to his merits, he found means during the voyage to anoint in like manner the arms of the earl of essex's chair. the failure of the application in both instances greatly surprised him. to the jesuit it appeared so unaccountable, that he was persuaded squire had deceived him; and actuated at once by the desire of punishing his defection, and the fear of his betraying such secrets of the party as had been confided to him, he consummated his villany by artfully conveying to the english government an intimation of the plot. squire was apprehended, and at first denied all: "but by good counsel, and the truth working withal," according to speed's expression, was brought to confess what could not otherwise have been proved against him, and suffered penitently for his offence. our chronicler admires the providence which interfered for the protection of her majesty in this great peril, and compares it to the miraculous preservation of st. paul from the bite of the viper. the jesuits are supposed to have employed more efficacious instruments for the destruction of ferdinando earl of derby, who died in april . this nobleman had the misfortune to be grandson of eleanor countess of cumberland, the younger daughter of mary queen dowager of france and sister of henry viii. by her second husband charles brandon duke of suffolk; and although the children of lady catherine grey countess of hertford obviously stood before him in this line of succession, occasion was taken by the romish party from this descent to urge him to assume the title of king of england. one hesket, a zealous agent of the jesuits and popish fugitives, was employed to tamper with the earl, who on one hand undertook that his claim should be supported by powerful succours from abroad, and on the other menaced him with certain and speedy death in case of his rejecting the proposal or betraying its authors. but the earl was too loyal to hesitate a moment. he revealed the whole plot to government, and hesket on his information was convicted of treason and suffered death. not long after, the earl was suddenly seized with a violent disorder of the bowels, which in a few days carried him off; and on the first day of his illness, his gentleman of the horse took his lord's best saddle-horse and fled. these circumstances might be thought pretty clearly to indicate poison as the means of his untimely end: but although a suspicion of its employment was entertained by some, the melancholy event appears to have been more generally ascribed to witchcraft. an examination being instituted, a waxen image was discovered in his chamber with a hair of the color of the earl's drawn through the body; also, an old woman in the neighbourhood, a reputed witch, being required to recite after a prompter the lord's prayer in latin, was observed to blunder repeatedly in the same words. but these circumstances, however strong, not being deemed absolutely conclusive, the poor old woman was apparently suffered to escape:--after the gentleman of the horse, or his instigators, we do not find that any search was made. the mother of this earl of derby died two years after. at one period of her life we find her much in favor with the queen, whom she was accustomed to attend in quality of first lady of the blood-royal; but she had subsequently excited her majesty's suspicions by her imprudent consultations of fortune-tellers and diviners, on the delicate subject, doubtless, of succession to the crown. the animosity between elizabeth and her savage adversary the king of spain was continually becoming more fierce and more inveterate. undeterred by former failures, philip was thought to meditate a fresh invasion either of england or of ireland, which latter country was besides in so turbulent a state from the insurrections of native chieftains, that it had been found necessary to send over sir john norris as general of ulster, with a strong reinforcement of veterans from the low countries. the queen, on her part, was well prepared to resist and retaliate all attacks. the spirit of the nation was thoroughly roused; gallant troops and able officers formed in the flemish school of glory, or under the banners of the bourbon hero, burned with impatience for the signal to revenge the wrongs of their queen and country on their capital and most detested enemy. still the conflict threatened to be an arduous one: elizabeth felt all its difficulties; and loth to lose the support of one of her bravest and most popular captains, she addressed the following letter of recall to lord willoughby, who had repaired to spa ostensibly for the recovery of his health; really, perhaps, in resentment of some injury inflicted by a venal and treacherous court, of which his noble nature scorned alike the intrigues and the servility. * * * * * "good peregrine, "we are not a little glad that by your journey you have received such good fruit of amendment, especially when we consider how great a vexation it is to a mind devoted to actions of honor, to be restrained by any indisposition of body from following those courses which, to your own reputation and our great satisfaction, you have formerly performed. and therefore we must now (out of our desire of your well-doing) chiefly enjoin you to an especial care to encrease and continue your health, which must give life to all your best endeavours; so we next as seriously recommend to you this consideration, that in these times, when there is such an appearance that we shall have the trial of our best and noble subjects, you seem not to affect the satisfaction of your own private contentation, beyond the attending on that which nature and duty challengeth from all persons of your quality and profession. for if unnecessarily, your health of body being recovered, you should elloign yourself by residence there from those employments whereof we shall have too good store, you shall not so much amend the state of your body, as haply you shall call in question the reputation of your mind and judgement, even in the opinion of those that love you, and are best acquainted with your disposition and discretion. "interpret this our plainness, we pray you, to an extraordinary estimation of you, for it is not common with us to deal so freely with many; and believe that you shall ever find us both ready and willing, on all occasions, to yield you the fruits of that interest which your endeavours have purchased for you in our opinion and estimation. not doubting but when you have with moderation made trial of the successes of these your sundry peregrinations, you will find as great comfort to spend your days at home as heretofore you have done; of which we do wish you full measure, howsoever you shall have cause of abode or return. given under our signet at our manor of nonesuch, the th of october , in the th year of our reign. "your most loving sovereign "e. r." * * * * * we do not perceive the effects of this letter in the employment of lord willoughby in any of the expeditions against spain which ensued; but he was afterwards appointed governor of berwick, and held that situation till his death in . sir walter raleigh, that splendid genius with a sordid soul, whom a romantic spirit of adventure and a devouring thirst of gain equally stimulated to activity, had unexpectedly found his advancement at court impeded, after the first steps, usually accounted the most difficult, had been speedily and fortunately surmounted. several conspiring causes might however be assigned for this check in his career of fortune. his high pretensions to the favor of the queen, joined to his open adherence to the party of sir robert cecil, had provoked the hostility of essex; who, in defiance of him, at one of the ostentatious tournaments of the day, is said to have "filled the tilt-yard with two thousand orange-tawny feathers," the distinction doubtless of his followers and retainers. he had incurred the resentment of more than one of the order of bishops, by his ceaseless and shameless solicitations of grants and leases out of the property of the church. in ireland, he had rendered sir william russell the lord deputy his enemy by various demonstrations of opposition and rivalry; at court, his abilities and his first rapid successes with her majesty had stirred up against him the envy of a whole host of competitors. elizabeth, who for the best reasons had an extreme dislike to any manifestations of a mercenary disposition in her servants, had been disgusted by the frequency and earnestness of his petitions for pecuniary favors. "when, sir walter," she had once exclaimed, "will you cease to be a beggar?" he replied, "when your gracious majesty ceases to be a benefactor." so dexterous an answer appeased her for a time; and the profusion of eloquent adulation with which he never failed to soothe her ear, engaged her self-love strongly in his behalf. but to complete the ill-fortune of raleigh, father parsons, provoked by the earnestness with which he had urged in parliament the granting of supplies for a war offensive and defensive against spain, had published a pamphlet charging him with atheism and impiety, which had not only found welcome reception with his enemies, but with the people, to whom he was ever obnoxious, and had even raised a prejudice against him in the mind of his sovereign. on this subject, a writer contemporary with the later years of raleigh thus expresses himself: "sir walter raleigh was the first, as i have heard, that ventured to tack about and sail aloof from the beaten track of the schools; who, upon the discovery of so apparent an error as a torrid zone, intended to proceed in an inquisition after more solid truths; till the mediation of some whose livelihood lay in hammering shrines for this superannuated study, possessed queen elizabeth that such doctrine was against god no less than her father's honor; whose faith, if he owed any, was grounded upon school divinity. whereupon she chid him, who was, by his own confession, ever after branded with the name of an atheist, though a known assertor of god and providence[ ]." [note : osborne's "introduction" to his essays.] the business of mrs. throgmorton, and the disputes arising out of the sale of the captured carrack, succeeded, to inflame still more the ill-humour of the queen; and raleigh, finding every thing adverse to him at court, resolved to quit the scene for a time, in the hope of returning with better omens, when absence and dangers should again have endeared him to his offended mistress, and when the splendor of his foreign successes might enable him to impose silence on the clamors of malignity at home. the interior of the pathless wilds of guiana had been reported to abound in those exhaustless mines of the precious metals which filled the imaginations of the earliest explorers of the new world, and, to their ignorant cupidity, appeared the only important object of research and acquisition in regions where the eye of political wisdom would have discerned so many superior inducements to colonization or to conquest. the fabulous city of el dorado,--which became for some time proverbial in our language to express the utmost profusion and magnificence of wealth,--was placed by the romantic narrations of voyagers somewhere in the centre of this vast country, and nothing could be more flattering to the mania of the age than the project of exploring its hidden treasures. raleigh conceived this idea; the court and the city vied in eagerness to share the profits of the enterprise; a squadron was speedily fitted out, though at great expense; and in february the ardent leader weighed anchor from the english shore. proceeding first to trinidad, he possessed himself of the town of st. joseph; then, with the numerous pinnaces of his fleet, he entered the mouth of the great river oronoco, and sailing upwards penetrated far into the bosom of the country. but the intense heat of the climate, and the difficulties of this unknown navigation, compelled him to return without any more valuable result of his enterprise than that of taking formal possession of the land in her majesty's name. raleigh however, unwilling to acknowledge a failure, published on his return an account of guiana, filled with the most disgraceful and extravagant falsehoods;--falsehoods to which he himself became eventually the victim, when, on the sole credit of his assurances, king james released him from a tedious imprisonment to head a second band of adventurers to this disastrous shore. a still more unfortunate result awaited an expedition of greater consequence, which sailed during the same year, under hawkins and drake, against the settlements of spanish america. repeated attacks had at length taught the spaniards to stand on their defence; and the english were first repulsed from porto rico, and afterwards obliged to relinquish the attempt of marching across the isthmus of darien to panama. but the great and irreparable misfortune of the enterprise was the loss, first of the gallant sir john hawkins, the kinsman and early patron of drake, and afterwards of that great navigator himself, who fell a victim to the torrid climate, and to fatigue and mortification which conspired to render it fatal. a person of such eminence, and whose great actions reflect back so bright a lustre on the reign which had furnished to him the most glorious occasions of distinguishing himself in the service of his country, must not be dismissed from the scene in silence. the character of francis drake was remarkable not alone for those constitutional qualities of valor, industry, capacity and enterprise, which the history of his exploits would necessarily lead us to infer, but for virtues founded on principle and reflection which render it in a high degree the object of respect and moral approbation. it is true that his aggressions on the spanish settlements were originally founded on a vague notion of reprisals, equally irreconcilable to public law and private equity. but with the exception of this error,--which may find considerable palliation in the deficient education of the man, the prevalent opinions of the day, and the peculiar animosity against philip ii. cherished in the bosom of every protestant englishman,--the conduct of drake appears to demand almost unqualified commendation. it was by sobriety, by diligence in the concerns of his employers, and by a tried integrity, that he early raised himself from the humble station of an ordinary seaman to the command of a vessel. when placed in authority over others, he showed himself humane and considerate; his treatment of his prisoners was exemplary, his veracity unimpeached, his private life religiously pure and spotless. in the division of the rich booty which often rewarded his valor and his toils, he was liberal towards his crews and scrupulously just to the owners of his vessels; and in the appropriation of his own share of wealth, he displayed that munificence towards the public, of which, since the days of roman glory, history has recorded so few examples. with the profits of one of his earliest voyages, in which he captured the town of venta cruz and made prize of a string of fifty mules laden with silver, he fitted out three stout frigates and sailed with them to ireland, where he served as a volunteer under walter earl of essex, and performed many brilliant actions. after the capture of a rich spanish carrack at the terceras in , he undertook at his own expense to bring to the town of plymouth, which he represented in parliament, a supply of spring water, of which necessary article it suffered a great deficiency; this he accomplished by means of a canal or aqueduct above twenty miles in length. drake incurred some blame in the expedition to portugal for failing to bring his ships up the river to lisbon, according to his promise to sir john norris, the general; but on explaining the case before the privy-council on his return, he was entirely acquitted by them; having made it appear that, under all the circumstances, to have carried the fleet up the tagus would have been to expose it to damage without the possibility of any benefit to the service. by his enemies, this great man was stigmatized as vain and boastful; a slight infirmity in one who had achieved so much by his own unassisted genius, and which the great flow of natural eloquence which he possessed may at once have produced and rendered excusable. one trait appears to indicate that he was ambitious of a species of distinction which he might have regarded himself as entitled to despise. he had thought proper to assume, apparently without due authority, the armorial coat of sir bernard drake, also a seaman and a native of devonshire: sir bernard, from a false pride of family, highly resented this unwarrantable intrusion, as he regarded it, and in a dispute on the subject gave sir francis a box on the ear. the queen now deemed it necessary to interfere, and she granted to the illustrious navigator the following arms of her own device. _sable, a fess wavy between two pole stars argent_, and for crest, _a ship on a globe under ruff_, with a cable held by a hand coming out of the clouds; the motto _auxilio divino_, and beneath, _sic parvis magna_; in the rigging of the ship _a wivern gules_, the arms of sir bernard drake, _hung up by the heels_. sir john baskerville, who succeeded by the death of drake to the command of the unfortunate expedition to which he had fallen a sacrifice, encountered the spanish fleet off cuba in an action, which, though less decisive on the english side than might have been hoped, left at least no ground of triumph to the enemy. meantime the court was by no means barren of incident; and we are fortunate in possessing a minute and authentic journal of its transactions in a series of letters addressed to sir robert sidney governor of flushing by several of his friends, but chiefly by rowland whyte, a gentleman to whom, during his absence, he had recommended the care of his interests, and the task of transmitting to him whatever intelligence might appear either useful or entertaining[ ]. [note : see sidney papers, _passim._] in october mr. whyte mentions the following abominable instance of tyranny. that the earl of hertford had been sent for by a messenger and committed to custody in his own house, because it had appeared by a case found among the papers of a dr. aubrey, that he had formerly taken the opinions of civilians on the validity of his first marriage, and caused a record of it to be secretly put into the court of arches. whyte adds significantly, that the earl was accounted one of the wealthiest subjects in england. soon after, his lordship was committed to the tower; and it was said that orders were given that his son, who since the establishment of the marriage had borne the title of lord beauchamp, should henceforth be again called mr. seymour. several lawyers and other persons were also imprisoned for a short time about this matter, under what law, or pretext of law, it would be vain to inquire. lady hertford, though a sister of the lord admiral and nearly related to the queen, was for some time an unsuccessful suitor at court for the liberty of her lord. her majesty however was graciously pleased to declare that "neither his life nor living should be called in question;"--as if both had been at her mercy! and though she would not consent to see the countess, she regularly sent her broths in a morning, and, at meals, meat from her own trencher;--affecting, it should seem, in these trifles, to acquit herself of the promises of her special favor, with which she had a few years before repaid the splendid hospitality of this noble pair. we do not learn how long the durance of the earl continued; but it is highly probable that he was once more compelled to purchase his liberty. great uneasiness was given about this time to the earl of essex by a book written in defence of the king of spain's title to the english crown, which contained "dangerous praises of his valor and worthiness," inserted for the express purpose of exciting the jealousy of the queen and bringing him into disgrace. the work was shown him by elizabeth herself. on coming from her presence he was observed to look "pale and wan," and going home he reported himself sick;--an expedient for working on the feelings of his sovereign, to which, notwithstanding the truth and honor popularly regarded as his characteristics, essex is known to have frequently condescended. on this, as on most occasions, he found it successful: her majesty soon made him a consolatory visit; and in spite of the strenuous efforts of his enemies, this attempt to injure him only served to augment her affection and root him more firmly in her confidence. "her majesty," says whyte soon after, "is in very good health, and comes much abroad; upon thursday she dined at kew, at my lord keeper's house, (who lately obtained of her majesty his suit for one hundred pounds a year in fee-farm,) her entertainment for that meal was great and exceeding costly. at her first lighting she had a fine fan garnished with diamonds, valued at four hundred pounds at least. after dinner, in her privy-chamber, he gave her a fair pair of virginals. in her bed-chamber, he presented her with a fine gown and a juppin, which things were pleasing to her highness; and, to grace his lordship the more, she of herself took from him a fork, a spoon, and a salt, of fair agate." it must be confessed that this was a mode of "gracing" a courtier peculiarly consonant to the disposition of her majesty. the further elizabeth descended into the vale of years, the stronger were her efforts to make ostentation of a youthful gaiety of spirits and an unfailing alacrity in the pursuit of pleasure; though avarice, the vice of age, mingled strangely with these her juvenile affectations. to remark to her the progress of time, was to wound her in the tenderest part, and not even from her ghostly counsellors would she endure a topic so offensive as the mention of her age: an anecdote to this effect belongs to the year , and is found in the account of rudd bishop of st. davids given in harrington's brief view of the church. "there is almost none that waited in queen elizabeth's court and observed any thing, but can tell that it pleased her very much to seem, to be thought, and to be told that she looked young. the majesty and gravity of a sceptre borne forty-four years could not alter that nature of a woman in her: this notwithstanding, this good bishop being appointed to preach before her in the lent of the year ... wishing in a godly zeal, as well became him, that she should think sometime of mortality," took a text fit for the purpose, on which he treated for a time "well," "learnedly," and "respectively." "but when he had spoken awhile of some sacred and mystical numbers, as three for the trinity, three for the heavenly hierarchy, seven for the sabbath, and seven times seven for a jubilee; and lastly,--seven times nine for the grand climacterical year; she, perceiving whereto it tended, began to be troubled with it. the bishop discovering that all was not well, for the pulpit stands there _vis à vis_ to the closet, he fell to treat of some more plausible numbers, as of the number , making _latinus_, with which he said he could prove the pope to be antichrist; also of the fatal number of ,--so long before spoken of for a dangerous year,... but withal interlarding it with some passages of scripture that touch the infirmities of age... he concluded his sermon. the queen, as the manner was, opened the window; but she was so far from giving him thanks or good countenance, that she said plainly he should have kept his arithmetic for himself. 'but i see,' said she, 'the greatest clerks are not the wisest men;' and so went away for the time discontented. "the lord keeper puckering, though reverencing the man much in his particular, yet for the present, to assuage the queen's displeasure, _commanded him to keep his house for a time_, which he did. but of a truth her majesty showed no ill nature in this, for within three days she was not only displeased at his restraint, but in my hearing rebuked a lady yet living for speaking scornfully of him and his sermon. only to show how the good bishop was deceived in supposing she was so decayed in her limbs and senses as himself perhaps and other of that age were wont to be; she said she thanked god that neither her stomach nor strength, nor her voice for singing, nor fingering instruments, nor, lastly, her sight, was any whit decayed; and to prove the last before us all, she produced a little jewel that had an inscription of very small letters, and offered it first to my lord of worcester, and then to sir james crofts to read, and both protested _bona fide_ that they could not; yet the queen herself did find out the poesy, and made herself merry with the standers by upon it." a point of some importance to the peers of england was about this time brought to a final decision by the following circumstance. sir thomas, son and heir of sir matthew arundel of wardour-castle, a young man of a courageous and enterprising disposition, going over to germany, had been induced to engage as a volunteer in the wars of the emperor against the turks; and in the assault of the city of gran in hungary had taken with his own hand a turkish banner. for this and other good service, rodolph the second had been pleased to confer upon him the honor of count of the holy roman empire, extending also, as usual, the title of counts and countesses to all his descendants for ever. on his return to england in the year following, the question arose whether this dignity, conferred by a foreign prince without the previous consent of his own sovereign, should entitle the bearer to rank, precedence, or any other privilege in this country. the peers naturally opposed a concession which tended to lessen the value of their privileges by rendering them accessible through foreign channels; and her majesty, being called upon to settle the debate, pronounced the following judgement. that the closest tie of affection subsisted between sovereigns and their subjects: that as chaste wives should fix their eyes upon their husbands alone, in like manner faithful subjects should only direct theirs towards the prince whom it had pleased god to set over them. and that she would not allow her sheep to be branded with the mark of a stranger, or be taught to follow the whistle of a foreign shepherd. and to this effect she wrote to the emperor, who by a special letter had recommended sir thomas arundel to her favor. the decision appears to have been reasonable and politic, and would at the time be regarded as peculiarly so in the instance of honors conferred on a catholic gentleman by a catholic prince. king james, however, created sir thomas, lord arundel of wardour; and he seems to have borne in common speech, the title of count[ ]. [note : camden's annals. peerage, by sir e. brydges.] chapter xxv. to . essex and cecil factious--expedition to cadiz.--robert cecil appointed secretary.--notice of sir t. bodley.--critical situation of essex.--francis bacon addresses to him a letter of advice--composes speeches for him.--notice of toby matthew.--outrages in london repressed by martial law.--death of lord hunsdon--of the earl of huntingdon--of bishop fletcher.--anecdote of bishop vaughan.--book on the queen's touching for the evil. from this period nearly of the reign of elizabeth, her court exhibited a scene of perpetual contest between the faction of the earl of essex and that of lord burleigh, or rather of robert cecil; and so widely did the effects of this intestine division extend, that there was perhaps scarcely a single court-attendant or public functionary whose interests did not become in some mode or other involved in the debate. yet the quarrel itself may justly be regarded as base and contemptible; no public principle was here at stake; whether religious, as in the struggles between papists and protestants which often rent the cabinet of henry viii.; or civil, as in those of whigs and tories by which the administrations of later times have been divided and overthrown. it was simply and without disguise a strife between individuals, for the exclusive possession of that political power and court influence of which each might without disturbance have enjoyed a share capable of contenting an ordinary ambition. in religion there was apparently no shade of difference between the hostile leaders; neither of them had studied with so little diligence the inclinations of the queen as to persist at this time in the patronage of the puritans, though the early impressions, certainly of essex and probably of sir robert cecil also, must have been considerably in favor of this persecuted sect. still less would either venture to stand forth the advocate of the catholics; though it was among the most daring and desperate of this body that essex was compelled at length to seek adherents, when the total ruin of his interest with his sovereign fatally compelled him to exchange the character of head of a court party for that of a conspirator and a rebel. of the title of the king of scots both were steady supporters; and first essex and afterwards cecil maintained a secret correspondence with james, who flattered each in his turn with assurances of present friendship and future favor. on one public question alone of any considerable magnitude do the rivals appear to have been at issue;--that of the prosecution of an offensive war against spain. the age and the wisdom of lord burleigh alike inclined him to a pacific policy; and though robert cecil, for the purpose of strengthening himself and weakening his opponent, would frequently act the patron towards particular officers,--those especially of whom he observed the earl to entertain a jealousy,--it is certain that warlike ardor made no part of his natural composition. essex on the contrary was all on fire for military glory; and at this time he was urging the queen with unceasing importunities to make a fresh attack upon her capital enemy in the heart of his european dominions. in this favorite object, after encountering considerable opposition from her habits of procrastination and from some remaining fears and scruples, he succeeded; and the zeal of the people hastening to give full effect to the designs of her majesty, a formidable armament was fitted out in all diligence, which in june set sail for cadiz. lord howard of effingham, as lord admiral, commanded the fleet; essex himself received with transport the appointment of general of all the land-forces, and spared neither pains nor cost in his preparations for the enterprise. besides his constant eagerness for action, his spirit was on this occasion inflamed by an indignation against the tyrant philip, "which rose," according to the happy expression of one of his biographers, "to the dignity of a personal aversion[ ]." in his letters he was wont to employ the expression, "i will make that proud king know" &c.: a phrase, it seems, which gave high offence to elizabeth, who could not tolerate what she regarded as arrogance against a crowned head, though her bitterest foe. [note : see a catalogue of royal and noble authors, by lord orford.] subordinate commands were given to lord thomas howard, second son of the late duke of norfolk, who was at this time inclined to the party of essex; to raleigh, who now affected an extraordinary deference for the earl, his secret enemy and rival; to that very able officer sir francis vere of the family of the earls of oxford, who had highly distinguished himself during several years in the wars of the low countries; to sir george carew, an intimate friend of sir robert cecil; and to some others, who formed together a council of war. the queen herself composed on this occasion a prayer for the use of the fleet, and she sent to her land and her sea commander jointly "a letter of license to depart; besides comfortable encouragement." "but ours in particular," adds a follower of essex, "had one fraught with all kind of promises and loving offers, as the like, since he was a favorite, he never had." enterprise was certainly not the characteristic of the lord admiral as a commander; and when on the arrival of the armament off cadiz, it was proposed that an attack should be made by the fleet on the ships in the harbour, he remonstrated against the rashness of such an attempt, and prevailed on several members of the council of war to concur in his objections. in the end, however, the arguments or importunities of the more daring party prevailed; and essex threw his hat into the sea in a wild transport of joy on learning that the admiral consented to make the attack. he was now acquainted by the admiral with the queen's secret order, dictated by her tender care for the safety of her young favorite,--that he should by no means be allowed to lead the assault;--and he promised an exact obedience to the mortifying prohibition. but, once in presence of the enemy, his impetuosity would brook no control. he broke from the station of inglorious security which had been assigned him, and rushed into the heat of the action. the spanish fleet was speedily driven up the harbour, under the guns of the fort of puntal, where the admiral's ship and another first-rate were set on fire by their own crews, and the rest run aground. of these, two fine ships fell into the hands of the english; and the lord admiral having refused to accept of any ransom for the remainder, saying that he came to consume and not to compound, they were all, to the number of fifty, burned by the spanish admiral. meantime, essex landed his men and marched them to the assault of cadiz. the town was on this side well fortified, and the defenders, having also the advantage of the ground, received the invaders so warmly that they were on the point of being repulsed from the gate against which they had directed their attack: but essex, just at the critical moment, rushed forward, seized his own colors and threw them over the wall; "giving withal a most hot assault unto the gate, where, to save the honor of their ensign, happy was he that could first leap down from the wall and with shot and sword make way through the thickest press of the enemy." the town being thus stormed, was of course given up to plunder; but essex, whose humanity was not less conspicuous than his courage, put an immediate stop to the carnage by a vigorous exertion of his authority; protected in person the women, children, and religious, whom he caused to retire to a place of safety; caused the prisoners to be treated with the utmost tenderness; and allowed all the citizens to withdraw, on payment of a ransom, before the place with its fortifications was committed to the flames. it was indeed the wish and intention of essex to have kept possession of cadiz; which he confidently engaged to the council of war to hold out against the spaniards, with a force of no more than three or four thousand men, till succours could be sent from england; and with this view he had in the first instance sedulously preserved the buildings from all injury. but among his brother officers few were found prepared to second his zeal: the expedition was in great measure an adventure undertaken at the expense of private persons, who engaged in it with the hope of gain rather than glory; and as these men probably attributed the success which had hitherto crowned their arms in great measure to the surprise of the spaniards, they were unwilling to risk in a more deliberate contest the rich rewards of valor of which they had possessed themselves. the subsequent proposals of essex for the annoyance of the enemy, either by an attack on corunna, or on st. sebastian and st. andero, or by sailing to the azores in quest of the homeward-bound carracks, all experienced the same mortifying negative from the members of the council of war, of whom lord thomas howard alone supported his opinions. but undeterred by this systematic opposition, he persevered in urging, that more might and more ought to be performed by so considerable an armament; and the lord admiral, weary of contesting the matter, sailed away at length and left him on the spanish coast with the few ships and the handful of men which still adhered to him. want of provisions compelled him in a short time to abandon an enterprise now desperate; and he returned full of indignation to england, where fresh struggles and new mortifications awaited him. the appointment during his absence of robert cecil to the office of secretary of state, instead of thomas bodley, afterwards the founder of the library which preserves his name,--for whom, since he had found the restoration of davison hopeless, essex had been straining every nerve to procure it,--gave him ample warning of all the counteraction on other points which he was doomed to experience; and was in fact the circumstance which finally established the ascendency of his adversaries: yet to an impartial eye many considerations may appear to have entirely justified on the part of the queen this preference. where, it might be asked, could a fitter successor be found to lord burleigh in the post which he had so long filled to the satisfaction of his sovereign and the benefit of his country, than in the son who certainly inherited all his ability;--though not, as was afterwards seen, his principles or his virtues;--and who had been trained to business as the assistant of his father and under his immediate inspection? why should the earl of essex interfere with an order of things so natural? on what pretext should the queen be induced to disappoint the hopes of her old and faithful servant, and to cast a stigma upon a young man of the most promising talents, who was unwearied in his efforts to establish himself in her favor? by the queen and the people, essex, their common favorite, was welcomed, on his safe return from an expedition to himself so glorious, with every demonstration of joy and affection, and no one appeared to sympathize more cordially than her majesty in his indignation that nothing had been attempted against the spanish treasure-ships. on the other hand, no pains were spared by his adversaries to lessen in public estimation the glory of his exploits, by ascribing to the naval commanders a principal share in the success at cadiz, which he accounted all his own. an anonymous narrative of the expedition which he had prepared, was suppressed by means of a general prohibition to the printers of publishing any thing whatsoever relating to that business; and no other resource was left him than the imperfect one of dispersing copies in manuscript. it was suggested to the queen by some about her, that though the treasure-ships had escaped her, she might at least reimburse herself for the expenses incurred out of the rich spoils taken at cadiz; and no sooner had this project gained possession of her mind than she began to quarrel with essex for his lavish distribution of prize-money. she insisted that the commanders should resign to her a large share of their gains; and she had even the meanness to cause the private soldiers and sailors to be searched before they quitted the ships, that the value of the money or other booty of which they had possessed themselves might be deducted from their pay. her first feelings of displeasure and disappointment over, the rank and reputation of the officers concerned, and especially the brilliancy of the actual success, were allowed to cover all faults. the influence of her kinsman the lord admiral over the mind of the queen was one which daily increased in strength with her advance in age,--according to a common remark respecting family attachments; and it will appear that he finally triumphed so completely over the accusations of his youthful adversary, as to ground on this very expedition his claim of advancement to a higher title. it was the darling hope of essex that he might be authorized to lead without delay his flourishing and victorious army to the recovery of calais, now held by a spanish garrison; and he took some secret steps with the french ambassador in order to procure a request to this effect from henry iv. to elizabeth. but this king absolutely refused to allow the town to be recaptured by his ally, on the required condition of her retaining it at the peace as an ancient possession of the english crown; the cecil party also opposed the design; and the disappointed general saw himself compelled to pause in the career of glory. it was not in the disposition of essex to support these mortifications with the calmness which policy appeared to dictate; and francis bacon, alarmed at the courses which he saw the earl pursuing, and already foreboding his eventual loss of the queen's favor, and the ruin of those, himself included, who had placed their dependence on him, addressed to him a very remarkable letter of caution and remonstrance, not less characteristic of his own peculiar mind than illustrative of the critical situation of him to whom it was written. after appealing to the earl himself for the advantage which he had lately received by following his own well-meant advice, in renewing with the queen "a treaty of obsequious kindness," which "did much attemper a cold malignant humor then growing upon her majesty towards him," he repeats his counsel that he should "win the queen;" adding, "if this be not the beginning of any other course, i see no end. and i will not now speak of favor or affection, but of other correspondence and agreeableness, which, when it shall be conjoined with the other of affection, i durst wager my life... that in you she will come to question of _quid fiet homini quem rex vult honorare?_ but how is it now? a man of a nature not to be ruled; that hath the advantage of my affection and knoweth it; of an estate not grounded to his greatness; of a popular reputation; of a military dependence. i demand whether there can be a more dangerous image than this represented to any monarch living, much more to a lady, and of her majesty's apprehension? and is it not more evident than demonstration itself, that whilst this impression continueth in her majesty's breast, you can find no other condition than inventions to keep your estate bare and low; crossing and disgracing your actions; extenuating and blasting of your merit; carping with contempt at your nature and fashions; breeding, nourishing and fortifying such instruments as are most factious against you; repulses and scorns of your friends and dependents that are true and steadfast; winning and inveigling away from you such as are flexible and wavering; thrusting you into odious employments and offices to supplant your reputation; abusing you and feeding you with dalliances and demonstrations to divert you from descending into the serious consideration of your own case; yea and percase venturing you in perilous and desperate enterprises?" with his usual exactness of method, he then proceeds to offer remedies for the five grounds of offence to her majesty here pointed out; amongst which the following are the most observable. that he ought to ascribe any former and irrevocable instance of an ungovernable humor in him to dissatisfaction, and not to his natural temper:--that though he sought to shun, and in some respects rightly, any imitation of hatton or leicester, he should yet allege them on occasion to the queen as authors and patterns, because there was no readier means to make her think him in the right course:--that when his lordship happened in speeches _to do her majesty right_, "for there is no such matter as flattery amongst you all," he had rather the air of paying fine compliments than of speaking what he really thought; "so that," adds he, "a man may read your formality in your countenance," whereas "it ought to be done familiarly and with an air of earnest." that he should never be without some particulars on foot which he should seem to pursue with earnestness and affection, and then let them fall upon taking knowledge of her majesty's opposition and dislike. of which kind the weightiest might be, if he offered to labor, in the behalf of some whom he favored, for some of the places then void, choosing such a subject as he thought her majesty likely to oppose.... a less weighty sort of particulars might be the pretence of some journeys, which at her majesty's request his lordship might relinquish; as if he should pretend a journey to see his estate towards wales, or the like.... and the lightest sort of particulars, which yet were not to be neglected, were in his habits, apparel, wearings, gestures, and the like." with respect to a "military dependence," which the writer regards as the most injurious impression respecting him of all, he declares that he could not enough wonder that his lordship should say the wars were his occupation, and go on in that course. he greatly rejoiced indeed, now it was over, in his expedition to cadiz, on account of the large share of honor which he had acquired, and which would place him for many years beyond the reach of military competition. besides that the disposal of places and other matters relating to the wars, would of themselves flow in to him as he increased in other greatness, and preserve to him that dependence entire. it was indeed a thing which, considering the times and the necessity of the service, he ought above all to retain; but while he kept it in substance, he should abolish it in shows to the queen, who loved peace, and did not love cost. and on this account he could not so well approve of his affecting the place of earl-marshal or master of the ordnance, on account of their affinity to a military greatness, and rather recommended to his seeking the peaceful, profitable and courtly office of lord privy seal. in the same manner, with respect to the reputation of popularity, which was a good thing in itself, and one of the best flowers of his greatness both present and future, the only way was to quench it _verbis, non rebus_; to take all occasions to declaim against popularity and popular courses to the queen, and to tax them in all others, yet for himself, to go on as before in all his honorable commonwealth courses. "and therefore," says he, "i will not advise to cure this by dealing in monopolies or any oppressions." the last and most curious article of all, respects his quality of a favorite. as, separated from all the other matters it could not hurt, so, joined with them, he observes that it made her majesty more fearful and captious, as not knowing her own strength. for this, the only remedy was to give place to any other favorite to whom he should find her majesty incline, "so as the subject had no ill or dangerous aspect" towards himself. "for otherwise," adds this politic adviser, "whoever shall tell me that you may not have singular use of a favorite at your devotion, i will say he understandeth not the queen's affection, nor your lordship's condition." these crafty counsels, which steadily pursued would have laid the army, the court, and the people, and in effect the queen herself, at the feet of a private nobleman, seem to have made considerable impression for the time on the mind of essex; though the impetuosity of his temper, joined to a spirit of sincerity, honor and generosity, which not even the pursuits of ambition and the occupations of a courtier could entirely quench, soon caused him to break loose from their intolerable restraint. francis bacon, in furtherance of the plan which he had suggested to his patron of appearing to sink all other characters in that of a devoted servant of her majesty, likewise condescended to employ his genius upon a device which was exhibited by the earl on the ensuing anniversary of her accession, with great applause. first, his page, entering the tilt-yard, accosted her majesty in a fit speech, and she in return graciously pulled off her glove and gave it to him. some time after appeared the earl himself, who was met by an ancient hermit, a secretary of state, and a soldier; each of whom presented him with a book recommending his own course of life, and, after a little pageantry and dumb show to relieve the solemnity of the main design, pronounced a long and well-penned speech to the same effect. all were answered by an esquire, or follower of the earl, who pointed out the evils attached to each pursuit, and concluded, says our reporter, "with an excellent but too plain english, that this knight would never forsake his mistress' love, whose virtue made all his thoughts divine, whose wisdom taught him all true policy, whose beauty and worth made him at all times fit to command armies. he showed all the defects and imperfections of their times, and therefore thought his own course of life to be best in serving his mistress.... the queen said that if she had thought there had been so much said of her, she would not have been there that night; and so went to bed." these speeches may still be read, with mingled admiration and regret, amongst the immortal works of francis bacon. in majesty of diction and splendor of allusion they are excelled by none of his more celebrated pieces; and with such a weight of meaning are they fraught, that they who were ignorant of the serious purpose which he had in view might wonder at the prodigality of the author in employing massy gold and real gems on an occasion which deserved nothing better than tinsel and false brilliants. that full justice might be done to the eloquence of the composition, the favorite part of the esquire was supported by toby matthew, whose father was afterwards archbishop of york; a man of a singular and wayward disposition, whose prospects in life were totally destroyed by his subsequent conversion to popery; but whose talents and learning were held in such esteem by bacon, that he eagerly engaged his pen in the task of translating into latin some of the most important of his own philosophical works. such were the "wits, besides his own," of which the munificent patronage of essex had given him "the command!" a few miscellaneous occurrences of the years and remain to be noticed. the size of london, notwithstanding many proclamations and acts of parliament prohibiting the erection of any new buildings except on the site of old ones, had greatly increased during the reign of elizabeth; and one of the first effects of its rapid growth was to render its streets less orderly and peaceful. the small houses newly erected in the suburbs being crowded with poor, assembled from all quarters, thefts became frequent; and a bad harvest having plunged the lower classes into deeper distress, tumults and outrages ensued. in june great disorders were committed on tower-hill; and the multitude having insulted the lord mayor who went out to quell them, elizabeth took the violent and arbitrary step of causing martial law to be proclaimed in her capital. sir thomas wilford, appointed provost-marshal for the occasion, paraded the streets daily with a body of armed men ready to hang all rioters in the most summary manner; and five of these offenders suffered for high treason on tower-hill, without resistance on the part of the people, or remonstrance on that of the parliament, against so flagrant a violation of the dearest rights of englishmen. lord hunsdon, the nearest kinsman of the queen, whose character has been already touched upon, died in . it is related that elizabeth, on hearing of his illness, finally resolved to confer upon him the title of earl of wiltshire, to which he had some claim as nephew and heir male to sir thomas boleyn, her majesty's grandfather, who had borne that dignity. she accordingly made him a gracious visit, and caused the patent and the robes of an earl to be brought and laid upon his bed; but the old man, preserving to the last the blunt honesty of his character, declared, that if her majesty had accounted him unworthy of that honor while living, he accounted himself unworthy of it now that he was dying; and with this refusal be expired. lord willoughby succeeded him in the office of governor of berwick, and lord cobham, a wealthy but insignificant person of the party opposed to essex, in that of lord chamberlain. henry third earl of huntingdon of the family of hastings died about the same time. by his mother, eldest daughter and coheiress of henry pole lord montacute, he was the representative of the clarence branch of the family of plantagenet; but no pretensions of his had ever awakened anxiety in the house of tudor. he was a person of mild disposition, greatly attached to the puritan party, which, bound together by a secret compact, now formed a church within the church; he is said to have impaired his fortune by his bounty to the more zealous preachers; and be largely contributed by his will to the endowment of emanuel college, the puritanical character of which was now well known. richard fletcher bishop of london, "a comely and courtly prelate," who departed this life in the same year, affords a subject for a few remarks. it was a practice of the more powerful courtiers of that day, when the lands of a vacant see had excited, as they seldom failed to do, their cupidity, to "find out some men that had great minds and small means or merits, that would be glad to leave a small deanery to make a poor bishopric, by new leasing lands that were almost out of lease[ ];" and on these terms, which more conscientious churchmen disdained, fletcher had taken the bishopric of oxford, and had in due time been rewarded for his compliance by translation first to worcester and afterwards to london. his talents and deportment pleased the queen; and it is mentioned, as an indication of her special favor, that she once quarrelled with him for wearing too short a beard. but he afterwards gave her more serious displeasure by taking a wife, a gay and fair court lady of good quality; and he had scarcely pacified her majesty by the propitiatory offering of a great entertainment at his house in chelsea, when he was carried off by a sudden death, ascribed by his contemporaries to his immoderate use of the new luxury of smoking tobacco. this prelate was the father of fletcher the dramatic poet. [note : harrington's brief view.] bishop vaughan succeeded him, of whom harrington gives the following trait: "he was an enemy to all supposed miracles, insomuch as one arguing with him in the closet at greenwich in defence of them, and alleging the queen's healing of the evil for an instance, asking him what he could say against it, he answered, that he was loth to answer arguments taken from the topic-place of the cloth of estate; but if they would urge him to answer, he said his opinion was, she did it by virtue of some precious stone in possession of the crown of england that had such a natural quality. but had queen elizabeth been told that he ascribed more virtue to her jewels (though she loved them well) than to her person, she would never have made him bishop of chester." of the justice of the last remark there can be little question. in this reign, the royal pretension referred to, was asserted with unusual earnestness, and for good reasons, as we learn from a different authority. in a quarto book appeared, written in latin and dedicated to her majesty by one of her chaplains, which contained a relation of the cures thus performed by her; in which it is related, that a catholic having been so healed went away persuaded that the pope's excommunication of her majesty was of no effect: "for if she had not by right obtained the sceptre of the kingdom, and her throne established by the authority and appointment of god, what she attempted could not have succeeded. because the rule is, that god is not any where witness to a lie[ ]." such were the reasonings of that age. [note : strype's annals.] it is probably to bishop vaughan also that sir john harrington refers in the following article of his brief notes. "one sunday (april last) my lord of london preached to the queen's majesty, and seemed to touch on the vanity of decking the body too finely. her majesty told the ladies, that if the bishop held more discourse on such matters, she would fit him for heaven, but he should walk thither without a staff, and leave his mantle behind him. perchance the bishop hath never sought her highness' wardrobe, or he would have chosen another text[ ]." [note : nugæ antiquæ.] chapter xxvi. and . fresh expedition against spain proposed.--extracts from whyte's letters.--raleigh reconciles essex and r. cecil.--essex master of the ordnance.--anecdote of the queen and mrs. bridges.--preparations for the expedition.--notice of lord southampton.--ill success of the voyage.--quarrel of essex and raleigh.--displeasure of the queen.--lord admiral made earl of nottingham.--anger of essex.--he is declared hereditary earl marshal.--reply of the queen to a polish ambassador.--to a proposition of the king of denmark.--state of ireland.--treaty of vervins.--agreement between cecil and essex.--anecdotes of essex and the queen.--their quarrel.--letter of essex to the lord keeper.--dispute between burleigh and essex.--agreement with the dutch.--death and character of burleigh.--transactions between the queen and the king of scots, and an extract from their correspondence.--anecdote of sir roger aston and the queen.--anecdote of archbishop hutton.--death of spenser.--hall's satires.--notice of sir john harrington.--extracts from his note-book. a fresh expedition against the spaniards was in agitation from the beginning of this year, which occasioned many movements at court, and, as usual, disturbed the mind of the queen with various perplexities. her captious favor towards essex, and the arts employed by him to gain his will on every contested point, are well illustrated in the letters of rowland white, to which we must again recur. on february twenty-second he writes: "my lord of essex kept his bed the most part of all yesterday; yet did one of his chamber tell me, he could not weep for it, for he knew his lord was not sick. there is not a day passes that the queen sends not often to see him, and himself every day goeth privately to her." two days after, he reports that "my lord of essex comes out of his chamber in his gown and night-cap.... full fourteen days his lordship kept in; her majesty, as i heard, resolved to break him of his will and to pull down his great heart, who found it a thing impossible, and says he holds it from the mother's side; but all is well again, and no doubt he will grow a mighty man in our state." the earl of cumberland made "some doubt of his going to sea," because lord thomas howard and raleigh were to be joined with him in equal authority; the queen mentioned the subject to him, and on his repeating to herself his refusal, he was "well chidden." in march, raleigh was busied in mediating a reconciliation between essex and robert cecil, in which he was so far successful that a kind of compromise took place; and henceforth court favors were shared without any open quarrels between their respective adherents. the motives urged by raleigh for this agreement were, that it would benefit the country; that the queen's "continual unquietness" would turn to contentment, and that public business would go on to the hurt of the common enemy. essex however was malcontent at heart; he began to frequent certain meetings held in blackfriars at the house of lady russel, a busy puritan, who was one of the learned daughters of sir anthony cook. "wearied," says white, "with not knowing how to please, he is not unwilling to listen to those motions made him for the public good." he was soon after so much offended with her majesty for giving the office of warden of the cinque ports to his enemy lord cobham, after he had asked it for himself, that he was about to quit the court; but the queen sent for him, and, to pacify him, made him master of the ordnance. it is mentioned about this time, that the queen had of late "used the fair mrs. bridges with words and blows of anger." this young lady was one of the maids of honor, and the same referred to in a subsequent letter, where it is said, "it is spied out by envy that the earl of essex is again fallen in love with his fairest b." on which white observes, "it cannot choose but come to the queen's ears; and then is he undone, and all that depend upon his favor." a striking indication of the nature of the sentiment which the aged sovereign cherished for her youthful favorite! in may our intelligencer writes thus: "here hath been much ado between the queen and the lords about the preparation to sea; some of them urging the necessity of setting it forward for her safety; but she opposing it by no danger appearing towards her any where; and that she will not make wars but arm for defence; understanding how much of her treasure was already spent in victual, both for ships and soldiers at land. she was extremely angry with them that made such haste in it, and at burleigh for suffering it, seeing no greater occasion. no reason nor persuasion by some of the lords could prevail, but that her majesty hath commanded order to be given to stay all proceeding, and sent my lord thomas (howard) word that he should not go to sea. how her majesty may be wrought to fulfil the most earnest desire of some to have it go forward, time must make it known." but the reconciliation, whether sincere or otherwise, brought about by raleigh between essex and the cecils, rendered at this time the war-party so strong, that the scruples of the queen were at length overruled, and a formidable armament was sent to sea, with the double object of destroying the spanish ships in their harbours and intercepting their homeward-bound west india fleet. essex was commander in chief by sea and land; lord thomas howard and raleigh vice and rear admirals; lord montjoy was lieutenant-general; sir francis vere, marshal. several young noblemen attached to essex joined the expedition as volunteers; as lord rich his brother-in-law, the earl of rutland, afterwards married to the daughter of the countess of essex by sir philip sidney; lord cromwel, and the earl of southampton. the last, whose friendship for essex afterwards hurried him into an enterprise still more perilous, appears to have been attracted to him by an extraordinary conformity of tastes and temper. like essex, he was brave and generous, but impetuous and somewhat inclined to arrogance:--like him, a munificent patron of the genius which he loved. like his friend again, he received from her majesty tokens of peculiar favor, which she occasionally suspended on his giving indications of an ungovernable temper or too lofty spirit, and which she finally withdrew, on his presuming to marry without that consent which to certain persons she could never have been induced to accord. this earl of southampton was grandson of that ambitious and assuming but able and diligent statesman, lord chancellor wriothesley, appointed by henry viii. one of his executors; he was father of the virtuous southampton lord treasurer, and by him, grandfather of the heroical and ever-memorable rachel lady russel. a storm drove the ill-fated armament back to plymouth, where it remained wind-bound for a month, and essex and raleigh posted together up to court for fresh instructions. having concerted their measures, they made sail for the azores, and raleigh with his division arriving first, attacked and captured the isle of fayal without waiting for his admiral. essex was incensed; and there were not wanting those about him who applied themselves to fan the flame, and even urged him to bring sir walter to a court-martial: but he refused; and his anger soon evaporating, lord thomas howard was enabled to accommodate the difference, and the rivals returned to the appearance of friendship. essex was destitute of the naval skill requisite for the prosperous conduct of such an enterprise: owing partly to his mistakes, and partly to several thwarting circumstances, the west india fleet escaped him, and three rich havannah ships, which served to defray most of the expenses, were the only trophies of his "island voyage," from which himself and the nation had anticipated results so glorious. the queen received him with manifest dissatisfaction; his severity towards raleigh was blamed, and it was evident that matters tended to involve him in fresh differences with robert cecil. during his absence, the lord admiral had been advanced to the dignity of earl of nottingham, and he now discovered that by a clause in the patent this honor was declared to be conferred upon him in consideration of his good service at the taking of cadiz, an action of which essex claimed to himself the whole merit. to make the injury greater, this title, conjoined to the office of lord high admiral, gave the new earl precedency of all others of the same rank, essex amongst the rest. to such complicated mortifications his proud spirit disdained to submit; and after challenging without effect to single combat the lord admiral himself or any of his sons who would take up the quarrel, the indignant favorite retired a sullen malcontent to wanstead-house, feigning himself sick. this expedient acted on the heart of the queen with all its wonted force;--she showed the utmost concern for his situation, chid the cecils for wronging him, and soon after made him compensation for the act which had wounded him, by admitting his claim to the hereditary office of earl marshal, with which he was solemnly invested in december ; and in right of it once more took place above the lord admiral. it was during this summer that the arrogant deportment of a polish ambassador, sent to complain of an invasion of neutral rights in the interruption given by the english navy to the trade of his master's subjects with spain, gave occasion to a celebrated display of the spirit and the erudition of the queen of england. speed, the ablest of our chroniclers, gives at length her extemporal latin reply to his harangue; adding in his quaint but expressive phrase, that she "thus lion like rising, daunted the malapert orator no less with her stately port and majestical deporture, than with the tartness of her princely checks: and turning to the train of her attendants thus said, 'god's death, my lords,' (for that was her oath ever in anger,) 'i have been inforced this day to scour up my old latin, that hath lain long in rusting.'" the same author mentions, that the king of denmark having by his ambassador offered to mediate between england and spain, the queen declined the overture, adding, "i would have the king of denmark and all princes christian and heathen to know, that england hath no need to crave peace; nor myself indured one hour's fear since i attained the crown thereof, being guarded with so valiant and faithful subjects." such was the lofty tone which elizabeth, to the end of her days, maintained towards foreign powers; none of whom had she cause to dread or motive to court. yet her cheerfulness and fortitude were at the same time on the point of sinking under the harassing disquietudes of a petty war supported against her by an irish chief of rebels. the head of the sept o'neal, whom she had in vain endeavoured to attach permanently to her interests by conferring upon him the dignity of earl of tyrone, had now for some years persevered in a resistance to her authority, which the most strenuous efforts of the civil and military governors of this turbulent and miserable island had proved inadequate to overcome. that brave officer sir john norris, then general of ulster, had found it necessary to grant terms to the rebel whom he would gladly have brought in bonds to the feet of his sovereign. but the treaty thus made, this perfidious barbarian, according to his custom, observed only till the english forces were withdrawn and he saw the occasion favorable to rise again in arms. lord borough, whom the queen had appointed deputy in ,--on which sir john norris, appointed to act under him, died, as it is thought, of chagrin,--began his career with a vigorous attack, by which he carried, though not without considerable loss, the fort of blackwater, the only place of strength possessed by the rebels; but before he was able to pursue further his success, death overtook him, and the government was committed for a time to the earl of ormond. tyrone, nothing daunted, laid siege in his turn to blackwater; and sir henry bagnal, with the flower of the english army, being sent to relieve it, sustained the most signal defeat ever experienced by an english force in ireland. the commander himself, several captains of distinction and fifteen hundred men, were left on the field; and the fort immediately surrendered to the rebel chief, who now vauntingly declared, that he would accept of no terms from the queen of england, being resolved to remain in arms till the king of spain should send forces to his assistance. such was the alarming position of affairs in this island at the conclusion of the year . at home, several incidents had intervened to claim attention. the king of france had received from spain proposals for a peace, which the exhausted state of his country would not permit him to neglect; and he had used his utmost endeavours to persuade his allies, the queen of england and the united provinces, to enter into the negotiations for a general pacification. but philip ii. still refused to acknowledge the independence of his revolted subjects, the only basis on which the new republic would condescend to treat. elizabeth, besides that she disdained to desert those whom she had so long and so zealously supported, was in no haste to terminate a war from which she and her subjects anticipated honor with little peril, and plunder which would more than repay its expenses; and both from england and holland agents were sent to remonstrate with henry against the breach of treaty which he was about to commit by the conclusion of a separate peace. elizabeth wrote to admonish him that the true sin against the holy ghost was ingratitude, of which she had so much right to accuse him; that fidelity to engagements was the first of duties and of virtues; and that union, according to the ancient apologue of the bundle of rods, was the source of strength. but to all her eloquence and all her invectives henry had to oppose the necessity of his affairs, and the treaty of vervins was concluded; but not without some previous stipulations on the part of the french king which softened considerably the resentment of his ally. of the commissioners named by elizabeth to arrange this business with henry, robert cecil was the chief; who held before his departure many private conferences with essex, and would not move from court till he had bound him by favors and promises to do him no injury by promoting his enemies in his absence. the earl of southampton having given some offence to her majesty for which she had ordered him to absent himself awhile from court, took the opportunity to obtain license to travel, and attended the secretary to france, perhaps in the character of a spy upon his motions on behalf of essex, who seems to have prepared him for the service by much private instruction. "i acquainted you," says rowland whyte to his correspondent, "with the care had to bring my lady of leicester to the queen's presence. it was often granted, and she brought to the privy galleries, but the queen found some occasion not to come. upon shrove monday the queen was persuaded to go to mr. comptroller's at the tilt end, and there was my lady of leicester with a fair jewel of three hundred pounds. a great dinner was prepared by my lady chandos; the queen's coach ready, and all the world expecting her majesty's coming; when, upon a sudden, she resolved not to go, and so sent word. my lord of essex that had kept his chamber all the day before, in his nightgown went up to the queen the privy way; but all would not prevail, and as yet my lady leicester hath not seen the queen. it had been better not moved, for my lord of essex, by importuning the queen in these unpleasing matters, loses the opportunity he might take to do good unto his ancient friends." but on march d he adds; "my lady leicester was at court, kissed the queen's hand and her breast, and did embrace her, and the queen kissed her. my lord of essex is in exceeding favor here. lady leicester departed from court exceedingly contented, but being desirous again to come to kiss the queen's hand, it was denied, and, as i heard, some wonted unkind words given out against her." this extraordinary height of royal favor was not merely the precursor, but, by the arrogant presumption with which it inspired him, a principal cause of essex's decline, which was now fast approaching. confident in the affections of elizabeth, he suffered himself to forget that she was still his queen and still a tudor; he often neglected the attentions which would have gratified her; on any occasional cause of ill humour he would drop slighting expressions respecting her age and person which, if they reached her ear, could never be forgiven; on one memorable instance he treated her with indignity openly and in her presence. a dispute had arisen between them in presence of the admiral, the secretary, and the clerk of the signet, respecting the choice of a commander for ireland; the queen resolving to send sir william knolles, the uncle of essex, while he vehemently supported sir george carew, because this person, who was haughty and boastful, had given him some offence; and he wanted to remove him out of his way. unable either by argument or persuasion to prevail over the resolute will of her majesty, the favorite at last forgot himself so far as to turn his back upon her with a laugh of contempt; an outrage which she revenged after her own manner, by boxing his ears and bidding him "go and be hanged." this retort so inflamed the blood of essex that he clapped his hand on his sword, and while the lord admiral hastened to throw himself between them, he swore that not from henry viii. himself would he have endured such an indignity, and foaming with rage he rushed out of the palace. his sincere friend the lord keeper immediately addressed to him a prudential letter, urging him to lose no time in seeking with humble submissions the forgiveness of his offended mistress: but essex replied to these well intended admonitions by a letter which, amid all the choler that it betrays, must still be applauded both for its eloquence and for a manliness of sentiment of which few other public characters of the age appear to have been capable. the lord keeper in his letter had strongly urged the religious duty of absolute submission on the part of a subject to every thing that his sovereign, justly or unjustly, should be pleased to lay upon him; to which the earl thus replies: "but, say you, i must yield and submit. i can neither yield myself to be guilty, or this imputation laid upon me to be just. i owe so much to the author of all truth, as i can never yield falsehood to be truth, or truth to be falsehood. have i given cause, ask you, and take scandal when i have done? no; i gave no cause to take so much as fimbria's complaint against me, for i did _totum telum corpore recipere_. i patiently bear all, and sensibly feel all, that i then received, when this scandal was given me. nay more, when the vilest of all indignities are done unto me, doth religion enforce me to sue? or doth god require it? is it impiety not to do it? what, cannot princes err? cannot subjects receive wrong? is an earthly power or authority infinite? pardon me, pardon me, my good lord, i can never subscribe to these principles. let solomon's fool laugh when he is stricken; let those that mean to make their profit of princes, show to have no sense of princes' injuries; let them acknowledge an infinite absoluteness on earth, that do not believe in an absolute infiniteness in heaven. as for me, i have received wrong, and feel it. my cause is good; i know it; and whatsoever come, all the powers on earth can never show more strength and constancy in oppressing, than i can show in suffering whatsoever can or shall be imposed upon me." &c. several other friends of essex, his mother, his sister and the earl of northumberland her husband, urged him in like manner to return to his attendance at court and seek her majesty's forgiveness; while she, on her part, secretly uneasy at his absence, permitted certain persons to go to him, as from themselves, and suggest terms of accommodation. sir george carew was made lord president of munster; and sir william knolles, who perhaps had not desired the appointment, assured his nephew of his earnest wish to serve him. finally, this great quarrel was made up, we scarcely know how, and essex appeared as powerful at court as ever; though some have believed, and with apparent reason, that from this time the sentiments of the queen for her once cherished favorite, partook more of fear than of love; and that confidence was never re-established between them. this celebrated dispute appears to have been in some manner mingled or connected with the important question of peace or war with spain, which had previously been debated with extreme earnestness between essex and burleigh. the former, who still thirsted for military distinction, contended with the utmost vehemence of invective for the maintenance of perpetual hostility against the power of philip; while the latter urged, that he was now sufficiently humbled to render an accommodation both safe and honorable. wearied and disgusted at length with the violence of his young antagonist, the hoary minister, in whom ..."old experience did attain to something like prophetic strain," drew forth a prayer-book, and with awful significance pointed to the text, "men of blood shall not live out half their days." but the clamor for war prevailed over the pleadings of humanity and prudence, and it was left for the unworthy successor of elizabeth to patch up in haste an inconsiderate and ignoble peace, in place of the solid and advantageous one which the wisdom of elizabeth and her better counsellor might at this time with ease have concluded. the lord treasurer enjoyed however the satisfaction of completing for his mistress an agreement with the states of holland, which provided in a satisfactory manner for the repayment of the sums which she had advanced to them, and exonerated her from a considerable portion of the annual expense which she had hitherto incurred in their defence. this was the last act of lord burleigh's life, which terminated by a long and gradual decay on august th , in the th year of his age. on the character of this great minister, identified as it is with that of the government of elizabeth during a period of no less than forty years, a few additional remarks may here suffice.--good sense was the leading feature of his intellect; moderation of his temper. his native quickness of apprehension was supported by a wonderful force and steadiness of application, and by an exemplary spirit of order. his morals were regular; his sense of religion habitual, profound, and operative. in his declining age, harassed by diseases and cares and saddened by the loss of a beloved wife, the worthy sharer of his inmost counsels, he became peevish and irascible; but his heart was good; in all the domestic relations he was indulgent and affectionate; in his friendships tender and faithful, nor could he be accused of pride, of treachery, or of vindictiveness. rising as he did by the strength of his own merits, unaided by birth or connexions, he seems to have early formed the resolution, more prudent indeed than generous, of attaching himself to no political leader, so closely as to be entangled in his fall. thus he deserted his earliest patron, protector somerset, on a change of fortune, and is even said to have drawn the articles of impeachment against him. he extricated himself with adroitness from the ruin of northumberland, by whom he had been much employed and trusted; and at some expense of protestant consistency contrived to escape persecution, though not to hold office, under the rule of mary. towards the queen his mistress, his demeanor was obsequious to the brink of servility; he seems on no occasion to have hesitated on the execution of any of her commands; and the kind of tacit compromise by which he and leicester, in spite of their mutual animosity, were enabled for so long a course of years to hold divided empire in the cabinet, could not have been maintained without a general acquiescence on the part of burleigh in the various malversations and oppressions of that guilty minion. another accusation brought against him is that of taking money for ecclesiastical preferments. of the truth of this charge, sufficient evidence might be brought from original documents; but an apologist would urge with justice that his royal mistress, who virtually delegated to him the most laborious duties of the office of head of the church, both expected and desired that emolument should thence accrue to him and to the persons under him. thus we find it stated that bishop fletcher had "bestowed in allowances and gratifications to divers attendants about her majesty, since his preferment to the see of london, the sum of thirty one hundred pounds or there abouts; which money was given by him, for the most part of it, by her majesty's direction and special appointment[ ]." [note : birch's memoirs.] the ministers of a sovereign who scrupled not to accept of bribes from parties engaged in law-suits for the exertion of her own interest with her judges, could scarcely be expected to exhibit much delicacy on this head. in fact, the venality of the court of elizabeth was so gross, that no public character appears even to have professed a disdain of the influence of gifts and bribes; and we find lord burleigh inserting the following among rules moral and prudential drawn up for the use of his son robert when young: "be sure to keep some great man thy friend. but trouble him not for trifles. compliment him often. present him with many yet small gifts, and of little charge. and if thou have cause to bestow any great gratuity, let it be some such thing as may be daily in his sight. otherwise, in this ambitious age, thou shalt remain as a hop without a pole; live in obscurity, and be made a football for every insulting companion[ ]." [note : in connexion with this subject the following letter appears worthy of notice. _hutton archbishop of york to the lord treasurer:_-- i am bold at this time to inform your lordship, what ill success i had in a suit for a pardon for miles dawson, seminary priest, whom i converted wholly the last summer from popery. upon his coming to church, receiving the holy communion and taking the oath of supremacy, i and the council here, about michaelmas last, joined in petition to her majesty for her gracious pardon, and commended the matter to one of the masters of requests, and writ also to mr. secretary to further it if need were, which he willingly promised to do. in michaelmas term nothing was done. and therefore in hilary term, i being put in mind that all was not done in that court for god's sake only, sent up twenty french crowns of mine own purse, as a small remembrance for a poor man's pardon, which was thankfully accepted of. some say that mr. topcliffe did hinder his pardon; who protesteth that he knoweth no cause to stay it. there is some fault somewhere, i know it is not in her majesty. of whom i will say, as the prophet david speaketh of god, "hath queen elizabeth forgotten to be gracious? and is her mercy come to an end for evermore?" _absit._ the whole world knoweth the contrary. your lordship may do very well in mine opinion to move mr. secretary cecil to deal often in these works of mercy. it will make him beloved of god and man. (dated york, may .)] in his office of lord treasurer, this minister is allowed to have behaved with perfect integrity and to have permitted no oppression on the subject; wisely and honorably maintaining that nothing could be for the advantage of a sovereign which in any way injured his reputation. his conduct in this high post, added to a general opinion of his prudence and virtue, caused his death to be sincerely deplored and his memory to be constantly held in higher esteem by the people than that of any former minister of any english prince. elizabeth was deeply sensible that to her the loss of such a servant, counsellor, and friend was indeed irreparable. contrary to her custom, she wept much; and retired for a time from all company; and it is said that to the end of her life she could never hear or pronounce his name without tears. although she was not sufficiently mistress of herself in those fits of rage to which she was occasionally liable, to refrain from treating him with a harshness and contempt which sometimes moved the old man even to weeping, her behaviour towards him satisfactorily evinced on the whole her deep sense of his fidelity and various merits as a minister, and her affection for him as a man. he was perhaps the only person of humble birth whom she condescended to honor with the garter: she constantly made him sit in her presence, on account of his being troubled with the gout, and would pleasantly tell him, "my lord, we make much of you, not for your bad legs but your good head[ ]." in his occasional fits of melancholy and retirement, she would woo him back to her presence by kind and playful letters, and she absolutely refused to accept of the resignation which his bodily infirmities led him to tender two or three years before his death. she constantly visited him when confined by sickness:--on one of these occasions, being admonished by his attendant to stoop as she entered at his chamber-door, she replied, "for your master's sake i will, though not for the king of spain." his lady was much in her majesty's favor and frequently in attendance on her; and it has been surmised that her husband found her an important auxiliary in maintaining his influence. [note : fuller.] elizabeth had the weakness, frequent among princes and not unusual with private individuals, of hating her heir; a sentiment which gained ground upon her daily in proportion as the infirmities of age admonished her of her approach towards the destined limit of her long and splendid course. notwithstanding the respectful observances by which james exerted himself to disguise his impatience for her death, particular incidents occurred from time to time to aggravate her suspicion and exasperate her animosity; and the present year was productive of some remarkable circumstances of this nature. the queen had long been displeased at the indulgence exercised by the king of scots towards certain catholic noblemen by whom a treasonable correspondence had been carried on with spain and a very dangerous conspiracy formed against his person and government. such misplaced lenity, combined with certain negotiations which he carried on with the catholic princes of europe, she regarded as evincing a purpose to secure to himself an interest with the popish party in england as well as scotland, which she could not view without anxiety: and her worst apprehensions were now confirmed by the information which reached her from two different quarters, that james, in a very respectful letter to the pope, had given him assurance under his own hand of his resolution to treat his catholic subjects with indulgence, at the same time requesting that his holiness would give a cardinal's hat to drummond bishop of vaison. almost at the same time, one valentine thomas, apprehended in london for a theft, accused the king of scots of some evil designs against herself. explanations however being demanded, james solemnly disavowed the letter to the pope, which he treated as a forgery and imposture; though circumstances which came out several years afterwards render the king's veracity in this point very questionable. to the charge brought by thomas, he returned a denial, probably better founded; and required that the accuser should be arraigned in presence of some commissioner whom he should send: but elizabeth, less jealous of his dealings with the papal party now that she no longer dreaded a spanish invasion, judged it more prudent to bury the whole matter in silence, and resumed, in the tone of friendship, the correspondence which she regularly maintained with her kinsman. this correspondence, which still exists in ms. in the salisbury collection, is rendered obscure and sometimes unintelligible by its reference to verbal messages which the bearers of the letters were commissioned to deliver: but several of those of elizabeth afford a rich display of character. she sometimes assures james of the tenderness of her affection and her disinterested zeal for his welfare in that tone of hypocrisy which was too congenial to her disposition; at other times she breaks forth into vehement invective against the weakness and mutability of his counsels, and offers him excellent instructions in the art of reigning; but clouded by her usual uncouth and obscure phraseology and rendered offensive by their harsh and dictatorial style. when she regards herself as personally injured by any part of his conduct, her complaints are seasoned with an equal portion of menace and contempt; as in the following specimen. * * * * * _queen elizabeth to the king of scots:_ "when the first blast of a strange, unused, and seld heard of sound had pierced my ears, i supposed that flying fame, who with swift quills oft paceth with the worst, had brought report of some untruth, but when too too many records in your open parliament were witnesses of such pronounced words, not more to my disgrace than to your dishonor, who did forget that (above all other regard) a prince's word ought utter nought of any, much less of a king, than such as to which truth might say amen: but you, neglecting all care of yourself, what danger of reproach, besides somewhat else, might light upon you, have chosen so unseemly a theme to charge your only careful friend withal, of such matter as (were you not amazed in all senses) could not have been expected at your hands; of such imagined untruths as were never thought of in our time; and do wonder what evil spirits have possessed you, to set forth so infamous devices void of any show of truth. i am sorry that you have so wilfully fallen from your best stay, and will needs throw yourself into the hurlpool of bottomless discredit. was the haste so great to hie to such opprobry as that you would pronounce a never thought of action afore you had but asked the question of her that best could tell it? i see well we two be of very different natures, for i vow to god i would not corrupt my tongue with an unknown report of the greatest foe i have; much less could i detract my best deserving friend with a spot so foul as scarcely may be ever outrazed. could you root the desire of gifts of your subjects upon no better ground than this quagmire, which to pass you scarcely may without the slip of your own disgrace? shall ambassage be sent to foreign princes laden with instructions of your rash-advised charge?... i never yet loved you so little as not to moan your infamous dealings, which you are in mind, we see, that myself shall possess more princes witness of my causeless injuries, which i should have wished had passed no seas to testify such memorials of your wrongs. bethink you of such dealings, and set your labor upon such mends as best may, though not right, yet salve some piece of this overslip; and be assured that you deal with such a king as will bear no wrongs and endure infamy; the examples have been so lately seen as they can hardly be forgotten of a far mightier and potenter prince than any europe hath. look you not therefore that without large amends, i may or will slupper up such indignities. we have sent this bearer bowes, whom you may safely credit, to signify such particularities as fits not a letters talk. and so i recommend you to a better mind and more advised conclusions." dated january th - [ ]. [note : m.s. in dr. haynes's extracts from the salisbury collection.--i am unable to discover to what particular circumstance this angry letter refers.] * * * * * from another of these letters we learn that james had addressed a love-sonnet to the queen and complained of her having taken no notice of it; reminding her that cupid was a god of a most impatient disposition. an author has the following notice respecting sir roger aston, frequently the bearer of these curious epistles. "he was an englishman born, but had his breeding wholly in scotland, and had served the king many years as his barber; an honest and free-hearted man, and of an ancient family in cheshire, but of no breeding answerable to his birth. yet was he the only man ever employed as a messenger from the king to queen elizabeth, as a letter-carrier only, which expressed their own intentions without any help from him, besides the delivery; but even in that capacity was in very good esteem with her majesty, and received very royal rewards, which did enrich him, and gave him a better revenue than most gentlemen in scotland. for the queen did find him as faithful to her as to his master, in which he showed much wisdom, though of no breeding. in this his employment i must not pass over one pretty passage i have heard himself relate. that he did never come to deliver any letters from his master, but ever he was placed in the lobby; the hangings being turned towards him, where he might see the queen dancing to a little fiddle; which was to no other end than that he should tell his master, by her youthful disposition, how likely he was to come to the possession of the crown he so much thirsted after: for you must understand, the wisest in that kingdom did believe the king should never enjoy this crown, as long as there was an old wife in england, which they did believe we ever set up as the other was dead[ ]." [note : weldon's court of king james.] though in her own letters to james, elizabeth made no scruple of treating him as the destined heir to her throne, she still resisted with as much pertinacity as ever, all the proposals made her for publicly declaring her successor; and on this subject, a lively anecdote is related by sir john harrington in his account of hutton archbishop of york, which must belong to the year or . "i no sooner," says he, "remember this famous and worthy prelate, but methinks i see him in the chappel at whitehall, queen elizabeth at the window in the closet; all the lords of the parliament spiritual and temporal about them, and then, after his three curtsies that i hear him out of the pulpit thundering this text, 'the kingdoms of the earth are mine, and i do give them to whom i will, and i have given them to nebuchodonosor and his son, and his son's son:' which text when he had thus produced, taking the sense rather than words of the prophet, there followed first so general a murmur of one friend whispering to another, then such an erected countenance in those that had none to speak to, lastly, so quiet a silence and attention in expectance of some strange doctrine, where text itself gave away kingdoms and sceptres, as i have never observed before or since. "but he... showed how there were two special causes of translating of kingdoms, the fullness of time and the ripeness of sin.... then coming nearer home, he showed how oft our nation had been a prey to foreigners; as first when we were all britons subdued by these romans; then, when the fullness of time and ripeness of our sin required it, subdued by the saxons; after this a long time prosecuted and spoiled by the danes, finally conquered and reduced to perfect subjection by the normans, whose posterity continued in great prosperity to the days of her majesty, who for peace, for plenty, for glory, for continuance, had exceeded them all; that had lived to change all her councillors but one; all officers twice or thrice; some bishops four times: only the uncertainty of succession gave hopes to foreigners to attempt fresh invasions and breed fears in many of her subjects of a new conquest. the only way then, said he, that is in policy left to quail those hopes and to assuage those fears, were to establish the succession... at last, insinuating as far as he durst the nearness of blood of our present sovereign, he said plainly, that the expectations and presages of all writers went northward, naming without any circumlocution scotland; which, said he, if it prove an error, yet will it be found a learned error. "when he had finished this sermon, there was no man that knew queen elizabeth's disposition, but imagined that such a speech was as welcome as salt to the eyes, or, to use her own word, to pin up her winding sheet before her face, so to point out her successor and urge her to declare him; wherefore we all expected that she would not only have been highly offended, but in some present speech have showed her displeasure. it is a principle not to be despised, _qui nescit dissimulare nescit regnare_; she considered perhaps the extraordinary auditory, she supposed many of them were of his opinion, she might suspect some of them had persuaded him to this motion; finally, she ascribed so much to his years, to his place, to his learning, that when she opened the window we found ourselves all deceived; for very kindly and calmly, without shew of offence (as if she had but waked out of some sleep) she gave him thanks for his very learned sermon. yet when she had better considered the matter, and recollected herself in private, she sent two councillors to him with a sharp message, to which he was glad to give a patient answer." the premature death of edmund spenser, under circumstances of severe distress, now called forth the universal commiseration and regret of the friends and patrons of english genius. after witnessing the plunder of his house and the destruction of his whole property by the irish rebels, the unfortunate poet had fled to england for shelter,--the annuity of fifty pounds which he enjoyed as poet-laureat to her majesty apparently his sole resource; and having taken up his melancholy abode in an obscure lodging in london, he pined away under the pressure of penury and despondence. the genius of this great poet, formed on the most approved models of the time, and exercised upon themes peculiarly congenial to its taste, received in all its plenitude that homage of contemporary applause which has sometimes failed to reward the efforts of the noblest masters of the lyre. the adventures of chivalry, and the dim shadowings of moral allegory, were almost equally the delight of a romantic, a serious and a learned age. it was also a point of loyalty to admire in gloriana queen of faery, or in the empress mercilla, the avowed types of the graces and virtues of her majesty; and she herself had discernment sufficient to distinguish between the brazen trump of vulgar flattery with which her ear was sated, and the pastoral reed of antique frame tuned sweetly to her praise by colin clout. spenser was interred with great solemnity in westminster abbey by the side of chaucer; the generous essex defraying the cost of the funeral and walking himself as a mourner. that ostentatious but munificent woman anne countess of dorset, pembroke, and montgomery, erected a handsome monument to his memory several years afterwards; the brother-poets who attended his obsequies threw elegies and sonnets into the grave; and of the more distinguished votaries of the muse in that day there is scarcely one who has withheld his tribute to the fame and merit of this delightful author. shakespeare in one of his sonnets had already testified his high delight in his works; joseph hall, afterwards eminent as a bishop, a preacher, and polemic, but at this time a young student of emanuel college, has more than one complimentary allusion to the poems of spenser in his "toothless satires" printed in . thus, in the invocation to his first satire, referring to spenser's description of the marriage of the thames and medway, he inquires, ..."what baser muse can bide to sit and sing by granta's naked side? they haunt the tided thames and salt medway, e'er since the fame of their late bridal day. nought have we here but willow-shaded shore, to tell our grant his banks are left forlore." and again, in ridiculing the imitation of some of the more extravagant fictions of the orlando furioso, he thus suddenly checks himself; "but let no rebel satyr dare traduce th' eternal legends of thy faery muse, renowned spenser! whom no earthly wight dares once to emulate, much less dares despight. salust of france[ ] and tuscan ariost, yield up the laurel garland ye have lost." [note : du bartas, then an admired writer in england as well as france.] these pieces of hall, reprinted in with three additional books under the uncouth title of "virgidemiarum" (a harvest of rods), present the earliest example in our language of regular satire on the ancient model, and have gained from an excellent poetical critic the following high eulogium. "these satires are marked with a classical precision, to which english poetry had yet rarely attained. they are replete with animation of style and sentiment. the indignation of the satirist is always the result of good sense. nor are the thorns of severe invective unmixed with the flowers of pure poetry. the characters are delineated in strong and lively colouring, and their discriminations are touched with the masterly traces of genuine humour. the versification is equally energetic and elegant, and the fabric of the couplets approaches to the modern standard[ ]." [note : warton's history of english poetry, vol. iv.] a few of his allusions to reigning follies may here be quoted. contrasting the customs of our barbarous ancestors with those of his own times, he says: "they naked went, or clad in ruder hide, or homespun russet void of foreign pride. but thou can'st mask in garish gaudery, to suit a fool's far-fetched livery. a french head joined to neck italian, thy thighs from germany and breast from spain. an englishman in none, a fool in all, many in one, and one in several." shakespeare makes portia satirize the same affectation in her english admirer;--"how oddly he is suited! i think he bought his doublet in italy, his round hose in france, his bonnet in germany, and his behavior every where." other contemporary writers have similar allusions, and it may be concluded, that the passion for travelling then, and ever since, so prevalent amongst the english youth, was fast eradicating all traces of a national costume by rendering fashionable the introduction of novel garments, capriciously adopted by turns from every country of europe. "cadiz spoil" is more than once referred to by hall; and amongst expedients for raising a fortune he enumerates, with a satirical glance at sir walter raleigh, the trading to guiana for gold; as also the search of the philosopher's stone. he likewise ridicules the costly mineral elixirs of marvellous virtues vended by alchemical quacks; and with sounder sense in this point than usually belonged to his age, mocks at the predictions of judicial astrology. in several passages he reprehends the new luxuries of the time, among which coaches are not forgotten. it should appear that the increasing conveniences and pleasures of a london life had already begun to occasion the desertion of rural mansions, and the decay of that boundless hospitality which the former possessors had made their boast; for thus feelingly and beautifully does the poet describe the desolation of one of these seats of antiquated magnificence: "beat the broad gates, a goodly hollow sound with double echoes doth again rebound; but not a dog doth bark to welcome thee, nor churlish porter canst thou chafing see; all dumb and silent like the dead of night, or dwelling of some sleepy sybarite! the marble pavement hid with desert weed, with houseleek, thistle, dock, and hemlock-seed.-- look to the towered chimneys, which should be the windpipes of good hospitality:-- lo there the unthankful swallow takes her rest, and fills the tunnel with her circled nest." the translation of the orlando furioso through which that singular work of genius had just become known to the english reader, was executed by sir john harrington, the same who afterwards composed for henry prince of wales, the brief view of the english church, the godson of elizabeth, and the child of her faithful servants james harrington and isabella markham. after the usual course of school and college education, young harrington, who was born in , presented himself at court, where his wit and learning soon procured him a kind of distinction, which was not however unattended with danger. a satirical piece was traced to him as its author, containing certain allusions to living characters, which gave so much offence to the courtiers, that he was threatened with the animadversions of the star-chamber; but the secret favor of elizabeth towards a godson whom she loved and who amused her, saved him from this very serious kind of retaliation. a tale which he sometime after translated out of ariosto proved very entertaining to the court ladies, and soon met the eyes of the queen; who in affected displeasure at certain indelicate passages, ordered him to appear no more at court--till he had translated the whole poem. the command was obeyed with alacrity; and he speedily committed his orlando to the press, with a dedication to her majesty. before this time our sprightly poet had found means to dissipate a considerable portion of the large estate to which he was born; and being well inclined to listen to the friendly counsels of essex, who bade him, "lay good hold on her majesty's bounty and ask freely," he dexterously opened his case by the following lines slipped behind her cushion. "for ever dear, for ever dreaded prince, you read a verse of mine a little since; and so pronounced each word and every letter, your gracious reading graced my verse the better: sith then your highness doth by gift exceeding make what you read the better for your reading; let my poor muse your pains thus far importune, like as you read my verse, so--read my fortune. "_from your highness' saucy godson._" of the further progress of his suit and the various little arts of pleasing to which harrington now applied himself, some amusing hints may be gathered out of the following extracts taken from a note-book kept by himself[ ]. [note : see nugæ antiquæ.] ..."i am to send good store of news from the country for her highness entertainment.... her highness loveth merry tales." "the queen stood up and bade me reach forth my arm to rest her thereon. o! what sweet burden to my next song. petrarch shall eke out good matter for this business." "the queen loveth to see me in my new frize jerkin, and saith 'tis well enough cut. i will have another made liken to it. i do remember she spit on sir matthew's fringed cloth, and said the fool's wit was gone to rags.--heaven spare me from such jibing!" "i must turn my poor wits towards my suit for the lands in the north.... i must go in an early hour, be fore her highness hath special matters brought up to counsel on.--i must go before the breakfast covers are placed, and stand uncovered as her highness cometh forth her chamber; then kneel and say, god save your majesty, i crave your ear at what hour may suit for your servant to meet your blessed countenance. thus will i gain her favor to follow to the auditory. "trust not a friend to do or say, in that yourself can sue or pray." the lands alluded to in the last extract, formed a large estate in the north of england, which an ancestor of harrington had forfeited by his adherence to the house of york during the civil wars, and which he was now endeavouring to recover. this further mention of the business occurs in one of his letters. "yet i will adventure to give her majesty five hundred pounds in money, and some pretty jewel or garment, as you shall advise, only praying her majesty to further my suit with some of her learned counsel; which i pray you to find some proper time to move in; this some hold as a dangerous adventure, but five and twenty manors do well justify my trying it." how notorious must have been the avarice and venality of a sovereign, before such a mode of insuring success in a law-suit could have entered into the imagination of a courtier! but the fortunes of harrington, as of persons of more importance, now become involved in the state of irish affairs, to which the attention of the reader must immediately be directed. chapter xxvii. to . irish affairs.--essex appointed lord deputy.--his letter to the queen.--letter of markham to harrington.--departure of essex and proceedings in ireland.--his letter to the privy council,--conferences with tyrone,--unexpected arrival at court.--behaviour of the queen.--state of parties.--letters of sir j. harrington.--further particulars respecting essex.--his letter of submission.--relentlessness of the queen.--sir john hayward's history.--second letter of essex.--censure passed upon him in council.--anecdote of the queen.--essex liberated.--reception of a flemish ambassador.--discontent of raleigh.--traits of the queen.--letter of sir robert sidney to sir john harrington.--crisis of the fortune of essex.--conduct of lord montjoy.--proceedings at essex house.--revolt of essex.--he defends his house.--is taken and committed to the tower.--his trial and that of lord southampton.--conduct of bacon.--confessions of essex.--behavior of the queen.--death of essex.--fate of his adherents.--reception of the scotch ambassadors.--interview of the queen and sully.--irish affairs.--letter of sir john harrington.--a parliament summoned.--affair of monopolies.--quarrel between the jesuits and secular priests.--conversation of the queen respecting essex.--letter of sir j. harrington.--submission of tyrone.--melancholy of elizabeth.--story of the ring.--her death.--additional traits of her character.--her eulogy by bishop hall. the death in september of philip ii., and the succession of the feeble philip iii., under whom the spanish monarchy advanced with accelerated steps towards its decline, had finally released the queen from all apprehensions of foreign invasion and left her at liberty to turn her whole attention to the pacification of ireland. the state of that island was in every respect deplorable:--the whole province of ulster in open rebellion under tyrone;--the rest of the country only waiting for the succours from the pope and the king of spain, which the credulous natives were still taught to expect, to join openly in the revolt; and in the meantime reduced to such a state of despair by innumerable oppressions and by the rumor of further severities meditated by the queen of england, that it seemed prepared to oppose the most obstinate resistance to every measure of government. in what manner and by whom, this wretched province should be brought back to its allegiance, had been the subject of frequent and earnest debates in the privy-council; in which essex had vehemently reprobated the conduct of former governors in wasting time on inferior objects, instead of first undertaking the reduction of tyrone, and appears to have spared no pains to impress the queen with an opinion of the superior justness of his own views of the subject. elizabeth believed, and with reason, that she discovered in lord montjoy talents not unequal to the arduous office of lord deputy at so critical a juncture; but when the greater part of her council appeared to concur in the choice, essex insinuated a variety of objections;--that the experience of montjoy in military matters was small;--that neither in the low countries nor in bretagne, where he had served, had he attained to any principal or independent command;--that his retainers were few or none; his purse inadequately furnished for the first expenses of so high an appointment; and that he was too much addicted to a sedentary and studious life. by this artful enumeration of the deficiencies of montjoy, he was clearly understood to intimate his own superior fitness for the office. the queen, notwithstanding certain suspicions which had been infused into her of danger in committing to essex the command of an army, and notwithstanding the unwillingness which she still felt to deprive herself of his presence, appears to have adopted with eagerness this suggestion of her favorite;--for she held in high estimation both his talents and his good fortune. montjoy promptly retired from a competition in which he must be unsuccessful; the adherents of the earl, except a few of the more sagacious, eagerly forwarded his appointment with imprudent eulogiums of his valor and his genius and still more imprudent anticipations of his certain and complete success. his enemies, desirous of his absence and hopeful of his failure, concurred with no less zeal in the promotion of his wishes; and he soon found himself importuned on every side to accept the command. but it now became his part to make objections;--perhaps he began to open his eyes to the difficulties to be confronted in ireland;--perhaps he penetrated too late the designs and expectations of his adversaries at home;--perhaps, for his character was not free from artifice, he chose by a display of reluctance to enhance in the eyes of his sovereign the merit of his final acquiescence. however this might be, the difficulties which he raised kept the business for some time in suspense. secretary cecil observed in a letter of december th, , that "the opinion of the earl's going to ireland had some stop, by reason of his lordship's indisposition to it, except with some such conditions as were disagreeable to her majesty's mind;" "although," he added, "the cup will hardly pass from him in regard of his worth and fortune: but if it do, my lord montjoy is named[ ]." [note : birch.] it was in the midst of the debates and contentions on this matter that essex endeavoured to work upon the feelings of elizabeth by the following romantic but eloquent address. * * * * * "to the queen. "from a mind delighting in sorrow, from spirits wasted with passion, from a heart torn in pieces with care grief and travel, from a man that hateth himself and all things else that keep him alive, what service can your majesty expect; since any service past deserves no more than banishment and proscription to the cursedest of all islands? it is your rebels' pride and succession must give me leave to ransom myself out of this hateful prison, out of my loathed body; which, if it happeneth so, your majesty shall have no cause to mislike the fashion of my death, since the course of my life could never please you. happy could he finish forth his fate in some unhaunted desert most obscure from all society, from love and hate of worldly folk; then should he sleep secure. then wake again, and yield god ever praise, content with hips and haws and brambleberry; in contemplation passing out his days, and change of holy thoughts to make him merry. who when he dies, his tomb may be a bush, where harmless robin dwells with gentle thrush." "your majesty's exiled servant "robert essex." * * * * * it seems also to have been at this juncture that on some public occasion he bore a plain mourning shield, with the words, "_par nulla figura dolori_." a very sensible and friendly letter addressed to harrington by his relation robert markham may serve to throw additional light on the situation and sentiments of essex, and on the state of court parties. * * * * * _mr. robert markham to john harrington esquire._ "notwithstanding the perilous state of our times, i shall not fail to give you such intelligence and advices of our matters here as may tend to your use and benefit. we have gotten good account of some matters, and as i shall find some safe conduct for bearing them to you, it may from time to time happen that i send tidings of our courtly concerns. "since your departure from hence, you have been spoken of, and with no ill will, both by the nobles and the queen herself. your book is almost forgiven, and i may say forgotten; but not for its lack of wit or satire. those whom you feared most are now bosoming themselves in the queen's grace; and though her highness signified displeasure in outward sort, yet did she like the marrow of your book. your great enemy, sir james, did once mention the star-chamber, but your good esteem in better minds outdid his endeavours, and all is silent again. the queen is minded to take you to her favor, but she sweareth that she believes you will make epigrams and write _misacmos_ again on her and all the court. she hath been heard to say, 'that merry poet her godson, must not come to greenwich till he hath grown sober and leaveth the ladies' sports and frolics.' she did conceive much disquiet on being told you had aimed a shaft at leicester; i wish you knew the author of that ill deed; i would not be in his best jerkin for a thousand marks. you yet stand well in her highness' love, and i hear you are to go to ireland with the lieutenant essex; if so, mark my counsel in this matter. i doubt not your valor nor your labor, but that d----e uncovered honesty will mar your fortunes. observe the man who commandeth, and yet is commanded himself; he goeth not forth to serve the queen's realm, but to humor his own revenge. be heedful of your bearings, speak not your mind to all you meet. i tell you i have ground for my caution: essex hath enemies; he hath friends too. now there are two or three of montjoy's kindred sent out in your army; they are to report all your conduct to us at home. as you love yourself, the queen and me, discover not these matters; if i did not love you, they had never been told. high concerns deserve high attention; you are to take account of all that passes in your expedition, and keep journal thereof, unknown to any in the company; this will be expected of you; i have reasons to give for this order. "if the lord deputy performs in the field what he hath promised in the council, all will be well; but though the queen hath granted forgiveness for his late demeanour in her presence; we know not what to think hereof. she hath, in all outward semblance, placed confidence in the man who so lately sought other treatment at her hands; we do sometime think one way, and sometime another; what betideth the lord deputy is known to him only who knoweth all; but when a man hath so many showing friends, and so many unshowing enemies, who learneth his end here below? i say, do not you meddle in any sort, nor give your jesting too freely among those you know not; obey the lord deputy in all things, but give not your opinion; it may be heard in england. though you obey, yet seem not to advise in any one point; your obeysance may be, and must be, construed well; but your counsel may be ill thought of if any bad business follow. "you have now a secret from one that wishes you all welfare and honor; i know there are overlookers set on you all, so god direct your discretion. sir william knolles is not well pleased, the queen is not well pleased, the lord deputy may be pleased now, but i sore fear what may happen hereafter. the heart of man lieth close hid oft time, men do not carry it in their hand, nor should they do so that wish to thrive in these times and in these places; i say this that your own honesty may not show itself too much, and turn to your own ill favor. stifle your understanding as much as may be; mind your books and make your jests, but take heed who they light on. my love hath overcome almost my confidence and trust, which my truth and place demandeth. i have said too much for one in my dependent occupation, and yet too little for a friend and kinsman, who putteth himself to this hard trial for your advantage. you have difficult matters to encounter beside tyrone and the rebels; there is little heed to be had to show of affection in state business; i find this by those i discourse with daily, and those too of the wiser sort. if my lord treasurer had lived longer, matters would go on surer. he was our great pilot, on whom all cast their eyes, and sought their safety. the queen's highness doth often speak of him in tears, and turn aside when he is discoursed of; nay, even forbiddeth any mention to be made of his name in the council. this i learn by some friends who are in good liking with my lord buckhurst[ ]. [note : lord buckhurst had succeeded to the office of lord treasurer on the death of burleigh.] "my sister beareth this to you, but doth not know what it containeth, nor would i disclose my dealings to any woman in this sort; for danger goeth abroad, and silence is the safest armour." &c.[ ] [note : nugæ antiquæ.] * * * * * such were the bodings of distant evil with which the more discerning contemplated the new and arduous enterprise in which the ambition of essex had engaged him! in the meantime, all things conspired to delude him into a false security and to augment that presumption which formed the most dangerous defect of his character. all the obstacles which had delayed his appointment were gradually smoothed away; the queen consented to invest him with powers far more ample than had ever been conferred on a lord deputy before; all his requisitions of men and other supplies were complied with; and an army of , foot and , horse, afterwards increased to , ,--a far larger force than ireland had yet beheld,--was placed at his disposal. at parting, the tenderness of the queen revived in full force; and she dismissed him with expressions of regret and affection which, as he afterwards professed to her, had "pierced his very soul." the people followed him with acclamations and blessings; and the flower of the nobility now, as in the cadiz expedition, attended him with alacrity as volunteers. it was in the end of march that he embarked; and landing after a dangerous passage at dublin, his first act was the appointment of his dear friend the earl of southampton to the office of general of the horse;--a step which he afterwards found abundant cause to repent. an error of which the consequences were much more pernicious to himself, and fatal to the success of his undertaking, was his abandoning his original resolution of marching immediately against tyrone, and spending his first efforts in the suppression of a minor revolt in munster:--an attempt in which he encountered a resistance so much more formidable than he had anticipated, and found himself so ill supported by his troops, whom the nature of the service speedily disheartened, that its results were by no means so brilliant as to strike terror into tyrone or the other insurgents. what was still worse, almost four months were occupied in this service, and the forces returned sick, wearied, and incredibly reduced in number by various accidents. learning that the queen was much displeased at this expedition into munster, essex addressed a letter to the privy-council, in which, after affirming that he had performed his part to the best of his abilities and judgement, he thus proceeded: "but as i said, and ever must say, i provided for this service a breastplate, and not a cuirass; that is, i am armed on the breast, but not on the back. i armed myself with confidence that rebels in so unjust a quarrel could not fight so well as we could in a good. howbeit if the rebels shall but once come to know that i am wounded on the back, not slightly, but to the heart, as i fear me they have too true and too apparent advertisement of this kind; then what will be their pride and the state's hazard, your lordships in your wisdoms may easily discern." in a subsequent letter, the warmth of his friendship for southampton breaks out in the following eloquent and forcible appeal.--"but to leave this, and come to that which i never looked i should have come to, i mean your lordships' letter touching the displacing of the earl of southampton; your lordships say, that her majesty thinketh it strange, and taketh it offensively, that i should appoint him general of the horse, seeing not only her majesty denied it when i moved it, but gave an express prohibition to any such choice. surely, my lord, it shall be far from me to contest with your lordships, much less with her majesty. howbeit, god and my own soul are my witnesses, that i had not in this nomination any disobedient or irreverent thought; that i never moved her majesty for the placing of any officer, my commission fully enabling me to make free choice of all officers and commanders of the army. i remember, that her majesty in her privy-chamber at richmond, i only being with her, showed a dislike of his having any office; but my answer was, that if her majesty would revoke my commission, i would cast both it and myself at her majesty's feet. but if it pleased her majesty that i should execute it, i must work with my own instruments. and from this profession and protestation i never varied; whereas if i had held myself barred from giving my lord of southampton place and reputation some way answerable to his degree and expense, there is no one, i think, doth imagine, that i loved him so ill as to have brought him over. therefore if her majesty punish me with her displeasure for this choice, _poena dolenda venit_. and now, my lords, were now, as then it was, that i were to choose, or were there nothing in a new choice but my lord of southampton's disgrace and my discomfort, i should easily be induced to displace him, and to part with him. but when, in obeying this command, i must discourage all my friends, who now, seeing the days of my suffering draw near, follow me afar off, and are some of them tempted to renounce me; when i must dismay the army, which already looks sadly, as pitying both me and itself in this comfortless action; when i must encourage the rebels, who doubtless will think it time to hew upon a withering tree, whose leaves they see beaten down, and the branches in part cut off; when i must disable myself for ever in the course of this service, the world now perceiving that i want either reason to judge of merit, or freedom to right it, disgraces being there heaped where, in my opinion, rewards are due; give just grief leave once to complain. o! miserable employment, and more miserable destiny of mine, that makes it impossible for me to please and serve her majesty at once! was it treason in my lord of southampton to marry my poor kinswoman, that neither long imprisonment, nor any punishment besides that hath been usual in like cases, can satisfy and appease? or will no kind of punishment be fit for him, but that which punisheth, not him, but me, this army, and this poor country of ireland? shall i keep the country when the army breaks? or shall the army stand when all the volunteers leave it? or will any voluntaries stay when those that have will and cause to follow are thus handled? no, my lords, they already ask passports, and that daily." &c. in spite of all this earnestness, in spite of the remaining affection of the queen for her favorite, she still persisted in requiring that he should displace his friend, and even chid him severely for having waited the result of his further representations and entreaties, after once learning her pleasure on the point. success in the main object of his expedition might still have procured him a triumph over his court-enemies and a sweet reconciliation with his offended sovereign, but fortune had no such favor in store for essex. the necessity of quelling some rebels in leinster again impeded his march into ulster; for which expedition he was obliged to solicit a further supply from england of two thousand foot, which was immediately forwarded to him, as if with the design of leaving him without excuse should he fail to reduce tyrone. but by this time the season was so far advanced, and the army so sickly, that both the earl and the irish council were of opinion that nothing effectual could be done; and at the first notice of his intended march great part of his forces deserted. he nevertheless proceeded, and in a few days during which a little skirmishing took place, came in sight of the rebel's main army, considerably more numerous than his own; tyrone however would not venture to give him battle, but sent to request a parley. this, after some delay, the lord deputy granted; and a conference was held between them, essex standing on the bank of a stream which separated the two hosts, while the rebel sat on his horse in the middle of the water. a truce was concluded, to be renewed from six weeks to six weeks, till terms of peace should be agreed on; those proposed by tyrone containing several arrogant and unreasonable articles. at a second meeting with the irish chief, essex was attended by some of his principal officers; but it was afterwards proved that previously to the first conference, he had opened a very unwarrantable correspondence with this enemy of his queen and country, who took upon himself to promise that if essex would come into his measures he would make him the greatest man in england. during the whole of this time, sharp letters were passing between elizabeth and her privy-council and the earl; and it is hard to say on which side the heaviest list of grievances was produced. the queen remonstrated against his contemptuous disobedience of her orders, and the waste in frivolous enterprises of the vast supplies of men and money which she had intrusted to her deputy for a specific and momentous object;--the earl, in addition to his usual murmurings against the sinister suggestions of his enemies, amongst whom he singled out by name raleigh and lord cobham; found further grounds of complaint and alarm in the circumstance of her majesty's having caused some troops to be called out under the lord admiral, on pretext of fears from the spaniard, but really with a view of protecting her against certain designs imputed to himself: and in her having granted to secretary cecil during his absence the office of master of the wards, for which he was himself a suitor. apprehensive lest by his longer delay her affections should be irrecoverably alienated from him by the discovery of his traitorous correspondence with tyrone, he rashly resolved to risk yet another act of disobedience;--that of deserting without license, and under its present accumulated circumstances of danger, his important charge, and hastening to throw himself at the feet of an exasperated, but he flattered himself, not inexorable mistress. at one time he had even entertained the desperate and criminal design of carrying over with him a large part of his army, for the purpose of intimidating his adversaries; but being diverted from this scheme by the earl of southampton and sir christopher blount his step-father, he embarked with the attendance only of most of his household and a number of his favorite officers, and arrived at the court, which was then at nonsuch, on michaelmas eve in the morning. on alighting at the gate, covered with mire and stained with travel as he was, he hastened up stairs, passed through the presence and the privy-chambers, and never stopped till he reached the queen's bed-chamber, where he found her newly risen with her hair about her face. he kneeled and kissed her hands, and she, in the agreeable surprise of beholding at her feet one whom she still loved, received him with so kind an aspect, and listened with such favor to his excuses, that on leaving her, after a private conference of some duration, he appeared in high spirits, and thanked god, that though he had suffered many storms abroad, he found a sweet calm at home. he waited on her again as soon as he had changed his dress; and after a second long and gracious conference, was freely visited by all the lords, ladies, and gentlemen at court, excepting the secretary and his party, who appeared somewhat shy of him. but all these fair appearances quickly vanished. on revisiting the queen in the evening, he found her much changed towards him; she began to call him to account for his unauthorised return and the hazard to which he had committed all things in ireland; and four privy-councillors were appointed by her to examine him that night and hear his answers: but by them nothing was concluded, and the matter was referred to a full council summoned for the following day, the earl being in the meantime commanded to keep his chamber. notwithstanding the natural impetuosity of his temper, essex now armed himself with patience and moderation, and answered with great gravity and discretion to the charges brought against him, which resolved themselves into the following articles. "his contemptuous disobedience of her majesty's letters and will in returning: his presumptuous letters written from time to time: his proceedings in ireland contrary to the points resolved upon in england, ere he went: his rash manner of coming away from ireland: his overbold going the day before to her majesty's presence to her bed-chamber: and his making of so many idle knights[ ]." the council, after hearing his defence, remained awhile in consultation and then made their report to her majesty, who said she should take time to consider of his answers: meanwhile the proceedings were kept very private, and the earl continued a prisoner in his own apartment. an open division now took place between the two great factions which had long divided the court in secret. the earls of shrewsbury and nottingham, lords thomas howard, cobham, and grey, sir walter raleigh, and sir george carew, attended on the secretary; while essex was followed by the earls of worcester and rutland, lords montjoy, rich, lumley, and henry howard; the last of whom however was already suspected to be the traitor which he afterwards proved to the patron whom he professed to love, to honor, and almost to worship. sir william knolles also joined the party of his nephew, with many other knights and gentlemen, and lord effingham, though son to the earl of nottingham, was often with him, and "protested all service" to him. "it is a world to be here," adds whyte, "and see the humors of the place." on october the second, essex was "commanded from court," and committed to the lord keeper, with whom he remained at york house. at his departure from court few or none of his friends accompanied him. [note : rowland whyte in sidney papers.] "his lordship's sudden return out of ireland," says whyte, "brings all sorts of knights, captains, officers, and soldiers, away from thence, that this town is full of them, to the great discontentment of her majesty, that they are suffered to leave their charge. but the most part of the gallants have quitted their commands, places, and companies, not willing to stay there after him; so that the disorder seems to be greater there than stands with the safety of that service." harrington the wit and poet had the misfortune to be one of the threescore "idle knights," dubbed by the lord deputy during his short and inglorious reign, and likewise one of the officers whom he selected to accompany him in his return; and we may learn from two of his own letters, written several years subsequently, after what manner he was welcomed on his arrival by his royal godmother. * * * * * "_sir john harrington to dr. still, the bishop of bath and wells._ . "my worthy lord, "i have lived to see that d----e rebel tyrone brought to england, courteously favored, honored, and well-liked. o! my lord, what is there which doth not prove the inconstancy of worldly matters! how did i labor after that knave's destruction! i was called from my home by her majesty's command, adventured perils by sea and land; endured toil, was near starving, ate horse-flesh at munster; and all to quell that man, who now smileth in peace at those that did hazard their lives to destroy him. essex took me to ireland, i had scant time to put on my boots; i followed with good will, and did return with the lord-lieutenant to meet ill-will; i did bear the frowns of her that sent me; and were it not for her good liking, rather than my good deservings, i had been sore discountenanced indeed. i obeyed in going with the earl to ireland, and i obeyed in coming with him to england. but what did i encounter thereon? not his wrath, but my gracious sovereign's ill humor. what did i advantage? why truly a knighthood; which had been better bestowed by her that sent me, and better spared by him that gave it. i shall never put out of memory her majesty's displeasure; i entered her chamber, but she frowned and said. 'what, did the fool bring you too? go back to your business.' in sooth these words did sore hurt him that never heard such before; but heaven gave me more comfort in a day or two after. her majesty did please to ask me concerning our northern journeys, and i did so well quit me of the account, that she favoured me with such discourse that the earl himself had been well glad of. and now doth tyrone dare us old commanders with his presence and protection." &c.[ ] [note : nugæ.] * * * * * "_sir john harrington to mr. robert markham_, . "my good cousin, "herewith you will have my journal, with our history during our march against the irish rebels. i did not intend any eyes should have seen this discourse but my own children's; yet alas! it happened otherwise; for the queen did so ask, and i may say, demand my account, that i could not withhold showing it; and i, even now, almost tremble to rehearse her highness' displeasure hereat. she swore by god's son, we were all idle knaves, and the lord deputy worse, for wasting our time and her commands in such-wise as my journal doth write of. "i could have told her highness of such difficulties, straits, and annoyance, as did not appear therein to her eyes, nor, i found, could be brought to her ear; for her choler did outrun all reason, though i did meet it at a second hand. for what show she gave at first to my lord deputy at his return, was far more grievous, as will appear in good time. "i marvel to think what strange humors do conspire to patch up the natures of some minds. the elements do seem to strive which shall conquer and rise above the other. in good sooth our late queen did infold them all together. i bless her memory for all her goodness to me and my family; and now will i show you what strange temperament she did sometimes put forth. her mind was oftimes like the gentle air that cometh from the westerly point in a summer's morn; 'twas sweet and refreshing to all around her. her speech did win all affections, and her subjects did try to show all love to her commands; for she would say, her state did require her to command what she knew her people would willingly do from their own love to her. herein did she show her wisdom fully; for who did choose to lose her confidence; or who would withhold a show of love and obedience, when their sovereign said it was their own choice, and not her compulsion? surely she did play well her tables to gain obedience thus without constraint; again could she put forth such alterations, when obedience was lacking, as left no doubtings whose daughter she was. i say this was plain on the lord deputy's coming home, when i did come into her presence. she chafed much, walked fastly to and fro, looked with discomposure in her visage; and i remember, she catched my girdle when i kneeled to her, and swore, 'by god's son i am no queen, that _man_ is above me;--who gave him command to come here so soon? i did send him on other business.' it was long before more gracious discourse did fall to my hearing; but i was then put out of my trouble, and bid go home. i did not stay to be bidden twice; if all the irish rebels had been at my heels, i should not have made better speed, for i did now flee from one whom i both loved and feared too[ ]." [note : nugæ.] * * * * * the fate of essex remained long in suspense; while several little circumstances seemed to indicate the strength of her majesty's resentment against him; especially her denying, to the personal request of lady walsingham, permission for the earl to write to his countess, her daughter, who was in childbed and exceedingly troubled that she neither saw nor heard from her husband; and afterwards her refusing to allow his family physician access to him, though he was now so ill as to be attended by several other physicians, with whom however dr. brown was permitted to consult. at the same time it was given out, that if he would beg his liberty for the purpose of going back to ireland, it would be granted him;--but he appeared resolute never to return thither, and professed a determination of leading henceforth a retired life in the country, free from all participation in public affairs. pamphlets were written on his case, but immediately suppressed by authority, and perhaps at the request of the earl himself, whose behaviour at this time exhibited nothing but duty and submission. his sister lady rich, and lady southampton, quitted essex house and went into the country, because the resort of company to them had given offence. he himself neither saw nor desired to see any one. his very servants were afraid to meet in any place to make merry lest it might be ill taken. "at the court," says whyte, "lady scrope is only noted to stand firm to him, for she endures much at her majesty's hands because she daily does all kind offices of love to the queen in his behalf. she wears all black; she mourns and is pensive, and joys in nothing but in a solitary being alone. and 'tis thought she says much that few would venture to say but herself." this generous woman was daughter to the first lord hunsdon, and nearly related both to the queen and to essex. she was sister to the countess of nottingham who is believed to have acted so opposite a part. about the middle of october strong hopes were entertained of the earls enlargement; but it was said that "he stood to have his liberty by the like warrant he was committed." the secretary was pleased to express to him the satisfaction that he felt in seeing her majesty so well appeased by his demeanor, and his own wish to promote his good and contentment. the reasons which he had assigned for his conduct in ireland appeared to have satisfied the privy-council and mollified the queen. but her majesty characteristically declared, that she would not bear the blame of his imprisonment; and before she and her council could settle amongst them on whom it should be made to rest, a new cause of exasperation arose. tyrone, in a letter to essex which was intercepted, declared that he found it impossible to prevail on his confederates to observe the conditions of truce agreed upon between them; and the queen, relapsing into anger, triumphantly asked if there did not now appear good cause for the earl's committal? she immediately made known to lord montjoy her wish that he should undertake the government of ireland; but the friendship of this nobleman to essex, joined with a hope that the queen might be induced to liberate him by a necessity of again employing his talents in that country, induced montjoy to excuse himself. the council unanimously recommended to her majesty the enlargement of the prisoner; but she angrily replied, that such contempts as he had been guilty of ought to be openly punished. they answered, that by her sovereign power and the rigor of law, such punishment might indeed be inflicted, but that it would be inconsistent with her clemency and her honor; she however caused heads of accusation to be drawn up against him. all this time essex continued very sick; and his high spirit condescended to supplications like the following. * * * * * "when the creature entereth into account with the creator, it can never number in how many things it needs mercy, or in how many it receives it. but he that is best stored, must still say _da nobis hodie_; and he that hath showed most thankfulness, must ask again, _quid retribuamus_? and i can no sooner finish this my first audit, most dear and most admired sovereign, but i come to consider how large a measure of his grace, and how great a resemblance of his power, god hath given you upon earth; and how many ways he giveth occasion to you to exercise these divine offices upon us, that are your vassals. this confession best fitteth me of all men; and this confession is most joyfully and most humbly now made by me of all times. i acknowledge upon the knees of my heart your majesty's infinite goodness in granting my humble petition. god, who seeth all, is witness, how faithfully i do vow to dedicate the rest of my life, next after my highest duty, in obedience faith and zeal to your majesty, without admitting any other worldly care; and whatsoever your majesty resolveth to do with me, i shall live and die "your majesty's humblest vassal, "essex." * * * * * the earl abased himself in vain; those courtiers who had formerly witnessed her majesty's tenderness and indulgence towards him, now wondered at the violence of her resentment; and somewhat of mystery still involves the motives of her conduct. at one time she deferred his liberation "because she heard that some of his friends and followers should say he was wrongfully imprisoned:" and the french ambassador who spoke for him, found her very short and bitter on that point. soon after, however, on hearing that he continued very sick and was making his will, she was surprised into some signs of pity, and gave orders that a few of his friends should be admitted to visit him, and that he should be allowed the liberty of the garden. alarmed at these relentings, raleigh, to whose nature the basest court arts were not repugnant, thought proper to fall sick in his turn, and was healed in like manner by a gracious message from the queen. the countess of essex was indefatigable in her applications to persons in power, but with little avail; all that was gained for the dejected prisoner was effected by the intercession of some of the queen's favorite ladies, who obtained leave for his two sisters to come to court and solicit for him. soon after, the storm seemed to gather strength again;--a warrant was made out for the earl's committal to the tower, and though it was not carried into force, "the hopes of liberty grew cold." about the middle of november lord montjoy received orders to prepare for ireland. the appearance of the first part of a history in latin of the life and reign of henry iv. by sir john hayward, dedicated to the earl of essex, was the unfortunate occasion of fresh offence to the queen; the subject, as containing the deposition of a lawful prince, was in itself unpalatable; but what gave the work in her jealous eyes a peculiar and sinister meaning was an expression addressed to the earl which may be thus rendered: "you are great both in present judgement and future expectation." hayward was detained a considerable time in prison; and the queen, from an idle suspicion that the piece was in fact the production of some more dangerous character, declared that she would have him racked to discover the secret. "nay, madam," answered francis bacon, "he is a doctor; never rack his person, but rack his style. let him have pen, ink and paper, and help of books, and be enjoined to continue the story where it breaketh off; and i will undertake, by collating the styles, to judge whether he were the author or no." and thus her mind was diverted from this atrocious purpose! measures had now been carried too far against the earl to admit of his speedy restoration to favor, whatever might be the secret sentiments of her majesty in his behalf; and her conduct respecting him preserved a vacillating and undecided character which marks the miserable perplexity of her mind, no longer enlightened by the clear and dispassionate judgement of burleigh. on one occasion she spoke of the earl with such favor as greatly troubled the opposite party. soon after, on his sending to her his patents of master of the horse and master of the ordnance, she immediately returned them to him; and at the same time his lady had leave to visit him. two days after, the queen ordered a consultation of eight physicians upon his case, who gave little hope of his life, but earnestly recommended that his mind should be quieted; on which, unable longer to conceal her feelings, she sent dr. james to him with some broth and the message, that he should comfort himself, and that if she might consistently with her honor she would visit him; and it was noted that she had tears in her eyes as she spoke. but it was soon after hinted to her, that though divines watched by the bed of the earl and publicly prayed for him in their pulpits, some of them "with speeches tending to sedition," his life was in no real danger. on this, she refused his sisters, his son, and his mother-in-law permission to visit him, and ceased to make inquiries after his health, which was in no long time restored. a rich new year's gift, which was sent "as it were in a cloud no man knew how," but thought to come from the earl, was left for some time in the hands of sir william knolles, as neither accepted nor refused, but finally rejected with disdain on some new accession of anger. yet the letters of lady rich in his behalf were read, and her many presents received, as well as one from the countess of leicester. lady essex was now restrained for a time from making her daily visits to her husband, and the queen declared her intention of bringing him before the star-chamber; but on his writing a very submissive letter, which was delivered by the secretary, the design was dropped; and the secretary, who had been earnest in his intercession with her majesty to spare this infliction, gained in consequence much credit with the public. about the middle of march the earl was suffered to remove, under the superintendance of a keeper, to his own house; for which he returned thanks to her majesty in very grateful terms, saying that "this further degree of her goodness sounded in his ears as if she had said, 'die not, essex; for though i punish thine offence, and humble thee for thy good, yet will i one day be served again by thee.' and my prostrate soul," he adds, "makes this answer, 'i hope for that blessed day.'" two months afterwards, however, perceiving no immediate prospect of his return to favor or to liberty, he addressed her in a more expostulating style, thus: * * * * * "before all letters written with this hand be banished, or he that sends this enjoin himself eternal silence, be pleased, i humbly beseech your majesty, to read over these few lines. at sundry times and by several messengers, i received these words as your majesty's own; that you meant to correct, but not to ruin. since which time, when i languished in four months sickness; forfeited almost all that i was able to engage; felt the very pangs of death upon me; and saw that poor reputation, whatsoever it was, that i had hitherto enjoyed, not suffered to die with me, but buried and i alive; i yet kissed your majesty's fair correcting hand, and was confident in your royal words. for i said unto myself, between my ruin and my sovereign's favor there is no mean: and if she bestow favor again, she gives with it all things that in this world i either need or desire. but now, the length of troubles, and the continuance, or rather the increase, of your majesty's indignation, hath made all men so afraid of me, as mine own state is not only ruined, but my kind friends and faithful servants are like to die in prison because i cannot help myself with mine own. now i do not only feel the intolerable weight of your majesty's indignation, and am subject to their wicked information that first envied me for my happiness in your favor and now hate me out of custom; but, as if i were thrown into a corner like a dead carcase, i am gnawed on and torn by the vilest and basest creatures upon earth. the tavern-haunter speaks of me what he lists. already they print me and make me speak to the world, and shortly they will play me in what forms they list upon the stage. the least of these is a thousand times worse than death. but this is not the worst of my destiny; for your majesty, that hath mercy for all the world but me, that hath protected from scorn and infamy all to whom you once vowed favor but essex, and never repented you of any gracious assurance you had given till now; your majesty, i say, hath now, in this eighth month of my close imprisonment (as if you thought my infirmities, beggary and infamy, too little punishment for me), rejected my letters, refused to hear of me, which to traitors you never did. what therefore remaineth for me? only this, to beseech your majesty on the knees of my heart, to conclude my punishment, my misery and my life together; that i may go to my saviour, who hath paid himself a ransom for me, and whom, methinks, i still hear calling me out of this unkind world, in which i have lived too long, and once thought myself too happy. "from your majesty's humblest servant, "essex." * * * * * at length, the queen prepared to make an end of this lingering business; the earl's entreaties that it might not be made a star-chamber matter were listened to, and eighteen commissioners were selected out of the privy-council, to discuss his conduct, hear his accusation and defence, and finally pronounce upon him such a _censure_, for it was not to be called a _sentence_, as they should see fit. the crown lawyers,--amongst whom francis bacon chose to take his place, though the queen had offered to excuse his attendance on account of the ties of gratitude which ought to have attached him to essex,--spoke one after another in aggravation of his offence; and some of them, as the attorney-general (coke), with great virulence of language. next came the prisoner's defence, which he pronounced kneeling;--an attitude in which he was suffered to remain during a great part of the proceedings. he began with a humble avowal of his errors, and many expressions of penitence and humility towards her majesty; a temperate apology for particular parts of his conduct, followed; but as he was proceeding to reflect in some points on the conduct of the irish council, and to refute the exaggerated charges of his enemies, he was interrupted by the lord keeper, who reminded him that this was not a course likely to do him good. the earl explained that he had no wish but to clear himself of disloyalty; it was answered, that with this he never had been charged. the pathetic eloquence of the noble prisoner moved many of the council to tears, and was not without its effect on his enemies themselves. the secretary, who was the first to rise in reply, even in refuting a part of his excuses, did him justice in other points, and treated him on the whole with great courtesy. finally, it was the unanimous censure of the council, that the earl should abstain from exercising the functions of privy-councillor, earl marshal, or master of the ordnance; that he should return to his own house, and there remain a prisoner as before, till it should please her majesty to remit both this and all the other parts of the sentence. by this solemn hearing the mind of the queen was much tranquillized; because her grave councillors and learned judges in their speeches, "amplifying her majesty's clemency and the earl's offences, according to the manner in the star-chamber," had held him worthy of much more punishment than he had yet received. a few days after her majesty repaired to lady russel's house in blackfriars to grace the nuptials of her daughter, a maid of honor, with lord herbert, son of the earl of worcester;--on which occasion it may be mentioned, that she was conveyed from the water-side in a _lectica_, or half-litter, borne by six knights. after dining with the wedding company, she passed to the neighbouring house of lord cobham to sup. here she was entertained with a mask of eight ladies, who, after performing their appointed part, chose out eight ladies more to dance the measure, when mrs. fitton the principal masker came and "wooed" the queen also to dance. her majesty inquired who she was? "affection," she replied. "_affection_," said the queen, "_is false_;" yet she rose and danced. elizabeth was now possessed with a strange fancy of _unmaking_ the knights made by essex; being flattered in this folly by bacon, who assured her, certainly in contradiction to all the laws of chivalry, that her general had no right to confer that degree after a prohibition laid upon him by her majesty. she was resolved to command at least that no ancient gentleman should give place to these new knights; and she had actually signed the warrant for a proclamation to this effect, when the timely interference of the secretary saved her from thus exposing herself. late in august , the earl was acquainted in form by the privy-council that his liberty was restored, but that he was still prohibited from appearing at court. he answered, that it was his design to lead a retired life at his uncle's in oxfordshire, yet he begged their intercession that he might be admitted to kiss the queen's hand before his departure. but this was still too great a favor to be accorded, and he was informed, that though free from restraint, he was still to regard himself as under indignation; a distinction which served to deter all but his nearest relations from resorting to him. in the spring of this year, vereiken, an ambassador from flanders, was very honorably received by the queen, whose counsels had assumed a more pacific aspect since the disgrace of essex. whyte informs us, with his usual minuteness, that the ambassador was lodged with alderman baning in dowgate; and that he was fetched to court in great state, the whole household being drawn up in the hall; the great ladies and fair maids appearing "excellently brave" in the rooms through which he passed; and the queen, very richly dressed and surrounded by her council, extending to him a most gracious reception. he solemnly congratulated himself on the happiness of beholding her majesty, "who for _beauty_ and wisdom did excel all other princes of the earth;" and she, in requital, promised to consider of his proposals. the negotiation proved in the end abortive; but great offence was taken at the publication in this juncture of a letter by the earl of essex against a peace with spain. raleigh was at this time leaving london in discontent because nothing was done for him;--it does not appear what was now the particular object of his solicitation; but a writer has recorded it as an instance of the prudent reserve of elizabeth in the advancement of her courtiers, that she would never admit the eloquent and ambitious raleigh to a seat at her council-board[ ]. [note : bohun's memoirs.] in the midst of her extreme anxiety for the fate of ireland,--where tyrone for the present carried all things at his will, boasting himself the champion of the romish cause, and proclaiming his expectation of spanish aid; and of her more intimate and home-felt uneasiness respecting the effect of her measures of chastisement on the haughty mind of essex,--we find elizabeth promoting with some affectation the amusements of her court. "this day," says whyte, "she appoints to see a frenchman do feats upon a cord in the conduit court. tomorrow she hath commanded the bears, the bull and the ape to be baited in the tilt-yard; upon wednesday she will have solemn dancing." a letter from sir robert sidney to sir john harrington, written some time in this year, affords some not uninteresting traits of her behaviour, mixed with other matters: * * * * * "worthy knight; "your present to the queen was well accepted of; she did much commend your verse, nor did she less praise your prose.... the queen hath tasted your dainties, and saith you have marvellous skill in cooking of good fruits. if i can serve you in your northern suit, you may command me.... our lawyers say, your title is well grounded in conscience, but that strict law doth not countenance your recovering those lands of your ancestors.... visit your friends often, and please the queen by all you can, _for all the great lawyers do much fear her displeasure_.... i do see the queen often, she doth wax weak since the late troubles, and burleigh's death doth often draw tears from her goodly cheeks; she walketh out but little, meditates much alone, and sometimes writes in private to her best friends. the scottish matters do cause much discourse, but we know not the true grounds of state business, nor venture further on such ticklish points[ ]. her highness hath done honor to my poor house by visiting me, and seemed much pleased at what we did to please her. my son made her a fair speech, to which she did give most gracious reply. the women did dance before her, whilst the cornets did salute from the gallery; and she did vouchsafe to eat two morsels of rich comfit cake, and drank a small cordial out of a golden cup. she had a marvellous suit of velvet, borne by four of her first women-attendants in rich apparel; two ushers did go before; and at going up stairs she called for a staff, and was much wearied in walking about the house, and said she wished to come another day. six drums and six trumpets waited in the court, and sounded at her approach and departure. my wife did bear herself in wonderous good liking, and was attired in a purple kirtle fringed with gold; and myself in a rich band and collar of needlework, and did wear a goodly stuff of the bravest cut and fashion, with an under body of silver and loops. the queen was much in commendation of our appearances, and smiled at the ladies who in their dances often came up to the step on which the seat was fixed to make their obeisance, and so fell back into their order again. the younger markham did several gallant feats on a horse before the gate, leaping down and kissing his sword, then mounting swiftly on the saddle, and passing a lance with much skill. the day well nigh spent, the queen went and tasted a small beverage that was set out in divers rooms where she might pass, and then in much order was attended to her palace; the cornets and trumpets sounding through the streets." &c. [note : the mysterious affair of the gowrie conspiracy is probably here alluded to.] * * * * * the fate of essex was now drawing to a crisis. the mixture of severity and indulgence with which he had been treated;--her majesty's perseverance in refusing to readmit him to her presence, though all other liberty was restored to him;--her repeated assurances that she meant only to chastise, not to ruin him, contrasted with the tedious duration of her anger and the utter uncertainty when, or by what means, it was to be brought to an end;--had long detained him in the mazes of a tormenting uncertainty: but he at length saw the moment when her disposition towards him must be brought to a test which he secretly assured his adherents that he should regard as decisive. the term for which the earl had held the lucrative farm of sweet wines would expire at michaelmas; he was soliciting its renewal; and on the doubtful balance of success or failure his already wavering loyalty was suspended. he spared on this occasion no expressions of humility and contrition which might soften the heart of the queen:--he professed to kiss the hand and the rod with which he had been corrected; to look forward to the beholding again those blessed eyes, so long his cynosure, as the only real happiness which he could ever enjoy; and he declared his intention with nebuchodonosor, to make his habitation with the beasts of the field, to eat hay like an ox, and to be wet with the dews of heaven, until it should please the queen to restore him. to lord henry howard, who was the bearer of these dutiful phrases, elizabeth expressed her unfeigned satisfaction to find him in so proper a frame of mind; she only wished, she said, that his deeds might answer to his words; and as he had long tried her patience, it was fit that she should make some experiment of his humility. her father would never have endured such perversity:--but she would not now look back:--all that glittered was not gold, but if such results came forth from her furnace, she should ever after think the better of her chemistry. soon after, having detected the motive of immediate interest which had inspired such moving expressions of penitence and devotion, her disgust against essex was renewed; and in the end, she not only rejected his suit, but added the insulting words, that an ungovernable beast must be stinted of his provender, in order to bring him under management. the spirit of essex could endure no more;--rage took possession of his soul; and equally desperate in fortune and in mind, he prepared to throw himself into any enterprise which the rashness of the worst advisers could suggest. it was at this time that he is reported, in speaking of the queen, to have used the expression, maliciously repeated to her by certain court ladies,--that through old age her mind was become as crooked as her carcase:--words which might have sufficed to plunge him at once from the height of favor into irretrievable ruin. the doors of essex-house, hitherto closed night and day since the disgrace of the earl, were now thrown popularly open. sir gilly merrick, his steward, kept an open table for all military adventurers, men of broken fortunes and malcontents of every party. sermons were delivered there daily by the most zealous and popular of the puritan divines, to which the citizens ran in crowds; and lady rich, who had lately been placed under restraint by the queen and was still in deep disgrace, on account of her intermeddling in the affairs of her brother, and on the further ground of her scandalous intrigue with lord montjoy, became a daily visitant. the earl himself, listening again to the suggestions of his secretary cuff, whom he had once dismissed on account of his violent and dangerous character, began to meditate new counsels. an eye-witness has thus impressively described the struggles of his mind at this juncture. "it resteth with me in opinion, that ambition thwarted in its career doth speedily lead on to madness: herein i am strengthened by what i learn in my lord of essex, who shifteth from sorrow and repentance to rage and rebellion so suddenly as well proveth him devoid of good reason or right mind; in my last discourse he littered such strange words, bordering on such strange designs, that made me hasten forth, and leave his presence. thank heaven i am safe at home, and if i go in such troubles again, i deserve the gallows for a meddling fool. his speeches of the queen becometh no man who hath _mens sana in corpore sano_. he hath ill advisers, and much evil hath sprung from this source. "the queen well knoweth how to humble the haughty spirit, the haughty spirit knoweth not how to yield, and the man's soul seemeth tossed to and fro like the waves of a troubled sea[ ]." [note : sir john harrington in nugæ.] the affinity of essex to the crown by his descent from thomas of woodstock has been already adverted to;--it seems never to have awakened the slightest jealousy in the mind of elizabeth; but the absurd vaunts of some of his followers, commented upon by the malicious ingenuity of his enemies, had sufficed to excite sinister suspicions in the bosom of the king of scots. for the purpose of counteracting these, lord montjoy, near the beginning of the earl's captivity, had sent henry leigh into scotland, to give the king assurance that essex entertained none of the ambitious views which had been imputed to him, but was, on the contrary, firmly resolved to endure no succession but that of his majesty; further hinting at some steps for causing his right to be recognised in the lifetime of the queen. from this time a friendly correspondence had been maintained between james and the essex party; and montjoy, on being appointed lord deputy of ireland, had gone so far as to offer to the king to bring over to england such part of his army as, acting in concert with the force that the earl would be able to raise, might compass by force the object which they had in view. by some delay in the return of the messenger, added to the dilatoriness or reluctance of james, this plan was frustrated; but some time after essex, impatient alike of the disgrace and the inactivity of his present restraint, urged montjoy to bring over his forces without waiting for the tardy co-operation of the king of scots. the lord deputy replied, "that he thought it more lawful to enter into such a course with one that had interest in the succession than otherwise; and though he had been led before out of the opinion he had to do his country good by the establishment of the succession, and to deliver my lord of essex out of the danger he was in; yet now his life appeared to be safe, to restore his fortune only, and to save himself from the danger which hangs over him by discovery, and to satisfy my lord of essex's private ambition, he would not enter into any enterprise of that" kind[ ]. [note : confession of sir charles davers, in birch's memoirs.] after this repulse, essex as a last resource applied himself once more to the court of scotland, and, with the disingenuousness inseparable from the conduct of political intrigue, exerted all his efforts to deceive james into a belief that the party now in power were pensioners of spain, hired to the support of the pretended title of the infanta. he further alarmed the king by representing that the places most proper for the reception of spanish forces were all in the hands of the creatures of cecil;--raleigh being governor of jersey, lord cobham warden of the cinque ports, lord burleigh president of the north, and sir george carew president of munster. in consequence, he urged james to lose no time in claiming by his ambassadors a solemn acknowledgement of his title. these suggestions were listened to; and essex was animated to proceed in his perilous career by hopes of the speedy arrival of the scottish embassy. in the meantime he formed a council of five of the friends most devoted to his cause:--the earl of southampton, sir charles davers, sir ferdinando gorges, sir john davis surveyor of the ordnance, and john littleton esquire of frankley. by this junto, which met privately at drury-house, the plot was matured. the earl delivered in a list of one hundred and twenty nobles, knights and gentlemen, on whose attachment he thought he could rely: it was agreed that an attempt should be made to seize the palace, and to persuade or compel the queen to remove from her councils the enemies of the earl, and to summon a new parliament; and their respective parts were allotted to the intended actors in this scene of violence. meantime the extraordinary concourse to essex-house had fixed the attention of government, and measures were taken for obtaining intelligence of all that passed within its walls. lord henry howard, who had made a timely secession from the leader to whom, in terms of the grossest adulation, he had professed everlasting and unlimited attachment, is believed to have discovered some of his secrets; and a domestic educated with the earl from childhood, and entirely trusted by him, had also the baseness to reveal his counsels. on the th of february , the privy-council, being fully informed of his proceedings, dispatched secretary herbert to summon the earl to appear before them. but apprehensive that he was betrayed, and conscious that the steps which he had already taken were incapable of being justified, the earl excused himself from attending the council, and summoning around him the most confidential of his friends, he represented to them that they were on the point of being committed to prison, and bade them decide whether they would quietly submit themselves to the disposal of their enemies, or attempt thus prematurely to carry into effect the designs which they had meditated. during the debate which ensued, a person entered who pretended to be deputed by the people of london to assure the earl of their cordial co-operation in his cause. this decided the question; essex, with a more cheerful countenance, began to expatiate on the affection borne him by the city, and his expectation of being joined by sheriff smith with a thousand of the trained bands whom he commanded. the following morning was fixed for the insurrection; and in the meantime emissaries were dispatched, who ran about the town in all directions, to spread among the friends of the earl the alarm of a design upon his life by cobham and raleigh. early on the morrow the lord keeper, the lord chief justice, and sir w. knolles comptroller of the household, arrived at essex-house and demanded entrance on the part of the queen. they themselves were with difficulty admitted through the wicket of the gate, which was now kept shut and guarded; but all their servants, except the purse-bearer, were excluded. they beheld the court-yard filled with a confused multitude, in the midst of which stood essex accompanied by the earls of southampton and rutland and many others. the lord keeper demanded in the name of her majesty the cause of this unusual concourse; adding an assurance that if any had injured his lordship, he should find redress. essex in a vehement manner complained of letters counterfeited in his name,--of designs against his life,--of perfidious dealings towards him: but the conference was interrupted by the clamors of the crowd, some of whom threatened violence against the court-emissaries. without further parley the earl conducted them into the house, where he ordered them to be safely kept as hostages till his return from the city, whither he was hastening to take measures with the lord-mayor and sheriffs. about ten o'clock he entered the city attended by the "chief gallants" of the time; as the earls of southampton and rutland, lords sandys and monteagle, sir charles davers, sir christopher blount, and many others. as they passed fleet-street, they cried, "for the queen, for the queen!" in other places they gave out that cobham and raleigh would have murdered the earl in his bed; and the multitude, universally well affected to essex, eagerly reported that he and the queen were reconciled, and that she had appointed him to ride in that triumphant manner through the city to his house in seething-lane. the lord-mayor however received warning from the privy-council to look well to his charge, and by eleven the gates were closed and strongly guarded. the earl, though a good deal disconcerted at observing no preparations for joining him, made his way to the house of sheriff smith; but this officer slipped out at his back door and hastened to the lord-mayor for instructions. he next proceeded to an armourer's and demanded ammunition, which was refused; and while he was hastening to and fro, without aim or object as appears, lord burleigh courageously entered the city with a king-at-arms and half a score horse-men, and in two places proclaimed the earl and all his adherents traitors. a pistol was fired at him by one of the followers of essex; but the multitude showed no disposition to molest him, and he hastened back to assure the queen that a popular commotion was not at all to be apprehended. the palace was now fortified and double-guarded; the streets were blocked up with carts and coaches; and the earl, after wandering in vain about the town till two o'clock, finding himself joined by none of the citizens and deserted by a great portion of his original followers, determined to make his way back to essex-house. at ludgate he was opposed by some troops posted there by order of the bishop; and drawing his sword, he directed sir christopher blount to attack them; "which he did with great bravery, and killed waite, a stout officer, who had been formerly hired by the earl of leicester to assassinate sir christopher, and was now abandoned by his company[ ]." in the end, however, the earl was repulsed with the loss of one young gentleman killed and sir christopher blount wounded and taken prisoner; and retreating with his diminished band to the river side, he returned by water to his own house. [note : birch's memoirs.] he was much disappointed to find that his three prisoners had been liberated in his absence by sir ferdinando gorges: but sanguine to the last in his hopes of an insurrection of the citizens in his favor, he proceeded to fortify his house in the best manner that circumstances would admit. it was soon invested by a considerable force under the lord admiral, the earls of cumberland and lincoln, and other commanders. sir robert sidney was ordered to summon the little garrison to surrender, when the earl of southampton demanded terms and hostages; but being answered that none would be granted to rebels, except that the ladies within the house and their women would be permitted to depart if they desired it, the defenders declared their resolution to hold out, and the assault continued. lord sandys, the oldest man in the party, encouraged the earl in the resolution which he once appeared to have adopted, of cutting a way through the assailants; observing, that the boldest courses were the safest, and that at all events it was more honorable for men of quality to die sword in hand than by the axe of the executioner:--but essex, who had not yet resigned the flattering hopes of life, was easily moved by the tears and cries of the surrounding females to yield to less courageous, not more prudent, counsels. captain owen salisbury, a brave veteran, seeing that all was lost, planted himself at a window bare-headed, for the purpose of being slain: on receiving from one of the assailants a bullet on the side of his head, "o!" cried he, "that thou hadst been so much my friend to have shot but a little lower!" of this wound however he expired the next morning. about six in the evening the earl made known his willingness to surrender, on receiving assurance, for himself and his friends, of civil treatment and a legal trial; and permission for a clergyman named aston to attend him in prison:--the lord admiral answered that of the two first articles there could be no doubt, and for the last he would intercede. the house was then yielded with all that were in it. during that night the principal offenders were lodged in lambeth-palace, the next day they were conveyed to the tower; while the common prisons received the accomplices of meaner rank. on february th essex and southampton were brought to their trial before the house of peers; lord buckhurst sitting as lord high steward. essex inquired whether peers might not be challenged like common jurymen, but was answered in the negative. he pleaded not guilty; professed his unspotted loyalty to his queen and country, and earnestly labored to give to his attempt to raise the city the color of a necessary act of self-defence against the machinations of enemies from whom his life was in danger. had this interpretation of his conduct been admitted, possibly his offence might not have come within the limits of treason: but it was held, that his refusal to attend the council; the imprisonment of the three great officers sent to him by the queen; and above all the consultations held at drury-house for bringing soldiers from ireland, for surprising the tower, for seizing the palace, and for compelling the queen to remove certain persons from her counsels and to call a parliament, assigned to his overt acts the character of designs against the state itself. for the confessions of his accomplices, by which the secrets of the drury-house meetings were brought to light, he was evidently unprepared; and the native violence of his temper broke out in invectives against those associates by whom, as he falsely pretended, all these criminal designs had been originally suggested to his mind. this evidence, he said, had been elicited by the hope of pardon and reward;--let those who had given it enjoy their lives with impunity;--to him death was far more welcome than life. whatever interpretation lawyers might put upon it, the necessity of self-defence against cobham, raleigh and cecil, had impelled him to raise the city; and he was consoled by the testimony of a spotless conscience. lord cobham here rose, and protested that he had never acted with malice against the earl, although he had disapproved of his ambition. "on my faith," replied the earl, "i would have given this right hand to have removed from the queen such an informer and calumniator." he afterwards proceeded to accuse sir robert cecil of having affirmed that the title of the infanta was equally well founded with that of any other claimant. but the secretary here stepped forward to entreat that, the prisoner might be obliged to bring proof of his assertions; and it thus became manifest, and in the end was confessed with contrition by the earl himself, that he had advanced this charge on false grounds. it was with better reason that he reproached francis bacon, who then stood against him as queen's counsel, with the glaring inconsistency between his past professions and his present conduct. this cowardly desertion of his generous and affectionate friend and patron,--or rather this open revolt from him, this shameless attack upon him in the hour of his extreme distress and total ruin,--forms indeed the foulest of the many blots which stain the memory of this illustrious person: it may even be pronounced, on a deliberate survey of all its circumstances, the basest and most profligate act of that reign, which yet affords examples, in the conduct of its public men, of almost every species of profligacy and baseness. that it continued to be matter of general reproach against him, clearly appears from the long and labored apology which bacon thought it necessary, several years afterwards, to address to lord montjoy, then earl of devon;--an apology which extenuates in no degree the turpitude of the fact; but which may be consulted for a number of highly curious, if authentic, particulars. the earl of southampton likewise pleaded not guilty, and professed his inviolate fidelity towards her majesty: he excused whatever criminality he might have fallen into by the warmth of his attachment for essex, and behaved throughout with a mildness and an ingenuous modesty which moved all hearts in his favor. after a trial of eleven hours, sentence of guilty was unanimously pronounced on both the prisoners. southampton in an affecting manner implored all present to intercede for him with her majesty, and essex, with great earnestness, joined in this petition of his unfortunate friend: as to himself, he said, he was not anxious for life; wishing for nothing more than to lay it down with entire fidelity towards god and his prince.--yet he would have no one insinuate to the queen that he despised her mercy, though he believed he should not too submissively implore it; and he hoped all men would in their consciences acquit him, though the law had pronounced him guilty. such was the lofty tone of self-justification assumed by essex on this memorable occasion, when his pride was roused and his temper exasperated, by the open war of recrimination and reproaches into which he had so unadvisedly plunged with his personal enemies; and by the cruel and insolent invectives of the crown lawyers. but he was soon to undergo on this point a most remarkable and total change. the mind of the earl of essex was deeply imbued with sentiments of religion: from early youth he had conversed much with divines of the stricter class, whom he held in habitual reverence; and conscious in the conduct of his past life of many deviations from the gospel rule of right, he now, in the immediate prospect of its violent termination, surrendered himself into the hands of these spiritual guides with extraordinary humility and implicit submission. to the criminality of his late attempt, his conscience was not however awakened; he seems to have believed, that in contriving the fall of his enemies, he was at the same time deserving the thanks of his country, oppressed by their maladministration; and he repelled all the efforts of dr. dove, by whom he was first visited, to inspire him with a different sense of this part of his conduct. cut his favorite divine, mr. aston,--who is described by a contemporary as "a man base, fearful and mercenary," in whom the earl was much deceived,--practised with more success upon his mind. by an artful pretext of believing him to have aimed at the crown, he first drew him into a warm defence of his conduct on this point; then by degrees into a confession of all that he had really plotted, and the concurrence which he had found from others. this was the end aimed at by aston, or by the government which employed him: he professed that he could not reconcile it to his conscience to conceal treasons so foul and dangerous; alarmed the earl with all the terrors of religion; and finally persuaded him, that a full discovery of his accomplices was the only atonement which he could make to heaven and earth. the humbled essex was brought to entreat that several privy-councillors, of whom cecil by name was one, should be sent to hear his confessions; and so strangely scrupulous did he show himself to leave nothing untold, that he gave up even the letters of the king of scots, and betrayed every private friend whom attachment to himself had ever seduced into an acquiescence in his designs, or a nice sense of honor withheld from betraying them. sir henry nevil, for having only concealed projects in which he had absolutely refused to concur, was thus exposed to the loss of his appointment of ambassador to france; to imprisonment, and to a long persecution;--and lord montjoy might have suffered even capitally, had not his good and acceptable service in ireland induced the queen to wink at former offences. cuff, the secretary of the earl, whom he sent for to exhort him to imitate his sincerity, sternly upbraided his master with his altered mind, and his treachery towards those who had evinced the strongest attachment to his service: but the earl remained unmoved by his reproaches, and calmly prepared for death in the full persuasion that he had now worked out his own salvation. elizabeth had behaved on occasion of the late insurrection with all her wonted fortitude; even at the time when essex was actually in the city and a false report was brought her of its revolt to him, "she was never more amazed," says cecil in a letter to sir george carew, "than she would have been to have heard of a fray in fleet-street." but when, in the further progress of the affair, she beheld her once loved essex brought to the bar for high-treason and condemned by the unanimous verdict of his peers; when it rested solely with herself to take the forfeit of his life or interfere by an act of special grace for his preservation,--her grief, her agitation and her perplexity became extreme. a sense of the many fine qualities and rare endowments of her kinsman,--his courage, his eloquence, his generosity, and the affectionate zeal with which he had served her:--indulgence for the youthful impetuosity which had carried him out of the path of duty, not unmixed with compunction for that severe and contemptuous treatment by which she had exasperated to rebellion the spirit which mildness might have softened into penitence and submission;--above all, the remaining affection which still lurked at the bottom of her heart, pleaded for mercy with a force scarcely to be withstood. on the other hand, the ingratitude, the neglect, the insolence with which he had occasionally treated her, and the magnitude of his offences, which daily grew upon her by his own confessions and those of his accomplices, fatally united to confirm the natural bias of her mind towards severity. at this juncture thomas leigh, one of the dark and desperate characters whose service essex had used in his criminal negotiations with tyrone, by an atrocious plot for entering the palace, seizing the person of the queen and compelling her to sign a warrant for the release of the two earls, renewed her fears and gave fresh force to her anger. irresolute for some days, she once countermanded by a special messenger the order for the death of essex; then, as repenting of her weakness, she signed a second warrant, in obedience to which he was finally, on february th, brought to the scaffold. the last scene was performed in a manner correspondent in all respects to the contrite and humiliated frame of mind to which the noble culprit had been wrought. it was no longer the brave, the gallant, the haughty earl of essex, the favorite of the queen, the admiration of the ladies, the darling of the soldiery, the idol of the people;--no longer even the undaunted prisoner, pouring forth invectives against his enemies in answer to the charges against himself; loudly persisting in the innocence of his intentions, instead of imploring mercy for his actions, and defending his honor while he asserted a lofty indifference to life;--it was a meek and penitent offender, profoundly sensible of all his past transgressions, but taught to expect their remission in the world to which he was hastening, through the fervency of his prayers and the plenitude of his confessions; and prepared, as his latest act, to perform in public a solemn religious service, composed for his use by the assistant clergy, whose directions he obeyed with the most scrupulous minuteness. under a change so entire, even his native eloquence had forsaken him. sir robert cecil, who seems to have been a cool and critical spectator of the fatal scene, remarks to his correspondent that "the conflict between the flesh and the soul did thus far appear, that in his prayers he was fain to be helped; otherwise no man living could pray more christianly than he did." essex had requested of the queen that he might be put to death in a private manner within the walls of the tower, fearing, as he told the divines who attended him, that "the acclamations of the citizens should have hoven him up." his desire in this point was willingly complied with; but about a hundred nobles, knights and gentlemen witnessed the transaction from seats placed near the scaffold. sir walter raleigh chose to station himself at a window of the armory whence he could see all without being observed by the earl. this action, universally imputed to a barbarous desire of glutting his eyes with the blood of the man whom he hated and had pursued with a hostility more unrelenting than that of cecil himself, was never forgiven by the people, who detested him no less than they loved and admired his unfortunate rival. several years after, when raleigh in his turn was brought to the same end in the same place, he professed however, and perhaps truly, that the sorrowful spectacle had melted him to tears: meantime, he at least extracted from the late events large gratification for another ruling passion of his breast, by setting to sale his interest in procuring pardons to gentlemen concerned in the insurrection. mr. lyttleton in particular is recorded to have paid him ten thousand pounds for his good offices, and mr. bainham a sum not specified. the life of the earl of southampton was spared, at the intercession chiefly of cecil, but he was confined in the tower till the death of the queen: others escaped with short imprisonments and the imposition of fines, few of which were exacted; sir fulk greville having humanely made it his business to represent to the queen that no danger was to be apprehended from a faction which had lost its leader. four only of the principal conspirators suffered capitally; sir christopher blount and sir charles davers, both catholics, sir gilly merrick and henry cuff. those ambassadors from the king of scots on whose co-operation essex had placed his chief reliance, now arrived; and finding themselves too late for other purposes, they obeyed their master's instructions in such a case by offering to the queen his warmest congratulations on her escape from so foul and dangerous a conspiracy. they were further charged to make secret inquiry whether james's correspondence with essex and concurrence in the late conspiracy had come to her knowledge; and whether any measures were likely to be taken in consequence for his exclusion from the succession. the confessions of essex to the privy-councillors had indeed rendered elizabeth perfectly acquainted with the machinations of james; but resolute to refrain during the remnant of her days from all angry discussions with the prince whom she saw destined to succeed her, she had caused the earl to be not only requested, but commanded, to forbear the repetition of this part of his acknowledgements on the scaffold. she was thus left free to receive with all those demonstrations of amity which cost her nothing the compliments of james; and she remained deliberately ignorant of all that he desired her not to know. the scottish emissaries had the further satisfaction of carrying back to their master assurances of the general consent of englishmen in his favor, and in particular a pledge of the adherence of secretary cecil, who immediately opened a private correspondence with the king, of which lord henry howard, who had formerly conducted that of essex, became the willing medium. there is good evidence that the peace of elizabeth received an incurable wound by the loss of her unhappy favorite, which she daily found additional cause to regret on perceiving how completely it had delivered her over to the domination of his adversaries; but she still retained the resolution to pursue with unabated vigor the great objects on which she was sensible that the mind of a sovereign ought to be with little remission employed. the memorable siege of ostend, begun during this summer by the archduke albert, fixed her attention and that of europe. the defence was conducted by that able officer sir francis vere at the head of a body of english auxiliaries, whom the states had enlisted with the queen's permission, at their own expense. henry iv., as if for the purpose of observing more nearly the event, had repaired to calais. the queen of england, earnestly desirous of a personal interview, wrote him two letters on the subject; and henry sent in return marshal biron and two other ambassadors of rank, with a train of three or four hundred persons, whom the queen received with high honors, and caused to accompany her in her progress. during her visit of thirteen days to the marquis of winchester at basing, the french embassy was lodged at the house of lord sandys, which was furnished for the occasion with plate and hangings from hampton-court; the queen defraying all the charges, which were more than those of her own court at basing. she made it her boast that she had in this progress entertained royally a royal ambassador at her subjects' houses; which she said no other prince could do. the meeting of the two sovereigns, in hopes of which elizabeth had actually gone to dover, could not for some unknown reason be at last arranged; but henry, at the particular instance of his friend and ally, sent sully over in disguise to confer confidentially with her respecting an important political project which she had announced. this was no less than a plan for humbling the house of austria, and establishing a more perfect balance of power in europe by uniting into one state the seventeen flemish provinces. it was an idea, as sully declared to her, which had previously occurred to henry himself; and the coincidence was flattering to both; but various obstacles were found likely to retard its execution till a period to which elizabeth could scarcely look forward. one advantage, however, was gained to the queen of england by the interview;--the testimony of this celebrated statesman, recorded in his own memoirs, to the solidity of her judgement and the enlargement of her views; and his distinct avowal that she was in all respects worthy of the high estimation which she had for more than forty years enjoyed by common consent of all the politicians of europe. ireland was still a source to elizabeth of anxiety and embarrassment. in order to sustain the expenses of the war, she suffered herself to be prevailed on to issue base money for the pay of the troops;--a mortifying circumstance, after the high credit which she had gained by that restoration of the coin to its original standard which was one of the first acts of her reign. montjoy in the meantime was struggling with vigor and progressive success against the disorders of the country. with the assistance of sir george carew president of munster, and other able commanders, he was gradually reducing the inferior rebels and cutting off the supplies of tyrone himself: but the courage of this insurgent was still supported by the hope of aids from spain; and during this summer two bodies of spanish troops, one of four thousand, the other of two thousand men, made good their landing. the larger number, under aquila, took possession of kinsale; the smaller, under ocampo, was joined by tyrone and other rebels with all their forces. the appearance of affairs was alarming, since the catholic irish every where welcomed the spaniards as deliverers and brethren: but montjoy, after blockading aquila in kinsale, marched boldly to attack ocampo and his irish allies; gave them a complete defeat, in which the spanish general was made prisoner and tyrone compelled to fly into ulster; and afterwards returning to the siege of kinsale, compelled aquila to capitulate on condition of a safe conveyance to their own country for himself and all the spanish troops in the island. the state of the queen's mind while the fate of ireland seemed to hang in the balance, and while the impression made by the attempt of essex was still recent, is depicted in the following letter by sir john harrington with his usual minuteness and vivacity. * * * * * _to sir hugh portman knight._ (dated october th .) "...for six weeks i left my oxen and sheep and ventured to court.... much was my comfort in being well received, notwithstanding it is an ill hour for seeing the queen. the madcaps are all in riot, and much evil threatened. in good sooth i feared her majesty more than the rebel tyrone, and wished i had never received my lord of essex's honor of knighthood. she is quite _disfavored_[ ] and unattired, and these troubles waste her much. she disregarded every costly cover that cometh to the table, and taketh little but manchet and succory pottage. every new message from the city doth disturb her, and she frowns on all the ladies. i had a sharp message from her, brought by my lord buckhurst, namely thus. 'go tell that witty fellow my godson to get home; it is no season now to fool it here,' i liked this as little as she doth my knighthood, so took to my boots, and returned to the plough in bad weather. i must not say much even by this trusty and sure messenger, but the many evil plots and designs hath overcome all her highness' sweet temper. she walks much in her privy chamber, and stamps with her feet at ill news, and thrusts her rusty sword at times into the arras in great rage. my lord buckhurst is much with her, and few else since the city business; but the dangers are over, and yet she always keeps a sword by her table. i obtained a short audience at my first coming to court, when her highness told me, if ill counsel had brought me so far from home, she wished heaven might mar that fortune which she had mended. i made my peace in this point, and will not leave my poor castle of kelston, for fear of finding a worse elsewhere, as others have done. i will eat aldborne rabbits, and get fish as you recommend from the man at curry-rival; and get partridge and hares when i can; and my venison where i can; and leave all great matters to those like them better than myself.... i could not move in any suit to serve your neighbour b. such was the face of things: and so disordered is all order that her highness hath worn but one change of raiment for many days, and swears much at those that cause her griefs in such wise, to the no small discomfiture of all about her, more especially our sweet lady arundel, that _venus plus quam venusta_." [note : changed in countenance.] * * * * * in the month of october , the wants of her treasury compelled the queen to call a parliament. her procession to the house had something gloomy and ominous; the people, still resenting the death of their favorite, whom they never could be taught to regard as a traitor to his sovereign, refused to gratify her ears as formerly with those affectionate acclamations on which this wise and gracious princess had ever placed so high a value. the house of commons however, in consideration of her extraordinary expenses in the irish wars, granted a supply large beyond example. having thus deserved well of her majesty, they ventured to revive the topic of monopolies, the crying grievance of the age, against which the former parliament had petitioned her, but without effect. it was universally allowed, that the granting of exclusive privileges to trade in certain articles was a prerogative inherent in the crown; and though the practice so lavishly adopted by elizabeth of providing in this manner for her courtiers without expense to herself, had rendered the evil almost intolerable, the ministerial members insisted strongly that no right existed in the house to frame a bill for its redress. it was maintained by them, that the dispensing power possessed by the queen would enable her to set at nought any statute which could be made in this matter;--in short, that she was an absolute prince; and consequently that the mode of petition, of which the last parliament had proved the inefficacy, was the only course of proceeding open to them. other members, in whose bosoms some sparks of liberty had now been kindled, supported the bill which had been offered to the house: the event was, that in the midst of the debate the queen sent for the speaker, to inform him that she would voluntarily cancel some of the patents which had excited most discontent. this concession, though extorted doubtless by necessity, was yet made with so good a grace, that her faithful commons were filled with admiration and gratitude. one member pronounced the message "a gospel of glad tidings;" others employed phrases of adulation equally profane;--a committee was appointed to return their acknowledgements to her majesty, who kneeled for some time at her feet, while the speaker enlarged upon her "preventing grace and all-deserving goodness," she graciously gave thanks to the commons for pointing out to her abuses which might otherwise have escaped her notice; since the truth, as she observed, was too often disguised from princes by the persons about them, through motives of private interest: and thus, with the customary assurances of her loving care over her loyal subjects, she skilfully accomplished her retreat from a contest in which she judged perseverance to be dangerous and final success at best uncertain. in her farewell speech, however, at the close of the session, she could not refrain from observing, in reference to this matter, that she perceived private respects to be masked with them under public pretences. such was the final parting between elizabeth and her last parliament! the year was not fertile of domestic incident. one of the most remarkable circumstances was a violent quarrel between the jesuits and the secular priests in england. the latter accused the former, and not without reason, of having been the occasion, by their assassination-plots and conspiracies against the queen and government, of all the severe enactments under which the english catholics had groaned since the fulmination of the papal bull against her majesty. in the height of this dispute, intelligence was conveyed to the privy-council of some fresh plots on the part of the jesuits and their adherents; on which a proclamation was immediately issued, banishing this order the kingdom on pain of death; and the same penalty was declared against all secular priests who should refuse to take the oath of allegiance. the queen continued to pursue from habit, and probably from policy also, amusements for which all her relish was lost. she went a-maying to air. buckley's at lewisham, and paid several other visits in the course of the year;--but her efforts were unavailing; the irrevocable past still hung upon her spirits. about the beginning of june, in a conversation with m. de beaumont the french ambassador, she owned herself weary of life; then sighing, whilst her eyes filled with tears, she adverted to the death of essex; and mentioned, that being apprehensive, from his ambition and the impetuosity of his temper, of his throwing himself into some rash design which would prove his ruin, she had repeatedly counselled him, during the two last years, to content himself with pleasing her, and forbear to treat her with the insolent contempt which he had lately assumed; above all, not to touch her sceptre; lest she should be compelled to punish him by the laws of england, and not according to her own laws; which he had found too mild and favorable to give him any cause of fear: but that her advice, however salutary and affectionate, had proved ineffectual to prevent his ruin. a letter from sir john harrington to his lady, dated december th, , gives the following melancholy picture of the state of his sovereign and benefactress. * * * * * "sweet mall; "i herewith send thee what i would god none did know, some ill-bodings of the realm and its welfare. our dear queen, my royal godmother and this state's natural mother, doth now bear some show of human infirmity; too fast, for that evil which we shall get by her death, and too slow, for that good which she shall get by her releasement from pains and misery. dear mall, how shall i speak what i have seen or what i have felt? thy good silence in these matters emboldens my pen. for thanks to the sweet god of silence, thy lips do not wanton out of discretion's path like the many gossiping dames we could name, who lose their husbands' fast hold in good friends rather than hold fast their own tongues. now i will trust thee with great assurance; and whilst thou dost brood over thy young ones in the chamber, thou shalt read the doings of thy grieving mate in the court. i find some less mindful of what they are soon to lose, than of what they may perchance hereafter get: now, on my own part, i cannot blot from my memory's table the goodness of our sovereign lady to me, even, i will say, before born. her affection to my mother, who waited in privy-chamber, her bettering the state of my father's fortune (which i have, alas, so much worsted), her watchings over my youth, her liking to my free speech and admiration of my little learning and poesy, which i did so much cultivate on her command, have rooted such love, such dutiful remembrance of her princely virtues, that to turn askant from her condition with tearless eyes, would stain and foul the spring and fount of gratitude. it was not many days since i was bidden to her presence; i blessed the happy moment, and found her in most pitiable state; she bade the archbishop ask me if i had seen tyrone? i replied with reverence, that i had seen him with the lord deputy; she looked up with much choler and grief in her countenance, and said: o! now it mindeth me that you was _one_ who saw this man _elsewhere_[ ], and hereat she dropped a tear and smote her bosom; she held in her hand a golden cup, which she often put to her lips; but in truth her heart seemeth too full to need more filling. this sight moved me to think of what passed in ireland, and i trust she did not less think on _some_ who were busier there than myself. she gave me a message to the lord deputy, and bade me come to the chamber at seven o'clock. hereat some who were about her did marvel, as i do not hold so high place as those she did not choose to do her commands.... her majesty inquired of some matters which i had written; and as she was pleased to note my fanciful brain, i was not unheedful to feed her humour, and read some verses, whereat she smiled once, and was pleased to say: 'when thou dost feel creeping time at thy gate, these fooleries will please thee less; i am past my relish for such matters; thou seest my bodily meat doth not suit me well; i have eaten but one ill-tasted cake since yesternight.' she rated most grievously at noon at some one who minded not to bring up certain matters of account: several men have been sent to, and when ready at hand, her highness hath dismissed in anger; but who, dearest mall, shall say, that 'your highness hath forgotten?'" [note : harrington had been at a conference held with him by essex; for which he had been severely rated by the queen.] * * * * * during the campaign of , lord montjoy had been occupied in ireland in reducing the inferior rebels to submission; in building forts and planting garrisons; at the same time wasting the country in every direction, for the purpose of straitening the quarters of tyrone and cutting off his supplies. at length, having collected all his forces, he purposed to hazard an attack on the chieftain himself, in the midst of the desert fastnesses to which he had driven him; but the difficulties which he experienced from the impassable state of the roads, the treachery of scouts and the inclemency of the season, compelled him to defer this undertaking till the return of spring. meantime, such was the extremity of distress to which tyrone had been reduced, that numbers of his people had perished by hunger; and perceiving the remnant fast diminishing by daily desertion, he renewed the offer of surrender on certain conditions which he had propounded some months before. at that time, cecil had once prevailed upon her majesty, for the sake of avoiding the intolerable expense of a further prosecution of the irish war, to sign the rebel's pardon;--but she had immediately retracted the concession, and all that he was able finally to gain of her, by the intercession of the french ambassador, was a promise, that if tyrone were not taken by the lord deputy before winter, she would consent to pardon him. about christmas her council urged upon her the fulfilment of this engagement; but she replied with warmth, that she would not begin at her age to treat with her subjects, nor leave such an ill example after her decease[ ]. [note : carte.] the importunities of her ministers, however, among whom tyrone is said to have made himself friends, finally overpowered the reluctance of the queen; and she authorized the deputy to grant the rebel his life, with some part of the terms which he asked; but so extreme was her mortification in making this concession, that many have regarded it as the origin of that deep melancholy to which she soon after fell a victim. the council apprehended, or affected to apprehend, that tyrone would still refuse to surrender on the hard conditions imposed by the queen; but so desperate was now his situation, that without even waiting to receive them, he had thrown himself at the feet of the deputy and submitted his lands and life to the queen's mercy. ministers more resolute, or more disinterested, might therefore have spared her the degradation, as she regarded it, of treating with a rebel. the news of his final submission, which occurred four days only before her death, she never learned. * * * * * the closing scene of the long and eventful life of queen elizabeth is all that now remains to be described; but that marked peculiarity of character and of destiny which has attended her from the cradle, pursues her to the grave, and forbids us to hurry over as trivial and uninteresting the melancholy detail. notwithstanding the state of bodily and mental indisposition in which she was beheld by harrington at the close of the year , the queen had persisted in taking her usual exercises of riding and hunting, regardless of the inclemencies of the season. one day in january she visited the lord admiral, probably at chelsea, and about the same time she removed to her palace of richmond. in the beginning of march her illness suddenly increased; and it was about this time that her kinsman robert cary arrived from berwick to visit her. in his own memoirs he has thus related the circumstances which he witnessed on this occasion. "when i came to court i found the queen ill-disposed, and she kept her inner lodging; yet she, hearing of my arrival, sent for me. i found her in one of her withdrawing chambers, sitting low upon her cushions. she called me to her; i kissed her hand, and told her it was my chiefest happiness to see her in safety and in health, which i wished might long continue. she took me by the hand, and wrung it hard, and said, 'no, robin, i am not well;' and then discoursed with me of her indisposition, and that her heart had been sad and heavy for ten or twelve days, and in her discourse she fetched not so few as forty or fifty great sighs. i was grieved at the first to see her in this plight; for in all my lifetime i never knew her fetch a sigh, but when the queen of scots was beheaded. then, upon my knowledge, she shed many tears and sighs, manifesting her innocence, that she never gave consent to the death of that queen. "i used the best words i could to persuade her from this melancholy humour; but i found by her it was too deep rooted in her heart, and hardly to be removed. this was upon a saturday night, and she gave command that the great closet should be prepared for her to go to chapel the next morning. the next day, all things being in a readiness, we long expected her coming. after eleven o'clock, one of the grooms came out and bade make ready for the private closet, she would not go to the great. there we stayed long for her coming, but at last she had cushions laid for her in her privy-chamber hard by the closet door, and there she heard service. "from that day forward she grew worse and worse. she remained upon her cushions four days and nights at the least. all about her could not persuade her either to take any sustenance or go to bed.... the queen grew worse and worse because she would be so, none about her being able to go to bed. my lord-admiral was sent for, (who by reason of my sister's death, that was his wife, had absented himself some fortnight from court;) what by fair means what by force, he gat her to bed. there was no hope of her recovery, because she refused all remedies. "on wednesday the rd of march she grew speechless. that afternoon by signs she called for her council, and by putting her hand to her head when the king of scots was named to succeed her, they all knew he was the man she desired should reign after her. "about six at night she made signs for the archbishop and her chaplains to come to her; at which time i went in with them and sat upon my knees full of tears to see that heavy sight. her majesty lay upon her back with one hand in the bed and the other without. the bishop kneeled down by her and examined her first of her faith; and she so punctually answered all his several questions, by lifting up her eyes and holding up her hand, as it was a comfort to all the beholders.... after he had continued long in prayer, till the old man's knees were weary, he blessed her; and meant to rise and leave her. the queen made a sign with her hand. my sister scrope, knowing her meaning, told the bishop the queen desired he would pray still. he did so for a long half hour after, and then thought to leave her. the second time she made sign to have him continue in prayer. he did so for half an hour more, with earnest cries to god for her soul's health, which he uttered with that fervency of spirit, as the queen to all our sight much rejoiced thereat, and gave testimony to us all of her christian and comfortable end. by this time it grew late, and every one departed, all but her women that attended her.... between one and two o'clock of the thursday morning, he that i left in the cofferer's chamber brought me word that the queen was dead." a latin letter written the day after her death to edmund lambert, whether by one of her physicians or not is uncertain, gives an account of her sickness in no respect contradictory to robert cary's. "it was after laboring for nearly three weeks under a morbid melancholy, which brought on stupor not unmixed with some indications of a disordered fancy, that the queen expired. during all this time she could neither by reasoning, entreaties, or artifices be brought to make trial of any medical aid, and with difficulty was persuaded to receive sufficient nourishment to sustain nature; taking also very little sleep, and that not in bed, but on cushions, where she would sit whole days motionless and sleepless; retaining however the vigor of her intellect to her last breath, though deprived for three days before her death of the power of speech." another contemporary writes to his friend thus.... "no doubt you shall hear her majesty's sickness and manner of death diversly reported; for even here the papists do tell strange stories, as utterly void of truth as of all civil honesty or humanity.... here was some whispering that her brain was somewhat distempered, but there was no such matter; only she held an obstinate silence for the most part; and, because she had a persuasion that if she once lay down she should never rise, could not be got to go to bed in a whole week, till three days before her death.... she made no will, neither gave any thing away; so that they which come after shall find a well-furnished jewel-house and a rich wardrobe of more than two thousand gowns, with all things else answerable[ ]." [note : printed in nichols's progresses.] that a profound melancholy was either the cause, or at least a leading symptom, of the last illness of the queen, so many concurring testimonies render indisputable; but the origin of this affection has been variously explained. some, as we have seen, ascribed it to her chagrin on being in a manner compelled to grant the pardon of tyrone;--a cause disproportioned surely to the effect. others have imagined it to arise from grief and indignation at the neglect which she began to experience from the venal throng of courtiers, who were hastening to pay timely homage to her successor. by others, again, her dejection has been regarded as nothing more than a natural concomitant of bodily decay; a physical rather than a mental malady. but the prevalent opinion, even at the time, appears to have been, that the grief or compunction for the death of essex, with which she had long maintained a secret struggle, broke forth in the end superior to control, and rapidly completed the overthrow of powers which the advances of old age and an accumulation of cares and anxieties had already undermined. "our queen," writes an english correspondent to a scotch nobleman in the service of james, "is troubled with a rheum in her arm, which vexeth her very much, besides the grief she hath conceived for my lord of essex's death. she sleepeth not so much by day as she used, neither taketh rest by night. her delight is to sit in the dark, and sometimes, with shedding tears, to bewail essex." a remarkable anecdote first published in osborn's traditional memoirs of queen elizabeth, and confirmed by m. maurier's memoirs,--where it is given on the authority of sir dudley carleton the english ambassador in holland, who related it to prince maurice,--offers the solution of these doubts. according to this story, the countess of nottingham, who was a relation, but no friend, of the earl of essex, being on her death-bed, entreated to see the queen; declaring that she had something to confess to her before she could die in peace. on her majesty's arrival, the countess produced a ring, which she said the earl of essex had sent to her after his condemnation, with an earnest request that she would deliver it to the queen, as the token by which he implored her mercy; but which, in obedience to her husband, to whom she had communicated the circumstance, she had hitherto withheld; for which she entreated the queen's forgiveness. on sight of the ring, elizabeth instantly recognised it as one which she had herself presented to her unhappy favorite on his departure for cadiz, with the tender promise, that of whatsoever crimes his enemies might have accused him, or whatsoever offences he might actually have committed against her, on his returning to her that pledge, she would either pardon him, or admit him at least to justify himself in her presence. transported at once with grief and rage, on learning the barbarous infidelity of which the earl had been the victim and herself the dupe, the queen shook in her bed the dying countess, and vehemently exclaiming, that god might forgive her, but she never could, flung out of the chamber. returning to her palace, she surrendered herself without resistance to the despair which seized her heart on this fatal and too late disclosure.--hence her refusal of medicine and almost of food;--hence her obstinate silence interrupted only by sighs, groans, and broken hints of a deep sorrow which she cared not to reveal;--hence the days and nights passed by her seated on the floor, sleepless, her eyes fixed and her finger pressed upon her mouth;--hence, in short, all those heart-rending symptoms of incurable and mortal anguish which conducted her, in the space of twenty days, to the lamentable termination of a long life of power, prosperity and glory[ ]. [note : see the evidence for this extraordinary story fully stated in birch's negotiations. on the whole, it appears sufficient to warrant our belief; yet it should be remarked that the accounts which have come down to us differ from each other in some important points, and are traceable to no original witness of the interview between the queen and the countess.] * * * * * the queen expired on march th . * * * * * after the minute and extended survey of the life and actions of elizabeth which has made the principal business of these pages, it would be a trespass alike on the patience and the judgement of the reader to detain him with a formal review of her character;--let it suffice to complete the portrait by a few additional touches. the ceremonial of her court rivalled the servility of the east: no person of whatever rank ventured to address her otherwise than kneeling; and this attitude was preserved by all her ministers during their audiences of business, with the exception of burleigh, in whose favor, when aged and infirm, she dispensed with its observance. hentzner, a german traveller who visited england near the conclusion of her reign, relates, that as she passed through several apartments from the chapel to dinner, wherever she turned her eyes he observed the spectators throw themselves on their knees. the same traveller further relates, that the officers and ladies whose business it was to arrange the dishes and give tastes of them to the yeomen of the guard by whom they were brought in, did not presume to approach the royal table, without repeated prostrations and genuflexions and every mark of reverence due to her majesty in person. the appropriation of her time and the arrangements of her domestic life present more favorable traits. "first in the morning she spent some time at her devotions; then she betook herself to the dispatch of her civil affairs, reading letters, ordering answers, considering what should be brought before the council, and consulting with her ministers. when she had thus wearied herself, she would walk in a shady garden or pleasant gallery, without any other attendance than that of a few learned men. then she took her coach and passed in the sight of her people to the neighbouring groves and fields, and sometimes would hunt or hawk. there was scarce a day but she employed some part of it in reading and study; sometimes before she entered upon her state affairs, sometimes after them[ ]." [note : bohun's character of queen elizabeth.] she slept little, seldom drank wine, was sparing in her diet, and a religious observer of the fasts. she sometimes dined alone, but more commonly had with her some of her friends. "at supper she would divert herself with her friends and attendants, and if they made her no answer would put them upon mirth and pleasant discourse with great civility. she would then also admit tarleton, a famous comedian and pleasant talker, and other such men, to divert her with stories of the town and the common jests and accidents." "she would recreate herself with a game of chess, dancing or singing.... she would often play at cards and tables, and if at any time she happened to win, she would be sure to demand the money.... she was waited on in her bed-chamber by married ladies of the nobility; the marchioness of winchester widow, lady warwick, and lady scrope; and here she would seldom suffer any to wait upon her but leicester, hatton, essex, nottingham, and raleigh.... some lady always slept in her chamber; and besides her guards, there was always a gentleman of good quality and some others up in the next chamber, to wake her if any thing extraordinary happened[ ]." [note : bohun's character of queen elizabeth.] "she loved a prudent and moderate habit in her private apartment and conversation with her own servants; but when she appeared in public she was ever richly adorned with the most valuable clothes; set off again with much gold and jewels of inestimable value; and on such occasions she ever wore high shoes, that she might seem taller than indeed she was. the first day of the parliament she would appear in a robe embroidered with pearls, the royal crown on her head, the golden ball in her left hand and the sceptre in her right; and as she never failed then of the loud acclamations of her people, so she was ever pleased with it, and went along in a kind of triumph with all the ensigns of majesty. the royal name was ever venerable to the english people; but this queen's name was more sacred than any of her ancestors.... in the furniture of her palaces she ever affected magnificence and an extraordinary splendor. she adorned the galleries with pictures by the best artists; the walls she covered with rich tapestries. she was a true lover of jewels, pearls, all sorts of precious stones, gold and silver plate, rich beds, fine couches and chariots, persian and indian carpets, statues, medals, &c. which she would purchase at great prices. hampton-court was the most richly furnished of all her palaces; and here she had caused her naval victories against the spaniards to be worked in fine tapestries and laid up among the richest pieces of her wardrobe.... when she made any public feasts, her tables were magnificently served and many side-tables adorned with rich plate. at these times many of the nobility waited on her at table. she made the greatest displays of her regal magnificence when foreign ambassadors were present. at these times she would also have vocal and instrumental music during dinner; and after dinner, dancing[ ]." [note : bohun's character of queen elizabeth.] the queen was laudably watchful over the morals of her court; and not content with dismissing from her service, or banishing her presence, such of her female attendants as were found offending against the laws of chastity, she was equitable enough to visit with marks of her displeasure the libertinism of the other sex; and in several instances she deferred the promotion of otherwise deserving young men till she saw them reform their manners in this respect. europe had assuredly never beheld a court so decent, so learned, or so accomplished as hers; and it will not be foreign from the purpose of illustrating more fully the character of the sovereign, to borrow from a contemporary writer a few particulars on this head. it was rare to find a courtier acquainted with no language but his own. the ladies studied latin, greek, spanish, italian, and french. the "more ancient" among them exercised themselves some with the needle, some with "_caul work_," (probably netting) "divers in spinningsilk, some in continual reading either of the scriptures or of histories either of their own or foreign countries; divers in writing volumes of their own, or translating the works of others into latin or english;" while the younger ones in the meantime applied to their "lutes, citharnes, pricksong and all kinds of music." many of the elder sort were also "skilful in surgery and distillation of waters, beside sundry artificial practices pertaining to the ornature and commendations of their bodies." "this," adds our author, "i will generally say of them all; that as each of them are cunning in something whereby they keep themselves occupied in the court, there is in manner none of them but when they be at home can help to supply the ordinary want of the kitchen with a number of delicate dishes of their own devising, wherein the _portingal_ is their chief counsellor, as some of them are most commonly with the clerk of the kitchen," &c. "every office," at court, had "either a bible or the book of the acts and monuments of the church of england, or both, besides some histories and chronicles lying therein, for the exercise of such as come into the same[ ]." [note : description of england prefixed to holinshed's chronicles.] such was the scene over which elizabeth presided;--such the companions whom she formed to herself, and in whom she delighted! the new men and new manners brought in by james i. served more fully to instruct the nation in the value of all that it had enjoyed under his illustrious predecessor, the vigor which had rendered her government respectable abroad; and the wise and virtuous moderation which caused it to beloved at home, were now recalled with that sense of irreparable loss which exalts to enthusiasm the sentiment of veneration and the principle of gratitude; and almost in the same proportion as the sanguinary bigotry of her predecessor had occasioned her accession to be desired, the despicable weakness of her successor caused her decease to be regretted and deplored. it was on the tenth anniversary of the proclamation of king james that the eloquent hall, in his sermon at paul's cross, gave utterance to the general sentiment in the following animated apostrophe to the manes of the departed sovereign: * * * * * "o blessed queen! the mother of this nation, the nurse of this church, the glory of womanhood, the envy and example of foreign nations, the wonder of times, how sweet and sacred shall thy memory be to all posterity!--how excellent were her masculine graces of learning, valor and wisdom, by which she might justly challenge to be the queen of men! so learned was she, that she could give present answer to ambassadors in their own tongues; so valiant, that like zisca's drum made the proudest romanist to quake; so wise, that whatsoever fell out happily against the common adversary in france, netherland, ireland, it was by themselves ascribed to her policy. "why should i speak of her long and successful government, of her miraculous preservations; of her famous victories, wherein the waters, wind, fire and earth fought for us, as if they had been in pay under her; of her excellent laws and careful execution? many daughters have done worthily, but thou surmountedest them all. such was the sweetness of her government and such the fear of misery in her loss, that many worthy christians desired that their eyes might be closed before hers.... every one pointed to her white hairs, and said, with that peaceable leontius, "when this snow melteth there will be a flood." * * * * * in the progress of the preceding work, i have inserted some incidental notices respecting the domestic architecture of the reign of elizabeth; but becoming gradually sensible of the interesting details of which the subject was susceptible and entirely aware of my own inability to do it justice, i solicited, and esteem myself fortunate in having procured, the following remarks from the pen of a brother who makes this noble art at once his profession and his delight. on the domestic architecture of the reign of elizabeth. during the period of english history included in our present survey, the nobility continued for the most part to inhabit their ancient castles; edifices which, originally adapted by strength of situation and construction merely to defence, were now in many instances, by the alteration of the original buildings and by the accession of additional ones, become splendid palaces. among these it may be sufficient to mention kennelworth, renowned for gorgeous festivities, where the earl of leicester was reported to have expended , pounds in buildings. some curious notices of the habitations of the time are preserved in leland's itinerary, written about , as in the following description of wresehill-castle near howden in yorkshire:--'most part of the base court is of timber. the castle is moted about on three parts; the fourth part is dry, where the entry is into the castle. five towers, one at each corner; the gateway is the fifth, having five lodgings in height; three of the other towers have four lodgings in height; the fourth containeth the buttery, pantry, pastry, lardery, and kitchen. in one of the towers a study called paradise, where was a closet in the middle of eight squares latticed; about and at the top of every square was a desk lodged to set books on, &c. the garde robe in the castle was exceeding fair, and so were the gardens within the mote and the orchards without; and in the orchards were mounts _opere topiario_ writhen about with degrees like turnings of a cockle-shell, to come to top without pain.' these castles, though converted into dwellings of some convenience and magnificence, still retained formidable strength, which was proved in the following century, when so many of them sustained sieges for the king or parliament and were finally dilapidated. besides the regularly fortified castles, there were many mansion-houses of inferior importance, which, though not capable of resisting a regular siege, were strengthened against a tumultuous or hasty invasion. these houses generally formed a square of building enclosing a court and surrounded by a moat. a drawbridge formed the only access, which was protected by an embattled gatehouse. one side of the square was principally occupied by a great hall; and the offices and lodgings were distributed on the other sides. oxburgh-hall in norfolk and layer marney in essex are fine examples of these houses. they were frequently of timber, as moreton-hall in cheshire, speke-hall near liverpool. leland describes morley-house near manchester as 'builded,--saving the foundation of stone squared that riseth within a great mote a foot above the water,--all of timber, after the common sort of building of the gentlemen for most of lancashire.' sometimes a strong tower was added at one corner as a citadel, which might be maintained when the rest of the house was destroyed. this is the case with the curious house of stoke say in shropshire, where the situation near the welsh border might render such an additional security desirable. thus the forms of ancient fortification were continued awhile rather from habit or ostentation than from any more important motives; but in the new buildings erected during the reign of elizabeth and her successor they were finally laid aside. in some stately houses, though the show of strength was discontinued, the general form remained however the same. the circuit of building was entire, and enclosed one or more courts; a gateway formed the entrance, and the great hall was placed at the opposite side of the first court. such was audley end, in its original state one of the largest and most sumptuous houses in the kingdom. in other instances the house assumes the half h shape, with the offices placed in the wings; and the circuit is only completed by terraces and low walls; the gatehouse remains as a detached lodge, or is entirely omitted: examples of this form are numerous; as holland-house at kensington, oxnead and blickling halls in norfolk, beaudesert and wimbledon-house, built by sir thomas cecil in , remarkable for a great ascent of steps and terraces disposed in a manner resembling some italian villas. in others the offices are detached in separate masses, or concealed, or placed in a basement story; and only the body of the house remains, either as a solid mass or enclosing small courts: this disposition does not differ from the most modern arrangements. of these houses longleat in wiltshire and wollaton near nottingham are fine examples[ ]. [note : views of most of the buildings here mentioned may be found in britton's architectural antiquities, vols. i. ii. and iv.] the distribution of domestic buildings is well illustrated in the survey of theobald's taken by the parliament's commissioners in [ ]. this mansion was built by lord burleigh about : it afterwards became a favourite residence of james i. who received it from lord salisbury in exchange for the manor and palace of hatfield. the survey contains a very minute and accurate description of theobald's palace, from which the following account is given partly in the words of the old surveyors.--it consisted of two principal quadrangles besides the dial court, the buttery court and the dove-house court, in which the offices were situated. the fountain court was a square of feet, on the east side of which was a cloister of seven arches. on the ground floor of this quadrangle was a spacious hall; the roof of which was arched with carved timber of curious workmanship. on the same floor were the lord holland's, the marquis of hamilton's, and lord salisbury's apartments, the council chamber and waiting room. on the second floor was the presence chamber, finished with carved oak wainscoting and a ceiling full of gilded pendants. also the privy chamber, the withdrawing room, the king's bed-chamber, and a gallery feet long, 'wainscoted with oak, and paintings over the same of divers cities, rarely painted and set forth with a fret ceiling, with divers pendants, roses and flower-de-luces; also divers large stags heads, which were an excellent ornament to the same.' on the upper floor were the lord chamberlain's lodgings and several other apartments, with terrace walks on the leads. at each corner stood a high and fair tower, and over the hall in the middle 'a large and fair turret in the fashion of a lantern, curiously wrought with divers pinnacles at each corner, wherein hangeth bells for chiming and a clock with chimes and sundry work.' the middle court was a quadrangle of feet square, on the south side of which were the queen's chapel, presence chamber, and other apartments. the prince's lodgings were on the north side; on the east side was a cloister, over which was the green gallery, feet by feet, 'excellently well painted with the several shires in england and the arms of the noblemen and gentlemen in the same.' over the gallery was a leaded walk, on which were two lofty arches of brick, 'of no small ornament to the house, and rendering it comely and pleasant to all that passed by.' on the west side of the quadrangle was another cloister, on five arches, over which were the duke's lodgings and over them the queen's gallery. on the south side of the house stood a large open cloister, built upon several large fair pillars, arched over 'with a fair rail and ballustres; well painted with the kings and queens of england and the pedigree of the old lord burleigh and divers other ancient families; with paintings of many castles and battles.' the gardens at theobald's were large, and ornamented with labyrinths, canals and fountains. the great garden contained seven acres; besides which there were the pheasant garden, privy garden, and laundry garden. in the former were nine knots artificially and exquisitely made, one of which was set forth in likeness of the king's arms. this description, and bacon's idea of a palace in his th essay, with their numerous cloisters, galleries and turrets, are well illustrated by the plan of audley end, in its original state, given in britton's _architectural antiquities_, vol. ii. [note : lysons's environs of london, vol. iv.] the houses erected during the sixteenth and the early part of the seventeenth century were frequently of magnificent dimensions, picturesque from the varied lines and projections of the plan and elevation, and rich by the multiplicity of parts; but they had lost all beauty of detail. the builders, having abandoned the familiar and long practised gothic style, were now to serve their apprenticeship in grecian architecture: 'stately doricke and neat ionicke work' were introduced as fashionable novelties, employed first in the porches and frontispieces and gradually extended over the whole fronts of buildings. among the architects employed at this period some foreign names occur. holbein was much favoured by henry viii., and gave various designs for buildings at the old palaces of whitehall and st. james. john of padua had a salary as deviser of his majesty's buildings, and was employed to build the palace of the protector somerset. jerome de trevisi is also mentioned; and it is said that the designs for longleat and a model of audley end were obtained from italy. the last circumstance is altogether extraordinary; this was the very best period of italian architecture, and it seems highly improbable that semi-barbarous designs should proceed from the country of palladio and vignola. thorpe, smithson, and other englishmen, were also eminent builders; and probably these persons might have travelled, and thus have gained the imperfect knowledge of grecian architecture which appears in their works. they were immediately followed by inigo jones, who formed his style particularly on the works of palladio, and became the founder of classic architecture in this country. there is a remarkable and beautiful analogy between the progress of grecian and gothic architecture, in both of which we find, that while the powers of decoration were extended, the process of construction was improved and simplified. thus the doric, the primitive order, is full of difficulties in its arrangement, which render it only applicable to simple plans and to buildings where the internal distribution is of inferior consequence. the ionic, though more ornamental, is by the suppression of the divisions in the frieze so simplified as to be readily applicable to more complicated arrangements: still the capital presents difficulties from the dissimilarity of the front and sides; which objection is finally obviated by the introduction of that rich and exquisite composition, the corinthian capital. thus is obtained an order of the most elegant and ornamented character, but possessing a happy simplicity and regularity of composition which renders it more easy of application than any other. in like manner in the later, which has been called the florid style of gothic architecture, there are buildings astonishingly rich and elaborate; but we find this excess of ornament supported and rendered practicable by a principle of simplicity in design and construction. in the earlier and middle styles of gothic there are various difficulties of execution and some faults of composition: such as the slender detached shafts, the richly carved capitals, the flowing and varied tracery of windows, and that profuse variety in detail which frequently causes all the windows, capitals, buttresses and pinnacles of the same buildings to differ from one another. but the later style has more uniformity in corresponding parts; the capitals are very generally composed of plain mouldings, and the divisions of the windows consist chiefly of horizontal and perpendicular lines, with few of the beautiful and difficult combinations of curves which are found in the preceding style. the general principle of decoration is to leave no plain surface, but to divide the whole into a series of pannelling; by which is produced an extraordinary richness of effect, though the parts, when examined separately, are generally of simple forms and such as will admit of an easy and mechanical execution. the introduction of the four-centred arch enlarged the powers of design, enabled architects in many instances to proportion better the vault to the upright, and even to introduce vaults where they would have been inapplicable in the former style, on account of the want of elevation in rooms; as in the divinity school at oxford. without concurring in the ignorant wonder which has raised the vaulted ceilings of this style to the rank of mysteries, we may admire the ingenuity which has rendered real simplicity of construction the foundation of beautiful forms and of the most elaborate decoration. the most celebrated examples of this style are so highly finished, so exuberant in ornament, that the term _florid_ has been applied as a characteristic epithet for the style; but there are many instances of very simple and unornamented buildings of the same period agreeing in all the essential principles of construction and design; and a late writer has with more propriety adopted the term _perpendicular_ for this mode of architecture. this later gothic, easy of construction and possessing a variety of character applicable to every kind of building, is well adapted for modern imitation. but the power of mutability was at work, and gothic architecture was doomed to fall. the first step towards its decline was pursuing to excess the principle of simplification and retrenching the most essential ornaments. the large windows of houses were merely divided by horizontal and upright bars, and, deprived of tracery and feathering, were as void of beauty in the details as in the general proportions; buttresses and battlements were generally omitted. a great deterioration took place in the decorative part; the ornamental pannels and freizes of the gothic style, consisting of geometrical combinations of circles and straight lines, had always a distinct outline and a sharpness of effect which contrasted agreeably with the foliage so often intermixed; but these were succeeded by strange grotesque combinations, confused, and void of outline and regularity. the source of ornament was now sought in the orders and members of grecian architecture; but the eyes which had been accustomed to the gothic flutter of parts, were not prepared to relish the simplicity of line which is essential to the beauty of the greek style. columns of a small size, inaccurately and coarsely executed, with arcades and grotesque caryatids, formed the ornaments of porches and frontispieces,--as at browseholme-house in yorkshire, wimbledon, and the schools-tower at oxford,--or were spread over the whole front and formed the cloisters and galleries in which those ancient mansions abounded; as at holland-house, longleat, wollaton, audley end, longford-castle, &c. the roofs were either faced with notched and curved gables, or screened by parapets of ballustres or latticed work and decorated with obelisks and columnar chimney shafts; while turrets and pavilions broke the line of elevation. the windows were very large, and frequently bowed: thus bacon remarks, in the essay before referred to, that 'you shall have sometimes fair houses so full of glass that one cannot tell where to become to be out of the sun or cold.' in wooden houses and particularly town houses, the upper stories generally projected beyond the lower, with windows extremely wide, so as to occupy almost the whole line of front. the timbers were frequently left bare, carved and disposed in forms of pannelling; while the various projections were supported by grotesque figures. very curious houses of this character are still found in several old towns, as chester, shrewsbury, coventry, and the obscure parts of london; though natural decay, fire and modern improvements, are continually diminishing their number. among interior decorations, chimney-pieces were very conspicuous: they were miniature frontispieces, consisting, like the porches of the houses, of a mass of columns, arches, niches and caryatids, piled up to the ceiling. of these there is one at the old tabley-hall in cheshire singularly rude and grotesque, though dated so late as , containing a hunting-piece and the figures of lucrece and cleopatra. another in queen elizabeth's gallery at windsor castle is very rich, and comparatively pure and elegant in design. the sepulchral monuments of this age are very numerous, but only differ from those of an earlier date in the substitution of the members of grecian for those of gothic architecture, or rather in the confused mixture of both. on the whole, this, though a glorious period for literature, was lost for the fine arts. the incongruous mixture of the conflicting principles of grecian and gothic architecture produced buildings more truly barbarous, more disgusting to a cultivated taste, than the rudest norman work. together with the architectural orders, our artists had received models and authorities for the grotesque style, which they were but too ready to follow. this extraordinary style of ornament had prevailed in ancient rome early enough to be reprobated in the work of vitruvius, and lay unobserved among obscure and subterraneous ruins till the discovery of the baths of titus opened a rich magazine of gay and capricious ornament. raffaelle, struck with these remains of the antique art of painting, adopted the same style of ornament in the galleries of the vatican, enriching and enlivening it with the stores of allegory and mythology furnished by his poetical fancy. the example of such a man could not want imitators; it influenced the whole architecture of france,--which very early possessed artists of great merit,--and appeared in this country with very inferior effect. it may well be imagined that this style, naturally licentious and only rendered tolerable by grace of composition and brilliancy of execution, would become utterly contemptible when presenting only coarsely executed and unmeaning extravagances. such was the general character of art. we may however make discriminations, and admit comparative merit. wimbledon-house, seated on the side of a hill, was remarkable for a magnificent disposition of steps and terraces worthy an italian villa. wollaton-hall is admired by mr. price for the grandeur of its masses. charlton-house has a very picturesque arrangement of heights in the elevation; longleat, on the other hand, has much simplicity of form. in its square projections and three orders of columns, or pilasters, it bears no remote resemblance to the ancient part of the louvre built about thirty years previously, though without the purity and delicacy of the details of the architecture and sculpture which distinguish the french building. edmund aikin. liverpool, february , . index. alençon, duke of, ii . . created duke of anjou, . visits the queen, ib. his second visit, et seq death, . anjou, duke of, . ii. . _see_ alençon. anne of cleves, . . . . . arragon, catherine of, . . arundel, sir thomas, case of, ii. . ascham, roger, extracts from his latin letters, et seq, , , et seq. ashley, mrs. . aston, sir roger, ii. . aylmer or elmer (bishop), on the dress of elizabeth, . . ii. . b. babington, anthony, ii. . . bacon, sir nicholas, . employed in the settlement of religion, . in disgrace, and . ii. et seq. ----, anthony, ii. . . ----, francis, ii. . . to . to . his letter to the earl of essex, . speeches written by, . base conduct of, . beddingfield, sir ii. . . . . bertie, peregrine, lord willoughby, ii. . . . letter to, from the queen, ii. . blount, sir charles, lord montjoy, ii. . et seq. . and . . . . boleyn, thomas, earl of wilts, . boleyn, anne, , , and . conduct respecting queen catherine, . disgrace, . . conduct as affecting her daughter, et seq. bonner, bishop, . . . bourchier family, . . ----, henry, earl of essex, . brandon, charles, duke of suffolk, . ii. et seq. ----, catherine, duchess dowager of suffolk, . brantome, m. de, description of the court of elizabeth, . brown, anthony, viscount montacute, . brown, robert, ii. . bryan, lady, her letter respecting elizabeth, . c. cabot, sebastian, - . cambridge, the queen's visit to, . cary, henry, lord hunsdon, . . ----, robert, ii. . . casimir, duke, . . ii. . cavendish, thomas, ii. . cecil, mildred, . . . ----, william, lord burleigh, . . account of, . employed in the settlement of religion, . takes precaution against the poisoning of the queen, . draws a proclamation respecting portraits of the queen, . directs her reception at cambridge, et seq. letters of, to sir h. norris, . et seq. attempt made to ruin him, , , and . his advice to the duke of norfolk, . created lord burleigh, ii. . letter to the earl of shrewsbury, . character compared with sir n. bacon's, ii. . anecdote of, . discussions with whitgift, et seq. anger of the queen against, . restored to favor, . warning to essex, . death and character of, . cecil, sir thomas, ii. . cecil, sir robert, ii. . . . appointed secretary, . . . chaloner, sir thomas, . his letter respecting the queen and lord r. dudley, . chancellor, richard, and . charles ix. of france, a suitor to elizabeth, . ii. . . cheke, sir john, . . classical literature, decline of, . clifford, george, earl of cumberland, ii. . . cook, sir anthony, . courtney, w., marquis of exeter, . . ----, edward, earl of devon, . . . and . cox, bishop, . . cranmer, archbishop, . . . . . . cromwel, thomas, earl of essex, to . d. dacre, leonard, . , , and . darnley, lord, . . davison, secretary, conduct of, respecting the queen of scots, ii. et seq. . to . to . dee, dr., ii. . denmark, prince of, proposed in marriage to elizabeth, . desmond, earl of, ii. . devereux, walter, earl of essex, ii. to . devereux, robert, earl of essex, ii. . appointed general of horse, . his position at court, et seq. expedition to portugal, et seq. . duel with sir charles blount, . letters to davison, et seq. marriage, . campaign in france, . trait of, . connexion with anthony and francis bacon, . conduct respecting lopez, . view of his and the cecil parties, . his conduct at cadiz, et seq. traits of, . his island voyage, . his quarrel with the queen, . conduct in irish affairs, . service in ireland, to . return to england, . disgrace, to . censure on, . dangerous designs, . intrigues with the king of scots, . insurrection, to . trial, after-conduct, and death, to . story respecting his ring. . discovery, voyages of, ii. et seq. dorset, marchioness dowager, . douglas, lady margaret, . . . _see_ lenox, countess of. drake, sir francis, ii. . . . . . . . death and character of, . drama, progress of the, ii. . dudley, john, duke of northumberland, . . to . . . . . . . dudley, ambrose, earl of warwick, . . dudley, robert, earl of leicester, . . . appointed master of the horse, and favored by elizabeth, . knight of the garter, . suspected of procuring the death of his wife, . his rivalry with the earl of arundel, . proposed as a husband to the queen of scots, . created earl of leicester, . his declarations to melvil, . means taken by the queen to humble him, . his conduct to the duke of norfolk, . . suspected of poisoning sir n. throgmorton, ii. . his connexion with lady sheffield, . entertains elizabeth at kennelworth, . letter of the queen respecting him, . opposes the french marriage, . marries the countess of essex, . imprisoned, . suspected of attempting the life of simier, . instances of his oppressive conduct, . . book written against him, et seq. appointed commander in holland, . his letter respecting sir p. sidney, . returns from holland, and . advises the poisoning of the queen of scots, . consequences of his conduct in holland, . . appointed commander in chief, . desires the office of lieutenant in england and ireland, . his death and character, . dyer, sir edward, ii. . e. edward vi. . . . letters to him from elizabeth, and . . eric king of sweden offers marriage to elizabeth, . . expected in england, . exeter, marchioness, . . . f. fence, schools of, regulated, . ferrers, george, master of the king's pastimes, et seq. fletcher, bishop, ii. . fitzalan, henry, earl of arundel, . . . . . entertains elizabeth at nonsuch, . a suitor to her, . in disgrace, . fitzgerald, family of, et seq. fitzgerald, gerald, adventures of, et seq. fortescue, sir john, ii. . g. gardiner, bishop, . . , et seq. brings in a bill against elizabeth, . . . . conduct towards elizabeth, . . . death, . gascoigne, george, ii. . gresham, sir thomas, ii. . grenville, sir richard, ii. . greville, fulk, ii. et seq. . . grey, arthur, lord, ii. . ----, lady catherine, . . . ----, henry, marquis of dorset, . . . ----, lady jane, . , . . . . ----, lord leonard, , . ----, lady mary, . grindal, archbishop, . ii. . h. hales, sir james, . ----, john, . hall, reverend joseph, and his satires, ii. . praise of elizabeth, . harrington, sir john, the elder, . his verses on the death of admiral seymour, . --to bishop gardiner, . gratitude of elizabeth towards, . harrington, sir john, the younger, ii. . . letter to, . letters of, , . . . hastings, henry, earl of huntingdon, ii. . hatton, sir christopher, ii. . . . . henry viii. . . . . . , . . . . . herbert, william, earl of pembroke, . holles, sir william, ii. . holstein, duke of, suitor to elizabeth, , . howard, catherine, . . . ----, henry, earl of surry, . , et seq. ----, lord henry, ii. . ----, lady mary, . ----, philip, earl of arundel, ii. . . . . ----, thomas, third duke of norfolk, . . . . . . . ----, ----, fourth duke of norfolk, . . . how regarded by the queen, et seq. conduct towards the queen of scots, to . towards cecil, to . his intrigues, to . renewal of them, ii. . trial, death and issue, to . ----, lord thomas, . . ----, ---- ---- ii. . . ----, william, lord effingham, ii. . ----, charles, lord effingham, ii. . . et seq. ----, lord william, ii. . . humphreys, dr. lawrence, . i. impresses, . ivan basilowitz, czar, . , and . ii. . j. james vi of scotland, . . et seq. conduct by which he offends elizabeth, et seq. her correspondence with him, . sermon respecting him, . jewel, bishop, . . k. knolles, sir francis, . . ii. . l. lee, sir henry, ii. . . leicester, countess of, queen's behaviour towards, ii. . lenox, countess of, . , . ii. . lilly, john, ii. et seq. m. manners, henry, earl of rutland, , . markham, gervase, ii. . ----, isabella, . mary, queen of england, . persecuted for religion, et seq. mounts the throne, . letter from her to elizabeth, . marriage of, . sends an embassy to the pope, . her reception of elizabeth, . letter of elizabeth to, . visits elizabeth at hatfield, . receives her at richmond, . establishes an ecclesiastical commission, . her melancholy and death, . mary, queen of scots, . . becomes a widow--quarrels with elizabeth--returns to scotland, et seq. falls in love with darnley, . suspected of his death, . letter to, from elizabeth, . married to bothwell, et seq. defeated and imprisoned, . released, . takes refuge in england, et seq. writes to elizabeth, . submits to her judgement, . retracts, . is committed to bolton-castle, . consents to send commissioners to york, ib. signs the association, ii. . conduct of, et seq. concern in babington's plot, . consultations respecting, . seizure of her papers, . her removal to fotheringay, . trial, et seq. sentence, . death, . remarks on her character, et seq. medici, catherine de', . et seq. melvil, sir james, . sent to announce the birth of james of scotland, . mildmay, sir walter, ii. . mirror for magistrates, et seq. morice, james, ii. . murray, earl of, regent of scotland, . . et seq. . his assassination, and . n. newspapers, introduction of, ii. . nevil, charles, earl of westmorland, to . nobility, great power of, . norfolk, duchess dowager of, . norris, henry, . ----, sir john, ii. . . . . norton, family of, and . norwich, queen's entertainment at, ii. to . o. oxford, queen's visit to, . p. paget, lord, , . . parker, archbishop, . . . parr, catherine, , . . ----, marquis of northampton, . parry, dr., ii. to . parry, sir thomas, . paulet, sir amias, letter of the queen to, ii. . ----, marquis of winchester, . percy, henry, earl of northumberland, . . percy, henry, earl of northumberland, to . ----, thomas, earl of northumberland, ii. . . ----, henry, earl of northumberland, ii. . perrot, sir john, ii. . . philip ii. . . conduct towards elizabeth, . . . and . . sends the duchess of parma and loraine to her, . offers her his hand, . becomes her enemy, . . . ii. . pickering, sir william, a suitor of the queen, . pilkington, bishop of durham, curious sermon by, . pole, arthur and edmund, plot of, . ----, geffrey, . . ----, henry, viscount montacute, . ----, margaret, countess of salisbury, , . . . ----, reginald, . . . . pope, sir thomas, . , . mention of elizabeth, . gives entertainments to her, . . writes to the queen respecting her, . puttenham's art of poesy, ii. . r. raleigh, sir walter, ii. to . . . . . . . . . ratcliffe, thomas, earl of sussex, . letters of to the queen, . to cecil, and . conduct as president of the north, . . campaign in scotland, . behaviour respecting leicester, ii. . favors the french match, . death of, . ----, egremond, . . ii. et seq. royal progresses, . royal succession, vague ideas on, , . rudd, bishop, sermon of, before the queen, ii. . s. sackville, sir richard, . . sackville, thomas, lord buckhurst, . . ii. , . sampson, dr. thomas, offends the queen, . savoy, duke of, offered to elizabeth in marriage, . . seymour, edward, duke of somerset, . . . . to . . ----, edward, second earl of herts; how treated for his marriage with lady catherine grey, et seq. establishes the legitimacy of his sons, . ii. . . ----, jane, . . ----, sir thomas, lord admiral, . to . conduct to elizabeth, to . shakespeare, william, ii. . sidney, sir henry, . letter of the queen to, . death and character of, ii. . ----, sir philip, ii. . . his opposition to the french match and letter to the queen, et seq. appearance at a triumph, . . defence of leicester, . death and character, et seq. ----, sir robert, letter of, . simier, monsieur, ii. , . . sixtus v. pope. extraordinary speeches of, ii. . smith, sir thomas, ii. . . . somerset, h. earl of worcester, . ----, duchess dowager of, . . . ii. . spenser, edmund, ii. . . stanley, edward, earl of derby, . ----, ferdinando, earl of derby, ii. . stubbs, mr. et seq. suffolk, frances, duchess dowager of, . ii. et seq. sully, duke of, conference with elizabeth, ii. . t. talbot, gilbert, lord, letters of, ii. . throgmorton, sir john, ii. . ----, francis, ii. , . ----, sir nicholas, . . . . ii. . tonstal, bishop, . topcliffe, richard, ii. et seq. torture defended, ii. et seq. tyrwhitt, sir robert, his letters to the protector respecting elizabeth and admiral seymour, et seq. , . v. vaughan, bishop, anecdotes of, ii. . vere, edward, seventeenth earl of oxford, ii. . . ----, sir francis, ii. . w. walsingham, sir francis, ii. . . . and . sent into scotland, . conduct respecting queen of scots, . letter of, to m. critoy, . death and character, . whitgift, archbishop, ii. _note_. et seq. williams, lord, . . . . willoughby, sir hugh, . wriothesley, earl of southampton, ii. . . . . . . . wyat, sir thomas, . . . _r. and a. taylor, printers, london._ makers of history queen elizabeth by jacob abbott with engravings new york and london harper & brothers publishers entered, according to act of congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-nine, by harper & brothers, in the clerk's office of the district court of the southern district of new york. copyright, , by jacob abbott. [illustration: sir francis drake.] preface. the author of this series has made it his special object to confine himself very strictly, even in the most minute details which he records, to historic truth. the narratives are not tales founded upon history, but history itself, without any embellishment or any deviations from the strict truth, so far as it can now be discovered by an attentive examination of the annals written at the time when the events themselves occurred. in writing the narratives, the author has endeavored to avail himself of the best sources of information which this country affords; and though, of course, there must be in these volumes, as in all historical accounts, more or less of imperfection and error, there is no intentional embellishment. nothing is stated, not even the most minute and apparently imaginary details, without what was deemed good historical authority. the readers, therefore, may rely upon the record as the truth, and nothing but the truth, so far as an honest purpose and a careful examination have been effectual in ascertaining it. contents. chapter page i. elizabeth's mother ii. the childhood of a princess iii. lady jane grey iv. the spanish match v. elizabeth in the tower vi. accession to the throne vii. the war in scotland viii. elizabeth's lovers ix. personal character x. the invincible armada xi. the earl of essex xii. the conclusion engravings. page portrait of drake _frontispiece._ portrait of henry viii portrait of anne boleyn group of christening gifts tower of london portrait of edward vi. lady jane grey at study portrait of philip of spain elizabeth in the tower elizabeth's progress to london the firth of forth, with leith and edinburgh in the distance leicester the barges on the river portrait of queen elizabeth the invincible armada the house of the earl of essex elizabeth in her last hours head of james i. elizabeth's tomb queen elizabeth chapter i. elizabeth's mother. - greenwich.--the hospital.--its inmates.--greenwich observatory.--manner of taking time.--henry the eighth.--his character.--his six wives.--anne boleyn.--catharine of aragon.--henry discards her.--origin of the english church.--henry marries anne boleyn.--birth of elizabeth.--ceremony of christening.--baptism of elizabeth.--grand procession.--train-bearers.--the church.--the silver font.--the presents.--name of the infant princess.--elizabeth made princess of wales.--matrimonial schemes.--jane seymour.--the tournament.--the king's suspicions.--queen anne arrested.--she is sent to the tower.--sufferings of the queen.--her mental distress.--examination of anne.--her letter to the king.--anne's fellow-prisoners.--they are executed.--anne tried and condemned.--she protests her innocence.--anne's execution.--disposition of the body.--the king's brutality.--elizabeth's forlorn condition. travelers, in ascending the thames by the steamboat from rotterdam, on their return from an excursion to the rhine, have often their attention strongly attracted by what appears to be a splendid palace on the banks of the river at greenwich. the edifice is not a palace, however, but a hospital, or, rather, a retreat where the worn out, maimed, and crippled veterans of the english navy spend the remnant of their days in comfort and peace, on pensions allowed them by the government in whose service they have spent their strength or lost their limbs. the magnificent buildings of the hospital stand on level land near the river. behind them there is a beautiful park, which extends over the undulating and rising ground in the rear; and on the summit of one of the eminences there is the famous greenwich observatory, on the precision of whose quadrants and micrometers depend those calculations by which the navigation of the world is guided. the most unconcerned and careless spectator is interested in the manner in which the ships which throng the river all the way from greenwich to london, "take their time" from this observatory before setting sail for distant seas. from the top of a cupola surmounting the edifice, a slender pole ascends, with a black ball upon it, so constructed as to slide up and down for a few feet upon the pole. when the hour of m. approaches, the ball slowly rises to within a few inches of the top, warning the ship-masters in the river to be ready with their chronometers, to observe and note the precise instant of its fall. when a few seconds only remain of the time, the ball ascends the remainder of the distance by a very deliberate motion, and then drops suddenly when the instant arrives. the ships depart on their several destinations, and for months afterward when thousands of miles away they depend for their safety in dark and stormy nights, and among dangerous reefs and rocky shores, on the nice approximation to correctness in the note of time which this descending ball had given them. [illustration: portrait of henry viii] this is greenwich, as it exists at the present day. at the time when the events occurred which are to be related in this narrative, it was most known on account of a royal palace which was situated there. this palace was the residence of the then queen consort of england. the king reigning at that time was henry the eighth. he was an unprincipled and cruel tyrant, and the chief business of his life seemed to be selecting and marrying new queens, making room for each succeeding one by discarding, divorcing, or beheading her predecessor. there were six of them in all, and, with one exception, the history of each one is a distinct and separate, but dreadful tragedy. as there were so many of them, and they figured as queens each for so short a period, they are commonly designated in history by their personal family names, and even in these names there is a great similarity. there were three catharines, two annes, and a jane. the only one who lived and died in peace, respected and beloved to the end, was the jane. [illustration: portrait of anne boleyn.] queen elizabeth, the subject of this narrative, was the daughter of the second wife in this strange succession, and her mother was one of the annes. her name in full was anne boleyn. she was young and very beautiful, and henry, to prepare the way for making her his wife, divorced his first queen, or rather declared his marriage with her null and void, because she had been, before he married her, the wife of his brother. her name was catharine of aragon. she was, while connected with him, a faithful, true, and affectionate wife. she was a catholic. the catholic rules are very strict in respect to the marriage of relatives, and a special dispensation from the pope was necessary to authorize marriage in such a case as that of henry and catharine. this dispensation had, however, been obtained, and catharine had, in reliance upon it, consented to become henry's wife. when, however, she was no longer young and beautiful, and henry had become enamored of anne boleyn, who was so, he discarded catharine, and espoused the beautiful girl in her stead. he wished the pope to annul his dispensation, which would, of course, annul the marriage; and because the pontiff refused, and all the efforts of henry's government were unavailing to move him, he abandoned the catholic faith, and established an independent protestant church in england, whose supreme authority _would_ annul the marriage. thus, in a great measure, came the reformation in england. the catholics reproach us, and, it must be confessed, with some justice, with the ignominiousness of its origin. the course which things thus took created a great deal of delay in the formal annulling of the marriage with catharine, which henry was too impatient and imperious to bear. he would not wait for the decree of divorce, but took anne boleyn for his wife before his previous connection was made void. he said he was privately married to her. this he had, as he maintained, a right to do, for he considered his first marriage as void, absolutely and of itself, without any decree. when, at length, the decree was finally passed, he brought anne boleyn forward as his queen, and introduced her as such to england and to the world by a genuine marriage and a most magnificent coronation. the people of england pitied poor catharine, but they joined very cordially, notwithstanding, in welcoming the youthful and beautiful lady who was to take her place. all london gave itself up to festivities and rejoicings on the occasion of these nuptials. immediately after this the young queen retired to her palace in greenwich, and in two or three months afterward little elizabeth was born. her birth-day was the th of september, . the mother may have loved the babe, but henry himself was sadly disappointed that his child was not a son. notwithstanding her sex, however, she was a personage of great distinction from her very birth, as all the realm looked upon her as heir to the crown. henry was himself, at this time, very fond of anne boleyn, though his feelings afterward were entirely changed. he determined on giving to the infant a very splendid christening. the usage in the church of england is to make the christening of a child not merely a solemn religious ceremony, but a great festive occasion of congratulations and rejoicing. the unconscious subject of the ceremony is taken to the church. certain near and distinguished friends, gentlemen and ladies, appear as godfathers and godmothers, as they are termed, to the child. they, in the ceremony, are considered as presenting the infant for consecration to christ, and as becoming responsible for its future initiation into the christian faith. they are hence sometimes called sponsors. these sponsors are supposed to take, from the time of the baptism forward, a strong interest in all that pertains to the welfare of their little charge, and they usually manifest this interest by presents on the day of the christening. these things are all conducted with considerable ceremony and parade in ordinary cases, occurring in private life; and when a princess is to be baptized, all, even the most minute details of the ceremony, assume a great importance, and the whole scene becomes one of great pomp and splendor. the babe, in this case, was conveyed to the church in a grand procession. the mayor and other civic authorities in london came down to greenwich in barges, tastefully ornamented, to join in the ceremony. the lords and ladies of king henry's court were also there, in attendance at the palace. when all were assembled, and every thing was ready, the procession moved from the palace to the church with great pomp. the road, all the way, was carpeted with green rushes, spread upon the ground. over this road the little infant was borne by one of her godmothers. she was wrapped in a mantle of purple velvet, with a long train appended to it, which was trimmed with ermine, a very costly kind of fur, used in england as a badge of authority. this train was borne by lords and ladies of high rank, who were appointed for the purpose by the king, and who deemed their office a very distinguished honor. besides these train-bearers, there were four lords, who walked two on each side of the child, and who held over her a magnificent canopy. other personages of high rank and station followed, bearing various insignia and emblems, such as by the ancient customs of england are employed on these occasions, and all dressed sumptuously in gorgeous robes, and wearing the badges and decorations pertaining to their rank or the offices they held. vast crowds of spectators lined the way, and gazed upon the scene. [illustration: the christening gifts.] on arriving at the church, they found the interior splendidly decorated for the occasion. its walls were lined throughout with tapestry, and in the center was a crimson canopy, under which was placed a large silver font, containing the water with which the child was to be baptized. the ceremony was performed by cranmer, the archbishop of canterbury, which is the office of the highest dignitary of the english church. after it was performed, the procession returned as it came, only now there was an addition of four persons of high rank, who followed the child with the presents intended for her by the godfathers and godmothers. these presents consisted of cups and bowls, of beautiful workmanship, some of silver gilt, and some of solid gold. they were very costly, though not prized much yet by the unconscious infant for whom they were intended. she went and came, in the midst of this gay and joyous procession, little imagining into what a restless and unsatisfying life all this pageantry and splendor were ushering her. they named the child elizabeth, from her grandmother. there have been many queens of that name, but queen elizabeth of england became so much more distinguished than any other, that that name alone has become her usual designation. her family name was tudor. as she was never married--for, though her life was one perpetual scene of matrimonial schemes and negotiations, she lived and died a maiden lady--she has been sometimes called the virgin queen, and one of the states of this union, virginia, receives its name from this designation of elizabeth. she is also often familiarly called queen bess. making little elizabeth presents of gold and silver plate, and arranging splendid pageants for her, were not the only plans for her aggrandizement which were formed during the period of her infantile unconsciousness. the king, her father, first had an act of parliament passed, solemnly recognizing and confirming her claim as heir to the crown, and the title of princess of wales was formally conferred upon her. when these things were done, henry began to consider how he could best promote his own political schemes by forming an engagement of marriage for her, and, when she was only about two years of age, he offered her to the king of france as the future wife of one of his sons, on certain conditions of political service which he wished him to perform. but the king of france would not accede to the terms, and so this plan was abandoned. elizabeth was, however, notwithstanding this failure, an object of universal interest and attention, as the daughter of a very powerful monarch, and the heir to his crown. her life opened with very bright and serene prospects of future greatness; but all these prospects were soon apparently cut off by a very heavy cloud which arose to darken her sky. this cloud was the sudden and dreadful fall and ruin of her mother. queen anne boleyn was originally a maid of honor to queen catharine, and became acquainted with king henry and gained his affections while she was acting in that capacity. when she became queen herself, she had, of course, her own maids of honor, and among them was one named jane seymour. jane was a beautiful and accomplished lady, and in the end she supplanted her mistress and queen in henry's affections, just as anne herself had supplanted catharine. the king had removed catharine to make way for anne, by annulling his marriage with her on account of their relationship: what way could he contrive now to remove anne, so as to make way for jane? he began to entertain, or to pretend to entertain, feelings of jealousy and suspicion that anne was unfaithful to him. one day, at a sort of tournament in the park of the royal palace at greenwich, when a great crowd of gayly-dressed ladies and gentlemen were assembled to witness the spectacle, the queen dropped her handkerchief. a gentleman whom the king had suspected of being one of her favorites picked it up. he did not immediately restore it to her. there was, besides, something in the air and manner of the gentleman, and in the attendant circumstances of the case, which the king's mind seized upon as evidence of criminal gallantry between the parties. he was, or at least pretended to be, in a great rage. he left the field immediately and went to london. the tournament was broken up in confusion, the queen was seized by the king's orders, conveyed to her palace in greenwich, and shut up in her chamber, with a lady who had always been her rival and enemy to guard her. she was in great consternation and sorrow, but she declared most solemnly that she was innocent of any crime, and had always been true and faithful to the king. [illustration: the tower of london.] the next day she was taken from her palace at greenwich up the river, probably in a barge well guarded by armed men, to the tower of london. the tower is an ancient and very extensive castle, consisting of a great number of buildings inclosed within a high wall. it is in the lower part of london, on the bank of the thames, with a flight of stairs leading down to the river from a great postern gate. the unhappy queen was landed at these stairs and conveyed into the castle, and shut up in a gloomy apartment, with walls of stone and windows barricaded with strong bars of iron. there were four or five gentlemen, attendants upon the queen in her palace at greenwich, whom the king suspected, or pretended to suspect, of being her accomplices in crime, that were arrested at the same time with her and closely confined. when the poor queen was introduced into her dungeon, she fell on her knees, and, in an agony of terror and despair, she implored god to help her in this hour of her extremity, and most solemnly called him to witness that she was innocent of the crime imputed to her charge. seeking thus a refuge in god calmed and composed her in some small degree; but when, again, thoughts of the imperious and implacable temper of her husband came over her, of the impetuousness of his passions, of the certainty that he wished her removed out of the way in order that room might be made for her rival, and then, when her distracted mind turned to the forlorn and helpless condition of her little daughter elizabeth, now scarcely three years old, her fortitude and self-possession forsook her entirely; she sank half insane upon her bed, in long and uncontrollable paroxysms of sobs and tears, alternating with still more uncontrollable and frightful bursts of hysterical laughter. the king sent a commission to take her examination. at the same time, he urged her, by the persons whom he sent, to confess her guilt, promising her that, if she did so, her life should be spared. she, however, protested her innocence with the utmost firmness and constancy. she begged earnestly to be allowed to see the king, and, when this was refused, she wrote a letter to him, which still remains, and which expresses very strongly the acuteness of her mental sufferings. in this letter, she said that she was so distressed and bewildered by the king's displeasure and her imprisonment, that she hardly knew what to think or to say. she assured him that she had always been faithful and true to him, and begged that he would not cast an indelible stain upon her own fair fame and that of her innocent and helpless child by such unjust and groundless imputations. she begged him to let her have a fair trial by impartial persons, who would weigh the evidence against her in a just and equitable manner. she was sure that by this course her innocence would be established, and he himself, and all mankind would see that she had been most unjustly accused. but if, on the other hand, she added, the king had determined on her destruction, in order to remove an obstacle in the way of his possession of a new object of love, she prayed that god would forgive him and all her enemies for so great a sin, and not call him to account for it at the last day. she urged him, at all events, to spare the lives of the four gentlemen who had been accused, as she assured him they were wholly innocent of the crime laid to their charge, begging him, if he had ever loved the name of anne boleyn, to grant this her last request. she signed her letter his "most loyal and ever faithful wife," and dated it from her "doleful prison in the tower." the four gentlemen were promised that their lives should be spared if they would confess their guilt. one of them did, accordingly, admit his guilt, and the others persisted to the end in firmly denying it. they who think anne boleyn was innocent, suppose that the one who confessed did it as the most likely mode of averting destruction, as men have often been known, under the influence of fear, to confess crimes of which it was afterward proved they could not have been guilty. if this was his motive, it was of no avail. the four persons accused, after a very informal trial, in which nothing was really proved against them, were condemned, apparently to please the king, and were executed together. three days after this the queen herself was brought to trial before the peers. the number of peers of the realm in england at this time was fifty-three. only twenty-six were present at the trial. the king is charged with making such arrangements as to prevent the attendance of those who would be unwilling to pass sentence of condemnation. at any rate, those who did attend professed to be satisfied of the guilt of the accused, and they sentenced her to be burned, or to be beheaded, at the pleasure of the king. he decided that she should be beheaded. the execution was to take place in a little green area within the tower. the platform was erected here, and the block placed upon it, the whole being covered with a black cloth, as usual on such occasions. on the morning of the fatal day, anne sent for the constable of the tower to come in and receive her dying protestations that she was innocent of the crimes alleged against her. she told him that she understood that she was not to die until o'clock, and that she was sorry for it, for she wished to have it over. the constable told her the pain would be very slight and momentary. "yes," she rejoined, "i am told that a very skillful executioner is provided, and my neck is very slender." at the appointed hour she was led out into the court-yard where the execution was to take place. there were about twenty persons present, all officers of state or of the city of london. the bodily suffering attendant upon the execution was very soon over, for the slender neck was severed at a single blow, and probably all sensibility to pain immediately ceased. still, the lips and the eyes were observed to move and quiver for a few seconds after the separation of the head from the body. it was a relief, however, to the spectators when this strange and unnatural prolongation of the mysterious functions of life came to an end. no coffin had been provided. they found, however, an old wooden chest, made to contain arrows, lying in one of the apartments of the tower, which they used instead. they first laid the decapitated trunk within it, and then adjusted the dissevered head to its place, as if vainly attempting to repair the irretrievable injury they had done. they hurried the body, thus enshrined, to its burial in a chapel, which was also within the tower, doing all with such dispatch that the whole was finished before the clock struck twelve; and the next day the unfeeling monster who was the author of this dreadful deed was publicly married to his new favorite, jane seymour. the king had not merely procured anne's personal condemnation; he had also obtained a decree annulling his marriage with her, on the ground of her having been, as he attempted to prove, previously affianced to another man. this was, obviously, a mere pretense. the object was to cut off elizabeth's rights to inherit the crown, by making his marriage with her mother void. thus was the little princess left motherless and friendless when only three years old. chapter ii. the childhood of a princess. - elizabeth's condition at the death of her mother.--her residence.--letter of lady bryan, elizabeth's governess.--conclusion of letter.--troubles and trials of infancy.--birth of edward.--the king reconciled to his daughters.--death of king henry.--his children.--king henry's violence.--the order of succession.--elizabeth's troubles.--the two seymours.--the queen dowager's marriage.--the seymours quarrel.--somerset's power and influence.--jealousies and quarrels.--mary queen of scots.--marriage schemes.--seymour's promotion.--jane grey.--family quarrels.--death of the queen dowager.--seymour's schemes.--seymour's arrest.--his trial and attainder.--seymour beheaded.--elizabeth's trials.--elizabeth's firmness.--lady tyrwhitt.--elizabeth's sufferings.--her fidelity to her friends. elizabeth was about three years old at the death of her mother. she was a princess, but she was left in a very forlorn and desolate condition. she was not, however, entirely abandoned. her claims to inherit the crown had been set aside, but then she was, as all admitted, the daughter of the king, and she must, of course, be the object of a certain degree of consideration and ceremony. it would be entirely inconsistent with the notions of royal dignity which then prevailed to have her treated like an ordinary child. she had a residence assigned her at a place called hunsdon, and was put under the charge of a governess whose name was lady bryan. there is an ancient letter from lady bryan, still extant, which was written to one of the king's officers about elizabeth, explaining her destitute condition, and asking for a more suitable supply for her wants. it may entertain the reader to see this relic, which not only illustrates our little heroine's condition, but also shows how great the changes are which our language has undergone within the last three hundred years. the letter, as here given, is abridged a little from the original: my lord: when your lordship was last here, it pleased you to say that i should not be mistrustful of the king's grace, nor of your lordship, which word was of great comfort to me, and emboldeneth me now to speak my poor mind. now so it is, my lord, that my lady elizabeth is put from the degree she was afore, and what degree she is at now[a] i know not but by hearsay. therefore i know not how to order her, nor myself, nor none of hers that i have the rule of--that is, her women and her grooms. but i beseech you to be good, my lord, to her and to all hers, and to let her have some rayment; for she has neither gown, nor kirtle, nor no manner of linen, nor foresmocks, nor kerchiefs, nor sleeves, nor rails, nor bodystitchets, nor mufflers, nor biggins. all these her grace's wants i have driven off as long as i can, by my troth, but i can not any longer. beseeching you, my lord, that you will see that her grace may have that is needful for her, and that i may know from you, in writing, how i shall order myself towards her, and whatever is the king's grace's pleasure and yours, in every thing, that i shall do. [footnote a: that is, in what light the king and the government wish to have her regarded, and how they wish her to be treated.] my lord mr. shelton would have my lady elizabeth to dine and sup at the board of estate. alas, my lord, it is not meet for a child of her age to keep such rule yet. i promise you, my lord, i dare not take upon me to keep her in health and she keep that rule; for there she shall see divers meats and fruits, and wines, which would be hard for me to restrain her grace from it. you know, my lord, there is no place of correction[b] there, and she is yet too young to correct greatly. i know well, and she be there, i shall never bring her up to the king's grace's honor nor hers, nor to her health, nor my poor honesty. wherefore, i beseech you, my lord, that my lady may have a mess of meat to her own lodging, with a good dish or two that is meet for her grace to eat of. [footnote b: that is, _opportunity_ for correction.] my lady hath likewise great pain with her teeth, and they come very slowly forth, and this causeth me to suffer her grace to have her will more than i would. i trust to god, and her teeth were well graft, to have her grace after another fashion than she is yet, so as i trust the king's grace shall have great comfort in her grace; for she is as toward a child, and as gentle of conditions, as ever i knew any in my life. jesu preserve her grace. good my lord, have my lady's grace, and us that be her poor servants, in your remembrance. this letter evinces that strange mixture of state and splendor with discomfort and destitution, which prevailed very extensively in royal households in those early times. a part of the privation which elizabeth seems, from this letter, to have endured, was doubtless owing to the rough manners of the day; but there is no doubt that she was also, at least for a time, in a neglected and forsaken condition. the new queen, jane seymour, who succeeded elizabeth's mother, had a son a year or two after her marriage. he was named edward. thus henry had three children, mary, elizabeth, and edward, each one the child of a different wife; and the last of them, the son, appears to have monopolized, for a time, the king's affection and care. still, the hostility which the king had felt for these queens in succession was owing, as has been already said, to his desire to remove them out of his way, that he might be at liberty to marry again; and so, after the mothers were, one after another, removed, the hostility itself, so far as the children were concerned, gradually subsided, and the king began to look both upon mary and elizabeth with favor again. he even formed plans for marrying elizabeth to persons of distinction in foreign countries, and he entered into some negotiations for this purpose. he had a decree passed, too, at last, reversing the sentence by which the two princesses were cut off from an inheritance of the crown. thus they were restored, during their father's life, to their proper rank as royal princesses. [illustration: portrait of edward vi.] at last the king died in , leaving only these three children, each one the child of a different wife. mary was a maiden lady, of about thirty-one years of age. she was a stern, austere, hard-hearted woman, whom nobody loved. she was the daughter of king henry's first wife, catharine of aragon, and, like her mother, was a decided catholic. next came elizabeth, who was about fourteen years of age. she was the daughter of the king's second wife, queen anne boleyn. she had been educated a protestant. she was not pretty, but was a very lively and sprightly child, altogether different in her cast of character and in her manners from her sister mary. then, lastly, there was edward, the son of jane seymour, the third queen. he was about nine years of age at his father's death. he was a boy of good character, mild and gentle in his disposition, fond of study and reflection, and a general favorite with all who knew him. it was considered in those days that a king might, in some sense, dispose of his crown by will, just as, at the present time, a man may bequeath his house or his farm. of course, there were some limits to this power, and the concurrence of parliament seems to have been required to the complete validity of such a settlement. king henry the eighth, however, had little difficulty in carrying any law through parliament which he desired to have enacted. it is said that, on one occasion, when there was some delay about passing a bill of his, he sent for one of the most influential of the members of the house of commons to come into his presence. the member came and kneeled before him. "ho, man!" said the king, "and will they not suffer my bill to pass?" he then came up and put his hand upon the kneeling legislator's head, and added, "get my bill passed to-morrow, or else by to-morrow this head of yours shall be off." the next day the bill was passed accordingly. king henry, before he died, arranged the order of succession to the throne as follows: edward was to succeed him; but, as he was a minor, being then only nine years of age, a great council of state, consisting of sixteen persons of the highest rank, was appointed to govern the kingdom in his name until he should be _eighteen_ years of age, when he was to become king in reality as well as in name. in case he should die without heirs, then mary, his oldest sister, was to succeed him; and if she died without heirs, then elizabeth was to succeed her. this arrangement went into full effect. the council governed the kingdom in edward's name until he was sixteen years of age, when he died. then mary followed, and reigned as queen five years longer, and died without children, and during all this time elizabeth held the rank of a princess, exposed to a thousand difficulties and dangers from the plots, intrigues and conspiracies of those about her, in which, on account of her peculiar position and prospects, she was necessarily involved. one of the worst of these cases occurred soon after her father's death. there were two brothers of jane seymour, who were high in king henry's favor at the time of his decease. the oldest is known in history by his title of the earl of hertford at first, and afterward by that of duke of somerset. the youngest was called sir thomas seymour. they were both made members of the government which was to administer the affairs of state during young edward's minority. they were not, however, satisfied with any moderate degree of power. being brothers of jane seymour, who was edward's mother, they were his uncles, of course, and the oldest one soon succeeded in causing himself to be appointed protector. by this office he was, in fact, king, all except in name. the younger brother, who was an agreeable and accomplished man, paid his addresses to the queen dowager, that is, to the widow whom king henry left, for the last of his wives was living at the time of his death. she consented to marry him, and the marriage took place almost immediately after the king's death--so soon in fact, that it was considered extremely hasty and unbecoming. this queen dowager had two houses left to her, one at chelsea, and the other at hanworth, towns some little distance up the river from london. here she resided with her new husband, sometimes at one of the houses, and sometimes at the other. the king had also directed, in his will, that the princess elizabeth should be under her care, so that elizabeth, immediately after her father's death, lived at one or the other of these two houses under the care of seymour, who, from having been her uncle, became now, in some sense, her father. he was a sort of uncle, for he was the brother of one of her father's wives. he was a sort of father, for he was the husband of another of them. yet, really, by blood, there was no relation between them. the two brothers, somerset and seymour, quarreled. each was very ambitious, and very jealous of the other. somerset, in addition to being appointed protector by the council, got a grant of power from the young king called a patent. this commission was executed with great formality, and was sealed with the great seal of state, and it made somerset, in some measure independent of the other nobles whom king henry had associated with him in the government. by this patent he was placed in supreme command of all the forces by land and sea. he had a seat on the right hand of the throne, under the great canopy of state, and whenever he went abroad on public occasions, he assumed all the pomp and parade which would have been expected in a real king. young edward was wholly under his influence, and did always whatever somerset recommended him to do. seymour was very jealous of all this greatness, and was contriving every means in his power to circumvent and supersede his brother. the wives, too, of these great statesmen quarreled. the duchess of somerset thought she was entitled to the precedence, because she was the wife of the protector, who, being a kind of regent, she thought he was entitled to have his wife considered as a sort of queen. the wife of seymour, on the other hand, contended that she was entitled to the precedence as a real queen, having been herself the actual consort of a reigning monarch. the two ladies disputed perpetually on this point, which, of course, could never be settled. they enlisted, however, on their respective sides various partisans, producing a great deal of jealousy and ill will, and increasing the animosity of their husbands. all this time the celebrated mary queen of scots was an infant in janet sinclair's arms, at the castle of stirling, in scotland. king henry, during his life, had made a treaty with the government of scotland, by which it was agreed that mary should be married to his son edward as soon as the two children should have grown to maturity; but afterward, the government of scotland having fallen from protestant into catholic hands, they determined that this match must be given up. the english authorities were very much incensed. they wished to have the marriage take effect, as it would end in uniting the scotch and english kingdoms; and the protector, when a time arrived which he thought was favorable for his purpose, raised an army and marched northward to make war upon scotland, and compel the scots to fulfill the contract of marriage. while his brother was gone to the northward, seymour remained at home, and endeavored, by every means within his reach, to strengthen his own influence and increase his power. he contrived to obtain from the council of government the office of lord high admiral, which gave him the command of the fleet, and made him, next to his brother, the most powerful and important personage in the realm. he had, besides, as has already been stated, the custody and care of elizabeth, who lived in his house; though, as he was a profligate and unprincipled man, this position for the princess, now fast growing up to womanhood, was considered by many persons as of doubtful propriety. still, she was at present only fourteen years old. there was another young lady likewise in his family, a niece of king henry, and, of course, a second cousin of elizabeth. her name was jane grey. it was a very unhappy family. the manners and habits of all the members of it, excepting jane grey, seem to have been very rude and irregular. the admiral quarreled with his wife, and was jealous of the very servants who waited upon her. the queen observed something in the manners of her husband toward the young princess which made her angry both with him and her. elizabeth resented this, and a violent quarrel ensued, which ended in their separation. elizabeth went away, and resided afterward at a place called hatfield. very soon after this, the queen dowager died suddenly. people accused seymour, her husband, of having poisoned her, in order to make way for the princess elizabeth to be his wife. he denied this, but he immediately began to lay his plans for securing the hand of elizabeth. there was a probability that she might, at some future time, succeed to the crown, and then, if he were her husband, he thought he should be the real sovereign, reigning in her name. elizabeth had in her household two persons, a certain mrs. ashley, who was then her governess, and a man named parry, who was a sort of treasurer. he was called the _cofferer_. the admiral gained these persons over to his interests, and, through them, attempted to open communications with elizabeth, and persuade her to enter into his designs. of course, the whole affair was managed with great secrecy. they were all liable to a charge of treason against the government of edward by such plots, as his ministers and counselors might maintain that their design was to overthrow edward's government and make elizabeth queen. they, therefore, were all banded together to keep their councils secret, and elizabeth was drawn, in some degree, into the scheme, though precisely how far was never fully known. it was supposed that she began to love seymour, although he was very much older than herself, and to be willing to become his wife. it is not surprising that, neglected and forsaken as she had been, she should have been inclined to regard with favor an agreeable and influential man, who expressed a strong affection for her, and a warm interest in her welfare. however this may be, elizabeth was one day struck with consternation at hearing that seymour was arrested by order of his brother, who had returned from scotland and had received information of his designs, and that he had been committed to the tower. he had a hurried and irregular trial, or what, in those days, was called a trial. the council went themselves to the tower, and had him brought before them and examined. he demanded to have the charges made out in form, and the witnesses confronted with him, but the council were satisfied of his guilt without these formalities. the parliament immediately afterward passed a bill of attainder against him, by which he was sentenced to death. his brother, the protector, signed the warrant for his execution, and he was beheaded on tower hill. the protector sent two messengers in the course of this affair to elizabeth, to see what they could ascertain from her about it. sir robert tyrwhitt was the name of the principal one of these messengers. when the cofferer learned that they were at the gate, he went in great terror into his chamber, and said that he was undone. at the same time, he pulled off a chain from his neck, and the rings from his fingers, and threw them away from him with gesticulations of despair. the messengers then came to elizabeth, and told her, falsely as it seems, with a view to frighten her into confessions, that mrs. ashley and the cofferer were both secured and sent to the tower. she seemed very much alarmed; she wept bitterly, and it was a long time before she regained her composure. she wanted to know whether they had confessed any thing. the protector's messengers would not tell her this, but they urged her to confess herself all that had occurred; for, whatever it was, they said that the evil and shame would all be ascribed to the other persons concerned, and not to her, on account of her youth and inexperience. but elizabeth would confess nothing. the messengers went away, convinced, as they said, that she was guilty; they could see that in her countenance; and that her silence was owing to her firm determination not to betray her lover. they sent word to the protector that they did not believe that any body would succeed in drawing the least information from her, unless it was the protector, or young king edward himself. these mysterious circumstances produced a somewhat unfavorable impression in regard to elizabeth, and there were some instances, it was said, of light and trifling behavior between elizabeth and seymour, while she was in his house during the life-time of his wife. they took place in the presence of seymour's wife, and seem of no consequence, except to show that dukes and princesses got into frolics sometimes in those days as well as other mortals. people censured mrs. ashley for not enjoining a greater dignity and propriety of demeanor in her young charge, and the government removed her from her place. lady tyrwhitt, who was the wife of the messenger referred to above that was sent to examine elizabeth, was appointed to succeed mrs. ashley. elizabeth was very much displeased at this change. she told lady tyrwhitt that mrs. ashley was her mistress, and that she had not done any thing to make it necessary for the council to put more mistresses over her. sir robert wrote to the protector that she took the affair so heavily that she "wept all night, and lowered all the next day." he said that her attachment to mrs. ashley was very strong; and that, if any thing were said against the lord admiral, she could not bear to hear it, but took up his defense in the most prompt and eager manner. how far it is true that elizabeth loved the unfortunate seymour can now never be known. there is no doubt, however, but that this whole affair was a very severe trial and affliction to her. it came upon her when she was but fourteen or fifteen years of age, and when she was in a position, as well of an age, which renders the heart acutely sensitive both to the effect of kindness and of injuries. seymour, by his death, was lost to her forever, and elizabeth lived in great retirement and seclusion during the remainder of her brother's reign. she did not, however, forget mrs. ashley and parry. on her accession to the throne, many years afterward, she gave them offices very valuable, considering their station in life, and was a true friend to them both to the end of their days. chapter iii. lady jane grey. - lady jane grey.--her disposition and character.--lady jane's parents.--restraints put upon her.--lady jane's attainments.--character of her teacher.--anecdote of elizabeth and aylmer.--lady jane's attachment to aylmer.--elizabeth's studies.--roger ascham.--lady jane's acquirements in greek.--her interview with ascham.--lady jane's intimacy with edward.--the earl of northumberland.--harsh treatment of mary.--decline of edward's health.--uncertainty in respect to the succession.--struggle for power.--queen elizabeth's family connections.--explanation of the table.--king henry's will.--various claimants for the throne.--perplexing questions.--power of northumberland.--his schemes.--marriage of lady jane.--feelings of the people.--efforts to set mary aside.--northumberland works on the young king.--conduct of the judges.--pardon by anticipation.--edward's deed of settlement.--plan to entrap the princesses.--death of edward.--escape of the princesses.--precautions of mary.--lady jane proclaimed queen.--great excitement.--public opinion in favor of mary.--northumberland taken prisoner.--he is beheaded.--mary's triumphal procession.--shared by elizabeth. among elizabeth's companions and playmates in her early years was a young lady, her cousin, as she was often called, though she was really the daughter of her cousin, named jane grey, commonly called in history lady jane grey. her mother was the marchioness of dorset, and was the daughter of one of king henry the eighth's sisters. king henry had named her as the next in the order of succession after his own children, that is, after edward his son, and mary and elizabeth his two daughters; and, consequently, though she was very young, yet, as she might one day be queen of england, she was a personage of considerable importance. she was, accordingly, kept near the court, and shared, in some respects, the education and the studies of the two princesses. lady jane was about four years younger than the princess elizabeth, and the sweetness of her disposition, united with an extraordinary intellectual superiority, which showed itself at a very early period, made her a universal favorite. her father and mother, the marquis and marchioness of dorset, lived at an estate they possessed, called broadgate, in leicestershire, which is in the central part of england, although they took their title from the county of dorset, which is on the southwestern coast. they were very proud of their daughter, and attached infinite importance to her descent from henry vii., and to the possibility that she might one day succeed to the english throne. they were very strict and severe in their manners, and paid great attention to etiquette and punctilio, as persons who are ambitious of rising in the world are very apt to do. in all ages of the world, and among all nations, those who have long been accustomed to a high position are easy and unconstrained in their manners and demeanor, while those who have been newly advanced from a lower station, or who are anticipating or aspiring to such an advance, make themselves slaves to the rules of etiquette and ceremony. it was thus that the father and mother of lady jane, anticipating that she might one day become a queen, watched and guarded her incessantly, subjected her to a thousand unwelcome restraints, and repressed all the spontaneous and natural gayety and sprightliness which belongs properly to such a child. she became, however, a very excellent scholar in consequence of this state of things. she had a private teacher, a man of great eminence for his learning and abilities, and yet of a very kind and gentle spirit, which enabled him to gain a strong hold on his pupil's affection and regard. his name was john aylmer. the marquis of dorset, lady jane's father, became acquainted with mr. aylmer when he was quite young, and appointed him, when he had finished his education, to come and reside in his family as chaplain and tutor to his children. aylmer afterward became a distinguished man, was made bishop of london, and held many high offices of state under queen elizabeth, when she came to reign. he became very much attached to queen elizabeth in the middle and latter part of his life, as he had been to lady jane in the early part of it. a curious incident occurred during the time that he was in the service of elizabeth, which illustrates the character of the man. the queen was suffering from the toothache, and it was necessary that the tooth should be extracted. the surgeon was ready with his instruments, and several ladies and gentlemen of the royal household were in the queen's room commiserating her sufferings; but the queen dreaded the operation so excessively that she could not summon fortitude enough to submit to it. aylmer, after trying some time in vain to encourage her, took his seat in the chair instead of her, and said to the surgeon, "i am an old man, and have but few teeth to lose; but come, draw this one, and let her majesty see how light a matter it is." one would not have supposed that elizabeth would have allowed this to be done; but she did, and, finding that aylmer made so light of the operation, she submitted to have it performed upon herself. but to return to lady jane. she was very strongly attached to her teacher, and made great progress in the studies which he arranged for her. ladies of high rank, in those days, were accustomed to devote great attention to the ancient and modern languages. there was, in fact, a great necessity then, as indeed there is now, for a european princess to be acquainted with the principal languages of europe; for the various royal families were continually intermarrying with each other, which led to a great many visits, and other intercourse between the different courts. there was also a great deal of intercourse with the pope, in which the _latin_ language was the medium of communication. lady jane devoted a great deal of time to all these studies, and made rapid proficiency in them all. the princess elizabeth was also an excellent scholar. her teacher was a very learned and celebrated man, named roger ascham. she spoke french and italian as fluently as she did english. she also wrote and spoke latin with correctness and readiness. she made considerable progress in greek too. she could write the greek character very beautifully, and could express herself tolerably well in conversation in that language. one of her companions, a young lady of the name of cecil, is said to have spoken greek as well as english. roger ascham took great interest in advancing the princess in these studies, and in the course of these his instructions he became acquainted with lady jane, and he praises very highly, in his letters, the industry and assiduity of lady jane in similar pursuits. [illustration: lady jane grey at study.] one day roger ascham, being on a journey from the north of england to london, stopped to make a call at the mansion of the marquis of dorset. he found that the family were all away; they had gone off upon a hunting excursion in the park. lady jane, however, had been left at home, and ascham went in to see her. he found her in the library reading greek. ascham examined her a little, and was very much surprised to find how well acquainted with the language she had become, although she was then only about fifteen years old. he told her that he should like very much to have her write him a letter in greek, and this she readily promised to do. he asked her, also, how it happened that, at her age, she had made such advances in learning. "i will tell you," said she, "how it has happened. one of the greatest benefits that god ever conferred upon me was in giving me so sharp and severe parents and so gentle a teacher; for, when i am in the presence of either my father or mother, whether i speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go; eat, drink, be merry or sad; be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing any thing else, i must do it, as it were, in just such weight, measure, and number, as perfectly as possible, or else i am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea, presently, sometimes with pinches, nips, and bobs, and other ways, which i will not name for the honor i bear my parents, that i am continually teased and tormented. and then, when the time comes for me to go to mr. aylmer, he teaches me so gently, so pleasantly, and with such fair allurements to learning, that i think all the time nothing while i am with him; and i am always sorry to go away from him, because whatsoever else i do but learning is full of grief, trouble, fear, and suffering." lady jane grey was an intimate friend and companion of the young king edward as long as he lived. edward died when he was sixteen years of age, so that he did not reach the period which his father had assigned for his reigning in his own name. one of king edward's most prominent and powerful ministers during the latter part of his life was the earl of northumberland. the original name of the earl of northumberland was john dudley. he was one of the train who came in the procession at the close of the baptism of elizabeth, carrying the presents. he was a protestant, and was very friendly to edward and to lady jane grey, for they were protestants too. but his feelings and policy were hostile to mary, for she was a catholic. mary was sometimes treated very harshly by him, and she was subjected to many privations and hardships on account of her religious faith. the government of edward justified these measures, on account of the necessity of promoting the reformation, and discouraging popery by every means in their power. northumberland supposed, too, that it was safe to do this, for edward being very young, it was probable that he would live and reign a long time. it is true that mary was named, in her father's will, as his successor, if she outlived him, but then it was highly probable that she would not outlive him, for she was several years older than he. all these calculations, however, were spoiled by the sudden failure of edward's health when he was sixteen years old. northumberland was much alarmed at this. he knew at once that if edward should die, and mary succeed him, all his power would be gone, and he determined to make desperate efforts to prevent such a result. it must not be understood, however, that in coming to this resolution, northumberland considered himself as intending and planning a deliberate usurpation of power. there was a real uncertainty in respect to the question who was the true and rightful heir to the crown. northumberland was, undoubtedly, strongly biased by his interest, but he may have been unconscious of the bias, and in advocating the mode of succession on which the continuance of his own power depended, he may have really believed that he was only maintaining what was in itself rightful and just. in fact, there is no mode which human ingenuity has ever yet devised for determining the hands in which the supreme executive of a nation shall be lodged, which will always avoid doubt and contention. if this power devolves by hereditary descent, no rules can be made so minute and full as that cases will not sometimes occur that will transcend them. if, on the other hand, the plan of election be adopted, there will often be technical doubts about a portion of the votes, and cases will sometimes occur where the result will depend upon this doubtful portion. thus there will be disputes under any system, and ambitious men will seize such occasions to struggle for power. in order that our readers may clearly understand the nature of the plan which northumberland adopted, we present, on the following page, a sort of genealogical table of the royal family of england in the days of elizabeth. table of the royal family of england in the time of elizabeth. ________________________________________________________________________ = . king henry viii. _catharine of aragon._ = . queen mary. _anne boleyn._ = . queen elizabeth. _jane seymour._ = . king edward vi. _anne of cleves._ _catharine howard._ _catharine parr._ = margaret _james iv. of scotland_ = james v. of scotland = mary queen of scots . king henry vii. = . king james vi. of scotland and i. of england. _earl of angus_ = margaret douglas = earl of lenox = lord darnley = mary. _charles brandon, duke = frances, marchioness of suffolk_ of dorset = lady jane grey. = eleanor. ________________________________________________________________________ explanation. this table gives the immediate descendants of henry vii., a descent being denoted by the sign =. the names of the persons whom they respectively married are in italics. those who became sovereigns of england are in small capitals, and the order in which they reigned is denoted by the figures prefixed to their names. by examination of this table it will be seen that king henry vii. left a son and two daughters. the son was king henry viii., and _he_ had three children. his third child was king edward vi., who was now about to die. the other two were the princesses mary and elizabeth, who would naturally be considered the next heirs after edward; and besides, king henry had left a will, as has been already explained, confirming their rights to the succession. this will he had made near the time of his death; but it will be recollected that, during his life-time, both the marriages from which these princesses had sprung had been formally annulled. his marriage with catharine of aragon had been annulled on one plea, and that of anne boleyn on another. both these decrees of annulment had afterward been revoked, and the right of the princesses to succeed had been restored, or attempted to be restored, by the will. still, it admitted of a question, after all, whether mary and elizabeth were to be considered as the children of true and lawful wives or not. if they were not, then lady jane grey was the next heir, for she was placed next to the princesses by king henry the eighth's will. this will, for some reason or other, set aside a the descendants of margaret, who went to scotland as the wife of james iv. of that country. what right the king had thus to disinherit the children of his sister margaret was a great question. among her descendants was mary queen of scots, as will be seen by the table, and she was, at this time, the representative of that branch of the family. the friends of mary queen of scots claimed that she was the lawful heir to the english throne after edward. they maintained that the marriage of catharine, the princess mary's mother, and also that of anne boleyn, elizabeth's mother, had both been annulled, and that the will could not restore them. they maintained, also, that the will was equally powerless in setting aside the claims of margaret, her grandmother. mary queen of scots, though silent now, advanced her claim subsequently, and made elizabeth a great deal of trouble. then there was, besides these, a third party, who maintained that king henry the eighth's will was not effectual in legalizing again the annulled marriages, but that it was sufficient to set aside the claims of margaret. of course, with them, lady jane grey, who, as will be seen by the table, was the representative of the _second_ sister of henry viii., was the only heir. the earl of northumberland embraced this view. his motive was to raise lady jane grey to the throne, in order to exclude the princess mary, whose accession he knew very well would bring all his greatness to a very sudden end. the earl of northumberland was at this time the principal minister of the young king. the protector somerset had fallen long ago. northumberland, whose name was then john dudley, had supplanted him, and had acquired so great influence and power at court that almost every thing seemed to be at his disposal. he was, however, generally hated by the other courtiers and by the nation. men who gain the confidence of a young or feeble-minded prince, so as to wield a great power not properly their own, are almost always odious. it was expected, however, that his career would be soon brought to an end, as all knew that king edward must die, and it was generally understood that mary was to succeed him. northumberland, however, was very anxious to devise some scheme to continue his power, and in revolving the subject in his mind, he conceived of plans which seemed to promise not only to continue, but also greatly to increase it. his scheme was to have the princesses' claims set aside, and lady jane grey raised to the throne. he had several sons. one of them was young, handsome, and accomplished. he thought of proposing him to lady jane's father as the husband of lady jane, and, to induce the marquis to consent to this plan, he promised to obtain a dukedom for him by means of his influence with the king. the marquis agreed to the proposal. lady jane did not object to the husband they offered her. the dukedom was obtained, and the marriage, together with two others which northumberland had arranged to strengthen his influence, were celebrated, all on the same day, with great festivities and rejoicings. the people looked on moodily, jealous and displeased, though they had no open ground of displeasure, except that it was unsuitable to have such scenes of gayety and rejoicing among the high officers of the court while the young monarch himself was lying upon his dying bed. they did not yet know that it was northumberland's plan to raise his new daughter-in-law to the throne. northumberland thought it would greatly increase his prospect of success if he could obtain some act of acknowledgment of lady jane's claims to the crown before edward died. an opportunity soon occurred for effecting this purpose. one day, as he was sitting by young edward's bedside, he turned the conversation to the subject of the reformation, which had made great progress during edward's reign, and he led edward on in the conversation, until he remarked that it was a great pity to have the work all undone by mary's accession, for she was a catholic, and would, of course, endeavor to bring the country back again under the spiritual dominion of rome. northumberland then told him that there was one way, and one way only, to avert such a calamity, and that was to make lady jane his heir instead of mary. king edward was a very thoughtful, considerate, and conscientious boy, and was very desirous of doing what he considered his duty. he thought it was his duty to do all in his power to sustain the reformation, and to prevent the catholic power from gaining ascendency in england again. he was, therefore, easily persuaded to accede to northumberland's plan, especially as he was himself strongly attached to lady jane, who had often been his playmate and companion. the king accordingly sent for three judges of the realm, and directed them to draw up a deed of assignment, by which the crown was to be conveyed to lady jane on the young king's death, mary and elizabeth being alike excluded. the judges were afraid to do this; for, by king henry the eighth's settlement of the crown, all those persons who should do any thing to disturb the succession as he arranged it were declared to be guilty of high treason. the judges knew very well, therefore, that if they should do what the king required of them, and then, if the friends of lady jane should fail of establishing her upon the throne, the end of the affair would be the cutting off of their own heads in the tower. they represented this to the king, and begged to be excused from the duty that he required of them. northumberland was in a great rage at this, and seemed almost ready to break out against the judges in open violence. they, however, persisted in their refusal to do what they well knew would subject them to the pains and penalties of treason. northumberland, finding that threats and violence would not succeed, contrived another mode of obviating the difficulty. he proposed to protect the judges from any possible evil consequences of their act by a formal pardon for it, signed by the king, and sealed with the great seal, so that, in case they were ever charged with treason, the pardon would save them from punishment. this plan succeeded. the pardon was made out, being written with great formality upon a parchment roll, and sealed with the great seal. the judges then prepared and signed the deed of settlement by which the crown was given to lady jane, though, after all, they did it with much reluctance and many forebodings. northumberland next wanted to contrive some plan for getting the princesses into his power, in order to prevent their heading any movement in behalf of their own claims at the death of the king. he was also desirous of making such arrangements as to conceal the death of the king for a few days after it should take place, in order that he might get lady jane and her officers in complete possession of the kingdom before the demise of the crown should be generally known. for this purpose he dismissed the regular physicians who had attended upon the king, and put him under the charge of a woman, who pretended that she had a medicine that would certainly cure him. he sent, also, messengers to the princesses, who were then in the country north of london, requesting that they would come to greenwich, to be near the sick chamber where their brother was lying, that they might cheer and comfort him in his sickness and pain. the princesses obeyed the summons. they each set out immediately on the journey, and moved toward london on their way to greenwich. in the mean time, edward was rapidly declining. the change in the treatment which took place when his physicians left him, made him worse instead of better. his cough increased, his breathing became more labored and difficult; in a word, his case presented all the symptoms of approaching dissolution. at length he died. northumberland attempted to keep the fact concealed until after the princesses should arrive, that he might get them into his power. some faithful friend, however, made all haste to meet them, in order to inform them what was going on. in this way mary received intelligence of her brother's death when she had almost reached london, and was informed, also, of the plans of northumberland for raising lady jane to the throne. the two princesses were extremely alarmed, and both turned back at once toward the northward again. mary stopped to write a letter to the council, remonstrating against their delay in proclaiming her queen, and then proceeded rapidly to a strong castle at a place called framlingham, in the county of suffolk, on the eastern coast of england. she made this her head-quarters, because she supposed that the people of that county were particularly friendly to her; and then, besides, it was near the sea, and, in case the course of events should turn against her, she could make her escape to foreign lands. it is true that the prospect of being fugitive and an exile was very dark and gloomy, but it was not so terrible as the idea of being shut up a prisoner in the tower, or being beheaded on a block for treason. in the mean time, northumberland went, at the head of a troop of his adherents, to the residence of lady jane grey, informed her of the death of edward, and announced to her their determination to proclaim her queen. lady jane was very much astonished at this news. at first she absolutely refused the offered honor; but the solicitations and urgency of northumberland, and of her father and her young husband, at length prevailed. she was conducted to london, and instated in at least the semblance of power. as the news of these transactions spread throughout the land, a universal and strong excitement was produced, every body at once taking sides either for mary or lady jane. bands of armed men began to assemble. it soon became apparent, however, that, beyond the immediate precincts of london, the country was almost unanimous for mary. they dreaded, it is true, the danger which they anticipated from her catholic faith, but still they had all considered it a settled point, since the death of henry the eighth, that mary was to reign whenever edward should die; and this general expectation that she would be queen had passed insensibly into an opinion that she ought to be. considered strictly as a legal question, it was certainly doubtful which of the four claimants to the throne had the strongest title; but the public were not disposed so to regard it. they chose, on the whole, that mary should reign. large military masses consequently flocked to her standard. elizabeth took sides with her, and, as it was important to give as much public effect to her adhesion as possible, they furnished elizabeth with a troop of a thousand horsemen, at the head of which she rode to meet mary and tender her aid. northumberland went forth at the head of such forces as he could collect, but he soon found that the attempt was vain. his troops forsook him. the castles which had at first been under his command surrendered themselves to mary. the tower of london went over to her side. finally, all being lost, northumberland himself was taken prisoner, and all his influential friends with him, and were committed to the tower. lady jane herself too, together with her husband and father, were seized and sent to prison. northumberland was immediately put upon his trial for treason. he was condemned, and brought at once to the block. in fact, the whole affair moved very promptly and rapidly on, from its commencement to its consummation. edward the sixth died on the th of july, and it was only the d of august when northumberland was beheaded. the period for which the unhappy lady jane enjoyed the honor of being called a queen was nine days. it was about a month after this that mary passed from the tower through the city of london in a grand triumphal procession to be crowned. the royal chariot, covered with cloth of golden tissue, was drawn by six horses most splendidly caparisoned. elizabeth, who had aided her sister, so far as she could, in the struggle, was admitted to share the triumph. she had a carriage drawn by six horses too, with cloth and decorations of silver. they proceeded in this manner, attended and followed by a great cavalcade of nobles and soldiery, to westminster abbey, where mary took her seat with great formality upon her father's throne. chapter iv. the spanish match. - queen mary's character.--bigotry and firmness.--suitors for queen mary's hand.--emperor charles the fifth.--character of his son philip.--the emperor proposes his son.--mary pleased with the proposal.--plans of the ministers.--the people alarmed.--opposition to the match.--the emperor furnishes money.--the emperor's embassy.--stipulations of the treaty of marriage.--wyatt's rebellion.--duke of suffolk.--wyatt advances toward london.--the queen retreats into the city.--wyatt surrenders.--the duke of suffolk sent to the tower.--beheading of lady jane grey.--her heroic fortitude.--death of suffolk.--imprisonment of elizabeth.--execution of wyatt.--the wedding plan proceeds.--hostility of the sailors.--mary's fears and complainings.--philip lands at southampton.--philip's proud and haughty demeanor.--the marriage ceremony.--philip abandons mary.--her repinings.--her death. when queen mary ascended the throne, she was a maiden lady not far from thirty-five years of age. she was cold, austere, and forbidding in her appearance and manners, though probably conscientious and honest in her convictions of duty. she was a very firm and decided catholic, or, rather, she evinced a certain strict adherence to the principles of her religious faith, which we generally call firmness when it is exhibited by those whose opinions agree with our own, though we are very apt to name it bigotry in those who differ from us. for instance, when the body of young edward, her brother, after his death, was to be deposited in the last home of the english kings in westminster abbey, which is a very magnificent cathedral a little way up the river from london, the services were, of course, conducted according to the ritual of the english church, which was then protestant. mary, however, could not conscientiously countenance such services even by being present at them. she accordingly assembled her immediate attendants and personal friends in her own private chapel, and celebrated the interment there, with catholic priests, by a service conformed to the catholic ritual. was it a bigoted, or only a firm and proper, attachment to her own faith, which forbade her joining in the national commemoration? the reader must decide; but, in deciding, he is bound to render the same verdict that he would have given if it had been a case of a protestant withdrawing thus from catholic forms. at all events, whether bigoted or not, mary was doubtless sincere; but she was so cold, and stern, and austere in her character, that she was very little likely to be loved. there were a great many persons who wished to become her husband, but their motives were to share her grandeur and power. among these persons, the most prominent one, and the one apparently most likely to succeed, was a prince of spain. his name was philip. [illustration: portrait of philip of spain.] it was his father's plan, and not his own, that he should marry queen mary. his father was at this time the most wealthy and powerful monarch in europe. his name was charles. he is commonly called in history charles v. of spain. he was not only king of spain, but emperor of germany. he resided sometimes at madrid, and sometimes at brussels in flanders. his son philip had been married to a portuguese princess, but his wife had died, and thus philip was a widower. still, he was only twenty-seven years of age, but he was as stern, severe, and repulsive in his manners as mary. his personal appearance, too, corresponded with his character. he was a very decided catholic also, and in his natural spirit, haughty, ambitious, and domineering. the emperor charles, as soon as he heard of young edward's death and of mary's accession to the english throne, conceived the plan of proposing to her his son philip for a husband. he sent over a wise and sagacious statesman from his court to make the proposition, and to urge it by such reasons as would be most likely to influence mary's mind, and the minds of the great officers of her government. the embassador managed the affair well. in fact, it was probably easy to manage it. mary would naturally be pleased with the idea of such a young husband, who, besides being young and accomplished, was the son of the greatest potentate in europe, and likely one day to take his father's place in that lofty elevation. besides, mary queen of scots, who had rival claims to queen mary's throne, had married, or was about to marry, the son of the king of france, and there was a little glory in outshining her, by having for a husband a son of the king of spain. it might, however, perhaps, be a question which was the greatest match; for, though the court of paris was the most brilliant, spain, being at that time possessed of the gold and silver mines of its american colonies, was at least the _richest_ country in the world. mary's ministers, when they found that mary herself liked the plan, fell in with it too. mary had been beginning, very quietly indeed, but very efficiently, her measures for bringing back the english government and nation to the catholic faith. her ministers told her now, however, that if she wished to succeed in effecting this match, she must suspend all these plans until the match was consummated. the people of england were generally of the protestant faith. they had been very uneasy and restless under the progress which the queen had been making in silencing protestant preachers, and bringing back catholic rites and ceremonies; and now, if they found that their queen was going to marry so rigid and uncompromising a catholic as philip of spain, they would be doubly alarmed. she must suspend, therefore, for a time, her measures for restoring papacy, unless she was willing to give up her husband. the queen saw that this was the alternative, and she decided on following her ministers' advice. she did all in her power to quiet and calm the public mind, in order to prepare the way for announcing the proposed connection. rumors, however, began to be spread abroad that such a design was entertained before mary was fully prepared to promulgate it. these rumors produced great excitement, and awakened strong opposition. the people knew philip's ambitious and overbearing character, and they believed that if he were to come to england as the husband of the queen, the whole government would pass into his hands, and, as he would naturally be very much under the influence of his father, the connection was likely to result in making england a mere appendage to the already vast dominions of the emperor. the house of commons appointed a committee of twenty members, and sent them to the queen, with a humble petition that she would not marry a foreigner. the queen was much displeased at receiving such a petition, and she dissolved the parliament. the members dispersed, carrying with them every where expressions of their dissatisfaction and fear. england, they said, was about to become a province of spain, and the prospect of such a consummation, wherever the tidings went, filled the people of the country with great alarm. queen mary's principal minister of state at this time was a crafty politician, whose name was gardiner. gardiner sent word to the emperor that there was great opposition to his son's marriage in england, and that he feared that he should not be able to accomplish it, unless the terms of the contract of marriage were made very favorable to the queen and to england, and unless the emperor could furnish him with a large sum of money to use as a means of bringing influential persons of the realm to favor it. charles decided to send the money. he borrowed it of some of the rich cities of germany, making his son philip give his bond to repay it as soon as he should get possession of his bride, and of the rich and powerful country over which she reigned. the amount thus remitted to england is said by the historians of those days to have been a sum equal to two millions of dollars. the bribery was certainly on a very respectable scale. the emperor also sent a very magnificent embassy to london, with a distinguished nobleman at its head, to arrange the terms and contracts of the marriage. this embassy came in great state, and, during their residence in london, were the objects of great attention and parade. the eclat of their reception, and the influence of the bribes, seemed to silence opposition to the scheme. open opposition ceased to be expressed, though a strong and inveterate determination against the measure was secretly extending itself throughout the realm. this, however, did not prevent the negotiations from going on. the terms were probably all fully understood and agreed upon before the embassy came, so that nothing remained but the formalities of writing and signing the articles. some of the principal stipulations of these articles were, that philip was to have the title of king of england jointly with mary's title of queen. mary was also to share with him, in the same way, his titles in spain. it was agreed that mary should have the exclusive power of the appointment of officers of government in england, and that no spaniards should be eligible at all. particular provisions were made in respect to the children which might result from the marriage, as to how they should inherit rights of government in the two countries. philip had one son already, by his former wife. this son was to succeed his father in the kingdom of spain, but the other dominions of philip on the continent were to descend to the offspring of this new marriage, in modes minutely specified to fit all possible cases which might occur. the making of all these specifications, however, turned out to be labor lost, as mary never had children. it was also specially agreed that philip should not bring spanish or foreign domestics into the realm, to give uneasiness to the english people; that he would never take the queen out of england, nor carry any of the children away, without the consent of the english nobility; and that, if the queen were to die before him, all his rights and claims of every sort, in respect to england, should forever cease. he also agreed that he would never carry away any of the jewels or other property of the crown, nor suffer any other person to do so. these stipulations, guarding so carefully the rights of mary and of england, were intended to satisfy the english people, and remove their objections to the match. they produced some effect, but the hostility was too deeply seated to be so easily allayed. it grew, on the contrary, more and more threatening, until at length a conspiracy was formed by a number of influential and powerful men, and a plan of open rebellion organized. the leader in this plan was sir thomas wyatt, and the outbreak which followed is known in history as wyatt's rebellion. another of the leaders was the duke of suffolk, who, it will be recollected, was the father of lady jane grey. this led people to suppose that the plan of the conspirators was not merely to prevent the consummation of the spanish match, but to depose queen mary entirely, and to raise the lady jane to the throne. however this may be, an extensive and formidable conspiracy was formed. there were to have been several risings in different parts of the kingdom. they all failed except the one which wyatt himself was to head, which was in kent, in the southeastern part of the country. this succeeded so far, at least, that a considerable force was collected, and began to advance toward london from the southern side. queen mary was very much alarmed. she had no armed force in readiness to encounter this danger. she sent messengers across the thames and down the river to meet wyatt, who was advancing at the head of four thousand men, to ask what it was that he demanded. he replied that the queen must be delivered up as his prisoner, and also the tower of london be surrendered to him. this showed that his plan was to depose the queen. mary rejected these proposals at once, and, having no forces to meet this new enemy, she had to retreat from westminster into the city of london, and here she took refuge in the city hall, called the guildhall, and put herself under the protection of the city authorities. some of her friends urged her to take shelter in the tower; but she had more confidence, she said, in the faithfulness and loyalty of her subjects than in castle walls. wyatt continued to advance. he was still upon the south side of the river. there was but one bridge across the thames, at london, in those days, though there are half a dozen now, and this one was so strongly barricaded and guarded that wyatt did not dare to attempt to cross it. he went up the river, therefore, to cross at a higher point; and this circuit, and several accidental circumstances which occurred, detained him so long that a considerable force had been got together to receive him when he was ready to enter the city. he pushed boldly on into the narrow streets, which received him like a trap or a snare. the city troops hemmed up his way after he had entered. they barricaded the streets, they shut the gates, and armed men poured in to take possession of all the avenues. wyatt depended upon finding the people of london on his side. they turned, instead, against him. all hope of success in his enterprise, and all possibility of escape from his own awful danger, disappeared together. a herald came from the queen's officer calling upon him to surrender himself quietly, and save the effusion of blood. he surrendered in an agony of terror and despair. the duke of suffolk learned these facts in another county, where he was endeavoring to raise a force to aid wyatt. he immediately fled, and hid himself in the house of one of his domestics. he was betrayed, however, seized, and sent to the tower. many other prominent actors in the insurrection were arrested, and the others fled in all directions, wherever they could find concealment or safety. lady jane's life had been spared thus far, although she had been, in fact, guilty of treason against mary by the former attempt to take the crown. she now, however, two days after the capture of wyatt, received word that she must prepare to die. she was, of course, surprised and shocked at the suddenness of this announcement; but she soon regained her composure, and passed through the awful scenes preceding her death with a fortitude amounting to heroism, which was very astonishing in one so young. her husband was to die too. he was beheaded first, and she saw the headless body, as it was brought back from the place of execution, before her turn came. she acknowledged her guilt in having attempted to seize her cousin's crown. as the attempt to seize this crown _failed_, mankind consider her technically guilty. if it had succeeded, mary, instead of jane, would have been the traitor who would have died for attempting criminally to usurp a throne. in the mean time wyatt and suffolk remained prisoners in the tower. suffolk was overwhelmed with remorse and sorrow at having been the means, by his selfish ambition, of the cruel death of so innocent and lovely a child. he did not suffer this anguish long, however, for five days after his son and lady jane were executed, his head fell too from the block. wyatt was reserved a little longer. he was more formally tried, and in his examination he asserted that the princess elizabeth was involved in the conspiracy. officers were immediately sent to arrest elizabeth. she was taken to a royal palace at westminster, just above london, called whitehall, and shut up there in close confinement, and no one was allowed to visit her or speak to her. the particulars of this imprisonment will be described more fully in the next chapter. fifty or sixty common conspirators, not worthy of being beheaded with an ax, were hanged, and a company of six hundred more were brought, their hands tied, and halters about their necks, a miserable gang, into mary's presence, before her palace, to be pardoned. wyatt was then executed. when he came to die, however, he retracted what he had alleged of elizabeth. he declared that she was entirely innocent of any participation in the scheme of rebellion. elizabeth's friends believe that he accused her because he supposed that such a charge would be agreeable to mary, and that he should himself be more leniently treated in consequence of it, but that when at last he found that sacrificing her would not save him, his guilty conscience scourged him into doing her justice in his last hours. all obstacles to the wedding were now apparently removed; for, after the failure of wyatt's rebellion, nobody dared to make any open opposition to the plans of the queen, though there was still abundance of secret dissatisfaction. mary was now very impatient to have the marriage carried into effect. a new parliament was called, and its concurrence in the plan obtained. mary ordered a squadron of ships to be fitted out and sent to spain, to convey the bridegroom to england. the admiral who had command of this fleet wrote to her that the sailors were so hostile to philip that he did not think it was safe for her to intrust him to their hands. mary then commanded this force to be dismissed, in order to arrange some other way to bring philip over. she was then full of anxiety and apprehension lest some accident might befall him. his ship might be wrecked, or he might fall into the hands of the french, who were not at all well disposed toward the match. her thoughts and her conversation were running upon this topic all the time. she was restless by day and sleepless by night, until her health was at last seriously impaired, and her friends began really to fear that she might lose her reason. she was very anxious, too, lest philip should find her beauty so impaired by her years, and by the state of her health, that she should fail, when he arrived, of becoming the object of his love. in fact, she complained already that philip neglected her. he did not write to her, or express in any way the interest and affection which she thought ought to be awakened in his mind by a bride who, as she expressed it, was going to bring a kingdom for a dowry. this sort of cold and haughty demeanor was, however, in keeping with the self-importance and the pride which then often marked the spanish character, and which, in philip particularly, always seemed to be extreme. at length the time arrived for his embarkation. he sailed across the bay of biscay, and up the english channel until he reached southampton, a famous port on the southern coast of england. there he landed with great pomp and parade. he assumed a very proud and stately bearing, which made a very unfavorable impression upon the english people who had been sent by queen mary to receive him. he drew his sword when he landed, and walked about with it, for a time, in a very pompous manner, holding the sword unsheathed in his hand, the crowd of by-standers that had collected to witness the spectacle of the landing looking on all the time, and wondering what such an action could be intended to intimate. it was probably intended simply to make them wonder. the authorities of southampton had arranged it to come in procession to meet philip, and present him with the keys of the gates, an emblem of an honorable reception into the city. philip received the keys, but did not deign a word of reply. the distance and reserve which it had been customary to maintain between the english sovereigns and their people was always pretty strongly marked, but philip's loftiness and grandeur seemed to surpass all bounds. mary went two thirds of the way from london to the coast to meet the bridegroom. here the marriage ceremony was performed, and the whole party came, with great parade and rejoicings, back to london, and mary, satisfied and happy, took up her abode with her new lord in windsor castle. the poor queen was, however, in the end, sadly disappointed in her husband. he felt no love for her; he was probably, in fact, incapable of love. he remained in england a year, and then, growing weary of his wife and of his adopted country, he went back to spain again, greatly to queen mary's vexation and chagrin. they were both extremely disappointed in not having children. philip's motive for marrying mary was ambition wholly, and not love; and when he found that an heir to inherit the two kingdoms was not to be expected, he treated his unhappy wife with great neglect and cruelty and finally went away from her altogether. he came back again, it is true, a year afterward, but it was only to compel mary to join with him in a war against france. he told her that if she would not do this, he would go away from england and never see her again. mary yielded; but at length, harassed and worn down with useless regrets and repinings, her mental sufferings are supposed to have shortened her days. she died miserably a few years after her marriage, and thus the spanish match turned out to be a very unfortunate match indeed. chapter v. elizabeth in the tower. - elizabeth's position.--legitimacy of mary and elizabeth's birth.--mary and elizabeth's differences.--courteney's long imprisonment.--mary's attentions to courteney.--courteney's attentions to elizabeth.--mary's plan to get elizabeth in her power.--elizabeth's wariness.--wyatt accuses elizabeth.--her seizure.--elizabeth borne in a litter.--she is examined and released.--elizabeth again arrested.--her letter to mary.--situation of the tower.--the traitors' gate.--elizabeth conveyed to the tower.--she is landed at the traitors' gate.--elizabeth's reception at the tower.--her unwillingness to enter.--elizabeth's indignation and grief.--she is closely imprisoned.--elizabeth in the garden.--the little child and the flowers.--elizabeth greatly alarmed.--her removal from the tower.--elizabeth's fears.--mary's designs.--elizabeth taken to richmond.--mary's plan for marrying her.--elizabeth's journey to woodstock.--christmas festivities.--elizabeth persists in her innocence.--the torch-light visit.--reconciliation between elizabeth and mary.--elizabeth's release. the imprisonment of queen elizabeth in the tower, which was briefly alluded to in the last chapter, deserves a more full narration than was possible to give to it there. she had retired from court some time before the difficulties about the spanish match arose. it is true that she took sides with mary in the contest with northumberland and the friends of jane grey, and she shared her royal sister's triumph in the pomp and parade of the coronation; but, after all, she and mary could not possibly be very good friends. the marriages of their respective mothers could not both have been valid. henry the eighth was so impatient that he could not wait for a divorce from catharine before he married anne boleyn. the only way to make the latter marriage legal, therefore, was to consider the former one null and void _from the beginning_, and if the former one was not thus null and void, the latter must be so. if henry had waited for a divorce, then both marriages might have been valid, each for the time of its own continuance, and both the princesses might have been lawful heirs; but as it was, neither of them could maintain her own claims to be considered a lawful daughter, without denying, by implication at least, those of the other. they were therefore, as it were, natural enemies. though they might be outwardly civil to each other, it was not possible that there could be any true harmony or friendship between them. a circumstance occurred, too, soon after mary's accession to the throne, which resulted in openly alienating the feelings of the two ladies from each other. there was a certain prisoner in the tower of london, a gentleman of high rank and great consideration, named courteney, now about twenty-six years of age, who had been imprisoned in the tower by king henry the eighth when he was only twelve years old, on account of some political offenses of his father! he had thus been a close prisoner for fourteen years at mary's accession; but mary released him. it was found, when he returned to society again, that he had employed his solitary hours in cultivating his mind, acquiring knowledge, and availing himself of all the opportunities for improvement which his situation afforded, and that he came forth an intelligent, accomplished, and very agreeable man. the interest which his appearance and manners excited was increased by the sympathy naturally felt for the sufferings that he had endured. in a word, he became a general favorite. the rank of his family was high enough for mary to think of him for her husband, for this was before the spanish match was thought of. mary granted him a title, and large estates, and showed him many other favors, and, as every body supposed, tried very hard to make an impression on his heart. her efforts were, however, vain. courteney gave an obvious preference to elizabeth, who was young then, at least, if not beautiful. this successful rivalry on the part of her sister filled the queen's heart with resentment and envy, and she exhibited her chagrin by so many little marks of neglect and incivility, that elizabeth's resentment was roused in its turn, and she asked permission to retire from court to her residence in the country. mary readily gave the permission, and thus it happened that when wyatt's rebellion first broke out, as described in the last chapter, elizabeth was living in retirement and seclusion at ashridge, an estate of hers at some distance west of london. as to courteney, mary found some pretext or other for sending him back again to his prison in the tower. mary was immediately afraid that the malcontents would join with elizabeth and attempt to put forward her name and her claims to the crown, which, if they were to do, it would make their movement very formidable. she was impressed immediately with the idea that it was of great importance to get elizabeth back again into her power. the most probable way of succeeding in doing this, she thought, was to write her a kind and friendly letter, inviting her to return. she accordingly wrote such a letter. she said in it that certain evil-disposed persons were plotting some disturbances in the kingdom, and that she thought that elizabeth was not safe where she was. she urged her, therefore, to return, saying that she should be truly welcome, and should be protected against all danger if she would come. an invitation from a queen is a command, and elizabeth would have felt bound to obey this summons, but she was sick when it came. at least she was _not well_, and she was not much disposed to underrate her sickness for the sake of being able to travel on this occasion. the officers of her household made out a formal certificate to the effect that elizabeth was not able to undertake such a journey. in the mean time wyatt's rebellion broke out; he marched to london, was entrapped there and taken prisoner, as is related at length in the last chapter. in his confessions he implicated the princess elizabeth, and also courteney, and mary's government then determined that they must secure elizabeth's person at all events, sick or well. they sent, therefore, three gentlemen as commissioners, with a troop of horse to attend them, to bring her to london. they carried the queen's litter with them, to bring the princess upon it in case she should be found unable to travel in any other way. this party arrived at ashridge at ten o'clock at night. they insisted on being admitted at once into the chamber of elizabeth, and there they made known their errand. elizabeth was terrified; she begged not to be moved, as she was really too sick to go. they called in some physicians, who certified that she could be moved without danger to her life. the next morning they put her upon the litter, a sort of covered bed, formed like a palanquin, and borne, like a palanquin, by men. it was twenty-nine miles to london, and it took the party four days to reach the city, they moved so slowly. this circumstance is mentioned sometimes as showing how sick elizabeth must have been. but the fact is, there was no reason whatever for any haste. elizabeth was now completely in mary's power, and it could make no possible difference how long she was upon the road. the litter passed along the roads in great state. it was a princess that they were bearing. as they approached london, a hundred men in handsome uniforms went before, and an equal number followed. a great many people came out from the city to meet the princess, as a token of respect. this displeased mary, but it could not well be prevented or punished. on their arrival they took elizabeth to one of the palaces at westminster, called whitehall. she was examined by mary's privy council. nothing was proved against her, and, as the rebellion seemed now wholly at an end, she was at length released, and thus ended her first durance as a political prisoner. it happened, however, that other persons implicated in wyatt's plot, when examined, made charges against elizabeth in respect to it, and queen mary sent another force and arrested her again. she was taken now to a famous royal palace, called hampton court, which is situated on the thames, a few miles above the city. she brought many of the officers of her household and of her personal attendants with her; but one of the queen's ministers, accompanied by two other officers, came soon after, and dismissed all her own attendants, and placed persons in the service of the queen in their place. they also set a guard around the palace, and then left the princess, for the night, a close prisoner, and yet without any visible signs of coercion, for all these guards might be guards of honor. the next day some officers came again, and told her that it had been decided to send her to the tower, and that a barge was ready at the river to convey her. she was very much agitated and alarmed, and begged to be allowed to send a letter to her sister before they took her away. one of the officers insisted that she should have the privilege, and the other that she should not. the former conquered in the contest, and elizabeth wrote the letter and sent it. it contained an earnest and solemn disavowal of all participation in the plots which she had been charged with encouraging, and begged mary to believe that she was innocent, and allow her to be released. the letter did no good. elizabeth was taken into the barge and conveyed in a very private manner down the river. hampton court is above london, several miles, and the tower is just below the city. there are several entrances to this vast castle, some of them by stairs from the river. among these is one by which prisoners accused of great political crimes were usually taken in, and which is called the traitors' gate. there was another entrance, also, from the river, by which a more honorable admission to the fortress might be attained. the tower was not solely a prison. it was often a place of retreat for kings and queens from any sudden danger, and was frequently occupied by them as a somewhat permanent residence. there were a great number of structures within the walls, in some of which royal apartments were fitted up with great splendor. elizabeth had often been in the tower as a resident or a visitor, and thus far there was nothing in the circumstances of the case to forbid the supposition that they might be taking her there as a guest or resident now. she was anxious and uneasy, it is true, but she was not certain that she was regarded as a prisoner. in the mean time, the barge, with the other boats in attendance, passed down the river in the rain, for it was a stormy day, a circumstance which aided the authorities in their effort to convey their captive to her gloomy prison without attracting the attention of the populace. besides, it was the day of some great religious festival, when the people were generally in the churches. this day had been chosen on that very account. the barge and the boats came down the river, therefore, without attracting much attention; they approached the landing-place at last, and stopped at the flight of steps leading up from the water to the traitors' gate. elizabeth declared that she was no traitor, and that she would not be landed there. the nobleman who had charge of her told her simply, in reply, that she could not have her choice of a place to land. at the same time, he offered her his cloak to protect her from the rain in passing from the barge to the castle gate. umbrellas had not been invented in those days. elizabeth threw the cloak away from her in vexation and anger. she found, however, that it was of no use to resist. she could not choose. she stepped from the barge out upon the stairs in the rain, saying, as she did so, "here lands as true and faithful a subject as ever landed a prisoner at these stairs. before thee, o god, i speak it, having now no friends but thee alone." a large company of the warders and keepers of the castle had been drawn up at the traitors' gate to receive her, as was customary on occasions when prisoners of high rank were to enter the tower. as these men were always dressed in uniform of a peculiar antique character, such a parade of them made quite an imposing appearance. elizabeth asked what it meant. they told her that that was the customary mode of receiving a prisoner. she said that if it was, she hoped that they would dispense with the ceremony in her case, and asked that, for her sake, the men might be dismissed from such attendance in so inclement a season. the men blessed her for her goodness, and kneeled down and prayed that god would preserve her. she was extremely unwilling to go into the prison. as they approached the part of the edifice where she was to be confined, through the court-yard of the tower, she stopped and sat down upon a stone, perhaps a step, or the curb stone of a walk. the lieutenant urged her to go in out of the cold and wet. "better sitting here than in a worse place," she replied, "for god knoweth whither you are bringing me." however, she rose and went on. she entered the prison, was conducted to her room, and the doors were locked and bolted upon her. elizabeth was kept closely imprisoned for a month; after that, some little relaxation in the strictness of her seclusion was allowed. permission was very reluctantly granted to her to walk every day in the royal apartments, which were now unoccupied, so that there was no society to be found there, but it afforded her a sort of pleasure to range through them for recreation and exercise. but this privilege could not be accorded without very strict limitations and conditions. two officers of the tower and three women had to attend her; the windows, too, were shut, and she was not permitted to go and look out at them. this was rather melancholy recreation, it must be allowed, but it was better than being shut up all day in a single apartment, bolted and barred. [illustration: elizabeth in the tower.] there was a small garden within the castle not far from the prison, and after some time elizabeth was permitted to walk there. the gates and doors, however, were kept carefully closed, and all the prisoners, whose rooms looked into it from the surrounding buildings, were closely watched by their respective keepers, while elizabeth was in the garden, to prevent their having any communication with her by looks or signs. there were a great many persons confined at this time, who had been arrested on charges connected with wyatt's rebellion, and the authorities seem to have been very specially vigilant to prevent the possibility of elizabeth's having communication with any of them. there was a little child of five years of age who used to come and visit elizabeth in her room, and bring her flowers. he was the son of one of the subordinate officers of the tower. it was, however, at last suspected that he was acting as a messenger between elizabeth and courteney. courteney, it will be recollected, had been sent by mary back to the tower again, so that he and elizabeth were now suffering the same hard fate in neighboring cells. when the boy was suspected of bearing communications between these friends and companions in suffering, he was called before an officer and closely examined. his answers were all open and childlike, and gave no confirmation to the idea which had been entertained. the child, however, was forbidden to go to elizabeth's apartment any more. he was very much grieved at this, and he watched for the next time that elizabeth was to walk in the garden, and putting his mouth to a hole in the gate, he called out, "lady, i can not bring you any more flowers." after elizabeth had been thus confined about three months, she was one day terribly alarmed by the sounds of martial parade within the tower, produced by the entrance of an officer from queen mary, named sir thomas beddingfield, at the head of three hundred men. elizabeth supposed that they were come to execute sentence of death upon her. she asked immediately if the platform on which lady jane grey was beheaded had been taken away. they told her that it had been removed. she was then somewhat relieved. they afterward told her that sir thomas had come to take her away from the tower, but that it was not known where she was to go. this alarmed her again, and she sent for the constable of the tower, whose name was lord chandos, and questioned him very closely to learn what they were going to do with her. he said that it had been decided to remove her from the tower, and send her to a place called woodstock, where she was to remain under sir thomas beddingfield's custody, at a royal palace which was situated there. woodstock is forty or fifty miles to the westward of london, and not far from the city of oxford. elizabeth was very much alarmed at this intelligence. her mind was filled with vague and uncertain fears and forebodings, which were none the less oppressive for being uncertain and vague. she had, however, no immediate cause for apprehension. mary found that there was no decisive evidence against her, and did not dare to keep her a prisoner in the tower too long. there was a large and influential part of the kingdom who were protestants. they were jealous of the progress mary was making toward bringing the catholic religion in again. they abhorred the spanish match. they naturally looked to elizabeth as their leader and head, and mary thought that by too great or too long-continued harshness in her treatment of elizabeth, she would only exasperate them, and perhaps provoke a new outbreak against her authority. she determined, therefore, to remove the princess from the tower to some less odious place of confinement. she was taken first to queen mary's court, which was then held at richmond, just above london; but she was surrounded here by soldiers and guards, and confined almost as strictly as before. she was destined, however, here to another surprise. it was a proposition of marriage. mary had been arranging a plan for making her the wife of a certain personage styled the duke of savoy. his dominions were on the confines of switzerland and france, and mary thought that if her rival were once married and removed there, all the troubles which she, mary, had experienced on her account would be ended forever. she thought, too, that her sister would be glad to accept this offer, which opened such an immediate escape from the embarrassments and sufferings of her situation in england. but elizabeth was prompt, decided, and firm in the rejection of this plan. england was her home, and to be queen of england the end and aim of all her wishes and plans. she had rather continue a captive for the present in her native land, than to live in splendor as the consort of a sovereign duke beyond the rhone. mary then ordered sir thomas beddingfield to take her to woodstock. she traveled on horseback, and was several days on the journey. her passage through the country attracted great attention. the people assembled by the wayside, expressing their kind wishes, and offering her gifts. the bells were rung in the villages through which she passed. she arrived finally at woodstock, and was shut up in the palace there. this was in july, and she remained in woodstock more than a year, not, however, always very closely confined. at christmas she was taken to court, and allowed to share in the festivities and rejoicings. on this occasion--it was the first christmas after the marriage of mary and philip--the great hall of the palace was illuminated with a thousand lamps. the princess sat at table next to the king and queen. she was on other occasions, too, taken away for a time, and then returned again to her seclusion at woodstock. these changes, perhaps, only served to make her feel more than ever the hardships of her lot. they say that one day, as she sat at her window, she heard a milk-maid singing in the fields, in a blithe and merry strain, and said, with a sigh, that she wished she was a milk-maid too. king philip, after his marriage, gradually interested himself in her behalf, and exerted his influence to have her released; and mary's ministers had frequent interviews with her, and endeavored to induce her to make some confession of guilt, and to petition mary for release as a matter of mercy. they could not, they said, release her while she persisted in her innocence, without admitting that they and mary had been in the wrong, and had imprisoned her unjustly. but the princess was immovable. she declared that she was perfectly innocent, and that she would never, therefore, say that she was guilty. she would rather remain in prison for the truth, than be at liberty and have it believed that she had been guilty of disloyalty and treason. at length, one evening in may, elizabeth received a summons to go to the palace and visit mary in her chamber. she was conducted there by torch-light. she had a long interview with the queen, the conversation being partly in english and partly in spanish. it was not very satisfactory on either side. elizabeth persisted in asserting her innocence, but in other respects she spoke in a kind and conciliatory manner to the queen. the interview ended in a sort of reconciliation. mary put a valuable ring upon elizabeth's finger in token of the renewal of friendship, and soon afterward the long period of restraint and confinement was ended, and the princess returned to her own estate at hatfield in hertfordshire, where she lived some time in seclusion, devoting herself, in a great measure, to the study of latin and greek, under the instructions of roger ascham. chapter vi. accession to the throne - mary's unhappy reign.--unrequited love.--mary's sufferings.--her religious principles.--progress of mary's catholic zeal.--her moderation at first.--mary's terrible persecution of the protestants.--burning at the stake.--the title of bloody given to mary.--mary and elizabeth reconciled.--scenes of festivity.--the war with france.--loss of calais.--murmurs of the english.--king of sweden's proposal to elizabeth.--mary's energy.--mary's privy council alarmed.--their perplexity.--uncertainty about elizabeth's future course.--her cautious policy.--death of mary.--announcement to parliament.--elizabeth proclaimed.--joy of the people.--the te deum.--elizabeth's emotions.--cecil made secretary of state.--his faithfulness.--elizabeth's charge to cecil.--her journey to london.--elizabeth's triumphant entrance into the tower.--the coronation.--pageants in the streets.--devices.--presentation of the bible.--the heavy purse.--the sprig of rosemary.--the wedding ring. if it were the story of mary instead of that of elizabeth that we were following, we should have now to pause and draw a very melancholy picture of the scenes which darkened the close of the queen's unfortunate and unhappy history. mary loved her husband, but she could not secure his love in return. he treated her with supercilious coldness and neglect, and evinced, from time to time, a degree of interest in other ladies which awakened her jealousy and anger. of all the terrible convulsions to which the human soul is subject, there is not one which agitates it more deeply than the tumult of feeling produced by the mingling of resentment and love. such a mingling, or, rather, such a conflict, between passions apparently inconsistent with each other, is generally considered not possible by those who have never experienced it. but it is possible. it is possible to be stung with a sense of the ingratitude, and selfishness, and cruelty of an object, which, after all, the heart will persist in clinging to with the fondest affection. vexation and anger, a burning sense of injury, and desire for revenge, on the one hand, and feelings of love, resistless and uncontrollable, and bearing, in their turn, all before them, alternately get possession of the soul, harrowing and devastating it in their awful conflict, and even sometimes reigning over it, for a time, in a temporary but dreadful calm, like that of two wrestlers who pause a moment, exhausted in a mortal combat, but grappling each other with deadly energy all the time, while they are taking breath for a renewal of the conflict. queen mary, in one of these paroxysms, seized a portrait of her husband and tore it into shreds. the reader, who has his or her experience in affairs of the heart yet to come, will say, perhaps, her love for him then must have been all gone. no; it was at its height. we do not tear the portraits of those who are indifferent to us. at the beginning of her reign, and, in fact, during all the previous periods of her life, mary had been an honest and conscientious catholic. she undoubtedly truly believed that the christian church ought to be banded together in one great communion, with the pope of rome as its spiritual head, and that her father had broken away from this communion--which was, in fact, strictly true--merely to obtain a pretext for getting released from her mother. how natural, under such circumstances, that she should have desired to return. she commenced, immediately on her accession, a course of measures to bring the nation back to the roman catholic communion. she managed very prudently and cautiously at first--especially while the affair of her marriage was pending--seemingly very desirous of doing nothing to exasperate those who were of the protestant faith, or even to awaken their opposition. after she was married, however, her desire to please her catholic husband, and his widely-extended and influential circle of catholic friends on the continent, made her more eager to press forward the work of putting down the reformation in england; and as her marriage was now effected, she was less concerned about the consequences of any opposition which she might excite. then, besides, her temper, never very sweet, was sadly soured by her husband's treatment of her. she vented her ill will upon those who would not yield to her wishes in respect to their religious faith. she caused more and more severe laws to be passed, and enforced them by more and more severe penalties. the more she pressed these violent measures, the more the fortitude and resolution of those who suffered from them were aroused. and, on the other hand, the more they resisted, the more determined she became that she would compel them to submit. she went on from one mode of coercion to another, until she reached the last possible point, and inflicted the most dreadful physical suffering which it is possible for man to inflict upon his fellow-man. this worst and most terrible injury is to burn the living victim in a fire. that a woman could ever order this to be done would seem to be incredible. queen mary, however, and her government, were so determined to put down, at all hazards, all open disaffection to the catholic cause, that they did not give up the contest until they had burned nearly three hundred persons by fire, of whom more than fifty were women, and _four were children_! this horrible persecution was, however, of no avail. dissentients increased faster than they could be burned; and such dreadful punishments became at last so intolerably odious to the nation that they were obliged to desist, and then the various ministers of state concerned in them attempted to throw off the blame upon each other. the english nation have never forgiven mary for these atrocities. they gave her the name of bloody mary at the time, and she has retained it to the present day. in one of the ancient histories of the realm, at the head of the chapter devoted to mary, there is placed, as an appropriate emblem of the character of her reign, the picture of a man writhing helplessly at a stake, with the flames curling around him, and a ferocious-looking soldier standing by, stirring up the fire. the various disappointments, vexations, and trials which mary endured toward the close of her life, had one good effect; they softened the animosity which she had felt toward elizabeth, and in the end something like a friendship seemed to spring up between the sisters. abandoned by her husband, and looked upon with dislike or hatred by her subjects, and disappointed in all her plans, she seemed to turn at last to elizabeth for companionship and comfort. the sisters visited each other. first elizabeth went to london to visit the queen, and was received with great ceremony and parade. then the queen went to hatfield to visit the princess, attended by a large company of ladies and gentlemen of the court, and several days were spent there in festivities and rejoicings. there were plays in the palace, and a bear-baiting in the court-yard, and hunting in the park, and many other schemes of pleasure. this renewal of friendly intercourse between the queen and the princess brought the latter gradually out of her retirement. now that the queen began to evince a friendly spirit toward her, it was safe for others to show her kindness and to pay her attention. the disposition to do this increased rapidly as mary's health gradually declined, and it began to be understood that she would not live long, and that, consequently, elizabeth would soon be called to the throne. the war which mary had been drawn into with france, by philip's threat that he would never see her again, proved very disastrous. the town of calais, which is opposite to dover, across the straits, and, of course, on the french side of the channel, had been in the possession of the english for two hundred years. it was very gratifying to english pride to hold possession of such a stronghold on the french shore; but now every thing seemed to go against mary. calais was defended by a citadel nearly as large as the town itself, and was deemed impregnable. in addition to this, an enormous english force was concentrated there. the french general, however, contrived, partly by stratagem, and partly by overpowering numbers of troops, and ships, and batteries of cannon, to get possession of the whole. the english nation were indignant at this result. their queen and her government, so energetic in imprisoning and burning her own subjects at home, were powerless, it seemed, in coping with their enemies abroad. murmurs of dissatisfaction were heard every where, and mary sank down upon her sick bed overwhelmed with disappointment, vexation, and chagrin. she said that she should die, and that if, after her death, they examined her body, they would find calais like a load upon her heart. in the mean time, it must have been elizabeth's secret wish that she would die, since her death would release the princess from all the embarrassments and restraints of her position, and raise her at once to the highest pinnacle of honor and power. she remained, however, quietly at hatfield, acting in all things in a very discreet and cautious manner. at one time she received proposals from the king of sweden that she would accept of his son as her husband. she asked the embassador if he had communicated the affair to mary. on his replying that he had not, elizabeth said that she could not entertain at all any such question, unless her sister were first consulted and should give her approbation. she acted on the same principles in every thing, being very cautious to give mary and her government no cause of complaint against her, and willing to wait patiently until her own time should come. though mary's disappointments and losses filled her mind with anguish and suffering, they did not soften her heart. she seemed to grow more cruel and vindictive the more her plans and projects failed. adversity vexed and irritated, instead of calming and subduing her. she revived her persecutions of the protestants. she fitted out a fleet of a hundred and twenty ships to make a descent upon the french coast, and attempt to retrieve her fallen fortunes there. she called parliament together and asked for more supplies. all this time she was confined to her sick chamber, but not considered in danger. the parliament were debating the question of supplies. her privy council were holding daily meetings to carry out the plans and schemes which she still continued to form, and all was excitement and bustle in and around the court, when one day the council was thunderstruck by an announcement that she was dying. they knew very well that her death would be a terrible blow to them. they were all catholics, and had been mary's instruments in the terrible persecutions with which she had oppressed the protestant faith. with mary's death, of course they would fall. a protestant princess was ready, at hatfield, to ascend the throne. every thing would be changed, and there was even danger that they might, in their turn, be sent to the stake, in retaliation for the cruelties which they had caused others to suffer. they made arrangements to have mary's death, whenever it should take place, concealed for a few hours, till they could consider what they should do. there was _nothing_ that they could do. there was now no other considerable claimant to the throne but elizabeth, except mary queen of scots, who was far away in france. she was a catholic, it was true; but to bring her into the country and place her upon the throne seemed to be a hopeless undertaking. queen mary's counselors soon found that they must give up their cause in despair. any attempt to resist elizabeth's claims would be high treason, and, of course, if unsuccessful, would bring the heads of all concerned in it to the block. besides, it was not _certain_ that elizabeth would act decidedly as a protestant. she had been very prudent and cautious during mary's reign, and had been very careful never to manifest any hostility to the catholics. she never had acted as mary had done on the occasion of her brother's funeral, when she refused even to countenance with her presence the national service because it was under protestant forms. elizabeth had always accompanied mary to mass whenever occasion required; she had always spoken respectfully of the catholic faith; and once she asked mary to lend her some catholic books, in order that she might inform herself more fully on the subject of the principles of the roman faith. it is true, she acted thus not because there was any real leaning in her mind toward the catholic religion; it was all merely a wise and sagacious policy. surrounded by difficulties and dangers as she was during mary's reign, her only hope of safety was in passing as quietly as possible along, and managing warily, so as to keep the hostility which was burning secretly against her from breaking out into an open flame. this was her object in retiring so much from the court and from all participation in public affairs, in avoiding all religious and political contests, and spending her time in the study of greek, and latin, and philosophy. the consequence was, that when mary died, nobody knew certainly what course elizabeth would pursue. nobody had any strong motive for opposing her succession. the council, therefore, after a short consultation, concluded to do nothing but simply to send a message to the house of lords, announcing to them the unexpected death of the queen. the house of lords, on receiving this intelligence, sent for the commons to come into their hall, as is usual when any important communication is to be made to them either by the lords themselves or by the sovereign. the chancellor, who is the highest civil officer of the kingdom in respect to rank, and who presides in the house of lords, clothed in a magnificent antique costume, then rose and announced to the commons, standing before him, the death of the sovereign. there was a moment's solemn pause, such as propriety on the occasion of an announcement like this required, all thoughts being, too, for a moment turned to the chamber where the body of the departed queen was lying. but the sovereignty was no longer there. the mysterious principle had fled with the parting breath, and elizabeth, though wholly unconscious of it, had been for several hours the queen. the thoughts, therefore, of the august and solemn assembly lingered but for a moment in the royal palace, which had now lost all its glory; they soon turned spontaneously, and with eager haste, to the new sovereign at hatfield, and the lofty arches of the parliament hall rung with loud acclamations, "god save queen elizabeth, and grant her a long and happy reign." the members of the parliament went forth immediately to proclaim the new queen. there are two principal places where it was then customary to proclaim the english sovereigns. one of these was before the royal palace at westminster, and the other in the city of london, at a very public place called the great cross at cheapside. the people assembled in great crowds at these points to witness the ceremony, and received the announcement which the heralds made, with the most ardent expressions of joy. the bells were every where rung; tables were spread in the streets, and booths erected, bonfires and illuminations were prepared for the evening, and every thing indicated a deep and universal joy. in fact, this joy was so strongly expressed as to be even in some degree disrespectful to the memory of the departed queen. there is a famous ancient latin hymn which has long been sung in england and on the continent of europe on occasions of great public rejoicing. it is called the _te deum_, or sometimes the _te deum laudamus_. these last are the three latin words with which the hymn commences, and mean, _thee, god, we praise_. they sung the _te deum_ in the churches of london on the sunday after mary died. in the mean time, messengers from the council proceeded with all speed to hatfield, to announce to elizabeth the death of her sister, and her own accession to the sovereign power. the tidings, of course, filled elizabeth's mind with the deepest emotions. the oppressive sense of constraint and danger which she had endured as her daily burden for so many years, was lifted suddenly from her soul. she could not but rejoice, though she was too much upon her guard to express her joy. she was overwhelmed with a profound agitation, and, kneeling down, she exclaimed in latin, "it is the lord's doing, and it is wonderful in our eyes." several of the members of mary's privy council repaired immediately to hatfield. the queen summoned them to attend her, and in their presence appointed her chief secretary of state. his name was sir william cecil. he was a man of great learning and ability, and he remained in office under elizabeth for forty years. he became her chief adviser and instrument, an able, faithful, and indefatigable servant and friend during almost the whole of her reign. his name is accordingly indissolubly connected with that of elizabeth in all the political events which occurred while she continued upon the throne, and it will, in consequence, very frequently occur in the sequel of this history. he was now about forty years of age. elizabeth was twenty-five. elizabeth had known cecil long before. he had been a faithful and true friend to her in her adversity. he had been, in many cases, a confidential adviser, and had maintained a secret correspondence with her in certain trying periods of her life. she had resolved, doubtless, to make him her chief secretary of state so soon as she should succeed to the throne. and now that the time had arrived, she instated him solemnly in his office. in so doing, she pronounced, in the hearing of the other members of the council, the following charge: "i give you this charge that you shall be of my privy council, and content yourself to take pains for me and my realm. this judgment i have of you, that you will not be corrupted with any gift; and that you will be faithful to the state; and that, without respect of my private will, you will give me that counsel that you think best; and that, if you shall know any thing necessary to be declared to me of secrecy you shall show it to myself only; and assure yourself i will not fail to keep taciturnity therein. and therefore herewith i charge you." [illustration: elizabeth's progress to london.] it was about a week after the death of mary before the arrangements were completed for elizabeth's journey to london, to take possession of the castles and palaces which pertain there to the english sovereigns. she was followed on this journey by a train of about a thousand attendants, all nobles or personages of high rank, both gentlemen and ladies. she went first to a palace called the charter house, near london, where she stopped until preparations could be made for her formal and public entrance into the tower; not, as before, through the traitors' gate, a prisoner, but openly, through the grand entrance, in the midst of acclamations as the proud and applauded sovereign of the mighty realm whose capital the ancient fortress was stationed to defend. the streets through which the gorgeous procession was to pass were spread with fine, smooth gravel; bands of musicians were stationed at intervals, and decorated arches, and banners, and flags, with countless devices of loyalty and welcome, and waving handkerchiefs, greeted her all the way. heralds and other great officers, magnificently dressed, and mounted on horses richly caparisoned, rode before her, announcing her approach, with trumpets and proclamations; while she followed in the train, mounted upon a beautiful horse, the object of universal homage. thus elizabeth entered the tower; and inasmuch as forgetting her friends is a fault with which she can not justly be charged, we may _hope_, at least, that one of the first acts which she performed, after getting established in the royal apartments, was to send for and reward the kind-hearted child who had been reprimanded for bringing her the flowers. the coronation, when the time arrived for it, was very splendid. the queen went in state in a sumptuous chariot, preceded by trumpeters and heralds in armor, and accompanied by a long train of noblemen, barons, and gentlemen, and also of ladies, all most richly dressed in crimson velvet, the trappings of the horses being of the same material. the people of london thronged all the streets through which she was to pass, and made the air resound with shouts and acclamations. there were triumphal arches erected here and there on the way, with a great variety of odd and quaint devices, and a child stationed upon each, who explained the devices to elizabeth as she passed, in english verse, written for the occasion. one of these pageants was entitled "the seat of worthy governance." there was a throne, supported by figures which represented the cardinal virtues, such as piety, wisdom, temperance, industry, truth, and beneath their feet were the opposite vices, superstition, ignorance, intemperance, idleness, and falsehood: these the virtues were trampling upon. on the throne was a representation of elizabeth. at one place were eight personages dressed to represent the eight beatitudes pronounced by our savior in his sermon on the mount--the meek, the merciful, &c. each of these qualities was ingeniously ascribed to elizabeth. this could be done with much more propriety then than in subsequent years. in another place, an ancient figure, representing time, came out of a cave which had been artificially constructed with great ingenuity, leading his daughter, whose name was truth. truth had an english bible in her hands, which she presented to elizabeth as she passed. this had a great deal of meaning; for the catholic government of mary had discouraged the circulation of the scriptures in the vernacular tongue. when the procession arrived in the middle of the city, some officers of the city government approached the queen's chariot, and delivered to her a present of a very large and heavy purse filled with gold. the queen had to employ both hands in lifting it in. it contained an amount equal in value to two or three thousand dollars. the queen was very affable and gracious to all the people on the way. poor women would come up to her carriage and offer her flowers, which she would very condescendingly accept. several times she stopped her carriage when she saw that any one wished to speak with her, or had something to offer; and so great was the exaltation of a queen in those days, in the estimation of mankind, that these acts were considered by all the humble citizens of london as acts of very extraordinary affability, and they awakened universal enthusiasm. there was one branch of rosemary given to the queen by a poor woman in fleet street; the queen put it up conspicuously in the carriage, where it remained all the way, watched by ten thousand eyes, till it got to westminster. the coronation took place at westminster on the following day. the crown was placed upon the young maiden's head in the midst of a great throng of ladies and gentlemen, who were all superbly dressed, and who made the vast edifice in which the service was performed ring with their acclamations and their shouts of "long live the queen!" during the ceremonies, elizabeth placed a wedding ring upon her finger with great formality, to denote that she considered the occasion as the celebration of her _espousal_ to the realm of england; she was that day a bride, and should never have, she said, any other husband. she kept this, the only wedding ring she ever wore, upon her finger, without once removing it, for more than forty years. chapter vii. the war in scotland. - elizabeth and mary queen of scots.--their rivalry.--character of mary.--character of elizabeth.--elizabeth's celebrity while living.--interest in mary when dead.--real nature of the question at issue between mary and elizabeth.--the two marriages.--one or the other necessarily null.--views of mary's friends.--views of elizabeth's friends.--circumstances of henry the eighth's first marriage.--the papal dispensation.--doubts about it.--england turns protestant.--the marriage annulled.--mary in france.--she becomes queen of france.--mary's pretensions to the english crown.--elizabeth's fears.--measures of elizabeth.--progress of protestantism in scotland.--difficulties in scotland.--elizabeth's interference.--fruitless negotiations.--the war goes on.--the french shut up in leith.--situation of the town.--the english victorious.--the treaty of edinburgh.--stipulations of the treaty.--mary refuses to ratify it.--death of mary's husband.--she returns to scotland. queen elizabeth and mary queen of scots are strongly associated together in the minds of all readers of english history. they were cotemporary sovereigns, reigning at the same time over sister kingdoms. they were cousins, and yet, precisely on account of the family relationship which existed between them, they became implacable foes. the rivalry and hostility, sometimes open and sometimes concealed, was always in action, and, after a contest of more than twenty years, elizabeth triumphed. she made mary her prisoner, kept her many years a captive, and at last closed the contest by commanding, or at least allowing, her fallen rival to be beheaded. thus elizabeth had it all her own way while the scenes of her life and of mary's were transpiring, but since that time mankind have generally sympathized most strongly with the conquered one, and condemned the conqueror. there are several reasons for this, and among them is the vast influence exerted by the difference in the personal character of the parties. mary was beautiful, feminine in spirit, and lovely. elizabeth was talented, masculine, and plain. mary was artless, unaffected, and gentle. elizabeth was heartless, intriguing, and insincere. with mary, though her ruling principle was ambition, her ruling passion was love. her love led her to great transgressions and into many sorrows, but mankind pardon the sins and pity the sufferings which are caused by love more readily than those of any other origin. with elizabeth, ambition was the ruling principle, and the ruling passion too. love, with her, was only a pastime. her transgressions were the cool, deliberate, well-considered acts of selfishness and desire of power. during her life-time her success secured her the applauses of the world. the world is always ready to glorify the greatness which rises visibly before it, and to forget sufferings which are meekly and patiently borne in seclusion and solitude. men praised and honored elizabeth, therefore, while she lived, and neglected mary. but since the halo and the fascination of the visible greatness and glory have passed away, they have found a far greater charm in mary's beauty and misfortune than in her great rival's pride and power. there is often thus a great difference in the comparative interest we take in persons or scenes, when, on the one hand, they are realities before our eyes, and when, on the other, they are only imaginings which are brought to our minds by pictures or descriptions. the hardships which it was very disagreeable or painful to bear, afford often great amusement or pleasure in the recollection. the old broken gate which a gentleman would not tolerate an hour upon his grounds, is a great beauty in the picture which hangs in his parlor. we shun poverty and distress while they are actually existing; nothing is more disagreeable to us; and we gaze upon prosperity and wealth with never-ceasing pleasure. but when they are gone, and we have only the tale to hear, it is the story of sorrow and suffering which possesses the charm. thus it happened that when the two queens were living realities, elizabeth was the center of attraction and the object of universal homage; but when they came to be themes of history, all eyes and hearts began soon to turn instinctively to mary. it was london, and westminster, and kenilworth that possessed the interest while elizabeth lived, but it is holyrood and loch leven now. it results from these causes that mary's story is read far more frequently than elizabeth's, and this operates still further to the advantage of the former, for we are always prone to take sides with the heroine of the tale we are reading. all these considerations, which have had so much influence on the judgment men form, or, rather, on the feeling to which they incline in this famous contest, have, it must be confessed, very little to do with the true merits of the case. and if we make a serious attempt to lay all such considerations aside, and to look into the controversy with cool and rigid impartiality, we shall find it very difficult to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. there are two questions to be decided. in advancing their conflicting claims to the english crown, was it elizabeth or mary that was in the right? if elizabeth was right, were the measures which she resorted to to secure her own rights, and to counteract mary's pretensions, politically justifiable? we do not propose to add our own to the hundred decisions which various writers have given to this question, but only to narrate the facts, and leave each reader to come to his own conclusions. the foundation of the long and dreadful quarrel between these royal cousins was, as has been already remarked, their consanguinity, which made them both competitors for the same throne; and as that throne was, in some respects, the highest and most powerful in the world, it is not surprising that two such ambitious women should be eager and persevering in their contest for it. by turning to the genealogical table on page , where a view is presented of the royal family of england in the time of elizabeth, the reader will see once more what was the precise relationship which the two queens bore to each other and to the succession. by this table it is very evident that elizabeth was the true inheritor of the crown, provided it were admitted that she was the lawful daughter and heir of king henry the eighth, and this depended on the question of the validity of her father's marriage with his first wife, catharine of aragon; for, as has been before said, he was married to anne boleyn before obtaining any thing like a divorce from catharine; consequently, the marriage with elizabeth's mother could not be legally valid, unless that with catharine had been void _from the beginning_. the friends of mary queen of scots maintained that it was not thus void, and that, consequently, the marriage with anne boleyn was null; that elizabeth, therefore, the descendant of the marriage, was not, legally and technically, a daughter of henry the eighth, and, consequently, not entitled to inherit his crown; and that the crown, of right, ought to descend to the next heir, that is, to mary queen of scots herself. queen elizabeth's friends and partisans maintained, on the other hand, that the marriage of king henry with catharine was null and void from the beginning, because catharine had been before the wife of his brother. the circumstances of this marriage were very curious and peculiar. it was his father's work, and not his own. his father was king henry the seventh. henry the seventh had several children, and among them were his two oldest sons, arthur and henry. when arthur was about sixteen years old, his father, being very much in want of money, conceived the plan of replenishing his coffers by marrying his son to a rich wife. he accordingly contracted a marriage between him and catharine of aragon, catharine's father agreeing to pay him two hundred thousand crowns as her dowry. the juvenile bridegroom enjoyed the honors and pleasures of married life for a few months, and then died. this event was a great domestic calamity to the king, not because he mourned the loss of his son, but that he could not bear the idea of the loss of the dowry. by the law and usage in such cases, he was bound not only to forego the payment of the other half of the dowry, but he had himself no right to retain the half that he had already received. while his son lived, being a minor, the father might, not improperly, hold the money in his son's name; but when he died this right ceased, and as arthur left no child, henry perceived that he should be obliged to pay back the money. to avoid this unpleasant necessity, the king conceived the plan of marrying the youthful widow again to his second boy, henry, who was about a year younger than arthur, and he made proposals to this effect to the king of aragon. the king of aragon made no objection to this proposal, except that it was a thing unheard of among christian nations, or heard of only to be condemned, for a man or even a boy to marry his brother's widow. all laws, human and divine, were clear and absolute against this. still, if the dispensation of the pope could be obtained, he would make no objection. catharine might espouse the second boy, and he would allow the one hundred thousand crowns already paid to stand, and would also pay the other hundred thousand. the dispensation was accordingly obtained, and every thing made ready for the marriage. very soon after this, however, and before the new marriage was carried into effect, king henry the seventh died, and this second boy, now the oldest son, though only about seventeen years of age, ascended the throne as king henry the eighth. there was great discussion and debate, soon after his accession, whether the marriage which his father had arranged should proceed. some argued that no papal dispensation could authorize or justify such a marriage. others maintained that a papal dispensation could legalize any thing; for it is a doctrine of the catholic church that the pope has a certain discretionary power over all laws, human and divine, under the authority given to his great predecessor, the apostle peter, by the words of christ: "whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."[c] henry seems not to have puzzled his head at all with the legal question; he wanted to have the young widow for his wife, and he settled the affair on that ground alone. they were married. [footnote c: matthew, xvi. ] catharine was a faithful and dutiful spouse; but when, at last, henry fell in love with anne boleyn, he made these old difficulties a pretext for discarding her. he endeavored, as has been already related, to induce the papal authorities to annul their dispensation; because they would not do it, he espoused the protestant cause, and england, as a nation, seceded from the catholic communion. the ecclesiastical and parliamentary authorities of his own realm then, being made protestant, annulled the marriage, and thus anne boleyn, to whom he had previously been married by a private ceremony, became legally and technically his wife. if this annulling of his first marriage were valid, then elizabeth was his heir--otherwise not; for if the pope's dispensation was to stand, then catharine was a wife. anne boleyn would in that case, of course, have been only a companion, and elizabeth, claiming through her, a usurper. the question, thus, was very complicated. it branched into extensive ramifications, which opened a wide field of debate, and led to endless controversies. it is not probable, however, that mary queen of scots, or her friends, gave themselves much trouble about the legal points at issue. she and they were all catholics, and it was sufficient for them to know that the holy father at rome had sanctioned the marriage of catharine, and that that marriage, if allowed to stand, made her the queen of england. she was at this time in france. she had been sent there at a very early period of her life, to escape the troubles of her native land, and also to be educated. she was a gentle and beautiful child, and as she grew up amid the gay scenes and festivities of paris, she became a very great favorite, being universally beloved. she married at length, though while she was still quite young, the son of the french king. her young husband became king himself soon afterward, on account of his father's being killed, in a very remarkable manner, at a tournament; and thus mary, queen of scots before, became also queen of france now. all these events, passed over thus very summarily here, are narrated in full detail in the history of mary queen of scots pertaining to this series. while mary was thus residing in france as the wife of the king, she was surrounded by a very large and influential circle, who were catholics like herself, and who were also enemies of elizabeth and of england, and glad to find any pretext for disturbing her reign. these persons brought forward mary's claim. they persuaded mary that she was fairly entitled to the english crown. they awakened her youthful ambition, and excited strong desires in her heart to attain to the high elevation of queen of england. mary at length assumed the title in some of her official acts, and combined the arms of england with those of scotland in the escutcheons with which her furniture and her plate were emblazoned. when queen elizabeth learned that mary was advancing such pretensions to her crown, she was made very uneasy by it. there was, perhaps, no immediate danger, but then there was a very large catholic party in england, and they would naturally espouse mary's cause and they might, at some future time, gather strength so as to make elizabeth a great deal of trouble. she accordingly sent an embassador over to france to remonstrate against mary's advancing these pretensions. but she could get no satisfactory reply. mary would not disavow her claim to elizabeth's crown, nor would she directly assert it. elizabeth, then, knowing that all her danger lay in the power and influence of her own catholic subjects, went to work, very cautiously and warily, but in a very extended and efficient way, to establish the reformation, and to undermine and destroy all traces of catholic power. she proceeded in this work with great circumspection, so as not to excite opposition or alarm. in the mean time, the protestant cause was making progress in scotland too, by its own inherent energies, and against the influence of the government. finally, the scotch protestants organized themselves, and commenced an open rebellion against the regent whom mary had left in power while she was away. they sent to elizabeth to come and aid them. mary and her friends in france sent french troops to assist the government. elizabeth hesitated very much whether to comply with the request of the rebels. it is very dangerous for a sovereign to countenance rebellion in any way. then she shrunk, too, from the expense which she foresaw that such an attempt would involve. to fit out a fleet, and to levy and equip an army, and to continue the forces thus raised in action during a long and uncertain campaign, would cost a large sum of money, and elizabeth was constitutionally economical and frugal. but then, on the other hand, as she deliberated upon the affair long and, anxiously, both alone and with her council, she thought that, if she should so far succeed as to get the government of scotland into her power, she could compel mary to renounce forever all claims to the english crown, by threatening her, if she would not do it, with the loss of her own. finally, she decided on making the attempt. cecil, her wise and prudent counselor, strongly advised it. he said it was far better to carry on the contest with mary and the french in one of their countries than in her own. she began to make preparations. mary and the french government, on learning this, were alarmed in their turn. they sent word to elizabeth that for her to render countenance and aid to rebels in arms against their sovereign, in a sister kingdom, was wholly unjustifiable, and they remonstrated most earnestly against it. besides making this remonstrance, they offered, as an inducement of another kind, that if she would refrain from taking any part in the contest in scotland, they would restore to her the great town and citadel of calais, which her sister had been so much grieved to lose. to this elizabeth replied that, so long as mary adhered to her pretensions to the english crown, she should be compelled to take energetic measures to protect herself from them; and as to calais, the possession of a fishing town on a foreign coast was of no moment to her in comparison with the peace and security of her own realm. this answer did not tend to close the breach. besides the bluntness of the refusal of their offer, the french were irritated and vexed to hear their famous sea-port spoken of so contemptuously. elizabeth accordingly fitted out a fleet and an army, and sent them northward. a french fleet, with re-enforcements for mary's adherents in this contest, set sail from france at about the same time. it was a very important question to be determined which of these two fleets should get first upon the stage of action. [illustration: the firth of forth with leith and edinburgh in the distance.] in the mean time, the protestant party in scotland, or the rebels, as queen mary and her government called them, had had very hard work to maintain their ground. there was a large french force already there, and their co-operation and aid made the government too strong for the insurgents to resist. but, when elizabeth's english army crossed the frontier, the face of affairs was changed. the french forces retreated in their turn. the english army advanced. the scotch protestants came forth from the recesses of the highlands to which they had retreated, and, drawing closer and closer around the french and the government forces, they hemmed them in more and more narrowly, and at last shut them up in the ancient town of leith, to which they retreated in search of a temporary shelter, until the french fleet, with re-enforcements, should arrive. the town of leith is on the shore of the firth of forth, not far from edinburgh. it is the port or landing-place of edinburgh, in approaching it from the sea. it is on the southern shore of the firth, and edinburgh stands on higher land, about two miles south of it. leith was strongly fortified in those days, and the french army felt very secure there, though yet anxiously awaiting the arrival of the fleet which was to release them. the english army advanced in the mean time, eager to get possession of the city before the expected succors should arrive. the english made an assault upon the walls. the french, with desperate bravery, repelled it. the french made a sortie; that is, they rushed out of a sudden and attacked the english lines. the english concentrated their forces at the point attacked, and drove them back again. these struggles continued, both sides very eager for victory, and both watching all the time for the appearance of a fleet in the offing. at length, one day, a cloud of white sails appeared rounding the point of land which forms the southern boundary of the firth, and the french were thrown at once into the highest state of exultation and excitement. but this pleasure was soon turned into disappointment and chagrin by finding that it was elizabeth's fleet, and not theirs, which was coming into view. this ended the contest. the french fleet never arrived. it was dispersed and destroyed by a storm. the besieged army sent out a flag of truce, proposing to suspend hostilities until the terms of a treaty could be agreed upon. the truce was granted. commissioners were appointed on each side. these commissioners met at edinburgh, and agreed upon the terms of a permanent peace. the treaty, which is called in history the treaty of edinburgh, was solemnly signed by the commissioners appointed to make it, and then transmitted to england and to france to be ratified by the respective queens. queen elizabeth's forces and the french forces were then both, as the treaty provided, immediately withdrawn. the dispute, too, between the protestants and the catholics in scotland was also settled, though it is not necessary for our purpose in this narrative to explain particularly in what way. there was one point, however, in the stipulations of this treaty which is of essential importance in this narrative, and that is, that it was agreed that mary should relinquish all claims whatever to the english crown so long as elizabeth lived. this, in fact, was the essential point in the whole transaction. mary, it is true, was not present to agree to it; but the commissioners agreed to it in her name, and it was stipulated that mary should solemnly ratify the treaty as soon as it could be sent to her. but mary would not ratify it--at least so far as this last article was concerned. she said that she had no intention of doing any thing to molest elizabeth in her possession of the throne, but that as to herself, whatever rights might legally and justly belong to her, she could not consent to sign them away. the other articles of the treaty had, however, in the mean time, brought the war to a close, and both the french and english armies were withdrawn. neither party had any inclination to renew the conflict; but yet, so far as the great question between mary and elizabeth was concerned, the difficulty was as far from being settled as ever. in fact, it was in a worse position than before; for, in addition to her other grounds of complaint against mary, elizabeth now charged her with dishonorably refusing to be bound by a compact which had been solemnly made in her name, by agents whom she had fully authorized to make it. it was about this time that mary's husband, the king of france, died, and, after enduring various trials and troubles in france, mary concluded to return to her own realm. she sent to elizabeth to get a safe-conduct--a sort of permission allowing her to pass unmolested through the english seas. elizabeth refused to grant it unless mary would first ratify the treaty of edinburgh. this mary would not do, but undertook, rather, to get home without the permission. elizabeth sent ships to intercept her; but mary's little squadron, when they approached the shore, were hidden by a fog, and so she got safe to land. after this there was _quiet_ between mary and elizabeth for many years, but no peace. chapter viii. elizabeth's lovers. - claimants to the throne.--general character of elizabeth's reign.--elizabeth's suitors.--their motives.--philip of spain proposes.--his strange conduct.--elizabeth declines philip's proposal.--her reasons for so doing.--the english people wish elizabeth to be married.--petition of the parliament.--elizabeth's "gracious" reply.--elizabeth attacked with the small-pox.--alarm of the country.--the earl of leicester.--his character.--services of cecil.--elizabeth's attachment to leicester.--leicester's wife.--her mysterious death.--leicester hated by the people.--various rumors.--the torch-light conversation.--the servants quarrel.--splendid style of living.--public ceremonies.--elizabeth recommends leicester to mary queen of scots.--mary marries darnley.--elizabeth's visit to kenilworth.--leicester's marriage.--elizabeth sends him to prison.--prosperity of elizabeth's reign.--the duke of anjou.--catharine de medici.--she proposes her son to elizabeth.--quarrels of the favorites.--the shot.--the people oppose the match.--the arrangements completed.--the match broken off.--the duke's rage.--the duke's departure.--the farewell. elizabeth was now securely established upon her throne. it is true that mary queen of scots had not renounced her pretensions, but there was no immediate prospect of her making any attempt to realize them, and very little hope for her that she would be successful, if she were to undertake it. there were other claimants, it is true, but their claims were more remote and doubtful than mary's. these conflicting pretensions were likely to make the country some trouble after elizabeth's death, but there was very slight probability that they would sensibly molest elizabeth's possession of the throne during her life-time, though they caused her no little anxiety. the reign which elizabeth thus commenced was one of the longest, most brilliant, and, in many respects, the most prosperous in the whole series presented to our view in the long succession of english sovereigns. elizabeth continued a queen for forty-five years, during all which time she remained a single lady; and she died, at last, a venerable maiden, seventy years of age. it was not for want of lovers, or, rather, of admirers and suitors, that elizabeth lived single all her days. during the first twenty years of her reign, one half of her history is a history of matrimonial schemes and negotiations. it seemed as if all the marriageable princes and potentates of europe were seized, one after another, with a desire to share her seat upon the english throne. they tried every possible means to win her consent. they dispatched embassadors; they opened long negotiations; they sent her ship-loads of the most expensive presents: some of the nobles of high rank in her own realm expended their vast estates, and reduced themselves to poverty, in vain attempts to please her. elizabeth, like any other woman, loved these attentions. they pleased her vanity, and gratified those instinctive impulses of the female heart by which woman is fitted for happiness and love. elizabeth encouraged the hopes of those who addressed her sufficiently to keep them from giving up in despair and abandoning her. and in one or two cases she seemed to come very near yielding. but it always happened that, when the time arrived in which a final decision must be made, ambition and desire of power proved stronger than love, and she preferred continuing to occupy her lofty position by herself, alone. philip of spain, the husband of her sister mary, was the first of these suitors. he had seen elizabeth a good deal in england during his residence there, and had even taken her part in her difficulties with mary, and had exerted his influence to have her released from her confinement. as soon as mary died and elizabeth was proclaimed, one of her first acts was, as was very proper, to send an embassador to flanders to inform the bereaved husband of his loss. it is a curious illustration of the degree and kind of affection that philip had borne to his departed wife, that immediately on receiving intelligence of her death by elizabeth's embassador, he sent a special dispatch to his own embassador in london to make a proposal to elizabeth to take him for _her_ husband! elizabeth decided very soon to decline this proposal. she had ostensible reasons, and real reasons for this. the chief ostensible reason was, that philip was so inveterately hated by all the english people, and elizabeth was extremely desirous of being popular. she relied solely on the loyalty and faithfulness of her protestant subjects to maintain her rights to the succession, and she knew that if she displeased them by such an unpopular catholic marriage, her reliance upon them must be very much weakened. they might even abandon her entirely. the reason, therefore, that she assigned publicly was, that philip was a catholic, and that the connection could not, on that account, be agreeable to the english people. among the real reasons was one of a very peculiar nature. it happened that there was an objection to her marriage with philip similar to the one urged against that of henry with catharine of aragon. catharine had been the wife of henry's brother. philip had been the husband of elizabeth's sister. now philip had offered to procure the pope's dispensation, by which means this difficulty would be surmounted. but then all the world would say, that if this dispensation could legalize the latter marriage, the former must have been legalized by it, and this would destroy the marriage of anne boleyn, and with it all elizabeth's claims to the succession. she could not, then, marry philip, without, by the very act, effectually undermining all her own rights to the throne. she was far too subtle and wary to stumble into such a pitfall as that. elizabeth rejected this and some other offers, and one or two years passed away. in the mean time, the people of the country, though they had no wish to have her marry such a stern and heartless tyrant as philip of spain, were very uneasy at the idea of her not being married at all. her life would, of course, in due time, come to an end, and it was of immense importance to the peace and happiness of the realm that, after her death, there should be no doubt about the succession. if she were to be married and leave children, they would succeed to the throne without question; but if she were to die single and childless, the result would be, they feared, that the catholics would espouse the cause of mary queen of scots, and the protestants that of some protestant descendant of henry vii., and thus the country be involved in all the horrors of a protracted civil war. the house of commons in those days was a very humble council, convened to discuss and settle mere internal and domestic affairs, and standing at a vast distance from the splendor and power of royalty, to which it looked up with the profoundest reverence and awe. the commons, at the close of one of their sessions, ventured, in a very timid and cautious manner, to send a petition to the queen, urging her to consent, for the sake of the future peace of the realm, and the welfare of her subjects, to accept of a husband. few single persons are offended at a recommendation of marriage, if properly offered, from whatever quarter it may come. the queen, in this instance, returned what was called a very gracious reply. she, however, very decidedly refused the request. she said that, as they had been very respectful in the form of their petition, and as they had confined it to general terms, without presuming to suggest either a person or a time, she would not take offense at their well-intended suggestion, but that she had no design of ever being married. at her coronation, she was married, she said, to her people, and the wedding ring was upon her finger still. her people were the objects of all her affection and regard. she should never have any other spouse. she said she should be well contented to have it engraved upon her tomb-stone, "here lies a queen who lived and died a virgin." this answer silenced the commons, but it did not settle the question in the public mind. cases often occur of ladies saying very positively that they shall never consent to be married, and yet afterward altering their minds; and many ladies, knowing how frequently this takes place, sagaciously conclude that, whatever secret resolutions they may form, they will be silent about them, lest they get into a position from which it will be afterward awkward to retreat. the princes of the continent and the nobles of england paid no regard to elizabeth's declaration, but continued to do all in their power to obtain her hand. one or two years afterward elizabeth was attacked with the small-pox, and for a time was dangerously sick, in fact, for some days her life was despaired of, and the country was thrown into a great state of confusion and dismay. parties began to form--the catholics for mary queen of scots, and the protestants for the family of jane grey. every thing portended a dreadful contest. elizabeth, however, recovered; but the country had been so much alarmed at their narrow escape, that parliament ventured once more to address the queen on the subject of her marriage. they begged that she would either consent to that measure, or, if she was finally determined not to do that, that she would cause a law to be passed, or an edict to be promulgated, deciding beforehand who was really to succeed to the throne in the event of her decease. elizabeth would not do either. historians have speculated a great deal upon her motives; all that is certain is the fact, she would not do either. [illustration: portrait of the earl of leicester.] but, though elizabeth thus resisted all the plans formed for giving her a husband, she had, in her own court, a famous personal favorite, who has always been considered as in some sense her lover. his name was originally robert dudley, though she made him earl of leicester, and he is commonly designated in history by this latter name. he was a son of the duke of northumberland, who was the leader of the plot for placing lady jane grey upon the throne in the time of mary. he was a very elegant and accomplished man, and young, though already married. elizabeth advanced him to high offices and honors very early in her reign, and kept him much at court. she made him her master of horse, but she did not bestow upon him much real power. _cecil_ was her great counselor and minister of state. he was a cool, sagacious, wary man, entirely devoted to elizabeth's interests, and to the glory and prosperity of the realm. he was at this time, as has already been stated, forty years of age, thirteen or fourteen years older than elizabeth. elizabeth showed great sagacity in selecting such a minister, and great wisdom in keeping him in power so long. he remained in her service all his life, and died at last, only a few years before elizabeth, when he was nearly eighty years of age. dudley, on the other hand, was just about elizabeth's own age. in fact, it is said by some of the chronicles of the times that he was born on the same day and hour with her. however this may be, he became a great personal favorite, and elizabeth evinced a degree and kind of attachment to him which subjected her to a great deal of censure and reproach. she could not be thinking of him for her husband, it would seem, for he was already married. just about this time, however, a mysterious circumstance occurred, which produced a great deal of excitement, and has ever since marked a very important era in the history of leicester and elizabeth's attachment. it was the sudden and very singular death of leicester's wife. leicester had, among his other estates, a lonely mansion in berkshire, about fifty miles west of london. it was called cumnor house. leicester's wife was sent there, no one knew why; she went under the charge of a gentleman who was one of leicester's dependents, and entirely devoted to his will. the house, too, was occupied by a man who had the character of being ready for any deed which might be required of him by his master. the name of leicester's wife was amy robesart. in a short time news came to london that the unhappy woman was killed by a fall down stairs! the instantaneous suspicion darted at once into every one's mind that she had been murdered. rumors circulated all around the place where the death had occurred that she had been murdered. a conscientious clergyman of the neighborhood sent an account of the case to london, to the queen's ministers, stating the facts, and urging the queen to order an investigation of the affair, but nothing was ever done. it has accordingly been the general belief of mankind since that time, that the unprincipled courtier destroyed his wife in the vain hope of becoming afterward the husband of the queen. the people of england were greatly incensed at this transaction. they had hated leicester before, and they hated him now more inveterately still. favorites are very generally hated; royal favorites always. he, however, grew more and more intimate with the queen, and every body feared that he was going to be her husband. their conduct was watched very closely by all the great world, and, as is usual in such cases, a thousand circumstances and occurrences were reported busily from tongue to tongue, which the actors in them doubtless supposed passed unobserved or were forgotten. one night, for instance, queen elizabeth, having supped with dudley, was going home in her chair, lighted by torch-bearers. at the present day, all london is lighted brilliantly at midnight with gas, and ladies go home from their convivial and pleasure assemblies in luxurious carriages, in which they are rocked gently along through broad and magnificent avenues, as bright, almost, as day. then, however, it was very different. the lady was borne slowly along through narrow, and dingy, and dangerous streets, with a train of torches before and behind her, dispelling the darkness a moment with their glare, and then leaving it more deep and somber than ever. on the night of which we are speaking, elizabeth, feeling in good humor, began to talk with some of the torch-bearers on the way. they were dudley's men, and elizabeth began to praise their master. she said to one of them, among other things, that she was going to raise him to a higher position than any of his name had ever borne before. now, as dudley's father was a duke, which title denotes the highest rank of the english nobility, the man inferred that the queen's meaning was that she intended to marry him, and thus make him a sort of king. the man told the story boastingly to one of the servants of lord arundel, who was also a suitor of the queen's. the servants, each taking the part of his master in the rivalry, quarreled. lord arundel's man said that he wished that dudley had been hung with his father, or else that somebody would shoot him in the street with a _dag_. a dag was, in the language of those days, the name for a pistol. time moved on, and though leicester seemed to become more and more a favorite, the plan of his being married to elizabeth, if any such were entertained by either party, appeared to come no nearer to an accomplishment. elizabeth lived in great state and splendor, sometimes residing in her palaces in or near london, and sometimes making royal progresses about her dominions. dudley, together with the other prominent members of her court, accompanied her on these excursions, and obviously enjoyed a very high degree of personal favor. she encouraged, at the same time, her other suitors, so that on all the great public occasions of state, at the tilts and tournaments, at the plays--which, by-the-way, in those days were performed in the churches--on all the royal progresses and grand receptions at cities, castles, and universities, the lady queen was surrounded always by royal or noble beaux, who made her presents, and paid her a thousand compliments, and offered her gallant attentions without number--all prompted by ambition in the guise of love. they smiled upon the queen with a perpetual sycophancy, and gnashed their teeth secretly upon each other with a hatred which, unlike the pretended love, was at least honest and sincere. leicester was the gayest, most accomplished, and most favored of them all, and the rest accordingly combined and agreed in hating him more than they did each other. queen elizabeth, however, never really admitted that she had any design of making leicester, or dudley, as he is indiscriminately called, her husband. in fact, at one time she recommended him to mary queen of scots for a husband. after mary returned to scotland, the two queens were, for a time, on good terms, as professed friends, though they were, in fact, all the time, most inveterate and implacable foes; but each, knowing how much injury the other might do her, wished to avoid exciting any unnecessary hostility. mary, particularly, as she found she could not get possession of the english throne during elizabeth's life-time, concluded to try to conciliate her, in hopes to persuade her to acknowledge, by act of parliament, her right to the succession after her death. so she used to confer with elizabeth on the subject of her own marriage, and to ask her advice about it. elizabeth did not wish to have mary married at all, and so she always proposed somebody who she knew would be out of the question. she at one time proposed leicester, and for a time seemed quite in earnest about it, especially so long as mary seemed averse to it. at length, however, when mary, in order to test her sincerity, seemed inclined to yield, elizabeth retreated in her turn, and withdrew her proposals. mary then gave up the hope of satisfying elizabeth in any way and married lord darnley without her consent. elizabeth's regard for dudley, however, still continued. she made him earl of leicester, and granted him the magnificent castle of kenilworth, with a large estate adjoining and surrounding it; the rents of the lands giving him a princely income, and enabling him to live in almost royal state. queen elizabeth visited him frequently in this castle. one of these visits is very minutely described by the chroniclers of the times. the earl made the most expensive and extraordinary preparations for the reception and entertainment of the queen and her retinue on this occasion. the moat--which is a broad canal filled with water surrounding the castle--had a floating island upon it, with a fictitious personage whom they called the lady of the lake upon the island, who sung a song in praise of elizabeth as she passed the bridge. there was also an artificial dolphin swimming upon the water, with a band of musicians within it. as the queen advanced across the park, men and women, in strange disguises, came out to meet her, and to offer her salutations and praises. one was dressed as a sibyl, another like an american savage, and a third, who was concealed, represented an echo. this visit was continued for nineteen days, and the stories of the splendid entertainments provided for the company--the plays, the bear-baitings, the fireworks, the huntings, the mock fights, the feastings and revelries--filled all europe at the time, and have been celebrated by historians and story-tellers ever since. the castle of kenilworth is now a very magnificent heap of ruins, and is explored every year by thousands of visitors from every quarter of the globe. leicester, if he ever really entertained any serious designs of being elizabeth's husband at last gave up his hopes, and married another woman. this lady had been the wife of the earl of essex. her husband died very suddenly and mysteriously just before leicester married her. leicester kept the marriage secret for some time, and when it came at last to the queen's knowledge she was exceedingly angry. she had him arrested and sent to prison. however, she gradually recovered from her fit of resentment, and by degrees restored him to her favor again. twenty years of elizabeth's reign thus passed away, and no one of all her suitors had succeeded in obtaining her hand. all this time her government had been administered with much efficiency and power. all europe had been in great commotion during almost the whole period, on account of the terrible conflicts which were raging between the catholics and the protestants, each party having been doing its utmost to exterminate and destroy the other. elizabeth and her government took part, very frequently, in these contests; sometimes by negotiations, and sometimes by fleets and armies, but always sagaciously and cautiously, and generally with great effect. in the mean time, however, the queen, being now forty-five years of age, was rapidly approaching the time when questions of marriage could no longer be entertained. her lovers, or, rather, her suitors, had, one after another, given up the pursuit, and disappeared from the field. one only seemed at length to remain, on the decision of whose fate the final result of the great question of the queen's marriage seemed to be pending. it was the duke of anjou. he was a french prince. his brother, who had been the duke of anjou before him, was now king henry iii. of france. his own name was francis. he was twenty five years younger than elizabeth, and he was only seventeen years of age when it was first proposed that he should marry her. he was then duke of alençon. it was his mother's plan. she was the great catharine de medici, queen of france, and one of the most extraordinary women, for her talents, her management, and her power, that ever lived. having one son upon the throne of france, she wanted the throne of england for the other. the negotiation had been pending fruitlessly for many years, and now, in , it was vigorously renewed. the duke himself, who was at this time a young man of twenty-four or five, began to be impatient and earnest in his suit. there was, in fact, one good reason why he should be so. elizabeth was forty-eight, and, unless the match were soon concluded, the time for effecting it would be obviously forever gone by. [illustration: the barges on the river.] he had never had an interview with the queen. he had seen pictures of her, however, and he sent an embassador over to england to urge his suit, and to convince elizabeth how much he was in love with her charms. the name of this agent was simier. he was a very polite and accomplished man, and soon learned the art of winning his way to elizabeth's favor. leicester was very jealous of his success. the two favorites soon imbibed a terrible enmity for each other. they filled the court with their quarrels. the progress of the negotiation, however, went on, the people taking sides very violently, some for and some against the projected marriage. the animosities became exceedingly virulent, until at length simier's life seemed to be in danger. he said that leicester had hired one of the guards to assassinate him; and it is a fact, that one day, as he and the queen, with other attendants, were making an excursion upon the river, a shot was fired from the shore into the barge. the shot did no injury except to wound one of the oarsmen, and frighten all the party pretty thoroughly. some thought the shot was aimed at simier, and others at the queen herself. it was afterward proved, or supposed to be proved, that this shot was the accidental discharge of a gun, without any evil intention whatever. in the mean time, elizabeth grew more and more interested in the idea of having the young duke for her husband; and it seemed as if the maidenly resolutions, which had stood their ground so firmly for twenty years, were to be conquered at last. the more, however, she seemed to approach toward a consent to the measure, the more did all the officers of her government, and the nation at large, oppose it. there were, in their minds, two insuperable objections to the match. the candidate was a frenchman, and he was a papist. the council interceded. friends remonstrated. the nation murmured and threatened. a book was published entitled "the discovery of a gaping gulf wherein england is like to be swallowed up by another french marriage, unless the lord forbid the bans by letting her see the sin and punishment thereof." the author of it had his right hand cut off for his punishment. at length, after a series of most extraordinary discussions, negotiations, and occurrences, which kept the whole country in a state of great excitement for a long time, the affair was at last all settled. the marriage articles, both political and personal, were all arranged. the nuptials were to be celebrated in six weeks. the duke came over in great state, and was received with all possible pomp and parade. festivals and banquets were arranged without number, and in the most magnificent style, to do him and his attendants honor. at one of them, the queen took off a ring from her finger, and put it upon his, in the presence of a great assembly, which was the first announcement to the public that the affair was finally settled. the news spread every where with great rapidity. it produced in england great consternation and distress, but on the continent it was welcomed with joy, and the great english alliance, now so obviously approaching, was celebrated with ringing of bells, bonfires, and grand illuminations. and yet, notwithstanding all this, as soon as the obstacles were all removed, and there was no longer opposition to stimulate the determination of the queen, her heart failed her at last, and she finally concluded that she would not be married, after all. she sent for the duke one morning to come and see her. what takes place precisely between ladies and gentlemen when they break off their engagements is not generally very publicly known, but the duke came out from this interview in a fit of great vexation and anger. he pulled off the queen's ring and threw it from him, muttering curses upon the fickleness and faithlessness of women. still elizabeth would not admit that the match was broken off. she continued to treat the duke with civility and to pay him many honors. he decided, however, to return to the continent. she accompanied him a part of the way to the coast, and took leave of him with many professions of sorrow at the parting, and begged him to come back soon. this he promised to do, but he never returned. he lived some time afterward in comparative neglect and obscurity, and mankind considered the question of the marriage of elizabeth as now, at last, settled forever. chapter ix. personal character. - opinions of elizabeth's character.--the catholics and protestants.--parties in england.--elizabeth's wise administration.--mary claims the english throne.--she is made prisoner by elizabeth.--various plots.--execution of mary.--the impossibility of settling the claims of mary and elizabeth.--elizabeth's duplicity.--her scheming to entrap mary.--maiden ladies.--their benevolent spirit.--elizabeth's selfishness and jealousy.--the maids of honor.--instance of elizabeth's cruelty.--her irritable temper.--leicester's friend and the gentleman of the black rod.--elizabeth in a rage.--her invectives against leicester.--leicester's chagrin.--elizabeth's powers of satire.--elizabeth's views of marriage.--her insulting conduct.--the dean of christ church and the prayer book.--elizabeth's good qualities.--her courage.--the shot at the barge.--elizabeth's vanity.--elizabeth and the embassador.--the pictures.--elizabeth's fondness for pomp and parade.--summary of elizabeth's character. mankind have always been very much divided in opinion in respect to the personal character of queen elizabeth, but in one point all have agreed, and that is, that in the management of public affairs she was a woman of extraordinary talent and sagacity, combining, in a very remarkable degree, a certain cautious good sense and prudence with the most determined resolution and energy. she reigned about forty years, and during almost all that time the whole western part of the continent of europe was convulsed with the most terrible conflicts between the protestant and catholic parties. the predominance of power was with the catholics, and was, of course, hostile to elizabeth. she had, moreover, in the field a very prominent competitor for her throne in mary queen of scots. the foreign protestant powers were ready to aid this claimant, and there was, besides, in her own dominions a very powerful interest in her favor. the great divisions of sentiment in england, and the energy with which each party struggled against its opponents, produced, at all times, a prodigious pressure of opposing forces, which bore heavily upon the safety of the state and of elizabeth's government, and threatened them with continual danger. the administration of public affairs moved on, during all this time, trembling continually under the heavy shocks it was constantly receiving, like a ship staggering on in a storm, its safety depending on the nice equilibrium between the shocks of the seas, the pressure of the wind upon the sails, and the weight and steadiness of the ballast below. during all this forty years it is admitted that elizabeth and her wise and sagacious ministers managed very admirably. they maintained the position and honor of england, as a protestant power, with great success; and the country, during the whole period, made great progress in the arts, in commerce, and in improvements of every kind. elizabeth's greatest danger, and her greatest source of solicitude during her whole reign, was from the claims of mary queen of scots. we have already described the energetic measures which she took at the commencement of her reign to counter act and head off, at the outset, these dangerous pretensions. though these efforts were triumphantly successful at the time, still the victory was not final. it postponed, but did not destroy, the danger. mary continued to claim the english throne. innumerable plots were beginning to be formed among the catholics, in elizabeth's own dominions, for making her queen. foreign potentates and powers were watching an opportunity to assist in these plans. at last mary, on account of internal difficulties in her own land, fled across the frontier into england to save her life, and elizabeth made her prisoner. in england, to plan or design the dethronement of a monarch is, in a _subject_, high treason. mary had undoubtedly designed the dethronement of elizabeth, and was waiting only an opportunity to accomplish it. elizabeth, consequently, condemned her as guilty of treason, in effect; and mary's sole defense against this charge was that she was not a subject. elizabeth yielded to this plea, when she first found mary in her power, so far as not to take her life, but she consigned her to a long and weary captivity. this, however, only made the matter worse. it stimulated the enthusiasm and zeal of all the catholics in england, to have their leader, and as they believed, their rightful queen, a captive in the midst of them, and they formed continually the most extensive and most dangerous plots. these plots were discovered and suppressed, one after another, each one producing more anxiety and alarm than the preceding. for a time mary suffered no evil consequences from these discoveries further than an increase of the rigors of her confinement. at last the patience of the queen and of her government was exhausted. a law was passed against treason, expressed in such terms as to include mary in the liability for its dreadful penalties although she was not a subject, in case of any new transgression; and when the next case occurred, they brought her to trial and condemned her to death. the sentence was executed in the gloomy castle of fotheringay, where she was then confined. as to the question whether mary or elizabeth had the rightful title to the english crown, it has not only never been settled, but from its very nature it can not be settled. it is one of those cases in which a peculiar contingency occurs which runs beyond the scope and reach of all the ordinary principles by which analogous cases are tried, and leads to questions which can not be decided. as long as a hereditary succession goes smoothly on, like a river keeping within its banks, we can decide subordinate and incidental questions which may arise; but when a case occurs in which we have the omnipotence of parliament to set off against the infallibility of the pope--the sacred obligations of a will against the equally sacred principles of hereditary succession--and when we have, at last, two contradictory actions of the same ultimate umpire, we find all _technical_ grounds of coming to a conclusion gone. we then, abandoning these, seek for some higher and more universal principles--essential in the nature of things, and thus independent of the will and action of man--to see if they will throw any light on the subject. but we soon find ourselves as much perplexed and confounded in this inquiry as we were before. we ask, in beginning the investigation, what is the ground and nature of the right by which _any king or queen_ succeeds to the power possessed by his ancestors? and we give up in despair, not being able to answer even this first preliminary inquiry. mankind have not, in their estimate of elizabeth's character, condemned so decidedly the substantial acts which she performed, as the duplicity, the false-heartedness, and the false pretensions which she manifested in performing them. had she said frankly and openly to mary before the world, if these schemes for revolutionizing england and placing yourself upon the throne continue, your life must be forfeited, my own safety and the safety of the realm absolutely demand it; and then had fairly, and openly, and honestly executed her threat, mankind would have been silent on the subject, if they had not been satisfied. but if she had really acted thus, she would not have been elizabeth. she, in fact, pursued a very different course. she maneuvered, schemed, and planned; she pretended to be full of the warmest affection for her cousin; she contrived plot after plot, and scheme after scheme, to ensnare her; and when, at last, the execution took place, in obedience to her own formal and written authority, she pretended to great astonishment and rage. she never meant that the sentence should take effect. she filled england, france, and scotland with the loud expressions of her regret, and she punished the agents who had executed her will. this management was to prevent the friends of mary from forming plans of revenge. this was her character in all things. she was famous for her false pretensions and double dealings, and yet, with all her talents and sagacity, the disguise she assumed was sometimes so thin and transparent that her assuming it was simply ridiculous. maiden ladies, who spend their lives, in some respects, alone, often become deeply imbued with a kind and benevolent spirit, which seeks its gratification in relieving the pains and promoting the happiness of all around them. conscious that the circumstances which have caused them to lead a single life would secure for them the sincere sympathy and the increased esteem of all who know them, if delicacy and propriety allowed them to be expressed, they feel a strong degree of self-respect, they live happily, and are a continual means of comfort and joy to all around them. this was not so, however, with elizabeth. she was jealous, petulant, irritable. she envied others the love and the domestic enjoyments which ambition forbade her to share, and she seemed to take great pleasure in thwarting and interfering with the plans of others for securing this happiness. one remarkable instance of this kind occurred. it seems she was sometimes accustomed to ask the young ladies of the court--her maids of honor--if they ever thought about being married, and they, being cunning enough to know what sort of an answer would please the queen always promptly denied that they did so. oh no! they never thought about being married at all. there was one young lady, however, artless and sincere, who, when questioned in this way, answered, in her simplicity, that she often thought of it, and that she should like to be married very much, if her father would only consent to her union with a certain gentleman whom she loved. "ah!" said elizabeth; "well, i will speak to your father about it, and see what i can do." not long after this the father of the young lady came to court, and the queen proposed the subject to him. the father said that he had not been aware that his daughter had formed such an attachment, but that he should certainly give his consent, without any hesitation, to any arrangement of that kind which the queen desired and advised. "that is all, then," said the queen; "i will do the rest." so she called the young lady into her presence, and told her that her father had given his free consent. the maiden's heart bounded with joy, and she began to express her happiness and her gratitude to the queen, promising to do every thing in her power to please her, when elizabeth interrupted her, saying, "yes, you will act so as to please me, i have no doubt, but you are not going to be a fool and get married. your father has given his consent to _me_, and not to you, and you may rely upon it you will never get it out of my possession. you were pretty bold to acknowledge your foolishness to me so readily." elizabeth was very irritable, and could never bear any contradiction. in the case even of leicester, who had such an unbounded influence over her, if he presumed a little too much he would meet sometimes a very severe rebuff, such as nobody but a courtier would endure; but courtiers, haughty and arrogant as they are in their bearing toward inferiors, are generally fawning sycophants toward those above them, and they will submit to any thing imaginable from a _queen_. it was the custom in elizabeth's days, as it is now among the great in european countries, to have a series or suite of rooms, one beyond the other, the inner one being the presence chamber, and the others being occupied by attendants and servants of various grades, to regulate and control the admission of company. some of these officers were styled _gentlemen of the black rod_, that name being derived from a peculiar badge of authority which they were accustomed to carry. it happened, one day, that a certain gay captain, a follower of leicester's, and a sort of favorite of his, was stopped in the antechamber by one of the gentlemen of the black rod, named bowyer, the queen having ordered him to be more careful and particular in respect to the admission of company. the captain, who was proud of the favor which he enjoyed with leicester, resented this affront, and threatened the officer, and he was engaged in an altercation with him on the subject when leicester came in. leicester took his favorite's part, and told the gentleman usher that he was a knave, and that he would have him turned out of office. leicester was accustomed to feel so much confidence in his power over elizabeth, that his manner toward all beneath him had become exceedingly haughty and overbearing. he supposed, probably, that the officer would humble himself at once before his rebukes. the officer, however, instead of this, stepped directly in before leicester, who was then going in himself to the presence of the queen; kneeled before her majesty, related the facts of the case, and humbly asked what it was her pleasure that he should do. he had obeyed her majesty's orders, he said, and had been called imperiously to account for it, and threatened violently by leicester, and he wished now to know whether leicester was king or her majesty queen. elizabeth was very much displeased with the conduct of her favorite. she turned to him, and, beginning with a sort of oath which she was accustomed to use when irritated and angry, she addressed him in invectives and reproaches the most severe. she gave him, in a word, what would be called a scolding, were it not that scolding is a term not sufficiently dignified for history, even for such humble history as this. she told him that she had indeed shown him favor, but her favor was not so fixed and settled upon him that nobody else was to have any share, and that if he imagined that he could lord it over her household, she would contrive a way very soon to convince him of his mistake. there was one mistress to rule there, she said, but no _master_. she then dismissed bowyer, telling leicester that, if any evil happened to him, she should hold him, that is, leicester, to a strict account for it, as she should be convinced it would have come through his means. leicester was exceedingly chagrined at this result of the difficulty. of course he dared not defend himself or reply. all the other courtiers enjoyed his confusion very highly, and one of them, in giving an account of the affair, said, in conclusion, that "the queen's words so quelled him, that, for some time after, his feigned humility was one of his best virtues." queen elizabeth very evidently possessed that peculiar combination of quickness of intellect and readiness of tongue which enables those who possess it to say very sharp and biting things, when vexed or out of humor. it is a brilliant talent, though it always makes those who possess it hated and feared. elizabeth was often wantonly cruel in the exercise of this satirical power, considering very little--as is usually the case with such persons--the justice of her invectives, but obeying blindly the impulses of the ill nature which prompted her to utter them. we have already said that she seemed always to have a special feeling of ill will against marriage and every thing that pertained to it, and she had, particularly, a theory that the bishops and the clergy ought not to be married. she could not absolutely prohibit their marrying, but she did issue an injunction forbidding any of the heads of the colleges or cathedrals to take their wives into the same, or any of their precincts. at one time, in one of her royal progresses through the country, she was received, and very magnificently and hospitably entertained, by the archbishop of canterbury, at his palace. the archbishop's wife exerted herself very particularly to please the queen and to do her honor. elizabeth evinced her gratitude by turning to her, as she was about to take her leave, and saying that she could not call her the archbishop's wife, and did not like to call her his mistress, and so she did not know what to call her; but that, at all events, she was very much obliged to her for her hospitality. elizabeth's highest officers of state were continually exposed to her sharp and sudden reproaches, and they often incurred them by sincere and honest efforts to gratify and serve her. she had made an arrangement, one day, to go into the city of london to st. paul's church, to hear the dean of christ church, a distinguished clergyman, preach. the dean procured a copy of the prayer book, and had it splendidly bound, with a great number of beautiful and costly prints interleaved in it. these prints were all of a religious character, being representations of sacred history, or of scenes in the lives of the saints. the volume, thus prepared, was very beautiful, and it was placed, when the sabbath morning arrived, upon the queen's cushion at the church, ready for her use. the queen entered in great state, and took her seat in the midst of all the parade and ceremony customary on such occasions. as soon, however, as she opened the book and saw the pictures, she frowned, and seemed to be much displeased. she shut the book and put it away, and called for her own; and, after the service, she sent for the dean, and asked him who brought that book there. he replied, in a very humble and submissive manner, that he had procured it himself, having intended it as a present for her majesty. this only produced fresh expressions of displeasure. she proceeded to rebuke him severely for countenancing such a popish practice as the introduction of pictures in the churches. all this time elizabeth had herself a crucifix in her own private chapel, and the dean himself, on the other hand, was a firm and consistent protestant, entirely opposed to the catholic system of images and pictures, as elizabeth very well knew. this sort of roughness was a somewhat masculine trait of character for a lady, it must be acknowledged, and not a very agreeable one, even in man; but with some of the bad qualities of the other sex, elizabeth possessed, also, some that were good. she was courageous, and she evinced her courage sometimes in a very noble manner. at one time, when political excitement ran very high, her friends thought that there was serious danger in her appearing openly in public, and they urged her not to do it, but to confine herself within her palaces for a time, until the excitement should pass away. but no; the representations made to her produced no effect. she said she would continue to go out just as freely as ever. she did not think that there was really any danger; and besides, if there was, she did not care; she would rather take her chance of being killed than to be kept shut up like a prisoner. at the time, too, when the shot was fired at the barge in which she was going down the thames, many of her ministers thought it was aimed at her. they endeavored to convince her of this, and urged her not to expose herself to such dangers. she replied that she did not believe that the shot was aimed at her; and that, in fact, she would not believe any thing of her subjects which a father would not be willing to believe of his own children. so she went on sailing in her barge just as before. [illustration: portrait of queen elizabeth.] elizabeth was very vain of her beauty, though, unfortunately, she had very little beauty to be vain of. nothing pleased her so much as compliments. she sometimes almost exacted them. at one time, when a distinguished embassador from mary queen of scots was at her court, she insisted on his telling her whether she or mary was the most beautiful. when we consider that elizabeth was at this time over thirty years of age, and mary only twenty-two, and that the fame of mary's loveliness had filled the world, it must be admitted that this question indicated a considerable degree of self-complacency. the embassador had the prudence to attempt to evade the inquiry. he said at first that they were both beautiful enough. but elizabeth wanted to know, she said, which was _most_ beautiful. the embassador then said that his queen was the most beautiful queen in scotland and elizabeth in england. elizabeth was not satisfied with this, but insisted on a definite answer to her question; and the embassador said at last that elizabeth had the fairest complexion, though mary was considered a very lovely woman. elizabeth then wanted to know which was the tallest of the two. the embassador said that mary was. "then," said elizabeth, "she is too tall, for i am just of the right height myself." at one time during elizabeth's reign, the people took a fancy to engrave and print portraits of her, which, being perhaps tolerably faithful to the original, were not very alluring. the queen was much vexed at the circulation of these prints, and finally she caused a grave and formal proclamation to be issued against them. in this proclamation it was stated that it was the intention of the queen, at some future time, to have a proper artist employed to execute a correct and true portrait of herself, which should then be published; and, in the mean time, all persons were forbidden to make or sell any representations of her whatever. elizabeth was extremely fond of pomp and parade. the magnificence and splendor of the celebrations and festivities which characterized her reign have scarcely ever been surpassed in any country or in any age. she once went to attend church, on a particular occasion, accompanied by a thousand men in full armor of steel, and ten pieces of cannon, with drums and trumpets sounding. she received her foreign embassadors with military spectacles and shows, and with banquets and parties of pleasure, which for many days kept all london in a fever of excitement. sometimes she made excursions on the river, with whole fleets of boats and barges in her train; the shores, on such occasions, swarming with spectators, and waving with flags and banners. sometimes she would make grand progresses through her dominions, followed by an army of attendants--lords and ladies dressed and mounted in the most costly manner--and putting the nobles whose seats she visited to a vast expense in entertaining such a crowd of visitors. being very saving of her own means, she generally contrived to bring the expense of this magnificence upon others. the honor was a sufficient equivalent. or, if it was not, nobody dared to complain. to sum up all, elizabeth was very great, and she was, at the same time, very little. littleness and greatness mingled in her character in a manner which has scarcely ever been paralleled, except by the equally singular mixture of admiration and contempt with which mankind have always regarded her. chapter x. the invincible armada. - fierce contests between catholics and protestants.--philip's cruelty.--effects of war.--napoleon and xerxes.--march of improvement.--spanish armadas.--the low countries.--their situation and condition.--embassage from the low countries.--their proposition.--elizabeth's decision.--leicester and drake.--leicester sets out for the low countries.--his reception.--leicester's elation.--elizabeth's displeasure.--drake's success.--his deeds of cruelty.--drake's expedition in .--execution of doughty.--straits of magellan.--drake plunders the spaniards.--chase of the cacofogo.--drake captures her.--drake's escape by going round the world.--character of drake.--philip demands the treasure.--alarming news.--elizabeth's navy.--drake's expedition against the spaniards.--his bold stroke.--exasperation of philip.--his preparations.--elizabeth's preparations.--the army and navy.--elizabeth reviews the troops.--her speech.--elizabeth's energy.--approach of the armada.--a grand spectacle.--a singular fight.--defeat of the armada.--a remnant escapes. thirty years of queen elizabeth's reign passed away. during all this time the murderous contests between the catholic governments of france and spain and their protestant subjects went on with terrible energy. philip of spain was the great leader and head of the catholic powers, and he prosecuted his work of exterminating heresy with the sternest and most merciless determination. obstinate and protracted wars, cruel tortures, and imprisonments and executions without number, marked his reign. notwithstanding all this, however, strange as it may seem, the country increased in population, wealth, and prosperity. it is, after all, but a very small proportion of fifty millions of people which the most cruel monster of a tyrant can kill, even if he devotes himself fully to the work. the natural deaths among the vast population within the reach of philip's power amounted, probably, to two millions every year; and if he destroyed ten thousand every year, it was only adding one death by violence to _two hundred_ produced by accidents, disasters, or age. dreadful as are the atrocities of persecution and war, and vast and incalculable as are the encroachments on human happiness which they produce, we are often led to overrate their relative importance, compared with the aggregate value of the interests and pursuits which are left unharmed by them, by not sufficiently appreciating the enormous extent and magnitude of these interests and pursuits in such communities as england, france, and spain. sometimes, it is true, the operations of military heroes have been on such a prodigious scale as to make very serious inroads on the population of the greatest states. napoleon for instance, on one occasion took five hundred thousand men out of france for his expedition to russia. the campaign destroyed nearly all of them. it was only a very insignificant fraction of the vast army that ever returned. by this transaction, napoleon thus just about doubled the annual mortality in france at a single blow. xerxes enjoys the glory of having destroyed about a million of men--and these, not enemies, but countrymen, followers, and friends--in the same way, on a single expedition. such vast results, however, were not attained in the conflicts which marked the reigns of elizabeth and philip of spain. notwithstanding the long-protracted international wars, and dreadful civil commotions of the period, the world went on increasing in wealth and population, and all the arts and improvements of life made very rapid progress. america had been discovered, and the way to the east indies had been opened to european ships, and the spaniards, the portuguese, the dutch, the english, and the french, had fleets of merchant vessels and ships of war in every sea. the spaniards, particularly, had acquired great possessions in america, which contained very rich mines of gold and silver, and there was a particular kind of vessels called _galleons_, which went regularly once a year, under a strong convoy, to bring home the treasure. they used to call these fleets _armada_, which is the spanish word denoting an armed squadron. nations at war with spain always made great efforts to intercept and seize these ships on their homeward voyages, when, being laden with gold and silver, they became prizes of the highest value. things were in this state about the year , when queen elizabeth received a proposition from the continent of europe which threw her into great perplexity. among the other dominions of philip of spain, there were certain states situated in the broad tract of low, level land which lies northeast of france, and which constitutes, at the present day, the countries of holland and belgium. this territory was then divided into several provinces, which were called, usually, the low countries, on account of the low and level situation of the land. in fact, there are vast tracts of land bordering the shore, which lie so low that dikes have to be built to keep out the sea. in these cases, there are lines of windmills, of great size and power, all along the coast, whose vast wings are always slowly revolving, to pump out the water which percolates through the dikes, or which flows from the water-courses after showers of rain. the low countries were very unwilling to submit to the tyrannical government which philip exercised over them. the inhabitants were generally protestants, and philip persecuted them cruelly. they were, in consequence of this, continually rebelling against his authority, and elizabeth secretly aided them in these struggles, though she would not openly assist them, as she did not wish to provoke philip to open war. she wished them success, however, for she knew very well that if philip could once subdue his protestant subjects at home, he would immediately turn his attention to england, and perhaps undertake to depose elizabeth, and place some catholic prince or princess upon the throne in her stead. things were in this state in , when the confederate provinces of the low countries sent an embassage to elizabeth, offering her the government of the country as sovereign queen, if she would openly espouse their cause and protect them from philip's power. this proposition called for very serious and anxious consideration. elizabeth felt very desirous to make this addition to her dominions on its own account, and besides, she saw at once that such an acquisition would give her a great advantage in her future contests with philip, if actual war must come. but then, on the other hand, by accepting the proposition, war must necessarily be brought on at once. philip would, in fact, consider her espousing the cause of his rebellious subjects as an actual declaration of war on her part, so that making such a league with these countries would plunge her at once into hostilities with the greatest and most extended power on the globe. elizabeth was very unwilling thus to precipitate the contest; but then, on the other hand, she wished very much to avoid the danger that threatened, of philip's first subduing his own dominions, and then advancing to the invasion of england with his undivided strength. she finally concluded not to accept the sovereignty of the countries, but to make a league, offensive and defensive, with the governments, and to send out a fleet and an army to aid them. this, as she had expected, brought on a general war. the queen commissioned leicester to take command of the forces which were to proceed to holland and the netherlands; she also equipped a fleet, and placed it under the command of sir francis drake, a very celebrated naval captain, to proceed across the atlantic and attack the spanish possessions on the american shores. leicester was extremely elated with his appointment, and set off on his expedition with great pomp and parade. he had not generally, during his life, held stations of any great trust or responsibility. the queen had conferred upon him high titles and vast estates, but she had confided all real power to far more capable and trustworthy hands. she thought however, perhaps, that leicester would answer for her allies; so she gave him his commission and sent him forth, charging him, with many injunctions, as he went away, to be discreet and faithful, and to do nothing which should compromise, in any way, her interests or honor. it will, perhaps, be recollected that leicester's wife had been, before her marriage with him, the wife of a nobleman named the earl of essex. she had a son, who, at his father's death, succeeded to the title. this young essex accompanied leicester on this occasion. his subsequent adventures, which were romantic and extraordinary, will be narrated in the next chapter. the people of the netherlands, being extremely desirous to please elizabeth, their new ally, thought that they could not honor the great general she had sent them too highly. they received him with most magnificent military parades, and passed a vote in their assembly investing him with absolute authority as head of the government, thus putting him, in fact, in the very position which elizabeth had herself declined receiving. leicester was extremely pleased and elated with these honors. he was king all but in name. he provided himself with a noble life-guard, in imitation of royalty, and assumed all the state and airs of a monarch. things went on so very prosperously with him for a short time, until he was one day thunderstruck by the appearance at his palace of a nobleman from the queen's court, named heneage, who brought him a letter from elizabeth which was in substance as follows: "how foolishly, and with what contempt of my authority, i think you have acted, the messenger i now send to you will explain. i little imagined that a man whom i had raised from the dust, and treated with so much favor, would have forgotten all his obligations, and acted in such a manner. i command you now to put yourself entirely under the direction of this messenger, to do in all things precisely as he requires, upon pain of further peril." leicester humbled himself immediately under this rebuke, sent home most ample apologies and prayers for forgiveness, and, after a time, gradually recovered the favor of the queen. he soon, however, became very unpopular in the netherlands. grievous complaints were made against him, and he was at length recalled. drake was more successful. he was a bold, undaunted, and energetic seaman, but unprincipled and merciless. he manned and equipped his fleet, and set sail toward the spanish possessions in america. he attacked the colonies, sacked the towns, plundered the inhabitants, intercepted the ships, and searched them for silver and gold. in a word, he did exactly what pirates are hung for doing, and execrated afterward by all mankind. but, as queen elizabeth gave him permission to perform these exploits, he has always been applauded by mankind as a hero. we would not be understood as denying that there is any difference between burning and plundering innocent towns and robbing ships, whether there is or is not a governmental permission to commit these crimes. there certainly is a difference. it only seems to us surprising that there should be so great a difference as is made by the general estimation of mankind. drake, in fact, had acquired a great and honorable celebrity for such deeds before this time, by a similar expedition, several years before, in which he had been driven to make the circumnavigation of the globe. england and spain were then nominally at peace, and the expedition was really in pursuit of prizes and plunder. drake took five vessels with him on this his first expedition, but they were all very small. the largest was only a vessel of one hundred tons, while the ships which are now built are often of _three thousand_. with this little fleet drake set sail boldly, and crossed the atlantic, being fifty-five days out of sight of land. he arrived at last on the coast of south america, and then turned his course southward, toward the straits of magellan. two of his vessels, he found, were so small as to be of very little service; so he shipped the men on board the others, and turned the two adrift. when he got well into the southern seas, he charged his chief mate, whose name was doughty, with some offense against the discipline of his little fleet, and had him condemned to death. he was executed at the straits of magellan--beheaded. before he died, the unhappy convict had the sacrament administered to him, drake himself partaking of it with him. it was said, and believed at the time, that the charge against doughty was only a pretense, and that the real cause of his death was that leicester had agreed with drake to kill him when far away, on account of his having assisted, with others, in spreading the reports that leicester had murdered the earl of essex, the former husband of his wife. the little squadron passed through the straits of magellan, and then encountered a dreadful storm, which separated the ships, and drove them several hundred miles to the westward, over the then boundless and trackless waters of the pacific ocean. drake himself afterward recovered the shore with his own ship alone, and moved northward. he found spanish ships and spanish merchants every where, who, not dreaming of the presence of an english enemy in those distant seas, were entirely secure; and they fell, one after another, a very easy prey. the very extraordinary story is told of his finding, in one place, a spaniard asleep upon the shore, waiting, perhaps, for a boat, with thirty bars of silver by his side, of great weight and value, which drake and his men seized and carried off, without so much as waking the owner. in one harbor which he entered he found three ships, from which the seamen had all gone ashore, leaving the vessels completely unguarded, so entirely unconscious were they of any danger near. drake broke into the cabins of these ships, and found fifty or sixty wedges of pure silver there, of twenty pounds each. in this way, as he passed along the coast, he collected an immense treasure in silver and gold, both coin and bullion, without having to strike a blow for it. at last he heard of a very rich ship, called the cacofogo, which had recently sailed for panama, to which place they were taking the treasure, in order that it might be transported across the isthmus, and so taken home to spain; for, before drake's voyage, scarcely a single vessel had ever passed round cape horn. the ships which he had plundered had been all built upon the coast, by spaniards who had come across the country at the isthmus of darien, and were to be used only to transport the treasure northward, where it could be taken across to the gulf of mexico. drake gave chase to the cacofogo. at last he came near enough to fire into her, and one of his first shots cut away her foremast and disabled her. he soon captured the ship, and he found immense riches on board. besides pearls and precious stones of great value, there were eighty pounds of gold, thirteen chests of silver coin, and silver enough in bars "to ballast a ship." drake's vessel was now richly laden with treasures, but in the mean time the news of his plunderings had gone across the continent, and some spanish ships of war had gone south to intercept him at the straits of magellan on his return. in this dilemma, the adventurous sailor conceived of the sublime idea of avoiding them by going _round the world_ to get home. he pushed boldly forward, therefore, across the pacific ocean to the east indies, thence through the indian ocean to the cape of good hope, and, after three years from the time he left england, he returned to it safely again, his ship loaded with the plundered silver and gold. as soon as he arrived in the thames, the whole world flocked to see the little ship that had performed all these wonders. the vessel was drawn up alongside the land, and a bridge made to it, and, after the treasure was taken out, it was given up, for some time, to banquetings and celebrations of every kind. the queen took possession of all the treasure, saying that philip might demand it, and she be forced to make restitution, for it must be remembered that all this took place several years before the war. she, however, treated the successful sailor with every mark of consideration and honor; she went herself on board his ship, and partook of an entertainment there, conferring the honor of knighthood, at the same time, on the admiral, so that "sir francis drake" was thenceforth his proper title. if the facts already stated do not give sufficient indications of the kind of character which in those days made a naval hero, one other circumstance may be added. at one time during this voyage, a spaniard, whose ship drake had spared, made him a present of a beautiful negro girl. drake kept her on board his ship for a time, and then sent her ashore on some island that he was passing, and inhumanly abandoned her there, to become a mother among strangers, utterly friendless and alone. it must be added, however, in justice to the rude men among whom this wild buccaneer lived, that, though they praised all his other deeds of violence and wrong, this atrocious cruelty was condemned. it had the effect, even in those days, of tarnishing his fame. philip did claim the money, but elizabeth found plenty of good excuses for not paying it over to him. this celebrated expedition occupied more than three years. going round the world is a long journey. the arrival of the ship in london took place in , four years before the war actually broke out between england and spain, which was in ; and it was in consequence of the great celebrity which drake had acquired in this and similar excursions, that when at last hostilities commenced, he was put in command of the naval preparations. it was not long before it was found that his services were likely to be required near home, for rumors began to find their way to england that philip was preparing a great fleet for the actual invasion of england. the news put the whole country into a state of great alarm. the reader, in order to understand fully the grounds for this alarm, must remember that in those days spain was the mistress of the ocean, and not england herself. spain possessed the distant colonies and the foreign commerce, and built and armed the great ships, while england had comparatively few ships, and those which she had were small. to meet the formidable preparations which the spaniards were making, elizabeth equipped only four ships. to these however, the merchants of london added twenty or thirty more, of various sizes, which they furnished on condition of having a share in the plunder which they hoped would be secured. the whole fleet was put under drake's command. robbers and murderers, whether those that operate upon the sea or on the land, are generally courageous, and drake's former success had made him feel doubly confident and strong. philip had collected a considerable fleet of ships in cadiz, which is a strong sea-port in the southeastern part of spain, on the mediterranean sea, and others were assembling in all the ports and bays along the shore, wherever they could be built or purchased. they were to rendezvous finally at cadiz. drake pushed boldly forward, and, to the astonishment of the world, forced his way into the harbor, through a squadron of galleys stationed there to protect the entrance, and burned, sunk, and destroyed more than a hundred ships which had been collected there. the whole work was done, and the little english fleet was off again, before the spaniards could recover from their astonishment. drake then sailed along the coast, seizing and destroying all the ships he could find. he next pushed to sea a little way, and had the good fortune to intercept and capture a richly-laden ship of very large size, called a _carrack_, which was coming home from the east indies. he then went back to england in triumph. he said he had been "singeing the whiskers" of the king of spain. the booty was divided among the london merchants, as had been agreed upon. philip was exasperated and enraged beyond expression at this unexpected destruction of armaments which had cost him so much time and money to prepare. his spirit was irritated and aroused by the disaster, not quelled; and he immediately began to renew his preparations, making them now on a still vaster scale than before. the amount of damage which drake effected was, therefore, after all, of no greater benefit to england than putting back the invasion for about a year. at length, in the summer of , the preparations for the sailing of the great armada, which was to dethrone elizabeth and bring back the english nation again under the dominion of some papal prince, and put down, finally, the cause of protestantism in europe, were complete. elizabeth herself, and the english people, in the mean time, had not been idle. the whole kingdom had been for months filled with enthusiasm to prepare for meeting the foe. armies were levied and fleets raised. every maritime town furnished ships; and rich noblemen, in many cases, built or purchased vessels with their own funds, and sent them forward ready for the battle, as their contribution toward the means of defense. a large part of the force thus raised was stationed at plymouth, which is the first great sea-port which presents itself on the english coast in sailing up the channel. the remainder of it was stationed at the other end of the channel, near the straits of dover, for it was feared that, in addition to the vast armament which philip was to bring from spain, he would raise another fleet in the netherlands, which would, of course, approach the shores of england from the german ocean. besides the fleets, a large army was raised. twenty thousand men were distributed along the southern shores of england in such positions as to be most easily concentrated at any point where the armada might attempt to land and about as many more were marched down the thames, and encamped near the mouth of the river, to guard that access. this encampment was at a place on the northern bank of the river, just above its mouth. leicester, strange as it may seem, was put in command of this army. the queen, however, herself, went to visit this encampment, and reviewed the troops in person. she rode to and fro on horseback along the lines, armed like a warrior. at least she had a corslet of polished steel over her magnificent dress, and bore a general's truncheon, a richly-ornamented staff used as a badge of command. she had a helmet, too, with a white plume. this, however she did not wear. a page bore it, following her, while she rode, attended by leicester and the other generals, all mounted on horses and splendidly caparisoned, from rank to rank, animating the men to the highest enthusiasm by her courageous bearing, her look of confidence, and her smiles. she made an address to the soldiers. she said that she had been warned by some of her ministers of the danger of trusting herself to the power of such an armed multitude, for these forces were not regularly enlisted troops, but volunteers from among the citizens, who had suddenly left the ordinary avocations and pursuits of life to defend their country in this emergency. she had, however, she said, no such apprehensions of danger. she could trust herself without fear to the courage and fidelity of her subjects, as she had always, during all her reign, considered her greatest strength and safeguard as consisting in their loyalty and good will. for herself, she had come to the camp, she assured them, not for the sake of empty pageantry and parade, but to take her share with them in the dangers, and toils, and terrors of the actual battle. if philip should land, they would find their queen in the hottest of the conflict, fighting by their sides. "i have," said she, "i know, only the body of a weak and feeble woman, but i have the heart of a king; and i am ready for my god, my kingdom, and my people, to have that body laid down, even in the dust. if the battle comes, therefore, i shall myself be in the midst and front of it, to live or die with you." these were, thus far, but words, it is true, and how far elizabeth would have vindicated their sincerity, if the entrance of the armada into the thames had put her to the test, we can not now know. sir francis drake saved her from the trial. one morning a small vessel came into the harbor at plymouth, where the english fleet was lying, with the news that the armada was coming up the channel under full sail. the anchors of the fleet were immediately raised, and great exertions made to get it out of the harbor, which was difficult, as the wind at the time was blowing directly in. the squadron got out at last, as night was coming on. the next morning the armada hove in sight, advancing from the westward up the channel, in a vast crescent, which extended for seven miles from north to south, and seemed to sweep the whole sea. [illustration: the invincible armada.] it was a magnificent spectacle, and it was the ushering in of that far grander spectacle still, of which the english channel was the scene for the ten days which followed, during which the enormous naval structures of the armada, as they slowly made their way along, were followed, and fired upon, and harassed by the smaller, and lighter, and more active vessels of their english foes. the unwieldy monsters pressed on, surrounded and worried by their nimbler enemies like hawks driven by kingfishers through the sky. day after day this most extraordinary contest, half flight and half battle continued, every promontory on the shores covered all the time with spectators, who listened to the distant booming of the guns, and watched the smokes which arose from the cannonading and the conflagrations. one great galleon after another fell a prey. some were burned, some taken as prizes, some driven ashore; and finally, one dark night, the english sent a fleet of fire-ships, all in flames, into the midst of the anchorage to which the spaniards had retired, which scattered them in terror and dismay, and completed the discomfiture of the squadron. the result was, that by the time the invincible armada had made its way through the channel, and had passed the straits of dover, it was so dispersed, and shattered, and broken, that its commanders, far from feeling any disposition to sail up the thames, were only anxious to make good their escape from their indefatigable and tormenting foes. they did not dare, in attempting to make this escape, to return through the channel, so they pushed northward into the german ocean. their only course for getting back to spain again was to pass round the northern side of england, among the cold and stormy seas that are rolling in continually among the ragged rocks and gloomy islands which darken the ocean there. at last a miserable remnant of the fleet--less than half--made their way back to spain again. chapter xi. the earl of essex. - character of essex.--death of leicester.--essex becomes the queen's favorite.--cecil and essex.--elizabeth's regard for essex.--his impulsive bravery.--essex's ardor for battle.--his duel.--elizabeth's remark upon the duel.--she gives essex a ring.--the quarrel.--the box on the ear.--mortification of essex.--he and elizabeth reconciled.--essex sent to ireland.--curious negotiations.--the queen's displeasure.--essex's sudden return.--essex is arrested.--resentment and love.--essex's anger and chagrin.--he is taken sick.--nature of essex's sickness.--the queen's anxiety.--the queen's kindness to essex.--they are reconciled again.--essex's promises.--the queen's ungenerous conduct.--essex's monopoly of wines.--the queen refuses to renew it.--essex made desperate.--his treasonable schemes.--ramifications of the plot.--it is discovered.--anxious deliberations.--the rising determined upon.--the hostages.--essex enters the city.--the proclamation.--essex unsuccessful.--essex's hopeless condition.--he escapes to his palace.--essex made prisoner, tried, and condemned.--his remorse.--elizabeth's distress.--the ring not sent.--the warrant signed.--the platform.--essex's last words.--the closing scene.--the courtier.--his fiendish pleasure. the lady whom the earl of leicester married was, a short time before he married her, the wife of the earl of essex, and she had one son, who, on the death of his father, became the earl of essex in his turn. he came to court, and continued in leicester's family after his mother's second marriage. he was an accomplished and elegant young man, and was regarded with a good deal of favor by the queen. he was introduced at court when he was but seventeen years old, and, being the step-son of leicester, he necessarily occupied a conspicuous position; his personal qualities, joined with this, soon gave him a very high and honorable name. about a month after the victory obtained by the english over the invincible armada, leicester was seized with a fever on a journey, and, after lingering for a few days, died, leaving essex, as it were, in his place. elizabeth seems not to have been very inconsolable for her favorite's death. she directed, or allowed, his property to be sold at auction, to pay some debts which he owed her--or, as the historians of the day express it, which he owed _the crown_--and then seemed at once to transfer her fondness and affection to the young essex, who was at that time twenty-one years of age. elizabeth herself was now nearly sixty. cecil was growing old also, and was somewhat infirm, though he had a son who was rapidly coming forward in rank and influence at court. this son's name was robert. the young earl of essex's name was robert too. the elder cecil and leicester had been, all their lives, watchful and jealous of each other, and in some sense rivals. robert cecil and robert devereux--for that was, in full, the earl of essex's family name--being young and ardent, inherited the animosity of their parents, and were less cautious and wary in expressing it. they soon became open foes. robert devereux, or essex, as he is commonly called in history, was handsome and accomplished, ardent, impulsive, and generous. the war with spain, notwithstanding the destruction of the armada, continued, and essex entered into it with all zeal. the queen, who with all her ambition, and her proud and domineering spirit, felt, like any other woman, the necessity of having something to love, soon began to take a strong interest in his person and fortunes, and seemed to love him as a mother loves a son; and he, in his turn, soon learned to act toward her as a son, full of youthful courage and ardor, often acts toward a mother over whose heart he feels that he has a strong control. he would go away, without leave, to mix in affrays with the spanish ships in the english channel and in the bay of biscay, and then come back and make his peace with the queen by very humble petitions for pardon, and promises of future obedience. when he went, with her leave, on these expeditions, she would charge his superior officers to keep him out of danger; while he, with an impetuosity which strongly marked his character, would evade and escape from all these injunctions, and press forward into every possible exposure, always eager to have battle given, and to get, himself, into the hottest part of it, when it was begun. at one time, off cadiz, the officers of the english ships hesitated some time whether to venture an attack upon some ships in the harbor--essex burning with impatience all the time--and when it was at length decided to make the attack, he was so excited with enthusiasm and pleasure that he threw his cap up into the air, and overboard, perfectly wild with delight, like a school-boy in anticipation of a holiday. ten years passed away, and essex rose higher and higher in estimation and honor. he was sometimes in the queen's palaces at home, and sometimes away on the spanish seas, where he acquired great fame. he was proud and imperious at court, relying on his influence with the queen, who treated him as a fond mother treats a spoiled child. she was often vexed with his conduct, but she could not help loving him. one day, as he was coming into the queen's presence chamber, he saw one of the courtiers there who had a golden ornament upon his arm which the queen had given him the day before. he asked what it was; they told him it was a "favor" from the queen. "ah," said he, "i see how it is going to be; every fool must have his favor." the courtier resented this mode of speaking of his distinction, and challenged essex to a duel. the combatants met in the park, and essex was disarmed and wounded. the queen heard of the affair, and, after inquiring very curiously about all the particulars, she said that she was glad of it; for, unless there was somebody to take down his pride, there would be no such thing as doing any thing with him. elizabeth's feelings toward essex fluctuated in strange alternations of fondness and displeasure. at one time, when affection was in the ascendency, she gave him a ring, as a talisman of her protection. she promised him that if he ever should become involved in troubles or difficulties of any kind, and especially if he should lose her favor, either by his own misconduct or by the false accusations of his enemies, if he would send her that ring, it should serve to recall her former kind regard, and incline her to pardon and save him. essex took the ring, and preserved it with the utmost care. friendship between persons of such impetuous and excitable temperaments as elizabeth and essex both possessed, though usually very ardent for a time, is very precarious and uncertain in duration. after various petulant and brief disputes, which were easily reconciled, there came at length a serious quarrel. there was, at that time, great difficulty in ireland; a rebellion had broken out, in fact, which was fomented and encouraged by spanish influence. essex was one day urging very strongly the appointment of one of his friends to take the command there, while the queen was disposed to appoint another person. essex urged his views and wishes with much importunity, and when he found that the queen was determined not to yield, he turned his back upon her in a contemptuous and angry manner. the queen lost patience in her turn, and, advancing rapidly to him, her eyes sparkling with extreme resentment and displeasure, she gave him a severe box on the ear, telling him, at the same time, to "go and be hanged." essex was exceedingly enraged; he clasped the handle of his sword, but was immediately seized by the other courtiers present. they, however, soon released their hold upon him, and he walked off out of the apartment, saying that he could not and would not bear such an insult as that. he would not have endured it, he said, from king henry the eighth himself. the name of king henry the eighth, in those days, was the symbol and personification of the highest possible human grandeur. the friends of essex among the courtiers endeavored to soothe and calm him, and to persuade him to apologize to the queen, and seek a reconciliation. they told him that, whether right or wrong, he ought to yield; for in contests with the law or with a prince, a man, they said, ought, if wrong, to submit himself to _justice_; if right, to _necessity_; in either case, it was his duty to submit. this was very good philosophy; but essex was not in a state of mind to listen to philosophy. he wrote a reply to the friend who had counseled him as above, that "the queen had the temper of a flint; that she had treated him with such extreme injustice and cruelty so many times that his patience was exhausted, and he would bear it no longer. he knew well enough what duties he owed the queen as an earl and grand marshal of england, but he did not understand being cuffed and beaten like a menial servant; and that his body suffered in every part from the blow he had received." his resentment, however, got soothed and softened in time, and he was again admitted to favor, though the consequences of such quarrels are seldom fully repaired. the reconciliation was, however, in this case, apparently complete, and in the following year essex was himself appointed the governor, or, as styled in those days, the lord deputy of ireland. he went to his province, and took command of the forces which had been collected there, and engaged zealously in the work of suppressing the rebellion. for some reason or other, however, he made very little progress. the name of the leader of the rebels was the earl of tyrone.[d] tyrone wanted a parley, but did not dare to trust himself in essex's power. it was at last, however, agreed that the two leaders should come down to a river, one of them upon each side, and talk across it, neither general to have any troops or attendants with him. this plan was carried into effect. essex, stationing a troop near him, on a hill, rode down to the water on one side, while tyrone came into the river as far as his horse could wade on the other, and then the two earls attempted to negotiate terms of peace by shouting across the current of the stream. [footnote d: spelled in the old histories tir-oen.] nothing effectual was accomplished by this and some other similar parleys, and in the mean time the weeks were passing away, and little was done toward suppressing the rebellion. the queen was dissatisfied. she sent essex letters of complaint and censure. these letters awakened the lord deputy's resentment. the breach was thus rapidly widening, when essex all at once conceived the idea of going himself to england, without permission, and without giving any notice of his intention, to endeavor, by a personal interview, to reinstate himself in the favor of the queen. [illustration: the house of the earl of essex.] this was a very bold step. it was entirely contrary to military etiquette for an officer to leave his command and go home to his sovereign without orders and without permission. the plan, however, might have succeeded. leicester did once succeed in such a measure; but in this case, unfortunately, it failed. essex traveled with the utmost dispatch, crossed the channel, made the best of his way to the palace where the queen was then residing, and pressed through the opposition of all the attendants into the queen's private apartment, in his traveling dress, soiled and way-worn. the queen was at her toilet, with her hair down over her eyes. essex fell on his knees before her, kissed her hand, and made great professions of gratitude and love, and of an extreme desire to deserve and enjoy her favor. the queen was astonished at his appearance, but essex thought that she received him kindly. he went away after a short interview, greatly pleased with the prospect of a favorable issue to the desperate step he had taken. his joy, however, was soon dispelled. in the course of the day he was arrested by order of the queen, and sent to his house under the custody of an officer. he had presumed too far. essex was kept thus secluded and confined for some time. his house was on the bank of the river. none of his friends, not even his countess, were allowed access to him. his impetuous spirit wore itself out in chafing against the restraints and means of coercion which were pressing upon him; but he would not submit. the mind of the queen, too, was deeply agitated all the time by that most tempestuous of all mental conflicts, a struggle between resentment and love. her affection for her proud-spirited favorite seemed as strong as ever, but she was determined to make him yield in the contest she had commenced with him. how often cases precisely similar occur in less conspicuous scenes of action, where they who love each other with a sincere and uncontrollable affection take their stand in attitudes of hostility, each determined that the obstinacy of the other shall give way, and each heart persisting in its own determination, resentment and love struggling all the time in a dreadful contest, which keeps the soul in a perpetual commotion, and allows of no peace till either the obstinacy yields or the love is extinguished and gone. it was indirectly made known to essex that if he would confess his fault, ask the queen's forgiveness, and petition for a release from confinement, in order that he might return to his duties in ireland, the difficulty could be settled. but no, he would make no concessions. the queen, in retaliation, increased the pressure upon him. the more strongly he felt the pressure, the more his proud and resentful spirit was aroused. he walked his room, his soul boiling with anger and chagrin, while the queen, equally distressed and harassed by the conflict in her own soul, still persevered, hoping every day that the unbending spirit with which she was contending would yield at last. at length the tidings came to her that essex, worn out with agitation and suffering, was seriously sick. the historians doubt whether his sickness was real or feigned; but there is not much difficulty in understanding, from the circumstances of the case, what its real nature was. such mental conflicts as those which he endured suspend the powers of digestion and accelerate the pulsations of the heart, which beats in the bosom with a preternatural frequency and force, like a bird fluttering to get free from a snare. the result is a sort of fever burning slowly in the veins, and an emaciation which wastes the strength away, and, in impetuous and uncontrollable spirits, like that of essex, sometimes exhausts the powers of life altogether. the sickness, therefore, though of mental origin, becomes bodily and real; but then the sufferer is often ready, in such cases, to add a little to it by feigning. an instinct teaches him that nothing is so likely to move the heart whose cruelty causes him to suffer, as a knowledge of the extreme to which it has reduced him. essex was doubtless willing that elizabeth should know that he was sick. her knowing it had, in some measure, the usual effect. it reawakened and strengthened the love she had felt for him, but did not give it absolutely the victory. she sent _eight_ physicians to him, to examine and consult upon his case. she caused some broth to be made for him, and gave it to one of these physicians to carry to him, directing the messenger, in a faltering voice, to say to essex that if it were proper to do so she would have come to see him herself. she then turned away to hide her tears. strange inconsistency of the human heart--resentment and anger holding their ground in the soul against the object of such deep and unconquerable love. it would be incredible, were it not that probably every single one of all the thousands who may read this story has experienced the same. nothing has so great an effect in awakening in the heart a strong sentiment of kindness as the performance of a kind act. feeling originates and controls action, it is true, but then, on the other hand, action has a prodigious power in modifying feeling. elizabeth's acts of kindness to essex in his sickness produced a renewal of her tenderness for him so strong that her obstinacy and anger gave way before it, and she soon began to desire some mode of releasing him from his confinement, and restoring him to favor. essex was softened too. in a word, there was finally a reconciliation, though it was accomplished by slow degrees, and by means of a sort of series of capitulations. there was an investigation of his case before the privy council, which resulted in a condemnation of his conduct, and a recommendation to the mercy of the queen; and then followed some communications between essex and his sovereign, in which he expressed sorrow for his faults, and made satisfactory promises for the future. the queen, however, had not magnanimity enough to let the quarrel end without taunting and irritating the penitent with expressions of triumph. in reply to his acknowledgments and professions, she told him that she was glad to hear of his good intentions, and she hoped that he would show, by his future conduct, that he meant to fulfill them; that he had tried her patience for a long time, but she hoped that henceforth she should have no further trouble. if it had been her father, she added, instead of herself, that he had had to deal with, he would not have been pardoned at all. it could not be a very cordial reconciliation which was consummated by such words as these. but it was very like elizabeth to utter them. they who are governed by their temper are governed by it even in their love. essex was not restored to office. in fact, he did not wish to be restored. he said that he was resolved henceforth to lead a private life. but even in respect to this plan he was at the mercy of the queen, for his private income was in a great measure derived from a monopoly, as it is called, in a certain kind of wines, which had been granted to him some time before. it was a very customary mode, in those days, of enriching favorites, to grant them monopolies of certain kinds of merchandise, that is, the exclusive right to sell them. the persons to whom this privilege was granted would underlet their right to merchants in various parts of the kingdom, on condition of receiving a certain share of the profits. essex had thus derived a great revenue from his monopoly of wines. the grant, however, was expiring, and he petitioned the queen that it might be renewed. the interest which essex felt in the renewal of this grant was one of the strongest inducements to lead him to submit to the humiliations which he had endured, and to make concessions to the queen. but he was disappointed in his hopes. the queen, elated a little with the triumph already attained, and, perhaps, desirous of the pleasure of humbling essex still more, refused at present to renew his monopoly, saying that she thought it would do him good to be restricted a little, for a time, in his means. "unmanageable beasts," she said, "had to be tamed by being stinted in their provender." essex was sharply stung by such a refusal, accompanied, too, by such an insult. he was full of indignation and anger. at first he gave free expression to his feelings of vexation in conversation with those around him. the queen, he said, had got to be a perverse and obstinate old woman, as crooked in mind as she was in body. he had plenty of enemies to listen to these speeches, and to report them in such a way as that they should reach the queen. a new breach was consequently opened, which seemed now wider than ever, and irreparable. at least it seemed so to essex; and, abandoning all plans for again enjoying the favor of elizabeth, he began to consider what he could do to undermine her power and rise upon the ruins of it. the idea was insanity, but passion always makes men insane. james, king of scotland, the son and successor of mary, was the rightful heir to the english throne after elizabeth's death. in order to make his right of succession more secure, he had wished to have elizabeth acknowledge it; but she, always dreading terribly the thoughts of death, could never bear to think of a successor, and seemed to hate every one who entertained any expectation of following her. essex suppressed all outward expressions of violence and anger; became thoughtful, moody, and sullen; held secret consultations with desperate intriguers, and finally formed a scheme to organize a rebellion, to bring king james's troops to england to support it, to take possession of the tower and of the strong-holds about london, to seize the palace of the queen, overturn her government, and compel her both to acknowledge james's right to the succession and to restore essex himself to power. the personal character of essex had given him a very wide-spread popularity and influence, and he had, consequently, very extensive materials at his command for organizing a powerful conspiracy. the plot was gradually matured, extending itself, in the course of the few following months, not only throughout england, but also into france and spain. the time for the final explosion was drawing near, when, as usual in such cases, intelligence of the existence of this treason, in the form of vague rumors, reached the queen. one day, when the leading conspirators were assembled at essex's palace, a messenger came to summon the earl to appear before the council. they received, also, private intelligence that their plots were probably discovered. while they were considering what to do in this emergency--all in a state of great perplexity and fear--a person came, pretending to be a deputy sent from some of the principal citizens of london, to say to essex that they were ready to espouse his cause. essex immediately became urgent to commence the insurrection at once. some of his friends, on the other hand, were in favor of abandoning the enterprise, and flying from the country; but essex said he had rather be shot at the head of his bands, than to wander all his days beyond the seas, a fugitive and a vagabond. the conspirators acceded to their leader's councils. they sent word, accordingly, into the city, and began to make their arrangements to rise in arms the next morning. the night was spent in anxious preparations. early in the morning, a deputation of some of the highest officers of the government, with a train of attendants, came to essex's palace, and demanded entrance in the name of the queen. the gates of the palace were shut and guarded. at last, after some hesitation and delay, the conspirators opened a wicket, that is, a small gate within the large one, which would admit one person at a time. they allowed the officers themselves to enter, but shut the gate immediately so as to exclude the attendants. the officers found themselves in a large court-yard filled with armed men, essex standing calmly at the head of them. they demanded what was the meaning of such an unusual assemblage. essex replied that it was to defend his life from conspiracies formed against it by his enemies. the officers denied this danger, and began to expostulate with essex in angry terms, and the attendants on his side to reply with vociferations and threats, when essex, to end the altercation, took the officers into the palace. he conducted them to a room and shut them up, to keep them as hostages. it was now near ten o'clock, and, leaving his prisoners in their apartment, under a proper guard, essex sallied forth, with the more resolute and desperate of his followers, and proceeded into the city, to bring out into action the forces which he supposed were ready to co-operate with him there. he rode on through the streets, calling to arms, and shouting, "for the queen! for the queen!" his design was to convey the impression that the movement which he was making was not against the queen herself, but against his own enemies in her councils, and that she was herself on his side. the people of london, however, could not be so easily deceived. the mayor had received warning before, from the council, to be ready to suppress the movement, if one should be made. as soon, therefore, as essex and his company were fairly in the city, the gates were shut and barred to prevent his return. one of the queen's principal ministers of state too, at the head of a small troop of horsemen, came in and rode through the streets, proclaiming essex a traitor, and calling upon all the citizens to aid in arresting him. one of essex's followers fired a pistol at this officer to stop his proclamation, but the people generally seemed disposed to listen to him, and to comply with his demand. after riding, therefore, through some of the principal streets, he returned to the queen, and reported to her that all was well in the city; there was no danger that essex would succeed in raising a rebellion there. in the mean time, the further essex proceeded, the more he found himself environed with difficulties and dangers. the people began to assemble here and there with evident intent to impede his movements. they blocked up the streets with carts and coaches to prevent his escape. his followers, one after another, finding all hope of success gone, abandoned their despairing leader and fled. essex himself, with the few who still adhered to him, wandered about till two o'clock, finding the way of retreat every where hemmed up against him. at length he fled to the river side, took a boat, with the few who still remained with him, and ordered the watermen to row as rapidly as possible up the river. they landed at westminster, retreated to essex's house, fled into it with the utmost precipitation, and barricaded the doors. essex himself was excited in the highest degree, fully determined to die there rather than surrender himself a prisoner. the terrible desperation to which men are reduced in emergencies like these is shown by the fact that one of his followers did actually station himself at a window bare-headed, inviting a shot from the pistols of the pursuers, who had by this time environed the house, and were preparing to force their way in. his plan succeeded. he was shot, and died that night. essex himself was not quite so desperate as this. he soon saw, however, that he must sooner or later yield. he could not stand a siege in his own private dwelling against the whole force of the english realm. he surrendered about six in the evening, and was sent to the tower. he was soon afterward brought to trial. the facts, with all the arrangements and details of the conspiracy, were fully proved, and he was condemned to die. as the unhappy prisoner lay in his gloomy dungeon in the tower, the insane excitement under which he had for so many months been acting slowly ebbed away. he awoke from it gradually, as one recovers his senses after a dreadful dream. he saw how utterly irretrievable was the mischief which had been done. remorse for his guilt in having attempted to destroy the peace of the kingdom to gratify his own personal feelings of revenge; recollections of the favors which elizabeth had shown him, and of the love which she had felt for him, obviously so deep and sincere; the consciousness that his life was fairly forfeited, and that he must die--to lie in his cell and think of these things, overwhelmed him with anguish and despair. the brilliant prospects which were so recently before him were all forever gone, leaving nothing in their place but the grim phantom of an executioner, standing with an ax by the side of a dreadful platform, with a block upon it, half revealed and half hidden by the black cloth which covered it like a pall. elizabeth, in her palace, was in a state of mind scarcely less distressing than that of the wretched prisoner in his cell. the old conflict was renewed--pride and resentment on the one side, and love which would not be extinguished on the other. if essex would sue for pardon, she would remit his sentence and allow him to live. why would he not do it? if he would send her the ring which she had given him for exactly such an emergency, he might be saved. why did he not send it? the courtiers and statesmen about her urged her to sign the warrant; the peace of the country demanded the execution of the laws in a case of such unquestionable guilt. they told her, too, that essex wished to die, that he knew that he was hopelessly and irretrievably ruined, and that life, if granted to him, was a boon which would compromise her own safety and confer no benefit on him. still elizabeth waited and waited in an agony of suspense, in hopes that the ring would come; the sending of it would be so far an act of submission on his part as would put it in her power to do the rest. her love could bend her pride, indomitable as it usually was, _almost_ to the whole concession, but it would not give up quite all. it demanded some sacrifice on his part, which sacrifice the sending of the ring would have rendered. the ring did not come, nor any petition for mercy, and at length the fatal warrant was signed. what the courtiers said about essex's desire to die was doubtless true. like every other person involved in irretrievable sufferings and sorrows, he wanted to live, and he wanted to die. the two contradictory desires shared dominion in his heart, sometimes struggling together in a tumultuous conflict, and sometimes reigning in alternation, in calms more terrible, in fact, than the tempests which preceded and followed them. at the appointed time the unhappy man was led out to the court-yard in the tower where the last scene was to be enacted. the lieutenant of the tower presided, dressed in a black velvet gown, over a suit of black satin. the "scaffold" was a platform about twelve feet square and four feet high, with a railing around it, and steps by which to ascend. the block was in the center of it, covered, as well as the platform itself, with black cloth. there were seats erected near for those who were appointed to be present at the execution. essex ascended the platform with a firm step, and, surveying the solemn scene around him with calmness and composure, he began to speak. he asked the forgiveness of god, of the spectators present, and of the queen, for the crimes for which he was about to suffer. he acknowledged his guilt, and the justice of his condemnation. his mind seemed deeply imbued with a sense of his accountability to god, and he expressed a strong desire to be forgiven, for christ's sake, for all the sins which he had committed, which had been, he said, most numerous and aggravated from his earliest years. he asked the spectators present to join him in his devotions, and he then proceeded to offer a short prayer, in which he implored pardon for his sins, and a long life and happy reign for the queen. the prayer ended, all was ready. the executioner, according to the strange custom on such occasions, then asked his pardon for the violence which he was about to commit, which essex readily granted. essex laid his head upon the block, and it required three blows to complete its severance from the body. when the deed was done, the executioner took up the bleeding head, saying solemnly, as he held it, "god save the queen." there were but few spectators present at this dreadful scene, and they were chiefly persons required to attend in the discharge of their official duties. there was, however, one exception; it was that of a courtier of high rank, who had long been essex's inveterate enemy, and who could not deny himself the savage pleasure of witnessing his rival's destruction. but even the stern and iron-hearted officers of the tower were shocked at his appearing at the scaffold. they urged him to go away, and not distress the dying man by his presence at such an hour. the courtier yielded so far as to withdraw from the scaffold; but he could not go far away. he found a place where he could stand unobserved to witness the scene, at the window of a turret which overlooked the court-yard. chapter xii. the conclusion. - question of essex's guilt.--general opinion of mankind.--elizabeth's distress.--fall of essex's party.--wounds of the heart.--elizabeth's efforts to recover her spirits.--embassage from france.--a conversation.--thoughts of essex.--harrington.--the countess of nottingham.--the ring.--the countess of nottingham's confession.--the queen's indignation.--bitter reminiscences.--the queen removes to richmond.--elizabeth grows worse.--the private chapel and the closets.--the wedding ring.--the queen's friends abandon her.--the queen's voice fails.--she calls her council together.--the chaplains.--the prayers.--the queen's death.--king james proclaimed.--portrait of james the first.--burial of the queen.--westminster abbey.--its history.--the poet's corner.--henry the seventh's chapel.--elizabeth's monument.--james.--mary's monument.--feelings of visitors.--summary of elizabeth's character. there can be no doubt that essex was really guilty of the treason for which he was condemned, but mankind have generally been inclined to consider elizabeth rather than him as the one really accountable, both for the crime and its consequences. to elate and intoxicate, in the first place, an ardent and ambitious boy, by flattery and favors, and then, in the end, on the occurrence of real or fancied causes of displeasure, to tease and torment so sensitive and impetuous a spirit to absolute madness and phrensy, was to take the responsibility, in a great measure, for all the effects which might follow. at least so it has generally been regarded. by almost all the readers of the story, essex is pitied and mourned--it is elizabeth that is condemned. it is a melancholy story; but scenes exactly parallel to this case are continually occurring in private life all around us, where sorrows and sufferings which are, so far as the heart is concerned, precisely the same result from the combined action, or rather, perhaps, the alternating and contending action, of fondness, passion, and obstinacy. the results are always, in their own nature, the same, though not often on so great a scale as to make the wrong which follows treason against a realm, and the consequences a beheading in the tower. there must have been some vague consciousness of this her share in the guilt of the transaction in elizabeth's mind, even while the trial of essex was going on. we know that she was harassed by the most tormenting suspense and perplexity while the question of the execution of his sentence was pending. of course, when the plot was discovered, essex's party and all his friends fell immediately from all influence and consideration at court. many of them were arrested and imprisoned, and four were executed, as he had been. the party which had been opposed to him acquired at once the entire ascendency, and they all, judges, counselors, statesmen, and generals, combined their influence to press upon the queen the necessity of his execution. she signed one warrant and delivered it to the officer; but then, as soon as the deed was done, she was so overwhelmed with distress and anguish that she sent to recall it, and had it canceled. finally she signed another, and the sentence was executed. time will cure, in our earlier years, most of the sufferings, and calm most of the agitations of the soul, however incurable and uncontrollable they may at first appear to the sufferer. but in the later periods of life, when severe shocks strike very heavily upon the soul, there is found far less of buoyancy and recovering power to meet the blow. in such cases the stunned and bewildered spirit moves on, after receiving its wound, staggering, as it were, with faintness and pain, and leaving it for a long time uncertain whether it will ultimately rise and recover, or sink down and die. dreadfully wounded as elizabeth was, in all the inmost feelings and affections of her heart, by the execution of her beloved favorite, she was a woman of far too much spirit and energy to yield without a struggle. she made the greatest efforts possible after his death to banish the subject from her mind, and to recover her wonted spirits. she went on hunting excursions and parties of pleasure. she prosecuted with great energy her war with the spaniards, and tried to interest herself in the siege and defense of continental cities. she received an embassage from the court of france with great pomp and parade, and made a grand progress through a part of her dominions, with a long train of attendants, to the house of a nobleman, where she entertained the embassador many days in magnificent state, at her own expense, with plate and furniture brought from her own palaces for the purpose. she even planned an interview between herself and the king of france, and went to dover to effect it. but all would not do. nothing could drive the thoughts of essex from her mind, or dispel the dejection with which the recollection of her love for him, and of his unhappy fate, oppressed her spirit. a year or two passed away, but time brought no relief. sometimes she was fretful and peevish, and sometimes hopelessly dejected and sad. she told the french embassador one day that she was weary of her life, and when she attempted to speak of essex as the cause of her grief, she sighed bitterly and burst into tears. when she recovered her composure, she told the embassador that she had always been uneasy about essex while he lived, and, knowing his impetuosity of spirit and his ambition, she had been afraid that he would one day attempt something which would compromise his life, and she had warned and entreated him not to be led into any such designs, for, if he did so, his fate would have to be decided by the stern authority of law, and not by her own indulgent feelings but that all her earnest warnings had been insufficient to save him. it was the same whenever any thing occurred which recalled thoughts of essex to her mind; it almost always brought tears to her eyes. when essex was commanding in ireland, it will be recollected that he had, on one occasion, come to a parley with tyrone, the rebel leader, across the current of a stream. an officer in his army, named harrington, had been with him on this occasion, and present, though at a little distance, during the interview. after essex had left ireland, another lord-deputy had been appointed; but the rebellion continued to give the government a great deal of trouble. the spaniards came over to tyrone's assistance, and elizabeth's mind was much occupied with plans for subduing him. one day harrington was at court in the presence of the queen, and she asked him if he had ever seen tyrone. harrington replied that he had. the queen then recollected the former interview which harrington had had with him, and she said, "oh, now i recollect that you have seen him before!" this thought recalled essex so forcibly to her mind, and filled her with such painful emotions, that she looked up to harrington with a countenance full of grief: tears came to her eyes, and she beat her breast with every indication of extreme mental suffering. things went on in this way until toward the close of , when an incident occurred which seemed to strike down at once and forever what little strength and spirit the queen had remaining. the countess of nottingham, a celebrated lady of the court, was dangerously sick, and had sent for the queen to come and see her, saying that she had a communication to make to her majesty herself, personally, which she was very anxious to make to her before she died. the queen went accordingly to see her. when she arrived at the bedside the countess showed her a ring. elizabeth immediately recognized it as the ring which she had given to essex, and which she had promised to consider a special pledge of her protection, and which was to be sent to her by him whenever he found himself in any extremity of danger and distress. the queen eagerly demanded where it came from. the countess replied that essex had sent the ring to her during his imprisonment in the tower, and after his condemnation, with an earnest request that she would deliver it to the queen as the token of her promise of protection, and of his own supplication for mercy. the countess added that she had intended to deliver the ring according to essex's request, but her husband, who was the unhappy prisoner's enemy, forbade her to do it; that ever since the execution of essex she had been greatly distressed at the consequences of her having withheld the ring; and that now, as she was about to leave the world herself, she felt that she could not die in peace without first seeing the queen, and acknowledging fully what she had done, and imploring her forgiveness. the queen was thrown into a state of extreme indignation and displeasure by this statement. she reproached the dying countess in the bitterest terms, and shook her as she lay helpless in her bed, saying, "god may forgive you if he pleases, but _i_ never will!" she then went away in a rage. her exasperation, however, against the countess was soon succeeded by bursts of inconsolable grief at the recollection of the hopeless and irretrievable loss of the object of her affection whose image the ring called back so forcibly to her mind. her imagination wandered in wretchedness and despair to the gloomy dungeon in the tower where essex had been confined, and painted him pining there, day after day, in dreadful suspense and anxiety, waiting for her to redeem the solemn pledge by which she had bound herself in giving him the ring. all the sorrow which she had felt at his untimely and cruel fate was awakened afresh, and became more poignant than ever. she made them place cushions for her upon the floor, in the most inner and secluded of her apartments, and there she would lie all the day long, her hair disheveled, her dress neglected, her food refused, and her mind a prey to almost uninterrupted anguish and grief. in january, , she felt that she was drawing toward her end, and she decided to be removed from westminster to richmond, because there was there an arrangement of closets communicating with her chamber, in which she could easily and conveniently attend divine service. she felt that she had now done with the world, and all the relief and comfort which she could find at all from the pressure of her distress was in that sense of protection and safety which she experienced when in the presence of god and listening to the exercises of devotion. [illustration: elizabeth in her last hours.] it was a cold and stormy day in january when she went to richmond; but, being restless and ill at ease, she would not be deterred by that circumstance from making the journey. she became worse after this removal. she made them put cushions again for her upon the floor, and she would lie upon them all the day, refusing to go to her bed. there was a communication from her chamber to closets connected with a chapel, where she had been accustomed to sit and hear divine service. these closets were of the form of small galleries, where the queen and her immediate attendants could sit. there was one open and public; another--a smaller one--was private, with curtains which could be drawn before it, so as to screen those within from the notice of the congregation. the queen intended, first, to go into the great closet; but, feeling too weak for this, she changed her mind, and ordered the private one to be prepared. at last she decided not to attempt to make even this effort, but ordered the cushions to be put down upon the floor, near the entrance, in her own room, and she lay there while the prayers were read, listening to the voice of the clergyman as it came in to her through the open door. one day she asked them to take off the wedding ring with which she had commemorated her espousal to her kingdom and her people on the day of her coronation. the flesh had swollen around it so that it could not be removed. the attendants procured an instrument and cut it in two, and so relieved the finger from the pressure. the work was done in silence and solemnity, the queen herself, as well as the attendants, regarding it as a symbol that the union, of which the ring had been the pledge, was about to be sundered forever. she sunk rapidly day by day, and, as it became more and more probable that she would soon cease to live, the nobles and statesmen who had been attendants at her court for so many years withdrew one after another from the palace, and left london secretly, but with eager dispatch, to make their way to scotland, in order to be the first to hail king james, the moment they should learn that elizabeth had ceased to breathe. her being abandoned thus by these heartless friends did not escape the notice of the dying queen. though her strength of body was almost gone, the soul was as active and busy as ever within its failing tenement. she watched every thing--noticed every thing, growing more and more jealous and irritable just in proportion as her situation became helpless and forlorn. every thing seemed to conspire to deepen the despondency and gloom which darkened her dying hours. her strength rapidly declined. her voice grew fainter and fainter, until, on the d of march, she could no longer speak. in the afternoon of that day she aroused herself a little, and contrived to make signs to have her council called to her bedside. those who had not gone to scotland came. they asked her whom she wished to have succeed her on the throne. she could not answer, but when they named king james of scotland, she made a sign of assent. after a time the counselors went away. at six o'clock in the evening she made signs for the archbishop and her chaplains to come to her. they were sent for and came. when they came in, they approached her bedside and kneeled. the patient was lying upon her back speechless, but her eye, still moving watchfully and observing every thing, showed that the faculties of the soul were unimpaired. one of the clergymen asked her questions respecting her faith. of course, she could not answer in words. she made signs, however, with her eyes and her hands, which seemed to prove that she had full possession of all her faculties. the by-standers looked on with breathless attention. the aged bishop, who had asked the questions, then began to pray for her. he continued his prayer a long time, and then pronouncing a benediction upon her, he was about to rise, but she made a sign. the bishop did not understand what she meant, but a lady present said that she wished the bishop to continue his devotions. the bishop, though weary with kneeling, continued his prayer half an hour longer. he then closed again, but she repeated the sign. the bishop, finding thus that his ministrations gave her so much comfort, renewed them with greater fervency than before, and continued his supplications for a long time--so long, that those who had been present at the commencement of the service went away softly, one after another, so that when at last the bishop retired, the queen was left with her nurses and her women alone. these attendants remained at their dying sovereign's bedside for a few hours longer, watching the failing pulse, the quickened breathing, and all the other indications of approaching dissolution. as hour after hour thus passed on, they wished that their weary task was done, and that both their patient and themselves were at rest. this lasted till midnight, and then the intelligence was communicated about the palace that elizabeth was no more. in the mean time all the roads to scotland were covered, as it were, with eager aspirants for the favor of the distinguished personage, there, who, from the instant elizabeth ceased to breathe, became king of england. they flocked into scotland by sea and by land, urging their way as rapidly as possible, each eager to be foremost in paying his homage to the rising sun. the council assembled and proclaimed king james. elizabeth lay neglected and forgotten. the interest she had inspired was awakened only by her power, and that being gone, nobody mourned for her, or lamented her death. the attention of the kingdom was soon universally absorbed in the plans for receiving and proclaiming the new monarch from the north, and in anticipations of the splendid pageantry which was to signalize his taking his seat upon the english throne. [illustration: king james i.] in due time the body of the deceased queen was deposited with those of its progenitors, in the ancient place of sepulture of the english kings, westminster abbey. westminster abbey, in the sense in which that term is used in history, is not to be conceived of as a building, nor even as a group of buildings, but rather as a long succession of buildings like a dynasty following each other in a line, the various structures having been renewed and rebuilt constantly, as parts or wholes decayed, from century to century, for twelve or fifteen hundred years. the spot received its consecration at a very early day. it was then an island formed by the waters of a little tributary to the thames, which has long since entirely disappeared. written records of its sacredness, and of the sacred structures which have occupied it, go back more than a thousand years, and beyond that time tradition mounts still further, carrying the consecration of the spot almost to the christian era, by telling us that the apostle peter himself, in his missionary wanderings, had a chapel or an oratory there. the spot has been, in all ages, the great burial-place of the english kings, whose monuments and effigies adorn its walls and aisles in endless variety. a vast number, too, of the statesmen, generals, and naval heroes of the british empire have been admitted to the honor of having their remains deposited under its marble floor. even literary genius has a little corner assigned it--the mighty aristocracy whose mortal remains it is the main function of the building to protect having so far condescended toward intellectual greatness as to allow to milton, addison, and shakspeare modest monuments behind a door. the place is called the poets' corner; and so famed and celebrated is this vast edifice every where, that the phrase by which even this obscure and insignificant portion of it is known is familiar to every ear and every tongue throughout the english world. the body of elizabeth was interred in a part of the edifice called henry the seventh's chapel. the word chapel, in the european sense, denotes ordinarily a subordinate edifice connected with the main body of a church, and opening into it. most frequently, in fact, a chapel is a mere recess or alcove, separated from the area of the church by a small screen or gilded iron railing. in the catholic churches these chapels are ornamented with sculptures and paintings, with altars and crucifixes, and other such furniture. sometimes they are built expressly as monumental structures, in which case they are often of considerable size, and are ornamented with great magnificence and splendor. this was the case with henry the seventh's chapel. the whole building is, in fact his tomb. vast sums were expended in the construction of it, the work of which extended through two reigns. it is now one of the most attractive portions of the great pile which it adorns. elizabeth's body was deposited here, and here her monument was erected. [illustration: elizabeth's tomb in westminster abbey.] it will be recollected that james, who now succeeded elizabeth, was the son of mary queen of scots. soon after his accession to the throne, he removed the remains of his mother from their place of sepulture near the scene of her execution, and interred them in the south aisle of henry the seventh's chapel, while the body of elizabeth occupied the northern one.[e] he placed, also, over mary's remains, a tomb very similar in its plan and design to that by which the memory of elizabeth was honored; and there the rival queens have since reposed in silence and peace under the same paved floor. and though the monuments do not materially differ in their architectural forms, it is found that the visitors who go continually to the spot gaze with a brief though lively interest at the one, while they linger long and mournfully over the other. [footnote e: see our history of mary queen of scots, near the close. aisles in english cathedral churches are colonnades, or spaces between columns on an open floor, and not passages between pews, as with us. in monumental churches like westminster abbey there are no pews.] * * * * * the character of elizabeth has not generally awakened among mankind much commendation or sympathy. they who censure or condemn her should, however, reflect how very conspicuous was the stage on which she acted, and how minutely all her faults have been paraded to the world. that she deserved the reproaches which have been so freely cast upon her memory can not be denied. it will moderate, however, any tendency to censoriousness in our mode of uttering them, if we consider to how little advantage we should ourselves appear, if all the words of fretfulness and irritability which we have ever spoken, all our insincerity and double-dealing, our selfishness, our pride, our petty resentments, our caprice, and our countless follies, were exposed as fully to the public gaze as were those of this renowned and glorious, but unhappy queen. the end. transcriber's notes: . minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors, and to ensure consistent spelling and punctuation in this etext; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the original book. . the sidenotes used in this text were originally published as banners in the page headers, and have been collected at the beginning of each chapter for the reader's convenience. history of english literature elizabethan literature +---------------------------------------------+ | | | a history of english literature | | | | _in six volumes, crown vo._ | | | | english literature from the beginning | | to the norman conquest. by rev. stopford | | a. brooke, m.a. s. d. | | | | english literature from the norman | | conquest to chaucer. by prof. w. h. | | schofield, ph.d. s. d. | | | | the age of chaucer. by professor w. h. | | schofield, ph.d. [_in preparation._ | | | | elizabethan literature ( - ). by | | george saintsbury. s. d. | | | | eighteenth century literature ( - ). | | by edmund gosse, m.a. s. d. | | | | nineteenth century literature ( - ). | | by george saintsbury. s. d. | | | | | | by george saintsbury. | | | | a short history of english literature. | | crown vo. s. also in five parts. | | s. d. each. | | | | a history of english prosody from | | the twelfth century to the present day. | | vols. vo. | | vol. i. from the origins to spenser. | | s. d. net. | | vol. ii. from shakespeare to crabbe. | | s. net. | | vol. iii. from blake to mr. swinburne. | | s. net. | | | | historical manual of english prosody. | | crown vo. s. d. net. | | | | a history of the french novel. vo. | | vol. i. from the beginning to . | | s. net. | | vol. ii. from to . s. net. | | | | a history of english prose rhythm. | | vo. s. net. | | | | life of dryden. library edition. | | crown vo, s. net; pocket edition, | | fcap. vo, s. net. | | [_english men of letters._ | | | | a first book of english literature. | | globe vo. sewed, s. stiff boards, | | s. d. | | | | notes on a cellar-book. small to. | | s. d. net. | | | | macmillan and co., ltd., london. | | | +---------------------------------------------+ a history of elizabethan literature by george saintsbury macmillan and co., limited st. martin's street, london copyright _first edition_ . _second edition_ . _reprinted_ , , , , , , , , , , . preface to ninth edition as was explained in the note to the preface of the previous editions and impressions of this book, after the first, hardly one of them appeared without careful revision, and the insertion of a more or less considerable number of additions and corrections. i found, indeed, few errors of a kind that need have seemed serious except to momus or zoilus. but in the enormous number of statements of fact which literary history of the more exact kind requires, minor blunders, be they more or fewer, are sure to creep in. no writer, again, who endeavours constantly to keep up and extend his knowledge of such a subject as elizabethan literature, can fail to have something new to say from time to time. and though no one who is competent originally for his task ought to experience any violent changes of view, any one's views may undergo modification. in particular, he may find that readers have misunderstood him, and that alterations of expression are desirable. for all these reasons and others i have not spared trouble in the various revisions referred to; i think the book has been kept by them fairly abreast of its author's knowledge, and i hope it is not too far behind that of others. it will, however, almost inevitably happen that a long series of piecemeal corrections and codicils somewhat disfigures the character of the composition as a whole. and after nearly the full score of years, and not much less than half a score of re-appearances, it has seemed to me desirable to make a somewhat more thorough, minute, and above all connected revision than i have ever made before. and so, my publishers falling in with this view, the present edition represents the result. i do not think it necessary to reprint the original preface. when i wrote it i had already had some, and since i wrote it i have had much more, experience in writing literary history. i have never seen reason to alter the opinion that, to make such history of any value at all, the critical judgments and descriptions must represent direct, original, and first-hand reading and thought; and that in these critical judgments and descriptions the value of it consists. even summaries and analyses of the matter of books, except in so far as they are necessary to criticism, come far second; while biographical and bibliographical details are of much less importance, and may (as indeed in one way or another they generally must) be taken at second hand. the completion of the _dictionary of national biography_ has at once facilitated the task of the writer, and to a great extent disarmed the candid critic who delights, in cases of disputed date, to assume that the date which his author chooses is the wrong one. and i have in the main adjusted the dates in this book (where necessary) accordingly. the bibliographical additions which have been made to the index will be found not inconsiderable. i believe that, in my present plan, there is no author of importance omitted (there were not many even in the first edition), and that i have been able somewhat to improve the book from the results of twenty years' additional study, twelve of which have been mainly devoted to english literature. how far it must still be from being worthy of its subject, nobody can know better than i do. but i know also, and i am very happy to know, that, as an elizabethan himself might have said, my unworthiness has guided many worthy ones to something like knowledge, and to what is more important than knowledge, love, of a subject so fascinating and so magnificent. and that the book may still have the chance of doing this, i hope to spare no trouble upon it as often as the opportunity presents itself.[ ] edinburgh, _january_ , . [ ] in the last (eleventh) re-impression no alterations seemed necessary. in this, one or two bibliographical matters may call for notice. every student of donne should now consult professor grierson's edition of the _poems_ ( vols., oxford, ), and as inquiries have been made as to the third volume of my own _caroline poets_ (see index), containing cleveland, king, stanley, and some less known authors, i may be permitted to say that it has been in the press for years, and a large part of it is completed. but various stoppages, in no case due to neglect, and latterly made absolute by the war, have prevented its appearance.--bath, october , . contents chapter i from tottel's miscellany to spenser the starting-point--tottel's _miscellany_--its method and authorship--the characteristics of its poetry--wyatt--surrey--grimald--their metres --the stuff of their poems--_the mirror for magistrates_--sackville --his contributions and their characteristics--remarks on the formal criticism of poetry--gascoigne--churchyard--tusser--turberville-- googe--the translators--classical metres--stanyhurst--other miscellanies pages - chapter ii early elizabethan prose outlines of early elizabethan prose--its origins--cheke and his contemporaries--ascham--his style--miscellaneous writers--critics-- webbe--puttenham--lyly--_euphues_ and euphuism--sidney--his style and critical principles--hooker--greville--knolles--mulcaster - chapter iii the first dramatic period divisions of elizabethan drama--its general character--origins--_ralph_ _roister doister_--_gammer gurton's needle_--_gorboduc_--the senecan drama--other early plays--the "university wits"--their lives and characters--lyly (dramas)--the marlowe group--peele--greene--kyd-- marlowe--the actor playwrights - chapter iv "the faËrie queene" and its group spenser--his life and the order of his works--_the shepherd's calendar_ --the minor poems--_the faërie queene_--its scheme--the spenserian stanza--spenser's language--his general poetical qualities-- comparison with other english poets--his peculiar charm--the sonneteers--fulke greville--sidney--watson--barnes--giles fletcher the elder--lodge--_avisa_--percy--_zepheria_--constable--daniel-- drayton--_alcilia_--griffin--lynch--smith--barnfield--southwell--the song and madrigal writers--campion--raleigh--dyer--oxford, etc.-- gifford--howell, grove, and others--the historians--warner--the larger poetical works of daniel and drayton--the satirists--lodge-- donne--the poems of donne generally--hall--marston--guilpin--tourneur - chapter v the second dramatic period--shakespere difficulty of writing about shakespere--his life--his reputation in england and its history--divisions of his work--the poems--the sonnets--the plays--characteristics of shakespere--never unnatural-- his attitude to morality--his humour--universality of his range-- comments on him--his manner of working--his variety--final remarks-- dramatists to be grouped with shakespere--ben jonson--chapman-- marston--dekker - chapter vi later elizabethan and jacobean prose bacon--raleigh--the authorised version--jonson and daniel as prose-writers--hakluyt--the pamphleteers--greene--lodge--harvey--nash --dekker--breton--the martin marprelate controversy--account of it, with specimens of the chief tracts - chapter vii the third dramatic period characteristics--beaumont and fletcher--middleton--webster--heywood-- tourneur--day - chapter viii the school of spenser and the tribe of ben sylvester--davies of hereford--sir john davies--giles and phineas fletcher--william browne--wither--drummond--stirling--minor jacobean poets--songs from the dramatists - chapter ix milton, taylor, clarendon, browne, hobbes the quintet--milton's life--his character--his periods of literary production--first period, the minor poems--the special excellences of _comus_--_lycidas_--second period, the pamphlets--their merits and defects--milton's prose style--third period, the larger poems-- milton's blank verse--his origins--his comparative position--jeremy taylor's life--his principal works--his style--characteristics of his thought and manner--sir thomas browne--his life, works, and editions --his literary manner--characteristics of his style and vocabulary-- his latinising--remarkable adjustment of his thought and expression-- clarendon--his life--great merits of his _history_--faults of his style--hobbes--his life and works--extraordinary strength and clearness of his style - chapter x caroline poetry herrick--carew--crashaw--divisions of minor caroline poetry--miscellanies --george herbert--sandys--vaughan--lovelace and suckling--montrose-- quarles--more--beaumont--habington--chalkhill--marmion--kynaston-- chamberlayne--benlowes--stanley--john hall--patrick carey--cleveland --corbet--cartwright, sherburne, and brome--cotton--the general characteristics of caroline poetry--a defence of the caroline poets - chapter xi the fourth dramatic period weakening of dramatic strength--massinger--ford--shirley--randolph--brome --cokain--glapthorne--davenant--suckling--minor and anonymous plays of the fourth and other periods--the shakesperian apocrypha - chapter xii minor caroline prose burton--fuller--lord herbert of cherbury--izaak walton--howell--earle-- felltham--the rest - conclusion chapter i from tottel's "miscellany" to spenser in a work like the present, forming part of a larger whole and preceded by another part, the writer has the advantage of being almost wholly free from a difficulty which often presses on historians of a limited and definite period, whether of literary or of any other history. that difficulty lies in the discussion and decision of the question of origins--in the allotment of sufficient, and not more than sufficient, space to a preliminary recapitulation of the causes and circumstances of the actual events to be related. here there is no need for any but the very briefest references of the kind to connect the present volume with its forerunner, or rather to indicate the connection of the two. there has been little difference of opinion as to the long dead-season of english poetry, broken chiefly, if not wholly, by poets scottish rather than english, which lasted through almost the whole of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth centuries. there has also been little difference in regarding the remarkable work (known as tottel's _miscellany_, but more properly called _songs and sonnets, written by the right honourable lord henry howard, late earl of surrey, and other_) which was published by richard tottel in , and which went through two editions in the summer of that year, as marking the dawn of the new period. the book is, indeed, remarkable in many ways. the first thing, probably, which strikes the modern reader about it is the fact that great part of its contents is anonymous and only conjecturally to be attributed, while as to the part which is more certainly known to be the work of several authors, most of those authors were either dead or had written long before. mr. arber's remarks in his introduction (which, though i have rather an objection to putting mere citations before the public, i am glad here to quote as a testimony in the forefront of this book to the excellent deserts of one who by himself has done as much as any living man to facilitate the study of elizabethan literature) are entirely to the point--how entirely to the point only students of foreign as well as of english literature know. "the poets of that age," says mr. arber, "wrote for their own delectation and for that of their friends, and not for the general public. they generally had the greatest aversion to their works appearing in print." this aversion, which continued in france till the end of the seventeenth century, if not later, had been somewhat broken down in england by the middle of the sixteenth, though vestiges of it long survived, and in the form of a reluctance to be known to write for money, may be found even within the confines of the nineteenth. the humbler means and lesser public of the english booksellers have saved english literature from the bewildering multitude of pirated editions, printed from private and not always faithful manuscript copies, which were for so long the despair of the editors of many french classics. but the manuscript copies themselves survive to a certain extent, and in the more sumptuous and elaborate editions of our poets (such as, for instance, dr. grosart's _donne_) what they have yielded may be studied with some interest. moreover, they have occasionally preserved for us work nowhere else to be obtained, as, for instance, in the remarkable folio which has supplied mr. bullen with so much of his invaluable collection of old plays. at the early period of tottel's _miscellany_ it would appear that the very idea of publication in print had hardly occurred to many writers' minds. when the book appeared, both its main contributors, surrey and wyatt, had been long dead, as well as others (sir francis bryan and anne boleyn's unlucky brother, george lord rochford) who are supposed to be represented. the short printer's address to the reader gives absolutely no intelligence as to the circumstances of the publication, the person responsible for the editing, or the authority which the editor and printer may have had for their inclusion of different authors' work. it is only a theory, though a sufficiently plausible one, that the editor was nicholas grimald, chaplain to bishop thirlby of ely, a cambridge man who some ten years before had been incorporated at oxford and had been elected to a fellowship at merton college. in grimald's or grimoald's connection with the book there was certainly something peculiar, for the first edition contains forty poems contributed by him and signed with his name, while in the second the full name is replaced by "n. g.," and a considerable number of his poems give way to others. more than one construction might, no doubt, be placed on this curious fact; but hardly any construction can be placed on it which does not in some way connect grimald with the publication. it may be added that, while his, surrey's, and wyatt's contributions are substantive and known--the numbers of separate poems contributed being respectively forty for surrey, the same for grimald, and ninety-six for wyatt--no less than one hundred and thirty-four poems, reckoning the contents of the first and second editions together, are attributed to "other" or "uncertain" authors. and of these, though it is pretty positively known that certain writers did contribute to the book, only four poems have been even conjecturally traced to particular authors. the most interesting of these by far is the poem attributed, with that which immediately precedes it, to lord vaux, and containing the verses "for age with stealing steps," known to every one from the gravedigger in _hamlet_. nor is this the only connection of tottel's _miscellany_ with shakespere, for there is no reasonable doubt that the "book of songs and sonnets," to the absence of which slender so pathetically refers in _the merry wives of windsor_, is tottel's, which, as the first to use the title, long retained it by right of precedence. indeed, one of its authors, churchyard, who, though not in his first youth at its appearance, survived into the reign of james, quotes it as such, and so does drayton even later. no sonnets had been seen in england before, nor was the whole style of the verse which it contained less novel than this particular form. as is the case with many if not most of the authors of our period, a rather unnecessary amount of ink has been spilt on questions very distantly connected with the question of the absolute and relative merit of surrey and wyatt in english poetry. in particular, the influence of the one poet on the other, and the consequent degree of originality to be assigned to each, have been much discussed. a very few dates and facts will supply most of the information necessary to enable the reader to decide this and other questions for himself. sir thomas wyatt, son of sir henry wyatt of allington, kent, was born in , entered st. john's college, cambridge, in , became a favourite of henry viii., received important diplomatic appointments, and died in . lord henry howard was born (as is supposed) in , and became earl of surrey by courtesy (he was not, the account of his judicial murder says, a lord of parliament) at eight years old. very little is really known of his life, and his love for "geraldine" was made the basis of a series of fictions by nash half a century after his death. he cannot have been more than thirty when, in the reign of terror towards the close of henry viii.'s life, he was arrested on frivolous charges, the gravest being the assumption of the royal arms, found guilty of treason, and beheaded on tower hill on th january . thus it will be seen that wyatt was at cambridge before surrey was born, and died five years before him; to which it need only be added that surrey has an epitaph on wyatt which clearly expresses the relation of disciple to master. yet despite this relation and the community of influences which acted on both, their characteristics are markedly different, and each is of the greatest importance in english poetical history. in order to appreciate exactly what this importance is we must remember in what state wyatt and surrey found the art which they practised and in which they made a new start. speaking roughly but with sufficient accuracy for the purpose, that state is typically exhibited in two writers, hawes and skelton. the former represents the last phase of the chaucerian school, weakened not merely by the absence of men of great talent during more than a century, but by the continual imitation during that period of weaker and ever weaker french models--the last faint echoes of the _roman de la rose_ and the first extravagances of the _rhétoriqueurs_. skelton, on the other hand, with all his vigour, represents the english tendency to prosaic doggerel. whether wyatt and his younger companion deliberately had recourse to italian example in order to avoid these two dangers it would be impossible to say. but the example was evidently before them, and the result is certainly such an avoidance. nevertheless both, and especially wyatt, had a great deal to learn. it is perfectly evident that neither had any theory of english prosody before him. wyatt's first sonnet displays the completest indifference to quantity, not merely scanning "harber," "banner," and "suffer" as iambs (which might admit of some defence), but making a rhyme of "feareth" and "appeareth," not on the penultimates, but on the mere "eth." in the following poems even worse liberties are found, and the strange turns and twists which the poet gives to his decasyllables suggest either a total want of ear or such a study in foreign languages that the student had actually forgotten the intonation and cadences of his own tongue. so stumbling and knock-kneed is his verse that any one who remembers the admirable versification of chaucer may now and then be inclined to think that wyatt had much better have left his innovations alone. but this petulance is soon rebuked by the appearance of such a sonnet as this:-- (_the lover having dreamed enjoying of his love complaineth that the_ _dream is not either longer or truer._) "unstable dream, according to the place be steadfast once, or else at least be true. by tasted sweetness, make me not to rue the sudden loss of thy false feigned grace. by good respect in such a dangerous case thou brought'st not her into these tossing seas but mad'st my sprite to live, my care to increase,[ ] my body in tempest her delight to embrace. the body dead, the sprite had his desire: painless was th' one, the other in delight. why then, alas! did it not keep it right, but thus return to leap into the fire? and where it was at wish, could not remain? such mocks of dreams do turn to deadly pain." [ ] in original "tencrease," and below "timbrace." this substitution of elision for slur or hiatus (found in chaucerian mss.) passed later into the t' and th' of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. wyatt's awkwardness is not limited to the decasyllable, but some of his short poems in short lines recover rhythmical grace very remarkably, and set a great example. surrey is a far superior metrist. neither in his sonnets, nor in his various stanzas composed of heroics, nor in what may be called his doggerel metres--the fatally fluent alexandrines, fourteeners, and admixtures of both, which dominated english poetry from his time to spenser's, and were never quite rejected during the elizabethan period--do we find evidence of the want of ear, or the want of command of language, which makes wyatt's versification frequently disgusting. surrey has even no small mastery of what may be called the architecture of verse, the valuing of cadence in successive lines so as to produce a concerted piece and not a mere reduplication of the same notes. and in his translations of the _Æneid_ (not published in tottel's _miscellany_) he has the great honour of being the originator of blank verse, and blank verse of by no means a bad pattern. the following sonnet, combined alexandrine and fourteener, and blank verse extract, may be useful:-- (_complaint that his lady after she knew of his love kept her face_ _alway hidden from him._) "i never saw my lady lay apart her cornet black, in cold nor yet in heat, sith first she knew my grief was grown so great; which other fancies driveth from my heart, that to myself i do the thought reserve, the which unwares did wound my woeful breast. but on her face mine eyes mought never rest yet, since she knew i did her love, and serve her golden tresses clad alway with black, her smiling looks that hid[es] thus evermore and that restrains which i desire so sore. so doth this cornet govern me, alack! in summer sun, in winter's breath, a frost whereby the lights of her fair looks i lost."[ ] [ ] as printed exactly in both first and second editions this sonnet is evidently corrupt, and the variations between the two are additional evidence of this. i have ventured to change "hid" to "hides" in line , and to alter the punctuation in line . if the reader takes "that" in line as = "so that," "that" in line as = "which" (_i.e._ "black"), and "that" in line with "which," he will now, i think, find it intelligible. line is usually printed: "in summer, sun: in winter's breath, a frost." now no one would compare a black silk hood to the sun, and a reference to line will show the real meaning. the hood is a frost which lasts through summer and winter alike. (_complaint of the absence of her lover being upon the sea._) "good ladies, ye that have your pleasures in exile, step in your foot, come take a place, and mourn with me a while. and such as by their lords do set but little price, let them sit still: it skills them not what chance come on the dice. but ye whom love hath bound by order of desire, to love your lords whose good deserts none other would require, come ye yet once again and set your foot by mine, whose woeful plight and sorrows great, no tongue can well define."[ ] [ ] in reading these combinations it must be remembered that there is always a strong cæsura in the midst of the first and alexandrine line. it is the alexandrine which mr. browning has imitated in _fifine_, not that of drayton, or of the various practitioners of the spenserian stanza from spenser himself downwards. "it was the(n)[ ] night; the sound and quiet sleep had through the earth the weary bodies caught, the woods, the raging seas, were fallen to rest, when that the stars had half their course declined. the fields whist: beasts and fowls of divers hue, and what so that in the broad lakes remained, or yet among the bushy thicks[ ] of briar, laid down to sleep by silence of the night, 'gan swage their cares, mindless of travails past. not so the spirit of this phenician. unhappy she that on no sleep could chance, nor yet night's rest enter in eye or breast. her cares redouble: love doth rise and rage again,[ ] and overflows with swelling storms of wrath." [ ] in these extracts () signifies that something found in text seems better away; [] that something wanting in text has been conjecturally supplied. [ ] thickets. [ ] this alexandrine is not common, and is probably a mere oversight. the "other" or "uncertain" authors, though interesting enough for purposes of literary comparison, are very inferior to wyatt and surrey. grimald, the supposed editor, though his verse must not, of course, be judged with reference to a more advanced state of things than his own, is but a journeyman verse-smith. "sith, blackwood, you have mind to take a wife, i pray you tell wherefore you like that life," is a kind of foretaste of crabbe in its bland ignoring of the formal graces of poetry. he acquits himself tolerably in the combinations of alexandrines and fourteeners noticed above (the "poulter's measure," as gascoigne was to call it later), nor does he ever fall into the worst kind of jog-trot. his epitaphs and elegies are his best work, and the best of them is that on his mother. very much the same may be said of the strictly miscellaneous part of the _miscellany_. the greater part of the uncertain authors are less ambitious, but also less irregular than wyatt, while they fall far short of surrey in every respect. sometimes, as in the famous "i loath that i did love," both syntax and prosody hardly show the reform at all; they recall the ruder snatches of an earlier time. but, on the whole, the characteristics of these poets, both in matter and form, are sufficiently uniform and sufficiently interesting. metrically, they show, on the one side, a desire to use a rejuvenated heroic, either in couplets or in various combined forms, the simplest of which is the elegiac quatrain of alternately rhyming lines, and the most complicated the sonnet; while between them various stanzas more or less suggested by italian are to be ranked. of this thing there has been and will be no end as long as english poetry lasts. the attempt to arrange the old and apparently almost indigenous "eights and sixes" into fourteener lines and into alternate fourteeners and alexandrines, seems to have commended itself even more to contemporary taste, and, as we have seen and shall see, it was eagerly followed for more than half a century. but it was not destined to succeed. these long lines, unless very sparingly used, or with the ground-foot changed from the iambus to the anapæst or the trochee, are not in keeping with the genius of english poetry, as even the great examples of chapman's _homer_ and the _polyolbion_ may be said to have shown once for all. in the hands, moreover, of the poets of this particular time, whether they were printed at length or cut up into eights and sixes, they had an almost irresistible tendency to degenerate into a kind of lolloping amble which is inexpressibly monotonous. even when the spur of a really poetical inspiration excites this amble into something more fiery (the best example existing is probably southwell's wonderful "burning babe"), the sensitive ear feels that there is constant danger of a relapse, and at the worst the thing becomes mere doggerel. yet for about a quarter of a century these overgrown lines held the field in verse and drama alike, and the encouragement of them must be counted as a certain drawback to the benefits which surrey, wyatt, and the other contributors of the _miscellany_ conferred on english literature by their exercises, here and elsewhere, in the blank verse decasyllable, the couplet, the stanza, and, above all, the sonnet. it remains to say something of the matter as distinguished from the form of this poetry, and for once the form is of hardly superior importance to the matter. it is a question of some interest, though unfortunately one wholly incapable of solution, whether the change in the character of poetical thought and theme which wyatt and surrey wrought was accidental, and consequent merely on their choice of models, and especially of petrarch, or essential and deliberate. if it was accidental, there is no greater accident in the history of literature. the absence of the personal note in mediæval poetry is a commonplace, and nowhere had that absence been more marked than in england. with wyatt and surrey english poetry became at a bound the most personal (and in a rather bad but unavoidable word) the most "introspective" in europe. there had of course been love poetry before, but its convention had been a convention of impersonality. it now became exactly the reverse. the lover sang less his joys than his sorrows, and he tried to express those sorrows and their effect on him in the most personal way he could. although allegory still retained a strong hold on the national taste, and was yet to receive its greatest poetical expression in _the faërie queene_, it was allegory of quite a different kind from that which in the _roman de la rose_ had taken europe captive, and had since dominated european poetry in all departments, and especially in the department of love-making. "dangier" and his fellow-phantoms fled before the dawn of the new poetry in england, and the depressing influences of a common form--a conventional stock of images, personages, and almost language--disappeared. no doubt there was conventionality enough in the following of the petrarchian model, but it was a less stiff and uniform conventionality; it allowed and indeed invited the individual to wear his rue with a difference, and to avail himself at least of the almost infinite diversity of circumstance and feeling which the life of the actual man affords, instead of reducing everything to the moods and forms of an already generalised and allegorised experience. with the new theme to handle and the new forms ready as tools for the handler, with the general ferment of european spirits, it might readily have been supposed that a remarkable out-turn of work would be the certain and immediate result. the result in fact may have been certain but it was not immediate, being delayed for nearly a quarter of a century; and the next remarkable piece of work done in english poetry after tottel's _miscellany_--a piece of work of greater actual poetical merit than anything in that _miscellany_ itself--was in the old forms, and showed little if any influence of the new poetical learning. this was the famous _mirror for magistrates_, or rather that part of it contributed by thomas sackville, lord buckhurst. _the mirror_ as a whole has bibliographical and prosodic rather than literary interest. it was certainly planned as early as by way of a supplement to lydgate's translation of boccaccio's _fall of princes_. it was at first edited by a certain william baldwin, and for nearly half a century it received additions and alterations from various respectable hacks of letters; but the "induction" and the "complaint of buckingham" which sackville furnished to it in , though they were not published till four years later, completely outweigh all the rest in value. to my own fancy the fact that sackville was (in what proportion is disputed) also author of _gorboduc_ (see chapter iii.) adds but little to its interest. his contributions to _the mirror for magistrates_ contain the best poetry written in the english language between chaucer and spenser, and are most certainly the originals or at least the models of some of spenser's finest work. he has had but faint praise of late years. according to the late professor minto, he "affords abundant traces of the influence of wyatt and surrey." i do not know what the traces are, and i should say myself that few contemporary or nearly contemporary efforts are more distinct. dean church says that we see in him a faint anticipation of spenser. my estimate of spenser, as i hope to show, is not below that of any living critic; but considerations of bulk being allowed, and it being fully granted that sackville had nothing like spenser's magnificent range, i cannot see any "faintness" in the case. if the "induction" had not been written it is at least possible that the "cave of despair" would never have enriched english poetry. thomas sackville was born at buckhurst in sussex, in the year , of a family which was of the most ancient extraction and the most honourable standing. he was educated at oxford, at the now extinct hart hall, whence, according to a practice as common then as it is uncommon now (except in the cases of royal princes and a few persons of difficult and inconstant taste), he moved to cambridge. then he entered the inner temple, married early, travelled, became noted in literature, was made lord buckhurst at the age of thirty-one, was for many years one of elizabeth's chief councillors and officers, was promoted to the earldom of dorset at the accession of james i., and died, it is said, at the council table on the th of april . we shall deal with _gorboduc_ hereafter: the two contributions to _the mirror for magistrates_ concern us here. and i have little hesitation in saying that no more astonishing contribution to english poetry, when the due reservations of that historical criticism which is the life of all criticism are made, is to be found anywhere. the bulk is not great: twelve or fifteen hundred lines must cover the whole of it. the form is not new, being merely the seven-line stanza already familiar in chaucer. the arrangement is in no way novel, combining as it does the allegorical presentment of embodied virtues, vices, and qualities with the melancholy narrative common in poets for many years before. but the poetical value of the whole is extraordinary. the two constituents of that value, the formal and the material, are represented with a singular equality of development. there is nothing here of wyatt's floundering prosody, nothing of the well-intentioned doggerel in which surrey himself indulges and in which his pupils simply revel. the cadences of the verse are perfect, the imagery fresh and sharp, the presentation of nature singularly original, when it is compared with the battered copies of the poets with whom sackville must have been most familiar, the followers of chaucer from occleve to hawes. even the general plan of the poem--the weakest part of nearly all poems of this time--is extraordinarily effective and makes one sincerely sorry that sackville's taste, or his other occupations, did not permit him to carry out the whole scheme on his own account. the "induction," in which the author is brought face to face with sorrow, and the central passages of the "complaint of buckingham," have a depth and fulness of poetical sound and sense for which we must look backwards a hundred and fifty years, or forwards nearly five and twenty. take, for instance, these stanzas:-- "thence come we to the horror and the hell, the large great kingdoms, and the dreadful reign of pluto in his throne where he did dwell, the wide waste places, and the hugy plain, the wailings, shrieks, and sundry sorts of pain, the sighs, the sobs, the deep and deadly groan; earth, air, and all, resounding plaint and moan. "here puled the babes, and here the maids unwed with folded hands their sorry chance bewailed, here wept the guiltless slain, and lovers dead, that slew themselves when nothing else availed; a thousand sorts of sorrows here, that wailed with sighs and tears, sobs, shrieks, and all yfere that oh, alas! it was a hell to hear. * * * * * "_lo here_, quoth sorrow, princes of renown, that whilom sat on top of fortune's wheel, now laid full low; like wretches whirled down, ev'n with one frown, that stayed but with a smile; and now behold the thing that thou, erewhile, saw only in thought: and what thou now shalt hear, recount the same to kesar, king, and peer."[ ] [ ] the precedent descriptions of sorrow herself, of misery, and of old age, are even finer than the above, which, however, i have preferred for three reasons. first, it has been less often quoted; secondly, its subject is a kind of commonplace, and, therefore, shows the poet's strength of handling; thirdly, because of the singular and characteristic majesty of the opening lines. it is perhaps well, in an early passage of a book which will have much to do with the criticism of poetry, to dwell a little on what seems to the critic to be the root of that matter. in the first place, i must entirely differ with those persons who have sought to create an independent prosody for english verse under the head of "beats" or "accents" or something of that sort. _every english metre since chaucer at least can be scanned, within the proper limits, according to the strictest rules of classical prosody: and while all good english metre comes out scatheless from the application of those rules, nothing exhibits the badness of bad english metre so well as that application._ it is, alongside of their great merits, the distinguishing fault of wyatt eminently, of surrey to a less degree, and of all the new school up to spenser more or less, that they neglect the quantity test too freely; it is the merit of sackville that, holding on in this respect to the good school of chaucer, he observes it. you will find no "jawbreakers" in sackville, no attempts to adjust english words on a procrustean bed of independent quantification. he has not indeed the manifold music of spenser--it would be unreasonable to expect that he should have it. but his stanzas, as the foregoing examples will show, are of remarkable melody, and they have about them a command, a completeness of accomplishment within the writer's intentions, which is very noteworthy in so young a man. the extraordinary richness and stateliness of the measure has escaped no critic. there is indeed a certain one-sidedness about it, and a devil's advocate might urge that a long poem couched in verse (let alone the subject) of such unbroken gloom would be intolerable. but sackville did not write a long poem, and his complete command within his limits of the effect at which he evidently aimed is most remarkable. the second thing to note about the poem is the extraordinary freshness and truth of its imagery. from a young poet we always expect second-hand presentations of nature, and in sackville's day second-hand presentation of nature had been elevated to the rank of a science. here the new school--surrey, wyatt, and their followers--even if he had studied them, could have given him little or no help, for great as are the merits of tottel's _miscellany_, no one would go to it for representations of nature. among his predecessors in his own style he had to go back to chaucer (putting the scotch school out of the question) before he could find anything original. yet it may be questioned whether the sketches of external scenery in these brief essays of his, or the embodiments of internal thought in the pictures of sorrow and the other allegorical wights, are most striking. it is perfectly clear that thomas sackville had, in the first place, a poetical eye to see, within as well as without, the objects of poetical presentment; in the second place, a poetical vocabulary in which to clothe the results of his seeing; and in the third place, a poetical ear by aid of which to arrange his language in the musical co-ordination necessary to poetry. wyatt had been too much to seek in the last; surrey had not been very obviously furnished with the first; and all three were not to be possessed by any one else till edmund spenser arose to put sackville's lessons in practice on a wider scale, and with a less monotonous lyre. it is possible that sackville's claims in drama may have been exaggerated--they have of late years rather been undervalued: but his claims in poetry proper can only be overlooked by those who decline to consider the most important part of poetry. in the subject of even his part of _the mirror_ there is nothing new: there is only a following of chaucer, and gower, and occleve, and lydgate, and hawes, and many others. but in the handling there is one novelty which makes all others of no effect or interest. it is the novelty of a new poetry. it has already been remarked that these two important books were not immediately followed by any others in poetry corresponding to their importance. the poetry of the first half of elizabeth's reign is as mediocre as the poetry of the last half of her reign is magnificent. although it had taken some hints from wyatt and surrey it had not taken the best; and the inexplicable devotion of most of the versifiers of the time to the doggerel metres already referred to seems to have prevented them from cultivating anything better. yet the pains which were spent upon translation during this time were considerable, and undoubtedly had much to do with strengthening and improving the language. the formal part of poetry became for the first time a subject of study resulting in the _instructions_ of gascoigne, and in the noteworthy critical works which will be mentioned in the next chapter; while the popularity of poetical miscellanies showed the audience that existed for verse. the translators and the miscellanists will each call for some brief notice; but first it is necessary to mention some individual, and in their way, original writers who, though not possessing merit at all equal to that of wyatt, surrey, and sackville, yet deserve to be singled from the crowd. these are gascoigne, churchyard, turberville, googe, and tusser. the poetaster and literary hack, whetstone, who wrote a poetical memoir of george gascoigne after his death, entitles it a remembrance of "the well employed life and godly end" of his hero. it is not necessary to dispute that gascoigne's end was godly; but except for the fact that he was for some years a diligent and not unmeritorious writer, it is not so certain that his life was well employed. at any rate he does not seem to have thought so himself. the date of his birth has been put as early as and as late as : he certainly died in . his father, a knight of good family and estate in essex, disinherited him; but he was educated at cambridge, if not at both universities, was twice elected to parliament, travelled and fought abroad, and took part in the famous festival at kenilworth. his work is, as has been said, considerable, and is remarkable for the number of first attempts in english which it contains. it has at least been claimed for him (though careful students of literary history know that these attributions are always rather hazardous) that he wrote the first english prose comedy (_the supposes_, a version of ariosto), the first regular verse satire (_the steel glass_), the first prose tale (a version from bandello), the first translation from greek tragedy (_jocasta_), and the first critical essay (the above-mentioned _notes of instruction_). most of these things, it will be seen, were merely adaptations of foreign originals; but they certainly make up a remarkable budget for one man. in addition to them, and to a good number of shorter and miscellaneous poems, must be mentioned the _glass of government_ (a kind of morality or serious comedy, moulded, it would seem, on german originals), and the rather prettily, if fantastically termed _flowers, herbs, and weeds_. gascoigne has a very fair command of metre: he is not a great sinner in the childish alliteration which, surviving from the older english poetry, helps to convert so much of his contemporaries' work into doggerel. the pretty "lullaby of a lover," and "gascoigne's good morrow" may be mentioned, and part of one of them may be quoted, as a fair specimen of his work, which is always tolerable if never first-rate. "sing lullaby, as women do, wherewith they bring their babes to rest, and lullaby can i sing too, as womanly as can the best. with lullaby they still the child; and if i be not much beguiled, full many wanton babes have i which must be stilled with lullaby. "first lullaby, my youthful years. it is now time to go to bed, for crooked age and hoary hairs have won the hav'n within my head: with lullaby then, youth, be still, with lullaby content thy will, since courage quails and comes behind, go sleep and so beguile thy mind. "next lullaby, my gazing eyes, which wanton were to glance apace, for every glass may now suffice to show the furrows in my face. with lullaby then wink awhile, with lullaby your looks beguile; let no fair face, nor beauty bright, entice you oft with vain delight. "and lullaby, my wanton will, let reason(s) rule now rein thy thought, since all too late i find by skill how dear i have thy fancies bought: with lullaby now take thine ease, with lullaby thy doubts appease, for trust to this, if thou be still my body shall obey thy will." thomas churchyard was an inferior sort of gascoigne, who led a much longer if less eventful life. he was about the court for the greater part of the century, and had a habit of calling his little books, which were numerous, and written both in verse and prose, by alliterative titles playing on his own name, such as _churchyard's chips_, _churchyard's choice_, and so forth. he was a person of no great literary power, and chiefly noteworthy because of his long life after contributing to tottel's _miscellany_, which makes him a link between the old literature and the new. the literary interests and tentative character of the time, together with its absence of original genius, and the constant symptoms of not having "found its way," are also very noteworthy in george turberville and barnabe googe, who were friends and verse writers of not dissimilar character. turberville, of whom not much is known, was a dorsetshire man of good family, and was educated at winchester and oxford. his birth and death dates are both extremely uncertain. besides a book on falconry and numerous translations (to which, like all the men of his school and day, he was much addicted), he wrote a good many occasional poems, trying even blank verse. barnabe googe, a lincolnshire man, and a member of both universities, appears to have been born in , was employed in ireland, and died in . he was kin to the cecils, and mr. arber has recovered some rather interesting details about his love affairs, in which he was assisted by lord burghley. he, too, was an indefatigable translator, and wrote some original poems. both poets affected the combination of alexandrine and fourteener (split up or not, as the printer chose, into six, six, eight, six), the popularity of which has been noted, and both succumbed too often to its capacities of doggerel. turberville's best work is the following song in a pretty metre well kept up:-- "the green that you did wish me wear aye for your love, and on my helm a branch to bear not to remove, was ever you to have in mind whom cupid hath my feire assigned. "as i in this have done your will and mind to do, so i request you to fulfil my fancy too; a green and loving heart to have, and this is all that i do crave. "for if your flowering heart should change his colour green, or you at length a lady strange of me be seen, then will my branch against his use his colour change for your refuse.[ ] "as winter's force cannot deface this branch his hue, so let no change of love disgrace your friendship true; you were mine own, and so be still, so shall we live and love our fill. "then i may think myself to be well recompensed, for wearing of the tree that is so well defensed against all weather that doth fall when wayward winter spits his gall. "and when we meet, to try me true, look on my head, and i will crave an oath of you whe'r[ ] faith be fled; so shall we both answered be, both i of you, and you of me." [ ] refusal. [ ] short for "whether." the most considerable and the most interesting part of googe's work is a set of eight eclogues which may not have been without influence on _the shepherd's calendar_, and a poem of some length entitled _cupido conquered_, which spenser may also have seen. googe has more sustained power than turberville, but is much inferior to him in command of metre and in lyrical swing. in him, or at least in his printer, the mania for cutting up long verses reaches its height, and his very decasyllables are found arranged in the strange fashion of four and six as thus:-- "good aged bale: that with thy hoary hairs dost still persist to turn the painful book, o happy man, that hast obtained such years, and leav'st not yet on papers pale to look. give over now to beat thy wearied brain, and rest thy pen, that long hath laboured sore." thomas tusser ( ?- ) has often been regarded as merely a writer of doggerel, which is assuredly not lacking in his _hundred_ (later _five hundred_) _points of husbandry_ ( - ). but he has some piquancy of phrase, and is particularly noticeable for the variety, and to a certain extent the accomplishment, of his prosodic experiments--a point of much importance for the time. to these five, of whom some substantive notice has been given, many shadowy names might be added if the catalogue were of any use: such as those of kinwelmersh, whetstone, phaer, neville, blundeston, edwards, golding, and many others. they seem to have been for the most part personally acquainted with one another; the literary energies of england being almost confined to the universities and the inns of court, so that most of those who devoted themselves to literature came into contact and formed what is sometimes called a clique. they were all studiously and rather indiscriminately given to translation (the body of foreign work, ancient and modern, which was turned into english during this quarter of a century being very large indeed), and all or many of them were contributors of commendatory verses to each other's work and of pieces of different descriptions to the poetical miscellanies of the time. of these miscellanies and of the chief translations from the classics some little notice may be taken because of the great part which both played in the poetical education of england. it has been said that almost all the original poets were also translators. thus googe englished, among other things, the _zodiacus vitæ_ of marcellus palingenius, the _regnum papisticum_ of kirchmayer, the _four books of husbandry_ of conrad heresbach, and the _proverbs_ of the marquis of santillana; but some of the translators were not distinguished by any original work. thus jasper heywood, followed by neville above mentioned, by studley, and others, translated between and those tragedies of seneca which had such a vast influence on foreign literature and, fortunately, so small an influence on english. arthur golding gave in a version, by no means destitute of merit, of the _metamorphoses_ which had a great influence on english poetry. we have already mentioned surrey's blank-verse translation of virgil. this was followed up, in - , by thomas phaer, who, like most of the persons mentioned in this paragraph, used the fourteener, broken up or not, as accident or the necessities of the printer brought it about. it was beyond doubt this abundant translation, and perhaps also the manifest deficiencies of the fourteener thus used, which brought about at the close of the present period and the beginning of the next the extraordinary attempt to reproduce classical metres in english verse, which for a time seduced even spenser, which was not a little countenanced by most of the critical writers of the period, which led gabriel harvey and others into such absurdities, and which was scarcely slain even by daniel's famous and capital _defence of rhyme_. the discussion of this absurd attempt (for which rules, not now extant, came from drant of cambridge) in the correspondence of spenser and harvey, and the sensible fashion in which nash laughed at it, are among the best known things in the gossiping history of english letters. but the coxcombry of harvey and the felicitous impertinence of nash have sometimes diverted attention from the actual state of the case. william webbe (a very sober-minded person with taste enough to admire the "new poet," as he calls spenser) makes elaborate attempts not merely at hexameters, which, though only a curiosity, are a possible curiosity in english, but at sapphics which could never (except as burlesque) be tolerable. sidney, spenser, and others gave serious heed to the scheme of substituting classical metres without rhyme for indigenous metres with rhyme. and unless the two causes which brought this about are constantly kept in mind, the reason of it will not be understood. it was undoubtedly the weakness of contemporary english verse which reinforced the general renaissance admiration for the classics; nor must it be forgotten that wyatt takes, in vernacular metres and with rhyme, nearly as great liberties with the intonation and prosody of the language as any of the classicists in their unlucky hexameters and elegiacs. the majesty and grace of the learned tongues, contrasting with the poverty of their own language, impressed, and to a great extent rightly impressed, the early elizabethans, so that they naturally enough cast about for any means to improve the one, and hesitated at any peculiarity which was not found in the other. it was unpardonable in milton to sneer at rhyme after the fifty years of magnificent production which had put english on a level with greek and above latin as a literary instrument. but for harvey and spenser, sidney and webbe, with those fifty years still to come, the state of the case was very different. the translation mania and the classicising mania together led to the production of perhaps the most absurd book in all literature--a book which deserves extended notice here, partly because it has only recently become accessible to the general reader in its original form, and partly because it is, though a caricature, yet a very instructive caricature of the tendencies and literary ideas of the time. this is richard stanyhurst's translation of the first four books of the _Æneid_, first printed at leyden in the summer of , and reprinted in london a year later. this wonderful book (in which the spelling is only less marvellous than the phraseology and verse) shows more than anything else the active throes which english literature was undergoing, and though the result was but a false birth it is none the less interesting. stanyhurst was not, as might be hastily imagined, a person of insufficient culture or insufficient brains. he was an irish roman catholic gentleman, brother-in-law to lord dunsany, and uncle to archbishop usher, and though he was author of the irish part of holinshed's _history_, he has always been regarded by the madder sort of hibernians as a traitor to the nation. his father was recorder of dublin, and he himself, having been born about , was educated at university college, oxford, and went thence, if not to the inns of court, at any rate to those of chancery, and became a student of furnival's inn. he died at brussels in . here is an example of his prose, the latter part of which is profitable for matter as well as for form:-- "how beyt[ ] i haue heere haulf a guesh, that two sorts of carpers wyl seeme too spurne at this myne enterprise. thee one vtterlie ignorant, the oother meanlye letterd. thee ignorant wyl imagin, that thee passage was nothing craggye, in as much as m. phaere hath broken thee ice before me: thee meaner clarcks wyl suppose my trauail in theese heroical verses too carrye no great difficultie, in that yt lay in my choice too make what word i would short or long, hauing no english writer beefore mee in this kind of poëtrye with whose squire i should leauel my syllables. [ ] this and the next extract are given _literatim_ to show stanyhurst's marvellous spelling. * * * * * haue not theese men made a fayre speake? if they had put in _mightye joue_, and _gods_ in thee plural number, and _venus_ with _cupide thee blynd boy_, al had beene in thee nick, thee rythme had been of a right stamp. for a few such stiches boch vp oure newe fashion makers. prouyded not wythstanding alwayes that _artaxerxes_, al be yt hee bee spurgalde, beeing so much gallop, bee placed in thee dedicatory epistle receauing a cuppe of water of a swayne, or elles al is not wurth a beane. good god what a frye of _wooden rythmours_ dooth swarme in stacioners shops, who neauer enstructed in any grammar schoole, not atayning too thee paaringes of thee latin or greeke tongue, yeet like blind bayards rush on forward, fostring theyre vayne conceits wyth such ouerweening silly follyes, as they reck not too bee condemned of thee learned for ignorant, so they bee commended of thee ignorant for learned. thee reddyest way, therefore, too flap theese droanes from the sweete senting hiues of poëtrye, is for thee learned too applye theym selues wholye (yf they be delighted wyth that veyne) too thee true making of verses in such wise as thee _greekes_ and _latins_, thee fathurs of knowledge, haue doone; and too leaue too theese doltish coystrels theyre rude rythming and balducktoom ballads." given a person capable of this lingo, given the prevalent mania for english hexameters, and even what follows may not seem too impossible. "this sayd, with darcksoom night shade quite clowdye she vannisht. grislye faces frouncing, eke against troy leaged in hatred of saincts soure deities dyd i see. then dyd i marck playnely thee castle of ilion vplayd, and troian buyldings quit topsy turvye remooued. much lyk on a mountayn thee tree dry wythered oaken sliest by the clowne coridon rusticks with twibbil or hatchet. then the tre deepe minced, far chopt dooth terrifye swinckers with menacing becking thee branches palsye before tyme, vntil with sowghing yt grunts, as wounded in hacking. at length with rounsefal, from stock vntruncked yt harssheth. * * * * * hee rested wylful lyk a wayward obstinat oldgrey. * * * * * theese woords owt showting with her howling the house she replennisht." there is perhaps no greater evidence of the reverence in which the ancients were held than that such frantic balderdash as this did not extinguish it. yet this was what a man of undoubted talent, of considerable learning, and of no small acuteness (for stanyhurst's preface to this very translation shows something more than glimmerings on the subject of classical and english prosody), could produce. it must never be forgotten that the men of this time were at a hopelessly wrong point of view. it never occurred to them that english left to itself could equal greek or latin. they simply endeavoured, with the utmost pains and skill, to drag english up to the same level as these unapproachable languages by forcing it into the same moulds which greek and latin had endured. properly speaking we ought not to laugh at them. they were carrying out in literature what the older books of arithmetic call "the rule of false,"--that is to say, they were trying what the english tongue could _not_ bear. no one was so successful as stanyhurst in applying this test of the rack: yet it is fair to say that harvey and webbe, nay, spenser and sidney, had practically, though, except in spenser's case, it would appear unconsciously, arrived at the same conclusion before. how much we owe to such adventurers of the impossible few men know except those who have tried to study literature as a whole. a few words have to be said in passing as to the miscellanies which played such an important part in the poetical literature of the day. tottel and _the mirror for magistrates_ (which was, considering its constant accretions, a sort of miscellany) have been already noticed. they were followed by not a few others. the first in date was _the paradise of dainty devices_ ( ), edited by r. edwards, a dramatist of industry if not of genius, and containing a certain amount of interesting work. it was very popular, going through nine or ten editions in thirty years, but with a few scattered exceptions it does not yield much to the historian of english poetry. its popularity shows what was expected; its contents show what, at any rate at the date of its first appearance, was given. it is possible that the doleful contents of _the mirror for magistrates_ (which was reprinted six times during our present period, and which busied itself wholly with what magistrates should avoid, and with the sorrowful departing out of this life of the subjects) may have had a strong effect on edwards, though one at least of his contributors, w. hunnis, was a man of mould. it was followed in by _a gorgeous gallery of gallant inventions_, supposed to have been edited by roydon and proctor, which is a still drier stick. the next miscellany, six years later, _a handful of pleasant delights_, edited by clement robinson, is somewhat better though not much. it is followed by the _phoenix nest_, an interesting collection, by no less than three miscellanies in , edited by "a. b." and r. allot, and named _england's helicon_, _england's parnassus_, and _belvedere_ (the two latter being rather anthologies of extracts than miscellanies proper), and by francis davison's famous _poetical rhapsody_, , all which last belong to a much later date than our present subjects. to call the general poetical merit of these earlier miscellanies high would be absurd. but what at once strikes the reader, not merely of them but of the collections of individual work which accompany them, as so astonishing, is the level which is occasionally reached. the work is often the work of persons quite unknown or unimportant in literature as persons. but we constantly see in it a flash, a symptom of the presence of the true poetical spirit which it is often impossible to find for years together in other periods of poetry. for instance, if ever there was a "dull dog" in verse it was richard edwards. yet in _the paradise of dainty devices_ edwards's poem with the refrain "the falling out of faithful friends renewing is of love," is one of the most charming things anywhere to be found. so is, after many years, the poem attributed to john wooton in _england's helicon_ (the best of the whole set), beginning "her eyes like shining lamps," so is the exquisite "come, little babe" from _the arbour of amorous devices_, so are dozens and scores more which may be found in their proper places, and many of them in mr. arber's admirable _english garner_. the spirit of poetry, rising slowly, was rising surely in the england of these years: no man knew exactly where it would appear, and the greatest poets were--for their praises of themselves and their fellows are quite unconscious and simple--as ignorant as others. the first thirty years of the reign were occupied with simple education--study of models, efforts in this or that kind, translation, and the rest. but the right models had been provided by wyatt and surrey's study of the italians, and by the study of the classics which all men then pursued; and the original inspiration, without which the best models are useless, though itself can do little when the best models are not used, was abundantly present. few things are more curious than to compare, let us say, googe and spenser. yet few things are more certain than that without the study and experiments which googe represents spenser could not have existed. those who decry the historical method in criticism ignore this; and ignorance like wisdom is justified of all her children. chapter ii early elizabethan prose the history of the earlier elizabethan prose, if we except the name of hooker, in whom it culminates, is to a great extent the history of curiosities of literature--of tentative and imperfect efforts, scarcely resulting in any real vernacular style at all. it is, however, emphatically the period of origins of modern english prose, and as such cannot but be interesting. we shall therefore rapidly survey its chief developments, noting first what had been done before elizabeth came to the throne, then taking ascham (who stands, though part of his work was written earlier, very much as the first elizabethan prosaist), noticing the schools of historians, translators, controversialists, and especially critics who illustrated the middle period of the reign, and singling out the noteworthy personality of sidney. we shall also say something of lyly (as far as _euphues_ is concerned) and his singular attempts in prose style, and shall finish with hooker, the one really great name of the period. its voluminous pamphleteering, though much of it, especially the martin marprelate controversy, might come chronologically within the limit of this chapter, will be better reserved for a notice in chapter vi. of the whole pamphlet literature of the reigns of elizabeth and james--an interesting subject, the relation of which to the modern periodical has been somewhat overlooked, and which indeed was, until a comparatively recent period, not very easy to study. gabriel harvey alone, as distinctly belonging to the earlier elizabethans, may be here included with other critics. it was an inevitable result of the discovery of printing that the cultivation of the vernacular for purposes of all work--that is to say, for prose--should be largely increased. yet a different influence arising, or at least eked out, from the same source, rather checked this increase. the study of the classical writers had at first a tendency to render inveterate the habit of employing latin for the journey-work of literature, and in the two countries which were to lead western europe for the future (the literary date of italy was already drawing to a close, and italy had long possessed vernacular prose masterpieces), it was not till the middle of the sixteenth century that the writing of vernacular prose was warmly advocated and systematically undertaken. the most interesting monuments of this crusade, as it may almost be called, in england are connected with a school of cambridge scholars who flourished a little before our period, though not a few of them, such as ascham, wilson, and others, lived into it. a letter of sir john cheke's in the very year of the accession of elizabeth is the most noteworthy document on the subject. it was written to another father of english prose, sir thomas hoby, the translator of castiglione's _courtier_. but ascham had already and some years earlier published his _toxophilus_, and various not unimportant attempts, detailed notice of which would be an antedating of our proper period, had been made. more's chief work, _utopia_, had been written in latin, and was translated into english by another hand, but his _history of edward v._ was not a mean contribution to english prose. tyndale's _new testament_ had given a new and powerful impulse to the reading of english; elyot's _governor_ had set the example of treating serious subjects in a style not unworthy of them, and leland's quaint _itinerary_ the example of describing more or less faithfully if somewhat uncouthly. hall had followed fabyan as an english historian, and, above all, latimer's _sermons_ had shown how to transform spoken english of the raciest kind into literature. lord berners's translations of froissart and of divers examples of late continental romance had provided much prose of no mean quality for light reading, and also by their imitation of the florid and fanciful style of the french-flemish _rhétoriqueurs_ (with which berners was familiar both as a student of french and as governor of calais) had probably contributed not a little to supply and furnish forth the side of elizabethan expression which found so memorable an exponent in the author of _euphues_. for our purpose, however, roger ascham may serve as a starting-point. his _toxophilus_ was written and printed as early as ; his _schoolmaster_ did not appear till after his death, and seems to have been chiefly written in the very last days of his life. there is thus nearly a quarter of a century between them, yet they are not very different in style. ascham was a yorkshire man born at kirbywiske, near northallerton, in ; he went to st. john's college at cambridge, then a notable seat of learning, in ; was elected scholar, fellow, and lecturer, became public orator the year after the appearance of _toxophilus_, acted as tutor to the princess elizabeth, went on diplomatic business to germany, was latin secretary to queen mary, and after her death to his old pupil, and died on the th december . a treatise on cock-fighting (of which sport he was very fond) appears to have been written by him, and was perhaps printed, but is unluckily lost. we have also epistles from him, and his works, both english and latin, have been in whole or part frequently edited. the great interest of ascham is expressed as happily as possible by his own words in the dedication of _toxophilus_ to henry viii. "although," he says, "to have written this book either in latin or greek ... had been more easier and fit for my trade in study, yet ... i have written this english matter in the english tongue for englishmen"--a memorable sentence none the worse for its jingle and repetition, which are well in place. until scholars like ascham, who with the rarest exceptions were the only persons likely or able to write at all, cared to write "english matters in english tongue for englishmen," the formation of english prose style was impossible; and that it required some courage to do so, cheke's letter, written twelve years later, shows.[ ] "i am of this opinion that our own tongue should be written clean and pure, unmixed and unmingled with borrowing of other tongues, wherein, if we take not heed by time, ever borrowing and never paying, she shall be fain to keep her house as bankrupt. for then doth our tongue naturally and praisably utter her meaning, when she borroweth no counterfeitures of other tongues to attire herself withal, but useth plainly her own with such shift as nature, craft, experience, and following of other excellent doth lead her unto, and if she want at any time (as being imperfect she must) yet let her borrow with such bashfulness that it may appear, that if either the mould of our own tongue could serve us to fashion a word of our own, or if the old denizened words could content and ease this need we would not boldly venture of unknown words."[ ] [ ] the letter is given in full by mr. arber in his introduction to ascham's _schoolmaster_, p. . [ ] it will be seen that cheke writes what he argues for, "clean and pure english." "other excellent" is perhaps the only doubtful phrase in the extract or in the letter. the _toxophilus_ and the _schoolmaster_ are both in their different ways very pleasant reading; and the english is far more correct than that of much greater men than ascham in the next century. it is, however, merely as style, less interesting, because it is clear that the author is doing little more than translate in his head, instead of on the paper, good current latin (such as it would have been "more easier" for him to write) into current english. he does not indulge in any undue classicism; he takes few of the liberties with english grammar which, a little later, it was the habit to take on the strength of classical examples. but, on the other hand, he does not attempt, and it would be rather unreasonable to expect that he should have attempted, experiments in the literary power of english itself. a slight sense of its not being so "easy" to write in english as in latin, and of the consequent advisableness of keeping to a sober beaten path, to a kind of style which is not much more english (except for being composed of good english words in straightforward order) than it is any literary language framed to a great extent on the classics, shows itself in him. one might translate passage after passage of ascham, keeping almost the whole order of the words, into very good sound latin prose; and, indeed, his great secret in the _schoolmaster_ (the perpetual translation and retranslation of english into the learned languages, and especially latin) is exactly what would form such a style. it is, as the following examples from both works will show, clear, not inelegant, invaluable as a kind of go-cart to habituate the infant limbs of prose english to orderly movement; but it is not original, or striking, or characteristic, or calculated to show the native powers and capacities of the language. "i can teach you to shoot fair, even as socrates taught a man once to know god. for when he asked him what was god? 'nay,' saith he, 'i can tell you better what god is not, as god is not ill, god is unspeakable, unsearchable, and so forth. even likewise can i say of fair shooting, it hath not this discommodity with it nor that discommodity, and at last a man may so shift all the discommodities from shooting that there shall be left nothing behind but fair shooting. and to do this the better you must remember how that i told you when i described generally the whole nature of shooting, that fair shooting came of these things of standing, nocking, drawing, holding and loosing; the which i will go over as shortly as i can, describing the discommodities that men commonly use in all parts of their bodies, that you, if you fault in any such, may know it, and go about to amend it. faults in archers do exceed the number of archers, which come with use of shooting without teaching. use and custom separated from knowledge and learning, doth not only hurt shooting, but the most weighty things in the world beside. and, therefore, i marvel much at those people which be the maintainers of uses without knowledge, having no other word in their mouth but this use, use, custom, custom. such men, more wilful than wise, beside other discommodities, take all place and occasion from all amendment. and this i speak generally of use and custom." * * * * * "time was when italy and rome have been, to the great good of us who now live, the best breeders and bringers up of the worthiest men, not only for wise speaking, but also for well-doing in all civil affairs that ever was in the world. but now that time is gone; and though the place remain, yet the old and present manners do differ as far as black and white, as virtue and vice. virtue once made that country mistress over all the world: vice now maketh that country slave to them that before were glad to serve it. all man [_i.e._ mankind] seeth it; they themselves confess it, namely such as be best and wisest amongst them. for sin, by lust and vanity, hath and doth breed up everywhere common contempt of god's word, private contention in many families, open factions in every city; and so making themselves bond to vanity and vice at home, they are content to bear the yoke of serving strangers abroad. italy now is not that italy it was wont to be; and therefore now not so fit a place as some do count it for young men to fetch either wisdom or honesty from thence. for surely they will make others but bad scholars that be so ill masters to themselves." this same characteristic, or absence of characteristic, which reaches its climax--a climax endowing it with something like substantive life and merit--in hooker, displays itself, with more and more admixture of raciness and native peculiarity, in almost all the prose of the early elizabethan period up to the singular escapade of lyly, who certainly tried to write not a classical style but a style of his own. the better men, with thomas wilson and ascham himself at their head, made indeed earnest protests against latinising the vocabulary (the great fault of the contemporary french _pléiade_), but they were not quite aware how much they were under the influence of latin in other matters. the translators, such as north, whose famous version of plutarch after amyot had the immortal honour of suggesting not a little of shakespere's greatest work, had the chief excuse and temptation in doing this; but all writers did it more or less: the theologians (to whom it would no doubt have been "more easier" to write in latin), the historians (though the little known holinshed has broken off into a much more vernacular but also much more disorderly style), the rare geographers (of whom the chief is richard eden, the first english writer on america), and the rest. of this rest the most interesting, perhaps, are the small but curious knot of critics who lead up in various ways to sidney and harvey, who seem to have excited considerable interest at the time, and who were not succeeded, after the early years of james, by any considerable body of critics of english till john dryden began to write in the last third of the following century. of these (putting out of sight stephen gosson, the immediate begetter of sidney's _apology for poetry_, campion, the chief champion of classical metres in english, and by a quaint contrast the author of some of the most charming of english songs in purely romantic style, with his adversary the poet daniel, meres, etc.), the chief is the author of the anonymous _art of english poesie_, published the year after the armada, and just before the appearance of _the faërie queene_. this _art_ has chiefly to be compared with the _discourse of english poetrie_, published three years earlier by william webbe. webbe, of whom nothing is known save that he was a private tutor at one or two gentlemen's houses in essex, exhibits that dislike and disdain of rhyme which was an offshoot of the passion for humanist studies, which was importantly represented all through the sixteenth and early seventeenth century in england, and which had milton for its last and greatest exponent. _the art of english poesie_, which is attributed on no grounds of contemporary evidence to george puttenham, though the book was generally reputed his in the next generation, is a much more considerable treatise, some four times the length of webbe's, dealing with a large number of questions subsidiary to _ars poetica_, and containing no few selections of illustrative verse, many of the author's own. as far as style goes both webbe and puttenham fall into the rather colourless but not incorrect class already described, and are of the tribe of ascham. here is a sample of each:-- (webbe's _preface to the noble poets of england_.) "among the innumerable sorts of english books, and infinite fardels of printed pamphlets, wherewith this country is pestered, all shops stuffed, and every study furnished; the greater part, i think, in any one kind, are such as are either mere poetical, or which tend in some respects (as either in matter or form) to poetry. of such books, therefore, sith i have been one that have had a desire to read not the fewest, and because it is an argument which men of great learning have no leisure to handle, or at least having to do with more serious matters do least regard. if i write something, concerning what i think of our english poets, or adventure to set down my simple judgment of english poetry, i trust the learned poets will give me leave, and vouchsafe my book passage, as being for the rudeness thereof no prejudice to their noble studies, but even (as my intent is) an _instar cotis_ to stir up some other of meet ability to bestow travail in this matter; whereby, i think, we may not only get the means which we yet want, to discern between good writers and bad, but perhaps also challenge from the rude multitude of rustical rhymers, who will be called poets, the right practice and orderly course of true poetry." * * * * * (puttenham _on style_.) "style is a constant and continual phrase or tenour of speaking and writing, extending to the whole tale or process of the poem or history, and not properly to any piece or member of a tale; but is of words, speeches, and sentences together; a certain contrived form and quality, many times natural to the writer, many times his peculiar bye-election and art, and such as either he keepeth by skill or holdeth on by ignorance, and will not or peradventure cannot easily alter into any other. so we say that cicero's style and sallust's were not one, nor cæsar's and livy's, nor homer's and hesiodus',[ ] nor herodotus' and thucydides', nor euripides' and aristophanes', nor erasmus' and budeus' styles. and because this continual course and manner of writing or speech sheweth the matter and disposition of the writer's mind more than one or two instances can show, therefore there be that have called style the image of man (_mentis character_). for man is but his mind, and as his mind is tempered and qualified, so are his speeches and language at large; and his inward conceits be the metal of his mind, and his manner of utterance the very warp and woof of his conceits, more plain or busy and intricate or otherwise affected after the rate."[ ] [ ] the final _s_ of such names often at the time appears unaltered. [ ] _i.e._ "in proportion." contemporary with these, however, there was growing up a quite different school of english prose which showed itself on one side in the _estilo culto_ of lyly and the university wits of his time; on the other, in the extremely vernacular and sometimes extremely vulgar manner of the pamphleteers, who were very often the same persons. lyly himself exhibits both styles in _euphues_; and if _pap with a hatchet_ and _an almond for a parrot_ are rightly attributed to him, still more in these. so also does gabriel harvey, spenser's friend, a curious coxcomb who endeavoured to dissuade spenser from continuing _the faërie queene_, devoted much time himself and strove to devote other people to the thankless task of composing english hexameters and trimeters, engaged (very much to his discomfiture) in a furious pamphlet war with thomas nash, and altogether presents one of the most characteristic though least favourable specimens of the elizabethan man of letters. we may speak of him further when we come to the pamphleteers generally. john lyly is a person of much more consequence in english literature than the conceited and pragmatical pedant who wrote _pierce's supererogation_. he is familiar, almost literally to every schoolboy, as the author of the charming piece, "cupid with my campaspe played," and his dramatic work will come in for notice in a future chapter; but he is chiefly thought of by posterity, whether favourably or the reverse, as the author of _euphues_. exceedingly little is known about his life, and it is necessary to say that the usually accepted dates of his death, his children's birth, and so forth, depend wholly on the identification of a john lilly, who is the subject of such entries in the registers of a london church, with the euphuist and dramatist--an identification which requires confirmation. a still more wanton attempt to supplement ignorance with knowledge has been made in the further identification with lyly of a certain "witty and bold atheist," who annoyed bishop hall in his first cure at hawstead, in suffolk, and who is called "mr. lilly." all supposed facts about him (or some other john lyly), his membership of parliament and so forth, have been diligently set forth by mr. bond in his oxford edition of the _works_, with the documents which are supposed to prove them. he is supposed, on uncertain but tolerable inferences, to have been born about , and he certainly entered magdalen college, oxford, in , though he was not matriculated till two years later. he is described as _plebeii filius_, was not on the foundation, and took his degree in . he must have had some connection with the cecils, for a letter of is extant from him to burleigh. he cannot have been five and twenty when he wrote _euphues_, which was licensed at the end of , and was published (the first part) early next year, while the second part followed with a very short interval. in he wrote an unmistakable letter commendatory to watson's _hecatompathia_, and between and he must have written his plays. he appears to have continued to reside at magdalen for a considerable time, and then to have haunted the court. a melancholy petition is extant to queen elizabeth from him, the second of its kind, in which he writes: "thirteen years your highness' servant, but yet nothing." this was in : he is supposed to have died in . _euphues_ is a very singular book, which was constantly reprinted and eagerly read for fifty years, then forgotten for nearly two hundred, then frequently discussed, but very seldom read, even it may be suspected in mr. arber's excellent reprint of it, or in that of mr. bond. it gave a word to english, and even yet there is no very distinct idea attaching to the word. it induced one of the most gifted restorers of old times to make a blunder, amusing in itself, but not in the least what its author intended it to be, and of late years especially it has prompted constant discussions as to the origin of the peculiarities which mark it. as usual, we shall try to discuss it with less reference to what has been said about it than to itself. _euphues_ (properly divided into two parts, "euphues, the anatomy of wit," and "euphues and his england," the scene of the first lying in naples) is a kind of love story; the action, however, being next to nothing, and subordinated to an infinite amount of moral and courtly discourse. oddly enough, the unfavourable sentence of hallam, that it is "a very dull story," and the favourable sentence of kingsley, that it is "a brave, righteous, and pious book," are both quite true, and, indeed, any one can see that there is nothing incompatible in them. at the present day, however, its substance, which chiefly consists of the moral discourses aforesaid, is infinitely inferior in interest to its manner. of that manner, any one who imagines it to be reproduced by sir piercie shafton's extravagances in _the monastery_ has an entirely false idea. it is much odder than shaftonese, but also quite different from it. lyly's two secrets are in the first place an antithesis, more laboured, more monotonous, and infinitely more pointless than macaulay's--which antithesis seems to have met with not a little favour, and was indeed an obvious expedient for lightening up and giving character to the correct but featureless prose of ascham and other "latiners." the second was a fancy, which amounts to a mania, for similes, strung together in endless lists, and derived as a rule from animals, vegetables, or minerals, especially from the fauna and flora of fancy. it is impossible to open a page of _euphues_ without finding an example of this eccentric and tasteless trick, and in it, as far as in any single thing, must be found the recipe for euphuism, pure and simple. as used in modern language for conceited and precious language in general, the term has only a very partial application to its original, or to that original's author. indeed lyly's vocabulary, except occasionally in his similes, is decidedly vernacular, and he very commonly mingles extremely homely words with his highest flights. no better specimen of him can be given than from the aforesaid letter commendatory to the _hecatompathia_. "my good friend, i have read your new passions, and they have renewed mine old pleasures, the which brought to me no less delight than they have done to your self-commendations. and certes had not one of mine eyes about serious affairs been watchful, both by being too busy, had been wanton: such is the nature of persuading pleasure, that it melteth the marrow before it scorch the skin and burneth before it warmeth. not unlike unto the oil of jet, which rotteth the bone and never rankleth the flesh, or the scarab flies which enter into the root and never touch the fruit. "and whereas you desire to have my opinion, you may imagine that my stomach is rather cloyed than queasy, and therefore mine appetite of less force than my affection, fearing rather a surfeit of sweetness than desiring a satisfying. the repeating of love wrought in me a semblance of liking; but searching the very veins of my heart i could find nothing but a broad scar where i left a deep wound: and loose strings where i tied hard knots: and a table of steel where i framed a plot of wax. "whereby i noted that young swans are grey, and the old white, young trees tender and the old tough, young men amorous, and, growing in years, either wiser or warier. the coral plant in the water is a soft weed, on the land a hard stone: a sword frieth in the fire like a black eel; but laid in earth like white snow: the heart in love is altogether passionate; but free from desire altogether careless. "but it is not my intent to inveigh against love, which women account but a bare word and men reverence as the best god. only this i would add without offence to gentlewomen, that were not men more superstitious in their praises than women are constant in their passions love would either be worn out of use, or men out of love, or women out of lightness. i can condemn none but by conjecture, nor commend any but by lying, yet suspicion is as free as thought, and as far as i can see as necessary as credulity. "touching your mistress i must needs think well, seeing you have written so well, but as false glasses shew the fairest faces so fine gloses amend the baddest fancies. appelles painted the phoenix by hearsay not by sight, and lysippus engraved vulcan with a straight leg whom nature framed with a poult foot, which proveth men to be of greater affection their [then? = than] judgment. but in that so aptly you have varied upon women i will not vary from you, so confess i must, and if i should not, yet mought i be compelled, that to love would be the sweetest thing in the earth if women were the faithfulest, and that women would be more constant if men were more wise. "and seeing you have used me so friendly as to make me acquainted with your passions, i will shortly make you privy to mine which i would be loth the printer should see, for that my fancies being never so crooked he would put them into straight lines unfit for my humour, necessary for his art, who setteth down blind in as many letters as seeing.[ ]--farewell." [ ] "blinde" with the _e_ according to the old spelling having six letters, the same number as seeing. this curious epistle is both in style and matter an epitome of _euphues_, which had appeared some three years before. many efforts have been made to discover some model for lyly's oddities. spanish and italian influences have been alleged, and there is a special theory that lord berners's translations have the credit or discredit of the paternity. the curious similes are certainly found very early in spanish, and may be due to an eastern origin. the habit of overloading the sentence with elaborate and far-fetched language, especially with similes, may also have come from the french _rhétoriqueurs_ already mentioned--a school of pedantic writers (chastellain, robertet, crétin, and some others being the chief) who flourished during the last half of the fifteenth century and the first quarter of the sixteenth, while the latest examples of them were hardly dead when lyly was born. the desire, very laudably felt all over europe, to adorn and exalt the vernacular tongues, so as to make them vehicles of literature worthy of taking rank with latin and greek, naturally led to these follies, of which euphuism in its proper sense was only one. michael drayton, in some verse complimentary to sidney, stigmatises not much too strongly lyly's prevailing faults, and attributes to the hero of zutphen the purification of england from euphuism. this is hardly critical. that sidney--a young man, and a man of fashion at the time when lyly's oddities were fashionable--should have to a great extent (for his resistance is by no means absolute) resisted the temptation to imitate them, is very creditable. but the influence of _euphues_ was at least as strong for many years as the influence of the _arcadia_ and the _apology_; and the chief thing that can be said for sidney is that he did not wholly follow lyly to do evil. nor is his positive excellence in prose to be compared for a moment with his positive excellence in poetry. his life is so universally known that nothing need be said about it beyond reminding the reader that he was born, as lyly is supposed to have been, in ; that he was the son of sir henry sidney, afterwards viceroy of ireland, and of lady mary, eldest daughter of the luckless dudley, duke of northumberland; that he was educated at shrewsbury and christ church, travelled much, acquiring the repute of one of the most accomplished cavaliers of europe, loved without success penelope devereux ("stella"), married frances walsingham, and died of his wounds at the battle of zutphen, when he was not yet thirty-two years old. his prose works are the famous pastoral romance of the _arcadia_, written to please his sister, the countess of pembroke, and the short _apology for poetry_, a very spirited piece of work, immediately provoked by a rather silly diatribe against the theatre by one stephen gosson, once a playwright himself, but turned puritan clergyman. both appear to have been written about the same time--that is to say, between and ; sidney being then in london and in the society of spenser and other men of letters. the amiability of sidney's character, his romantic history, the exquisite charm of his verse at its best, and last, not least, the fact of his enthusiastic appreciation and patronage of literature at a time when literary men never failed to give aristocratic patrons somewhat more than _quid pro quo_, have perhaps caused his prose work to be traditionally a little overvalued. the _apology for poetry_ is full of generous ardour, contains many striking and poetical expressions, and explains more than any other single book the secret of the wonderful literary production of the half-century which followed. the _arcadia_, especially when contrasted with _euphues_, has the great merit of abundant and stirring incident and interest, of freedom from any single affectation so pestering and continuous as lyly's similes, and of constant purple patches of poetical description and expression, which are indeed not a little out of place in prose, but which are undeniably beautiful in themselves. but when this is said all is said. enthusiastic as sidney's love for poetry and for literature was, it was enthusiasm not at all according to knowledge. in the _apology_, by his vindication of the unities, and his denunciation of the mixture of tragedy and comedy, he was (of course without knowing it) laying down exactly the two principles, a fortunate abjuration and scouting whereof gave us the greatest possession in mass and variety of merit that any literature possesses--the elizabethan drama from shakespere and marlowe to ford and shirley. follow sidney, and good-bye to _faustus_, to _hamlet_, to _philaster_, to _the duchess of malfi_, to _the changeling_, to _the virgin martyr_, to _the broken heart_. we must content ourselves with _gorboduc_ and _cornelia_, with _cleopatra_ and _philotas_, at the very best with _sejanus_ and _the silent woman_. again sidney commits himself in this same piece to the pestilent heresy of prose-poetry, saying that verse is "only an ornament of poetry;" nor is there any doubt that milton, whether he meant it or not, fixed a deserved stigma on the _arcadia_ by calling it a "vain and amatorious poem." it is a poem in prose, which is as much as to say, in other words, that it unites the faults of both kinds. nor is sidney less an enemy (though a "sweet enemy" in his own or bruno's words) of the minor and more formal graces of style. if his actual vocabulary is not latinised, or italianised, or lylyfied, he was one of the greatest of sinners in the special elizabethan sin of convoluting and entangling his phrases (after the fashion best known in the mouths of shakespere's fine gentlemen), so as to say the simplest thing in the least simple manner. not osric nor iachimo detests the _mot propre_ more than sidney. yet again, he is one of the arch offenders in the matter of spoiling the syntax of the sentence and the paragraph. as has been observed already, the unpretending writers noticed above, if they have little harmony or balance of phrase, are seldom confused or breathless. sidney was one of the first writers of great popularity and influence (for the _arcadia_ was very widely read) to introduce what may be called the sentence-and-paragraph-heap, in which clause is linked on to clause till not merely the grammatical but the philosophical integer is hopelessly lost sight of in a tangle of jointings and appendices. it is not that he could not do better; but that he seems to have taken no trouble not to do worse. his youth, his numerous avocations, and the certainty that he never formally prepared any of his work for the press, would of course be ample excuses, even if the singular and seductive beauty of many scraps throughout this work did not redeem it. but neither of the radical difference in nature and purpose between prose and verse, nor of the due discipline and management of prose itself, does sidney seem to have had the slightest idea. although he seldom or never reaches the beauties of the _flamboyant_ period of prose, which began soon after his death and filled the middle of the seventeenth century, he contains examples of almost all its defects; and considering that he is nearly the first writer to do this, and that his writings were (and were deservedly) the favourite study of generous literary youth for more than a generation, it is scarcely uncharitable to hold him directly responsible for much mischief. the faults of _euphues_ were faults which were certain to work their own cure; those of the _arcadia_ were so engaging in themselves, and linked with so many merits and beauties, that they were sure to set a dangerous example. i believe, indeed, that if sidney had lived he might have pruned his style not a little without weakening it, and then the richness of his imagination would probably have made him the equal of bacon and the superior of raleigh. but as it is, his light in english prose (we shall speak and speak very differently of his verse hereafter) was only too often a will-o'-the-wisp. i am aware that critics whom i respect have thought and spoken in an opposite sense, but the difference comes from a more important and radical difference of opinion as to the nature, functions, and limitations of english prose. sidney's style may be perhaps best illustrated by part of his dedication; the narrative parts of the _arcadia_ not lending themselves well to brief excerpt, while the _apology_ is less remarkable for style than for matter. _to my dear lady and sister, the countess of pembroke._ "here have you now, most dear, and most worthy to be most dear, lady, this idle work of mine; which, i fear, like the spider's web, will be thought fitter to be swept away than wove to any other purpose. for my part, in very truth, as the cruel fathers among the greeks were wont to do to the babes they would not foster, i could well find in my heart to cast out in some desert of forgetfulness this child which i am loth to father. but you desired me to do it, and your desire to my heart is an absolute commandment. now it is done only for you, only to you; if you keep it to yourself, or commend it to such friends who will weigh errors in the balance of good will, i hope, for the father's sake, it will be pardoned, perchance made much of, though in itself it have deformities. for indeed for severer eyes it is not, being but a trifle, and that triflingly handled. your dear self can best witness the manner, being done in loose sheets of paper, most of it in your presence, the rest by sheets sent unto you as fast as they were done. in sum, a young head, not so well stayed as i would it were, and shall be when god will, having many fancies begotten in it, if it had not been in some way delivered, would have grown a monster, and more sorry might i be that they came in than that they gat out. but his[ ] chief safety shall be the walking abroad; and his chief protection the bearing the livery of your name, which, if much good will do not deceive me, is worthy to be a sanctuary for a greater offender. this say i because i know thy virtue so; and this say i because it may be for ever so, or, to say better, because it will be for ever so." [ ] apparently = the book's. the difference referred to above is again well exemplified by the difference of opinions on the style of hooker as compared with that of sidney. hooker wrote considerably later than the other authors here criticised, but his work is so distinctly the climax of the style started by ascham, cheke, and their fellows (the style in which english was carefully adapted to literary purposes for which latin had been previously employed, under the general idea that latin syntax should, on the whole, rule the new literary medium), that this chapter would be incomplete without a notice of him. for the distinguished writers who were contemporary with his later years represent, with rare and only partly distinguished exceptions, not a development of hooker, but either a development of sidney or a fresh style, resulting from the blending in different proportions of the academic and classical manner with the romantic and discursive. the events of hooker's neither long nor eventful life are well-known from one of the earliest of standard biographies in english--that of izaak walton. he was born at heavitree, a suburb of exeter, in (?). though he was fairly connected, his parents were poor, and he was educated as a bible clerk at corpus christi college, oxford. he entered here in , and for some fifteen years oxford was his home, latterly as fellow and lecturer of corpus. the story of his marriage is slightly pathetic, but more than slightly ludicrous, and he appears to have been greatly henpecked as well as obliged to lead an uncongenial life at a country living. in he was made master of the temple, and held that post for seven years, distinguishing himself both as a preacher and a controversialist. but neither was this his vocation; and the last nine years of his life were spent, it would seem more congenially, in two other country livings, first in wiltshire, then in kent. he died in . the first four books of the _ecclesiastical polity_ were published in , the fifth in . the last three books, published after his death, lie under grave suspicion of having been tampered with. this, however, as the unquestionably genuine portion is considerable in bulk, is a matter rather of historical and theological than of purely literary interest. hooker himself appears to have been something like the popular ideal of a student: never so happy as when pen in hand, and by no means fitted for the rougher kind of converse with his fellow-men, still less for the life of what is commonly called a man of the world. but in the world of literature he is a very great man indeed. very few theological books have made themselves a place in the first rank of the literature of their country, and if the _ecclesiastical polity_ has done so, it has certainly not done so without cause. if there has been a certain tendency on the part of strong partisans of the anglican church to overestimate the literary and philosophical merit of this book, which may be called the first vernacular defence of the position of the english church, that has been at least compensated by partisan criticism on the other side. nor is there the least fear that the judgment of impartial critics will ever deprive hooker of the high rank generally accorded to him. he is, of course, far from being faultless. in his longer sentences (though long sentences are by no means the rule with him) he often falls into that abuse of the classical style which the comparatively jejune writers who had preceded him avoided, but which constantly manifested itself in the richer manner of his own contemporaries--the abuse of treating the uninflected english language as if it were an inflected language, in which variations and distinctions of case and gender and number help to connect adjective with substantive, and relative with antecedent. sometimes, though less often, he distorts the natural order of the english in order to secure the latin desideratum of finishing with the most emphatic and important words of the clause. his subject leads and almost forces him to an occasional pedantry of vocabulary, and in the region which is not quite that of form nor quite that of matter, he sometimes fails in co-ordinating his arguments, his facts, and his citations, and in directing the whole with crushing force at his enemy. his argument occasionally degenerates into mere illustration; his logic into mere rhetoric. but when all these things are admitted, the _ecclesiastical polity_ remains a book in which matter and manner are wedded as in few other books of the same kind. the one characteristic which has been admitted by hooker's faintest praisers as well as by his warmest--the golden moderation and judiciousness of his argument--is perhaps rather calculated to extort esteem than to arouse admiration. moderation, like other kinds of probity, _laudatur et alget_: the adversary is not extremely grateful for not being pushed to extremity, and those on the same side would at least excuse a little more vehemence in driving advantages home. but hooker has other qualities which are equally estimable and more shining. what especially distinguishes him from the literary point of view is his almost unique faculty of diversifying dry and technical argument with outbursts of rhetoric. these last are not mere purple patches; they do not come in with the somewhat ostentatious usherment and harbingery which, for instance, laid the even more splendid bursts of jeremy taylor open to the sharp sarcasm of south. there is nothing theatrical about them; they rise quite naturally out of the level of discussion and sink into it again, with no sudden stumble or drop. nor are they ever (like some of sidney's poetical excrescences) tags and hemistichs of unwritten sonnets or songs stuck in anyhow upon the prose. for instance, sidney writes: "about the time when the candles had begun to inherit the sun's office." now this in a somewhat quaint and conceited fashion of verse would be excellent. it would also be excellent in burlesque, and in such prose as browne's it might conquer its place victoriously. but except in such a context (which sidney cannot weave) it is a _rococo_ ornament, a tawdry beautification. compare with it any of the celebrated passages of hooker, which may be found in the extract books--the encomium on law, the admirable passage, not so admirable indeed in the context as it might be but still admirable, about angels, the vindication of music in the church service. here the expression, even at its warmest, is in no sense poetical, and the flight, as it is called, connects itself with and continues and drops into the ordinary march of argument in the most natural and imperceptible manner. the elevated passages of hooker's style resemble more than anything else those convenient exploits common, probably, in most persons' dreams, in which the dreamer, without any trouble to himself or any apparent surprise in those about him, lifts himself from the ground and skims or soars as he pleases, sure that he can return to earth also when he pleases, and without any shock. the speculators on the causes of beauty, admiration, and the like have sometimes sought them in contrast first of all, and it has been frequently noticed that the poets who charm us most are those who know how to alternate pity and terror. there is something of the same sort in these variations of the equable procession of hooker's syllogisms, these flower-gardens scattered, if not in the wilderness, yet in the humdrum arable ground of his collections from fathers and philosophers, his marshallings of facts and theories against the counter-theories of cartwright and travers. neither before him nor in his time, nor for generations after him--scarcely, indeed, till berkeley--did any one arise who had this profound and unpretentious art of mixing the useful with the agreeable. taylor--already mentioned as inferior to hooker in one respect, however superior he may be in the splendour of his rhetoric--is again and still more inferior to him in the parts that are not ornamental, in the pedestrian body of his controversy and exposition. as a mere controversialist, hooker, if not exactly a hobbes or a bentley, if not even a chillingworth, is not likely to be spoken of without respect by those who understand what evidence means. if he sometimes seems to modern readers to assume his premisses, the conclusions follow much more rigidly than is customary with a good many of our later philosophers, who protest against the assumption of premisses; but having so protested neglect the ambiguity of terms, and leave their middles undistributed, and perpetrate illicit process with a gaiety of heart which is extremely edifying, or who fancy that they are building systems of philosophy when they are in reality constructing dictionaries of terms. but his argument is of less concern to us here than the style in which he clothes it, and the merit of that is indisputable, as a brief extract will show. "as therefore man doth consist of different and distinct parts, every part endued with manifold abilities which all have their several ends and actions thereunto referred; so there is in this great variety of duties which belong to men that dependency and order by means whereof, the lower sustaining always the more excellent and the higher perfecting the more base, they are in their times and seasons continued with most exquisite correspondence. labours of bodily and daily toil purchase freedom for actions of religious joy, which benefit these actions requite with the gift of desired rest--a thing most natural and fit to accompany the solemn festival duties of honour which are done to god. for if those principal works of god, the memory whereof we use to celebrate at such times, be but certain tastes and says,[ ] as it were, of that final benefit wherein our perfect felicity and bliss lieth folded up, seeing that the presence of the one doth direct our cogitations, thoughts, and desires towards the other, it giveth surely a kind of life and addeth inwardly no small delight to those so comfortable anticipations, especially when the very outward countenance of that we presently do representeth, after a sort, that also whereunto we tend. as festival rest doth that celestial estate whereof the very heathens themselves, which had not the means whereby to apprehend much, did notwithstanding imagine that it must needs consist in rest, and have therefore taught that above the highest movable sphere there is no thing which feeleth alteration, motion, or change; but all things immutable, unsubject to passion, blest with eternal continuance in a life of the highest perfection, and of that complete abundant sufficiency within itself which no possibility of want, maim, or defect, can touch." [ ] "assays." hooker's defects have been already admitted, and it has to be added to them that he was necessarily destitute of much useful vocabulary which his successors inherited or added, and that he had absolutely no model of style. what he lacked was the audacity to be, not like sidney more flowery, not like the contemporary pamphleteers more slangy, but more intelligently vernacular; to follow in the mould of his sentences the natural order of english speech rather than the conventional syntax of latin, and to elaborate for himself a clause-architecture or order, so to speak, of word-building, which should depend upon the inherent qualities of euphony and rhythm possessed by english. it is, however, quite certain that nothing was further from hooker's thoughts than the composition of english literature merely as english literature. he wanted to bring a certain subject under the notice of readers of the vulgar tongue, and being before all things a scholar he could not help making a scholarly use of that tongue. the wonder is that, in his circumstances and with his purposes, with hardly any teachers, with not a great stock of verbal material, and with little or no tradition of workmanship in the art, he should have turned out such admirable work. it would be interesting to dwell on the prose of fulke greville, sidney's friend, who long outlived him, and who anticipated not a little of that magnificence of the prose of his later contemporaries, beside which i have ventured to suggest that sidney's own is sometimes but _rococo_. a place ought to be given to richard knolles, who deserves, if not the name of the first historian of england, certainly the credit of making, in his _history of the turks_ ( ), a step from the loose miscellany of the chronicle to the ordered structure of the true historic style. some would plead for richard mulcaster, whose work on education and especially on the teaching of the english tongue in his _positions_ and _first part of the elementary_ ( ) is most intimately connected with our general subject. but there is no room for more than a mention of these, or for further dwelling on the translators already glanced at and others, the most important and influential of whom was john florio, the englisher ( ) of montaigne. chapter iii the first dramatic period it does not belong to the plan of this division of the present book to trace the earliest beginnings of the english theatre, or those intermediate performances by which, in the reigns of the four first tudors, the mystery and morality passed into the interlude. even the two famous comedies of _ralph roister doister_ and _gammer gurton's needle_ stand as it were only at the threshold of our period in this chapter, and everything before them is shut out of it. on the other hand, we can take to be our province the whole rise, flourishing, and decadence of the extraordinary product, known somewhat loosely as the elizabethan drama. we shall in the present chapter discuss the two comedies or rather farces just mentioned, and notice on the one hand the rather amorphous production which, during the first thirty years of elizabeth, represented the influence of a growing taste for personal and lively dramatic story on the somewhat arid soil of the morality and interlude, and, on the other, the abortive attempt to introduce the regular senecan tragedy--an attempt which almost immediately broke down and disappeared, whelmed in the abundance of chronicle-play and melodrama. and finally we shall show how the two rival schools of the university wits and the actor playwrights culminated, the first in marlowe, the second in the earlier and but indistinctly and conjecturally known work of shakespere. a second chapter will show us the triumph of the untrammelled english play in tragedy and comedy, furnished by marlowe with the mighty line, but freed to a great extent from the bombast and the unreal scheme which he did not shake off. side by side with shakespere himself we shall have to deal with the learned sock of jonson, the proud full style of chapman, the unchastened and ill-directed vigour of marston, the fresh and charming, if unkempt grace of dekker, the best known and most remarkable members of a crowd of unknown or half-known playwrights. a third division will show us a slight gain on the whole in acting qualities, a considerable perfecting of form and scheme, but at the same time a certain decline in the most purely poetical merits, redeemed and illustrated by the abundant genius of beaumont and fletcher, of middleton, of webster, of massinger, and of ford. and the two latest of these will conduct us into the fourth or period of decadence where, round the voluminous work and still respectable fame of james shirley, are grouped names like brome, glapthorne, suckling, and others, whose writing, sometimes remarkable and even brilliant, gradually loses not only dramatic but poetical merit, till it drops into the formless plots, the unscannable verse, the coarseness unredeemed by passion, the horrors unlit by any tragic force, which distinguish the last plays before the closing of the theatres, and reappear to some extent at a period beyond ours in the drama (soon to be radically changed in almost every possible characteristic) of the restoration. the field of survey is vast, and despite the abundant labour which has been bestowed upon it during the nineteenth century, it is still in a somewhat chaotic condition. the remarkable collection of old plays which we owe to mr. a. h. bullen shows, by sample only and with no pretence of being exhaustive, the amount of absolutely unknown matter which still exists. the collection and editing of texts has proceeded on the most widely different principles, and with an almost complete absence of that intelligent partition of labour which alone can reduce chaos to order in such a case. to give but one instance, there is actually no complete collection, though various attempts have been made at it, which gives, with or without sufficient editorial apparatus to supplement the canon, all the dramatic _adespota_ which have been at one time or another attributed to shakespere. these at present the painful scholar can only get together in publications abounding in duplicates, edited on the most opposite principles, and equally troublesome either for library arrangement or for literary reference. the editions of single authors have exhibited an equal absence of method; one editor admitting doubtful plays or plays of part-authorship which are easily accessible elsewhere, while another excludes those which are difficult to be got at anywhere. it is impossible for any one who reads literature as literature and not as a matter of idle crotchet, not to reflect that if either of the societies which, during the nineteenth century, have devoted themselves to the study of shakespere and his contemporaries, had chosen to employ their funds on it, a complete corpus of the drama between and , edited with sufficient, but not superfluous critical apparatus on a uniform plan, and in a decent if not a luxurious form, might now be obtainable. some forty or fifty volumes at the outside on the scale of the "globe" series, or of messrs. chatto's useful reprints of jonson, chapman, and other dramatists, would probably contain every play of the slightest interest, even to a voracious student--who would then have all his material under his hand. what time, expense, and trouble are required to obtain, and that very imperfectly, any such advantage now, only those who have tried to do it know. even mr. hazlitt's welcome, if somewhat uncritical, reprint of dodsley, long out of print, did not boldly carry out its principle--though there are plans for improving and supplementing it. nevertheless, if the difficulties are great so are the rewards. it has been the deliberate opinion of many competent judges (neither unduly prejudiced in favour of english literature nor touched with that ignorance of other literature which is as fatal to judgment as actual prejudice) that in no time or country has the literary interest of a short and definite period of production in one well-defined kind approached in value the interest of the elizabethan drama. other periods and other countries may produce more remarkable work of different kinds, or more uniformly accomplished, and more technically excellent work in the same kind. but for originality, volume, generic resemblance of character, and individual independence of trait, exuberance of inventive thought, and splendour of execution in detached passages--the elizabethan drama from sackville to shirley stands alone in the history of the world. the absurd overestimate which has sometimes been made of its individual practitioners, the hyperbole of the language which has been used to describe them, the puerile and almost inconceivable folly of some of their scholiasts and parasitic students, find a certain excuse in this truth--a truth which will only be contested by those who have not taken the very considerable trouble necessary to master the facts, or who are precluded by a natural inability from savouring the _goût du terroir_ of this abundant and intoxicating wine. there are those who say that nobody but an enthusiast or a self-deceiver can read with real relish any elizabethan dramatist but shakespere, and there are those who would have it that the incommunicable and uncommunicated charm of shakespere is to be found in nabbes and davenport, in glapthorne and chettle. they are equally wrong, but the second class are at any rate in a more saving way of wrongness. where shakespere stands alone is not so much in his actual faculty of poetry as in his command of that faculty. of the others, some, like jonson, fletcher, massinger, had the art without the power; others, like chapman, dekker, webster, had flashes of the power without the art. but there is something in the whole crew, jovial or saturnine, which is found nowhere else, and which, whether in full splendour as in shakespere, or in occasional glimmers as in tourneur or rowley, is found in all, save those mere imitators and hangers-on who are peculiar to no period. this remarkable quality, however, does not show itself in the dramatic work of our present period until quite the close of it. it is true that the period opens (according to the traditional estimate which has not been much altered by recent studies) with three plays of very considerable character, and of no inconsiderable merit--the two comedies already named and the tragedy of _gorboduc_, otherwise _ferrex and porrex_. _ralph roister doister_ was licensed and is thought to have been printed in , but it may have been acted at eton by , and the whole cast of the metre, language, and _scenario_, is of a colour older than elizabeth's reign. it may be at least attributed to the middle of the century, and is the work of nicholas udall, a schoolmaster who has left at two great schools a repute for indulgence in the older methods of instruction not inferior to busby's or keate's. _ralph roister doister_, though a fanciful estimate may see a little cruelty of another kind in it, is of no austere or pedagogic character. the author has borrowed not a little from the classical comedy--plautine or even aristophanic rather than terentian--to strengthen and refine the domestic interlude or farce; and the result is certainly amusing enough. the plot turns on the courtship of dame christian custance [constance], a widow of repute and wealth as well as beauty, by the gull and coxcomb, _ralph roister doister_, whose suit is at once egged on and privately crossed by the mischievous matthew merrygreek, who plays not only parasite but rook to the hero. although custance has not the slightest intention of accepting ralph, and at last resorts to actual violence, assisted by her maids, to get rid of him and his followers, the affair nearly breeds a serious quarrel between herself and her plighted lover, gawin goodluck; but all ends merrily. the metre is the somewhat unformed doggerel couplet of twelve syllables or thereabouts, with a strong cæsura in the middle, and is varied and terminated by songs from custance's maids and others. indeed the chief charm of the piece is the genuine and unforced merriment which pervades it. although merrygreek's practices on ralph's silliness sometimes tend a little to tediousness, the action on the whole moves trippingly enough, and despite the strong flavour of the "stock part" in the characters they have considerable individuality. the play is, moreover, as a whole remarkably free from coarseness, and there is no difficulty in finding an illustrative extract. _c. custance loquitur._ "o lord! how necessary it is now o' days, that each body live uprightly all manner ways; for let never so little a gap be open, and be sure of this, the worst shall be spoken. how innocent stand i in this frame o' thought, and yet see what mistrust towards me it hath wrought. but thou, lord, knowest all folks' thoughts and eke intents; and thou art the deliverer of all innocents. thou didst keep the advoutress,[ ] that she might be amended; much more then keep, lord,[ ] that never sin intended. thou didst keep susanna, wrongfully accused, and no less dost thou see, lord, how i am now abused. thou didst keep hester, when she should have died, keep also, good lord, that my truth may be tried. yet, if gawin goodluck with tristram trusty speak, i trust of ill-report the force shall be but weak; and lo! yond they come talking sadly together: i will abide, and not shrink for their coming hither." [ ] adulteress. [ ] understand "me." freedom from coarseness is more than can be predicated of the still more famous _gammer gurton's needle_, attributed to, and all but certainly known to be, by john still, afterwards bishop. the authorship, indeed, is not quite certain; and the curious reference in martin marprelate's _epistle_ (ed. arber, p. ) to "this trifle" as "shewing the author to have had some wit and invention in him" only disputes the claim of dr. bridges to those qualities, and does not make any suggestion as to the identity of the more favoured author. still was the son of a lincolnshire gentleman, is supposed to have been born about , was educated at christ's college, cambridge, and after a course of preferment through the positions of parish priest in london and at hadleigh, dean of bocking, canon of westminster, master successively of st. john's and trinity, and vice-chancellor of his own university, was at the beginning of made bishop of bath and wells, an office which he held for fifteen years. his play (taking it as his) was his only work of the kind, and was the first english play acted at either university, though later he himself had to protest officially against the use of the vernacular in a piece performed before the queen. _gammer gurton's needle_, as has been said, is, despite the subsequent history of its author and the academic character of its appearance, of a much lower order of comedy than _ralph roister doister_, though it is also more spontaneous, less imitative, and, in short, more original. the best thing about it is the magnificent drinking song, "back and side go bare, go bare," one of the most spirited and genuine of all bacchanalian lyrics; but the credit of this has sometimes been denied to still. the metre of the play itself is very similar to that of _ralph roister doister_, though the long swinging couplet has a tendency to lengthen itself still further, to the value of fourteen or even sixteen syllables, the central cæsura being always well marked, as may be seen in the following:-- _diccon._ "here will the sport begin, if these two once may meet, their cheer, [i] durst lay money, will prove scarcely sweet. my gammer sure intends to be upon her bones, with staves, or with clubs, or else with cobble stones. dame chat on the other side, if she be far behind, i am right far deceived, she is given to it of kind. he that may tarry by it a while, and that but short, i warrant him trust to it, he shall see all the sport. into the town will i, my friends to visit there, and hither straight again to see the end of this gear. in the meantime, fellows, pipe up your fiddles; i say, take them, and let your friends hear such mirth as ye can make them." as for the story, it is of the simplest, turning merely on the losing of her needle by gammer gurton as she was mending her man hodge's breeches, on the search for it by the household, on the tricks by which diccon the bedlam (the clown or "vice" of the piece) induces a quarrel between gammer and her neighbours, and on the final finding of the needle in the exact place on which gammer gurton's industry had been employed. the action is even better sustained and livelier than in udall's play, and the swinging couplets canter along very cheerfully with great freedom and fluency of language. unfortunately this language, whether in order to raise a laugh or to be in strict character with the personages, is anything but choice. there is (barring a possible double meaning or two) nothing of the kind generally known as licentious; it is the merely foul and dirty language of common folk at all times, introduced, not with humorous extravagance in the rabelaisian fashion, but with literal realism. if there had been a little less of this, the piece would have been much improved; but even as it is, it is a capital example of farce, just as _ralph roister doister_ is of a rather rudimentary kind of regular comedy. the strangeness of the contrast which these two plays offer when compared with the third is peculiar in english literature. elsewhere it is common enough. that tragedy should be stately, decorous, and on the whole somewhat uneventful as far as visible action goes,--comedy bustling, crammed with incident, and quite regardless of decorum,--might seem a law of nature to the audience of Æschylus and aristophanes, of plautus and pacuvius, even to the audience of molière and racine. but the vast and final change, the inception of which we have here to record, has made tragedy, tragi-comedy, comedy, and farce pass into one another so gradually, and with so little of a break in the english mind, that _gammer gurton's needle_ and _gorboduc_, though they were presented to the same audiences, and in all probability written within ten years of each other at furthest, seem to belong to different worlds of literature and society. the two comedies just noticed are framed upon no literary model at all as wholes, but simply upon the model of human nature. _gorboduc_ is framed, though not with absolute fidelity, on the model of the tragedies of seneca, which had, during the early years of the sixteenth century, mastered the attention of the literary playwrights of italy, france, and even to some extent germany, and which determined for three hundred years, at any rate, the form of the tragedy of france. this model--which may be briefly described as the model of greek tragedy, still further pruned of action, with the choruses retained, but estranged from their old close connection with the dialogue, and reduced to the level of elaborate lyrical moralisings, and with the tendency to such moralising in dialogue as well as in chorus largely increased--was introduced in england with hardly less advantage than abroad. sackville, one of the reputed authors of _gorboduc_, was far superior to jodelle, both as poet and as versifier, and the existence of the two universities in england gave a support, to which nothing in france corresponded, to the influence of learned writers. indeed, till nearly the close of our present period, the universities had the practical control of literary production. but the genius of the english nation would have none of seneca. it refused him when he was first introduced by sackville and others; it refused him once more when daniel and the set of the countess of pembroke again attempted to introduce him; it refused him again and again in the later seventeenth century, when imitation, first of his earlier french followers, and then of the greater tragedy of corneille and racine (which was only the senecan model strengthened and improved) was repeatedly tried by fine gentlemen and by needy hacks, by devotees of the unities, and by devotees of court fashion. i hardly know any other instance in literary history of a similar resistance offered to a similar tide of literary influence in europe. we have little room here for fanciful comparisons, yet might the dramatic events of - in england well seem a literary battle of tours, in which an english charles martel stemmed and turned back for ever and ever the hitherto resistless march of a literary invader and spread of a literary heresy. to the modern reader _gorboduc_ (part of which is attributed to thomas norton, and which was acted on th january , published piratically in , and authoritatively under the title of _ferrex and porrex_ in ?) is scarcely inviting, but that is not a criterion of its attractiveness to its own contemporaries. perhaps the most curious thing about it is the violence done to the horatian and senecan theories, or rather the _naïf_ outwitting of those theories, by an arrangement of dumb shows between the acts to satisfy the hunger for real action which the model refused to countenance. all the rest is of the most painful regularity: and the scrupulosity with which each of the rival princes is provided with a counsellor and a parasite to himself, and the other parts are allotted with similar fairness, reaches such a point that it is rather surprising that gorboduc was not provided with two queens--a good and a bad. such action as there is lies wholly in the mouths of messengers, and the speeches are of excessive length. but even these faults are perhaps less trying to the modern reader than the inchoate and unpolished condition of the metre in the choruses, and indeed in the blank verse dialogue. here and there, there are signs of the stateliness and poetical imagery of the "induction"; but for the most part the decasyllables stop dead at their close and begin afresh at their beginning with a staccato movement and a dull monotony of cadence which is inexpressibly tedious, as will be seen in the following:-- (_videna soliloquises._) "why should i live and linger forth my time in longer life to double my distress? o me, most woeful wight, whom no mishap long ere this day could have bereaved hence. might not these hands, by fortune or by fate, have pierc'd this breast, and life with iron reft? or in this palace here where i so long have spent my days, could not that happy hour once, once have happ'd in which these hugy frames with death by fall might have oppressed me? or should not this most hard and cruel soil, so oft where i have press'd my wretched steps, some time had ruth of mine accursed life, to rend in twain and swallow me therein? so had my bones possessed now in peace their happy grave within the closed ground, and greedy worms had gnawn this pined heart without my feeling pain: so should not now this living breast remain the ruthful tomb wherein my heart yielden to death is graved; nor dreary thoughts, with pangs of pining grief, my doleful mind had not afflicted thus." there is no blame due to sackville in that he did not invent what no single man invented, and what even in england, where only it has been originally attained, took some thirty years of the genius of the nation working through innumerable individual tentatives and failures to bring about. but he did not invent it; he did not even make any attempt to invent it; and had this first english tragedy been generally followed, we should have been for an unknown period in the land of bondage, in the classical dungeon which so long retained the writers of a nation, certainly not, at the time of the appearance of _gorboduc_, of less literary promise than our own. in describing these tentatives and failures it will be impossible here to enter into any lengthened criticism of particular works. we shall have to content ourselves with a description of the general lines and groups, which may be said to be four in number: ( ) the few unimportant and failing followers of sackville; ( ) the miscellaneous farce-and-interlude-writers, who, incult and formless as their work was, at least maintained the literary tradition; ( ) the important and most interesting group of "university wits" who, with marlowe at their head, made the blank verse line for dramatic purposes, dismissed, cultivated as they were, the cultivation of classical models, and gave english tragedy its magna charta of freedom and submission to the restrictions of actual life only, but who failed, from this cause or that, to achieve perfect life-likeness; and ( ) the actor-playwrights who, rising from very humble beginnings, but possessing in their fellow shakespere a champion unparalleled in ancient and modern times, borrowed the improvements of the university wits, added their own stage knowledge, and with shakespere's aid achieved the master drama of the world. a very few lines will suffice for the first group, who are the merest literary curiosities. indeed the actual number of senecan dramas in english is very small indeed, though there may possibly be some undiscovered in ms. the _tancred and gismund_ of robert wilmot (acted , and of some merit), the _cornelia_ of garnier, translated by kyd and printed in , the curious play called _the misfortunes of arthur_, acted before the queen in the armada year, with "triumphs" partly devised by francis bacon, the two plays of samuel daniel, and a very few others, complete the list; indeed _cornelia_, _cleopatra_, and _philotas_ are almost the only three that keep really close to the model. at a time of such unbounded respect for the classics, and when latin plays of the same stamp were constantly acted at the universities, such a paucity of examples in english can only testify to a strong national distaste--an instinctive feeling that this would never do. the nondescript followings of morality and farce are infinitely more numerous, and perhaps intrinsically more interesting; but they can hardly be said to be, except in bulk, of much greater importance. their real interest to the reader as he turns them over in the first seven or eight volumes of dodsley, or in the rarer single editions where they occur, is again an interest of curiosity--a desire to trace the various shiftings and turnings of the mighty but unorganised genius which was soon to find its way. next to the difficulty of inventing a conveniently plastic form seems to have been the difficulty of inventing a suitable verse. for some time the swinging or lumbering doggerel in which a tolerably good rhyme is reached by a kind of scramble through four or five feet, which are most like a very shuffling anapæst--the verse which appears in the comedies of udall and still--held its ground. we have it in the morality of the _new custom_, printed in , but no doubt written earlier, in the interlude of _the trial of treasure_, in the farcical comedy of _like will to like_, a coarse but lively piece, by ulpian fulwell ( ). in the very curious tragi-comedy of _cambyses_ this doggerel appears partly, but is alternated with the less lawless but scarcely more suitable "fourteener" (divided or not as usual, according to printer's exigencies) which, as was shown in the last chapter, for a time almost monopolised the attention of english poets. the same mixture appears to some extent, though the doggerel occupies the main text, in the _damon and pythias_ of richard edwards, the editor of _the paradise of dainty devices_. in _appius and virginia_ (a decidedly interesting play) the fourteener on the contrary is the staple verse, the doggerel being only occasional. something the same may be said of a very late morality, _the conflict of conscience_. both doggerel and fourteeners appear in the quaint productions called _three ladies of london_, etc.; but by this time the decasyllable began to appear with them and to edge them out. they died hard, however, thoroughly ill-fitted as they were for dramatic use, and, as readers of _love's labour lost_ know, survived even in the early plays of shakespere. nor were the characters and minor details generally of this group less disorderly and inadequate than the general schemes or the versification. here we have the abstractions of the old morality; there the farcical gossip of the _gammer gurton's needle_ class; elsewhere the pale and dignified personages of _gorboduc_: all three being often jumbled together all in one play. in the lighter parts there are sometimes fair touches of low comedy; in the graver occasionally, though much more rarely, a touching or dignified phrase or two. but the plays as wholes are like ovid's first-fruits of the deluge--nondescripts incapable of life, and good for no useful or ornamental purpose. it is at this moment that the cleavage takes place. and when i say "this moment," i am perfectly conscious that the exact moment in dates and years cannot be defined. not a little harm has been done to the history of english literature by the confusion of times in which some of its historians have pleased themselves. but even greater harm might be done if one were to insist on an exact chronology for the efflorescence of the really poetical era of elizabethan literature, if the blossoming of the aloe were to be tied down to hour and day. all that we can say is that in certain publications, in certain passages even of the same publication, we find the old respectable plodding, the old blind tentative experiment in poetry and drama: and then without warning--without, as it seems, any possible opportunity of distinguishing chronologically--we find the unmistakable marks of the new wine, of the unapproachable poetry proper, which all criticism, all rationalisation can only indicate and not account for. we have hardly left (if we take their counterparts later we have not left) the wooden verse of _gorboduc_, the childish rusticity of _like will to like_, when suddenly we stumble on the bower-- "seated in hearing of a hundred streams"-- of george peele, on the myriad graceful fancies of lyly, on the exquisite snatches of greene, on the verses, to this day the high-water mark of poetry, in which marlowe speaks of the inexpressible beauty which is the object and the despair of the poet. this is wonderful enough. but what is more wonderful is, that these lightning flashes are as evanescent as lightning. lyly, peele, greene, marlowe himself, in probably the very next passages, certainly in passages not very remote, tell us that this is all matter of chance, that they are all capable of sinking below the level of sackville at his even conceivably worst, close to the level of edwards, and the various anonymous or half-anonymous writers of the dramatic miscellanies just noted. and then beyond these unequal wits arises the figure of shakespere; and the greatest work of all literature swims slowly into our ken. there has been as yet no history of this unique phenomenon worthy of it: i have not the least pretension to supply one that shall be worthy. but at least the uniqueness of it shall here have due celebration. the age of pericles, the age of augustus, the age of dante, had no such curious ushering-in unless time has dealt exceptional injustice to the forerunners of all of them. we do not, in the period which comes nearest in time and nature to this, see anything of the same kind in the middle space between villon and ronsard, between agrippa d'aubigné and corneille. here if anywhere is the concentrated spirit of a nation, the thrice-decocted blood of a people, forcing itself into literary expression through mediums more and more worthy of it. if ever the historical method was justified (as it always is), now is its greatest justification as we watch the gradual improvements, the decade-by-decade, almost year-by-year acquisitions, which lead from sackville to shakespere. the rising sap showed itself in two very different ways, in two branches of the national tree. in the first place, we have the group of university wits, the strenuous if not always wise band of professed men of letters, at the head of whom are lyly, marlowe, greene, peele, lodge, nash, and probably (for his connection with the universities is not certainly known) kyd. in the second, we have the irregular band of outsiders, players and others, who felt themselves forced into literary and principally dramatic composition, who boast shakespere as their chief, and who can claim as seconds to him not merely the imperfect talents of chettle, munday, and others whom we may mention in this chapter, but many of the perfected ornaments of a later time. it may be accident or it may not, but the beginning of this period is certainly due to the "university wits." lyly stands a good deal apart from them personally, despite his close literary connection. we have no kind of evidence which even shows that he was personally acquainted with any one of the others. of kyd, till mr. boas's recent researches, we knew next to nothing, and we still know very little save that he was at merchant taylors' school and was busy with plays famous in their day. but the other five were closely connected in life, and in their deaths they were hardly divided. lodge only of the five seems to have freed himself, partly in virtue of a regular profession, and partly in consequence of his adherence to the roman faith, from the bohemianism which has tempted men of letters at all times, and which was especially dangerous in a time of such unlimited adventure, such loose public morals, and such unco-ordinated society as the elizabethan era. whatever details we have of their lives (and they are mostly very meagre and uncertain) convey the idea of times out of joint or not yet in joint. the atheism of marlowe rests on no proof whatever, though it has got him friends in this later time. i am myself by no means sure that greene's supposed debauchery is not, to a great extent, "copy." the majority of the too celebrated "jests" attributed to george peele are directly traceable to villon's _repues franches_ and similar compilations, and have a suspiciously mythical and traditional air to the student of literary history. there is something a little more trustworthily autobiographical about nash. but on the whole, though we need not doubt that these ancestors of all modern englishmen who live by the gray goose quill tasted the inconveniences of the profession, especially at a time when it was barely constituted even as a vocation or employment (to quote the income tax papers), we must carefully avoid taking too gloomy a view of their life. it was usually short, it was probably merry, but we know very little else about it. the chief direct documents, the remarkable pamphlets which some of them have left, will be dealt with hereafter. here we are busied only with their dates and their dramatic work, which was in no case (except perhaps in that of kyd) their sole known work, but which in every case except those of nash and perhaps greene was their most remarkable. in noticing _euphues_ an account has already been given of lyly's life, or rather of the very scanty particulars which are known of it. his plays date considerably later than _euphues_. but they all bear the character of the courtier about them; and both in this characteristic and in the absence of any details in the gossipping literature of the time to connect him with the bohemian society of the playhouse, the distinction which separates lyly from the group of "university wits" is noteworthy. he lost as well as gained by the separation. all his plays were acted "by the children of paul's before her majesty," and not by the usual companies before dick, tom, and harry. the exact date and order of their writing is very uncertain, and in one case at least, that of _the woman in the moon_, we know that the order was exactly reversed in publication: this being the last printed in lyly's lifetime, and expressly described as the first written. his other dramatic works are _campaspe_, _sappho and phaon_, _endymion_, _galathea_, _midas_, _mother bombie_, and _love's metamorphosis_; another, _the maid's metamorphosis_, which has been attributed to him, is in all probability not his. the peculiar circumstances of the production of lyly's plays, and the strong or at any rate decided individuality of the author, keep them in a division almost to themselves. the mythological or pastoral character of their subject in most cases might not of itself have prevented their marking an advance in the dramatic composition of english playwrights. _a midsummer night's dream_ and much other work of shakespere's show how far from necessary it is that theme, or class of subject, should affect merit of presentment. but lyly's work generally has more of the masque than the play. it sometimes includes charming lyrics, such as the famous _campaspe_ song and others. but most of it is in prose, and it gave beyond doubt--though gascoigne had, as we have seen, set the example in drama--no small impetus to the use and perfectioning of that medium. for lyly's dramatic prose, though sometimes showing the same faults, is often better than _euphues_, as here:-- _end._ "o fair cynthia, why do others term thee unconstant, whom i have ever found immovable? injurious time, corrupt manners, unkind men, who finding a constancy not to be matched in my sweet mistress, have christened her with the name of wavering, waxing, and waning. is she inconstant that keepeth a settled course, which since her first creation altereth not one minute in her moving? there is nothing thought more admirable, or commendable in the sea, than the ebbing and flowing; and shall the moon, from whom the sea taketh this virtue, be accounted fickle for increasing and decreasing? flowers in their buds are nothing worth till they be blown; nor blossoms accounted till they be ripe fruit; and shall we then say they be changeable, for that they grow from seeds to leaves, from leaves to buds, from buds to their perfection? then, why be not twigs that become trees, children that become men, and mornings that grow to evenings, termed wavering, for that they continue not at one stay? ay, but cynthia being in her fulness decayeth, as not delighting in her greatest beauty, or withering when she should be most honoured. when malice cannot object anything, folly will; making that a vice which is the greatest virtue. what thing (my mistress excepted) being in the pride of her beauty, and latter minute of her age, that waxeth young again? tell me, eumenides, what is he that having a mistress of ripe years, and infinite virtues, great honours, and unspeakable beauty, but would wish that she might grow tender again? getting youth by years, and never-decaying beauty by time; whose fair face, neither the summer's blaze can scorch, nor winter's blast chap, nor the numbering of years breed altering of colours. such is my sweet cynthia, whom time cannot touch, because she is divine, nor will offend because she is delicate. o cynthia, if thou shouldest always continue at thy fulness, both gods and men would conspire to ravish thee. but thou, to abate the pride of our affections, dost detract from thy perfections; thinking it sufficient if once in a month we enjoy a glimpse of thy majesty; and then, to increase our griefs, thou dost decrease thy gleams; coming out of thy royal robes, wherewith thou dazzlest our eyes, down into thy swath clouts, beguiling our eyes; and then----" in these plays there are excellent phrases and even striking scenes. but they are not in the true sense dramatic, and are constantly spoilt by lyly's strange weakness for conceited style. everybody speaks in antitheses, and the intolerable fancy similes, drawn from a kind of imaginary natural history, are sometimes as prominent as in _euphues_ itself. lyly's theatre represents, in short, a mere backwater in the general stream of dramatic progress, though not a few allusions in other men's work show us that it attracted no small attention. with nash alone, of the university wits proper, was lyly connected, and this only problematically. he was an oxford man, and most of them were of cambridge; he was a courtier; if a badly-paid one, and they all lived by their wits; and, if we may judge by the very few documents remaining, he was not inclined to be hail-fellow-well-met with anybody, while they were all born bohemians. yet none of them had a greater influence on shakespere than lyly, though it was anything but a beneficial influence, and for this as well as for the originality of his production he deserves notice, even had the intrinsic merit of his work been less than it is. but, in fact, it is very great, being almost a typical production of talent helped by knowledge, but not mastered by positive genius, or directed in its way by the precedent work of others. in the work of the university wits proper--marlowe, greene, peele, lodge, nash, and kyd, the last of whom, it must again be said, is not certainly known to have belonged to either university, though the probabilities are all in favour of that hypothesis--a very different kind of work is found. it is always faulty, as a whole, for even _dr. faustus_ and _edward ii._, despite their magnificent poetry and the vast capabilities of their form, could only be called good plays or good compositions as any kind of whole by a critic who had entirely lost the sense of proportion. but in the whole group, and especially in the dramatic work of marlowe, greene, peele, and kyd (for that of lodge and nash is small in amount and comparatively unimportant in manner), the presence, the throes of a new dramatic style are evident. faults and beauties are more or less common to the whole quartet. in all we find the many-sided activity of the shakesperian drama as it was to be, sprawling and struggling in a kind of swaddling clothes of which it cannot get rid, and which hamper and cripple its movements. in all there is present a most extraordinary and unique rant and bombast of expression which reminds one of the shrieks and yells of a band of healthy boys just let out to play. the passages which (thanks chiefly to pistol's incomparable quotations and parodies of them) are known to every one, the "pampered jades of asia," the "have we not hiren here," the "feed and grow fat, my fair callipolis," the other quips and cranks of mine ancient are scattered broadcast in their originals, and are evidently meant quite seriously throughout the work of these poets. side by side with this mania for bombast is another mania, much more clearly traceable to education and associations, but specially odd in connection with what has just been noticed. this is the foible of classical allusion. the heathen gods and goddesses, the localities of greek and roman poetry, even the more out-of-the-way commonplaces of classical literature, are put in the mouths of all the characters without the remotest attempt to consider propriety or relevance. even in still lesser peculiarities the blemishes are uniform and constant--such as the curious and childish habit of making speakers speak of themselves in the third person, and by their names, instead of using "i" and "me." and on the other hand, the merits, though less evenly distributed in degree, are equally constant in kind. in kyd, in greene still more, in peele more still, in marlowe most of all, phrases and passages of blinding and dazzling poetry flash out of the midst of the bombast and the tedium. many of these are known, by the hundred books of extract which have followed lamb's _specimens_, to all readers. such, for instance, is the "see where christ's blood streams in the firmament" of marlowe, and his even more magnificent passage beginning "if all the pens that ever poets held;" such peele's exquisite bower, "seated in hearing of a hundred streams," which is, with all respect to charles lamb, to be paralleled by a score of other jewels from the reckless work of "george pyeboard": such greene's "why thinks king henry's son that margaret's love hangs in the uncertain balance of proud time?" such even kyd's "there is a path upon your left hand side that leadeth from a guilty conscience unto a forest of distrust and fear." but the whole point of the thing is that these flashes, which are not to be found at all before the date of this university school, are to be found constantly in its productions, and that, amorphous, inartistic, incomplete as those productions are, they still show _hamlet_ and _a midsummer night's dream_ in embryo. whereas the greatest expert in literary embryology may read _gorboduc_ and _the misfortunes of arthur_ through without discerning the slightest signs of what was coming. nash and lodge are so little dramatists (the chief, if not only play of the former being the shapeless and rather dull comedy, _will summer's testament_, relieved only by some lyrics of merit which are probably not nash's, while lodge's _marius and sylla_, while it wants the extravagance, wants also the beauty of its author's companions' work), that what has to be said about them will be better said later in dealing with their other books. greene's prose pieces and his occasional poems are, no doubt, better than his drama, but the latter is considerable, and was probably his earliest work. kyd has left nothing, and peele little, but drama; while beautiful as marlowe's _hero and leander_ is, i do not quite understand how any one can prefer it to the faultier but far more original dramas of its author. we shall therefore deal with these four individually here. the eldest of the four was george peele, variously described as a londoner and a devonshire man, who was probably born about . he was educated at christ's hospital (of which his father was "clerk") and at broadgates hall, now pembroke college, oxford, and had some credit in the university as an arranger of pageants, etc. he is supposed to have left oxford for london about , and had the credit of living a bohemian, not to say disreputable, life for about seventeen years; his death in (?) being not more creditable than his life. but even the scandals about peele are much more shadowy than those about marlowe and greene. his dramatic work consists of some half-dozen plays, the earliest of which is _the arraignment of paris_, (?), one of the most elaborate and barefaced of the many contemporary flatteries of elizabeth, but containing some exquisite verse. in the same way peele has been accused of having in _edward i._ adopted or perhaps even invented the basest and most groundless scandals against the noble and stainless memory of eleanor of castile; while in his _battle of alcazar_ he certainly gratifies to the utmost the popular anti-spanish and anti-popish feeling. so angry have critics been with peele's outrage on eleanor, that some of them have declared that none but he could have been guilty of the not dissimilar slur cast on joan of arc's character in _henry vi._, the three parts of which it has been the good pleasure of shakesperian commentators to cut and carve between the university wits _ad libitum_. i cannot myself help thinking that all this has arisen very much from the idea of peele's vagabondism given by the untrustworthy "jests." the slander on queen eleanor was pretty certainly supplied to him by an older ballad. there is little or nothing else in peele's undoubted writings which is at all discreditable. his miscellaneous poems show a man by no means given to low company or low thoughts, and one gifted with the truest poetic vein; while his dramas, besides exhibiting a greater command over blank verse than any of his predecessors and than any except marlowe of his contemporaries can claim, are full of charming passages. _sir clyomon and sir clamydes_, which has been denied to him--an interesting play on the rare basis of the old romance--is written not in blank verse but in the fourteener. the _old wives' tale_ pretty certainly furnished milton with the subject of comus, and this is its chief merit. _edward i._ and _the battle of alcazar_, but especially the latter, contain abundance of the hectoring rant which has been marked as one of the characteristics of the school, and which is half-excused by the sparks of valour that often break from its smoke and clatter. but peele would undoubtedly stand higher, though he might not be so interesting a literary figure, if we had nothing of his save _the arraignment of paris_ and _david and bethsabe_. _the arraignment_ (written in various metres, but mainly in a musical and varied heroic couplet), is partly a pastoral, partly a masque, and wholly a court play. it thus comes nearest to lyly, but is altogether a more dramatic, livelier, and less conceited performance than anything by the author of _euphues_. as for _david and bethsabe_, it is crammed with beauties, and lamb's curiously faint praise of it has always been a puzzle to me. as marlowe's are the mightiest, so are peele's the softest, lines in the drama before shakespere; while the spirit and humour, which the author also had in plenty, save his work from the merely cloying sweetness of some contemporary writers. two of his interposed or occasional lyrics will be given later: a blank verse passage may find room here:-- _bethsabe._ "come, gentle zephyr, trick'd with those perfumes that erst in eden sweeten'd adam's love, and stroke my bosom with thy silken fan: this shade, sun-proof,[ ] is yet no proof for thee; thy body, smoother than this waveless spring, and purer than the substance of the same, can creep through that his lances cannot pierce: thou, and thy sister, soft and sacred air, goddess of life, and governess of health, keep every fountain fresh and arbour sweet; no brazen gate her passage can repulse, nor bushy thicket bar thy subtle breath: then deck thee with thy loose delightsome robes, and on thy wings bring delicate perfumes, to play the wanton with us through the leaves." [ ] cf. milton's "elms star-proof" in the _arcades_. milton evidently knew peele well. robert greene, probably, if not certainly, the next in age of the group to peele, was born in , the son of apparently well-to-do parents at norwich, and was educated at clare hall, cambridge, where he took his master's degree in . he was subsequently incorporated at oxford, and being by no means ill-inclined to make the most of himself, sometimes took the style of a member "utriusque academiæ." after leaving the university he seems to have made a long tour on the continent, not (according to his own account) at all to the advantage of his morals or means. he is said to have actually taken orders, and held a living for some short time, while he perhaps also studied if he did not practise medicine. he married a lady of virtue and some fortune, but soon despoiled and deserted her, and for the last six years of his life never saw her. at last in , aged only two and thirty,--but after about ten years it would seem of reckless living and hasty literary production,--he died (of a disease caused or aggravated by a debauch on pickled herrings and rhenish) so miserably poor that he had to trust to his injured wife's forgiveness for payment of the money to the extent of which a charitable landlord and landlady had trusted him. the facts of this lamentable end may have been spitefully distorted by gabriel harvey in his quarrel with nash; but there is little reason to doubt that the received story is in the main correct. of the remarkable prose pamphlets which form the bulk of greene's work we speak elsewhere, as also of the pretty songs (considerably exceeding in poetical merit anything to be found in the body of his plays) with which both pamphlets and plays are diversified. his actual dramatic production is not inconsiderable: a working-up of the _orlando furioso_; _a looking glass for london and england_ (nineveh) with lodge; _james iv._ (of scotland), a wildly unhistorical romance; _alphonsus, king of arragon_; and perhaps _the pinner of wakefield_, which deals with his own part namesake george-a-greene; not impossibly also the pseudo-shakesperian _fair em_. his best play without doubt is _the history of friar bacon and friar bungay_, in which, after a favourite fashion of the time, he mingles a certain amount of history, or, at least, a certain number of historical personages, with a plentiful dose of the supernatural and of horseplay, and with a very graceful and prettily-handled love story. with a few touches from the master's hand, margaret, the fair maid of fressingfield, might serve as handmaid to shakespere's women, and is certainly by far the most human heroine produced by any of greene's own group. there is less rant in greene (though there is still plenty of it) than in any of his friends, and his fancy for soft female characters, loving, and yet virtuous, appears frequently. but his power is ill-sustained, as the following extract will show:-- _margaret._ "ah, father, when the harmony of heaven soundeth the measures of a lively faith, the vain illusions of this flattering world seem odious to the thoughts of margaret. i lovèd once,--lord lacy was my love; and now i hate myself for that i loved, and doted more on him than on my god,-- for this i scourge myself with sharp repents. but now the touch of such aspiring sins tells me all love is lust but love of heaven; that beauty used for love is vanity: the world contains naught but alluring baits, pride, flattery [ ], and inconstant thoughts. to shun the pricks of death i leave the world, and vow to meditate on heavenly bliss, to live in framlingham a holy nun, holy and pure in conscience and in deed; and for to wish all maids to learn of me to seek heaven's joy before earth's vanity." we do not know anything of thomas kyd's, except _the spanish tragedy_, which is a second part of an extremely popular play (sometimes attributed to kyd himself, but probably earlier) called _jeronimo_, and the translation of _cornelia_, though others are doubtfully attributed. the well-known epithet of jonson, "sporting" kyd, seems to have been either a mere play on the poet's name, or else _a lucus a non lucendo_; for both _jeronimo_ and its sequel are in the ghastliest and bloodiest vein of tragedy, and _cornelia_ is a model of stately dullness. the two "jeronimo" or "hieronimo" plays were, as has been said, extremely popular, and it is positively known that jonson himself, and probably others, were employed from time to time to freshen them up; with the consequence that the exact authorship of particular passages is somewhat problematical. both plays, however, display, nearly in perfection, the rant, not always quite ridiculous, but always extravagant, from which shakespere rescued the stage; though, as the following extract will show, this rant is by no means always, or indeed often, smoke without fire:-- "o! forbear, for other talk for us far fitter were. but if you be importunate to know the way to him, and where to find him out, then list to me, and i'll resolve your doubt. there is a path upon your left hand side, that leadeth from a guilty conscience unto a forest of distrust and fear-- a darksome place and dangerous to pass. there shall you meet with melancholy thoughts whose baleful humours if you but uphold, it will conduct you to despair and death. whose rocky cliffs when you have once beheld within a hugy dale of lasting night-- that, kindled with the world's iniquities, doth cast up filthy and detested fumes-- not far from thence, where murderers have built an habitation for their cursed souls, there is a brazen cauldron fixed by jove in his fell wrath upon a sulphur flame. yourselves shall find lorenzo bathing him in boiling lead and blood of innocents." but nothing, except citation of whole scenes and acts, could show the extraordinary jumble of ghosts, blood, thunder, treachery, and horrors of all sorts which these plays contain. now for a very different citation:-- "if all the pens that ever poets held had fed the feeling of their masters' thoughts, and every sweetness that inspir'd their hearts, their minds, and muses, on admired themes; if all the heavenly quintessence they 'still from their immortal flowers of poesy, wherein as in a mirror we perceive the highest reaches of a human wit; if these had made one poem's period, and all combined in beauty's worthiness, yet should there hover in their restless heads one thought, one grace, one wonder at the least which into words no virtue can digest." it is no wonder that the whole school has been dwarfed in the general estimation, since its work was critically considered and isolated from other work, by the towering excellence of this author. little as is known of all the band, that little becomes almost least in regard to their chief and leader. born ( ) at canterbury, the son of a shoemaker, he was educated at the grammar school of that city, and at benet (afterwards corpus) college, cambridge; he plunged into literary work and dissipation in london; and he outlived greene only to fall a victim to debauchery in a still more tragical way. his death ( ) was the subject of much gossip, but the most probable account is that he was poniarded in self-defence by a certain francis archer, a serving-man (not by any means necessarily, as charles kingsley has it, a footman), while drinking at deptford, and that the cause of the quarrel was a woman of light character. he has also been accused of gross vices not to be particularised, and of atheism. the accusation is certain; and mr. boas's researches as to kyd, who was also concerned in the matter, have thrown some light on it; but much is still obscure. the most offensive charges were due to one bame or baines, who was afterwards hanged at tyburn. that marlowe was a bohemian in the fullest sense is certain; that he was anything worse there is no evidence whatever. he certainly was acquainted with raleigh and other distinguished persons, and was highly spoken of by chapman and others. but the interest of marlowe's name has nothing to do with these obscure scandals of three hundred years ago, though it may be difficult to pass them over entirely. he is the undoubted author of some of the masterpieces of english verse; the hardly to be doubted author of others not much inferior. except the very greatest names--shakespere, milton, spenser, dryden, shelley--no author can be named who has produced, when the proper historical estimate is applied to him, such work as is to be found in _tamburlaine_, _doctor faustus_, _the jew of malta_, _edward the second_, in one department; _hero and leander_ and the _passionate shepherd_ in another. i have but very little doubt that the powerful, if formless, play of _lust's dominion_ is marlowe's, though it may have been rewritten, and the translations of lucan and ovid and the minor work which is more or less probably attributed to him, swell his tale. prose he did not write, perhaps could not have written. for the one characteristic lacking to his genius was measure, and prose without measure, as numerous examples have shown, is usually rubbish. even his dramas show a singular defect in the architectural quality of literary genius. the vast and formless creations of the writer's boundless fancy completely master him; his aspirations after the immense too frequently leave him content with the simply unmeasured. in his best play as a play, _edward the second_, the limitations of a historical story impose something like a restraining form on his glowing imagination. but fine as this play is, it is noteworthy that no one of his greatest things occurs in it. _the massacre at paris_, where he also has the confinement of reality after a fashion, is a chaotic thing as a whole, without any great beauty in parts. _the tragedy of dido_ (to be divided between him and nash) is the worst thing he ever did. but in the purely romantic subjects of _tamburlaine_, _faustus_, and _the jew of malta_, his genius, untrammelled by any limits of story, showed itself equally unable to contrive such limits for itself, and able to develop the most marvellous beauties of detail. shakespere himself has not surpassed, which is equivalent to saying that no other writer has equalled, the famous and wonderful passages in _tamburlaine_ and _faustus_, which are familiar to every student of english literature as examples of the _ne plus ultra_ of the poetic powers, not of the language but of language. the tragic imagination in its wildest flights has never summoned up images of pity and terror more imposing, more moving, than those excited by _the jew of malta_. the riot of passion and of delight in the beauty of colour and form which characterises his version of _hero and leander_ has never been approached by any writer. but marlowe, with the fullest command of the _apeiron_, had not, and, as far as i can judge, never would have had, any power of introducing into it the law of the _peras_. it is usual to say that had he lived, and had his lot been happily cast, we should have had two shakesperes. this is not wise. in the first place, marlowe was totally destitute of humour--the characteristic which, united with his tragic and imaginative powers, makes shakespere as, in a less degree, it makes homer, and even, though the humour is grim and intermittent, dante. in other words, he was absolutely destitute of the first requisite of self-criticism. in the natural course of things, as the sap of his youthful imagination ceased to mount, and as his craving for immensity hardened itself, he would probably have degenerated from bombast shot through with genius to bombast pure and simple, from _faustus_ to _lust's dominion_, and from _lust's dominion_ to _jeronimo_ or _the distracted emperor_. apart from the magnificent passages which he can show, and which are simply intoxicating to any lover of poetry, his great title to fame is the discovery of the secret of that "mighty line" which a seldom-erring critic of his own day, not too generously given, vouchsafed to him. up to his time the blank verse line always, and the semi-couplet in heroics, or member of the more complicated stanza usually, were either stiff or nerveless. compared with his own work and with the work of his contemporaries and followers who learnt from him, they are like a dried preparation, like something waiting for the infusion of blood, for the inflation of living breath. marlowe came, and the old wooden versification, the old lay-figure structure of poetic rhythm, was cast once for all into the lumber-room, where only poetasters of the lowest rank went to seek it. it is impossible to call marlowe a great dramatist, and the attempts that have been made to make him out to be such remind one of the attempts that have been made to call molière a great poet. marlowe was one of the greatest poets of the world whose work was cast by accident and caprice into an imperfect mould of drama; molière was one of the greatest dramatists of the world who was obliged by fashion to use a previously perfected form of verse. the state of molière was undoubtedly the more gracious; but the splendour of marlowe's uncut diamonds of poetry is the more wonderful. the characteristics of this strange and interesting school may be summed up briefly, but are of the highest importance in literary history. unlike their nearest analogues, the french romantics of the type, they were all of academic education, and had even a decided contempt (despite their bohemian way of life) for unscholarly innovators. they manifested (except in marlowe's fortuitous and purely genial discovery of the secret of blank verse) a certain contempt for form, and never, at least in drama, succeeded in mastering it. but being all, more or less, men of genius, and having the keenest sense of poetry, they supplied the dry bones of the precedent dramatic model with blood and breath, with vigour and variety, which not merely informed but transformed it. _david and bethsabe_, _doctor faustus_, _friar bacon and friar bungay_, are chaotic enough, but they are of the chaos that precedes cosmic development. the almost insane bombast that marks the whole school has (as has been noticed) the character of the shrieks and gesticulations of healthy childhood, and the insensibility to the really comic which also marks them is of a similar kind. every one knows how natural it is to childhood to appreciate bad jokes, how seldom a child sees a good one. marlowe and his crew, too (the comparison has no doubt often been used before), were of the brood of otus and ephialtes, who grew so rapidly and in so disorderly a fashion that it was necessary for the gods to make an end of them. the universe probably lost little, and it certainly gained something. side by side with this learned, extravagant, gifted, ill-regulated school, there was slowly growing up a very different one, which was to inherit all the gifts of the university wits, and to add to them the gifts of measure and proportion. the early work of the actor school of english dramatists is a difficult subject to treat in any fashion, and a particularly difficult subject to treat shortly. chronology, an important aid, helps us not very much, though such help as she does give has been as a rule neglected by historians, so that plays before (which may be taken roughly as the dividing date), and plays after it have been muddled up ruthlessly. we do not know the exact dates of many of those which are (many of the plays of the earlier time are not) extant; and of those which are extant, and of which the dates are more or less known, the authors are in not a few most important cases absolutely undiscoverable. yet in the plays which belong to this period, and which there is no reason to attribute wholly to any of the marlowe group, or much reason to attribute to them under the guidance, or perhaps with the collaboration of practical actors (some at least of whom were like shakespere himself, men of no known regular education), there are characteristics which promise at least as well for the future as the wonderful poetic outbursts of the marlowe school itself. of these outbursts we find few in this other division. but we find a growing knowledge of what a play is, as distinguished from a series of tableaux acted by not too lifelike characters. we find a glimmering (which is hardly anywhere to be seen in the more literary work of the other school) of the truth that the characters must be made to work out the play, and not the play be written in a series of disjointed scenes to display, in anything but a successful fashion, the characters. with fewer flights we have fewer absurdities; with less genius we have more talent. it must be remembered, of course, that the plays of the university school itself were always written for players, and that some of the authors had more or less to do with acting as well as with writing. but the flame of discord which burns so fiercely on the one side in the famous real or supposed dying utterances of greene, and which years afterwards breaks out on the other in the equally famous satire of _the return from parnassus_,[ ] illuminates a real difference--a difference which study of the remains of the literature of the period can only make plainer. the same difference has manifested itself again, and more than once in other departments of literature, but hardly in so interesting a manner, and certainly not with such striking results. [ ] the outburst of greene about "the only shakescene," the "upstart crow beautified with our feathers," and so forth, is too well known to need extracting here. _the return from parnassus_, a very curious tripartite play, performed - but retrospective in tone, is devoted to the troubles of poor scholars in getting a livelihood, and incidentally gives much matter on the authors of the time from shakespere downward, and on the jealousy of professional actors felt by scholars, and _vice versâ_. chapter iv "the faËrie queene" and its group "velut inter ignes luna minores" there is no instance in english history of a poet receiving such immediate recognition, and deserving it so thoroughly, as did edmund spenser at the date of _the shepherd's calendar_. in the first chapter of this volume the earlier course of elizabethan poetry has been described, and it will have been seen that, with great intention, no very great accomplishment had been achieved. it was sufficiently evident that a poetic language and a general poetic spirit were being formed, such as had not existed in england since chaucer's death; but no one had yet arisen who could justify the expectation based on such respectable tentatives. it seems from many minute indications which need not be detailed here, that at the advent of _the shepherd's calendar_ all the best judges recognised the expected poet. yet they could hardly have known how just their recognition was, or what extraordinary advances the poet would make in the twenty years which passed between its publication and his death. the life of spenser is very little known, and here and elsewhere the conditions of this book preclude the reproduction or even the discussion of the various pious attempts which have been made to supply the deficiency of documents. the chief of these in his case is to be found in dr. grosart's magnificent edition, the principal among many good works of its editor. that he belonged to a branch--a lancashire branch in all probability--of the family which produced the le despensers of elder, and the spencers of modern english history, may be said to be unquestionable. but he appears to have been born about in london, and to have been educated at merchant taylors', whence in may he matriculated at pembroke hall, cambridge, as a sizar. at or before this time he must have contributed (though there are puzzles in the matter) certain translations of sonnets from petrarch and du bellay to a book called _the theatre of voluptuous worldlings_, published by a brabanter, john van der noodt. these, slightly changed from blank verse to rhyme, appeared long afterwards with his minor poems of . but the original pieces had been claimed by the dutchman; and though there are easy ways of explaining this, the thing is curious. however it may be with these verses, certainly nothing else of spenser's appeared in print for ten years. his cambridge life, except for some vague allusions (which, as usual in such cases, have been strained to breaking by commentators and biographers), is equally obscure; save that he certainly fulfilled seven years of residence, taking his bachelor's degree in , and his master's three years later. but he did not gain a fellowship, and the chief discoverable results of his cambridge sojourn were the thorough scholarship which marks his work, and his friendship with the notorious gabriel harvey--his senior by some years, a fellow of pembroke, and a person whose singularly bad literary taste, as shown in his correspondence with spenser, may be perhaps forgiven, first, because it did no harm, and secondly, because without him we should know even less of spenser than we do. it is reasonably supposed from the notes of his friend, "e. k." (apparently kirke, a pembroke man), to _the shepherd's calendar_, that he went to his friends in the north after leaving cambridge and spent a year or two there, falling in love with the heroine, poetically named rosalind, of _the calendar_, and no doubt writing that remarkable book. then (probably very late in ) he went to london, was introduced by harvey to sidney and leicester, and thus mixed at once in the best literary and political society. he was not long in putting forth his titles to its attention, for _the shepherd's calendar_ was published in the winter of , copiously edited by "e. k.," whom some absurdly suppose to be spenser himself. the poet seems to have had also numerous works (the titles of which are known) ready or nearly ready for the press. but all were subsequently either changed in title, incorporated with other work, or lost. he had already begun _the faërie queene_, much to the pedant harvey's disgust; and he dabbled in the fashionable absurdity of classical metres, like his inferiors. but he published nothing more immediately; and powerful as were his patrons, the only preferment which he obtained was in that eldorado-purgatory of elizabethan ambition--ireland. lord grey took him as private secretary when he was in appointed deputy, and shortly afterwards he received some civil posts in his new country, and a lease of abbey lands at enniscorthy, which lease he soon gave up. but he stayed in ireland, notwithstanding the fact that his immediate patron grey soon left it. except a few bare dates and doubtful allusions, little or nothing is heard of him between and . on the eve of the latter year (the st of december ) the first three books of _the faërie queene_ were entered at stationers' hall, and were published in the spring of the next year. he had been already established at kilcolman in the county cork on a grant of more than three thousand acres of land out of the forfeited desmond estates. and henceforward his literary activity, at least in publication, became more considerable, and he seems to have been much backwards and forwards between england and ireland. in appeared a volume of minor poems (_the ruins of time_, _the tears of the muses_, _virgil's gnat_, _mother hubbard's tale_, _the ruins of rome_, _muiopotmos_, and the _visions_), with an address to the reader in which another list of forthcoming works is promised. these, like the former list of kirke, seem oddly enough to have also perished. the whole collection was called _complaints_, and a somewhat similar poem, _daphnaida_, is thought to have appeared in the same year. on the th of june the poet married (strangely enough it was not known whom, until dr. grosart ingeniously identified her with a certain elizabeth boyle _alias_ seckerstone), and in were published the beautiful _amoretti_ or love sonnets, and the still more beautiful _epithalamion_ describing his courtship and marriage, with the interesting poem of _colin clout's come home again_; while in the same year (old style; in january , new style) the fourth, fifth, and sixth books of _the faërie queene_ were entered for publication and soon appeared. the supposed allusions to mary stuart greatly offended her son james. the _hymns_ and the _prothalamion_ followed in the same year. spenser met with difficulties at court (though he had obtained a small pension of fifty pounds a year), and had like other englishmen troubles with his neighbours in ireland; yet he seemed to be becoming more prosperous, and in he was named sheriff of cork. a few weeks later the irish rebellion broke out; his house was sacked and burnt with one of his children; he fled to england and died on the th of january at king street, westminster, perhaps not "for lack of bread," as jonson says, but certainly in no fortunate circumstances. in the year of his misfortune had been registered, though it was never printed till more than thirty years later, his one prose work of substance, the remarkable _view of the present state of ireland_; an admirable piece of prose, and a political tract, the wisdom and grasp of which only those who have had to give close attention to irish politics can fully estimate. it is probably the most valuable document on any given period of irish history that exists, and is certainly superior in matter, no less than in style, to any political tract in english, published before the days of halifax eighty years after. it has been said that _the shepherd's calendar_ placed spenser at once at the head of the english poets of his day; and it did so. but had he written nothing more, he would not (as is the case with not a few distinguished poets) have occupied as high or nearly as high a position in quality, if not in quantity, as he now does. he was a young man when he published it; he was not indeed an old man when he died; and it would not appear that he had had much experience of life beyond college walls. his choice of models--the artificial pastorals in which the renaissance had modelled itself on virgil and theocritus, rather than virgil and theocritus themselves--was not altogether happy. he showed, indeed, already his extraordinary metrical skill, experimenting with rhyme-royal and other stanzas, fourteeners or eights and sixes, anapæsts more or less irregular, and an exceedingly important variety of octosyllable which, whatever may have been his own idea in practising it, looked back to early middle english rhythms and forward to the metre of _christabel_, as coleridge was to start it afresh. he also transgressed into religious politics, taking (as indeed he always took, strange as it may seem in so fanatical a worshipper of beauty) the puritan side. nor is his work improved as poetry, though it acquires something in point of quaint attractiveness, by good mr. "e. k.'s" elaborate annotations, introductions, explanations, and general gentleman-usherings--the first in english, but most wofully not the last by hundreds, of such overlayings of gold with copper. yet with all these drawbacks _the shepherd's calendar_ is delightful. already we can see in it that double command, at once of the pictorial and the musical elements of poetry, in which no english poet is spenser's superior, if any is his equal. already the unmatched power of vigorous allegory, which he was to display later, shows in such pieces as _the oak and the briar_. in the less deliberately archaic divisions, such as "april" and "november," the command of metrical form, in which also the poet is almost peerless, discovers itself. much the same may be said of the volume of _complaints_, which, though published later than _the faërie queene_, represents beyond all question very much earlier work. spenser is unquestionably, when he is not at once spurred and soothed by the play of his own imagination, as in _the queene_, a melancholy poet, and the note of melancholy is as strong in these poems as in their joint title. it combines with his delight in emblematic allegory happily enough, in most of these pieces except _mother hubbard's tale_. this is almost an open satire, and shows that if spenser's genius had not found a less mongrel style to disport itself in, not merely would donne, and lodge, and hall, and marston have had to abandon their dispute for the post of first english satirist, but the attainment of really great satire in english might have been hastened by a hundred years, and _absalom and achitophel_ have been but a second. even here, however, the piece still keeps the chaucerian form and manner, and is only a kind of exercise. the sonnets from and after du bellay and others are more interesting. as in the subsequent and far finer _amoretti_, spenser prefers the final couplet form to the so-called petrarchian arrangement; and, indeed, though the most recent fashion in england has inclined to the latter, an impartial judgment must pronounce both forms equally good and equally entitled to place. the _amoretti_ written in this metre, and undoubtedly representing some, at least, of spenser's latest written work, rank with the best of sidney's, and hardly below the best of shakespere's; while both in them and in the earlier sonnets the note of regret mingled with delight--the special renaissance note--sounds as it rarely does in any other english verse. of the poems of the later period, however (leaving _the faërie queene_ for a moment aside), the _epithalamion_ and the _four hymns_ rank undoubtedly highest. for splendour of imagery, for harmony of verse, for delicate taste and real passion, the _epithalamion_ excels all other poems of its class, and the _four hymns_ express a rapture of platonic enthusiasm, which may indeed be answerable for the unreadable _psyches_ and _psychozoias_ of the next age, but which is itself married to immortal verse in the happiest manner. still, to the ordinary reader, spenser is the poet of _the faërie queene_, and for once the ordinary reader is right. every quality found in his other poems is found in this greatest of them in perfection; and much is found there which is not, and indeed could not be, found anywhere else. its general scheme is so well known (few as may be the readers who really know its details) that very slight notice of it may suffice. twelve knights, representing twelve virtues, were to have been sent on adventures from the court of gloriana, queen of fairyland. the six finished books give the legends (each subdivided into twelve cantos, averaging fifty or sixty stanzas each) of holiness, temperance, chastity, friendship, justice, and courtesy; while a fragment of two splendid "cantos on mutability" is supposed to have belonged to a seventh book (not necessarily seventh in order) on constancy. legend has it that the poem was actually completed; but this seems improbable, as the first three books were certainly ten years in hand, and the second three six more. the existing poem comprehending some four thousand stanzas, or between thirty and forty thousand lines, exhibits so many and such varied excellences that it is difficult to believe that the poet could have done anything new in kind. no part of it is as a whole inferior to any other part, and the fragmentary cantos contain not merely one of the most finished pictorial pieces--the procession of the months--to be found in the whole poem, but much of the poet's finest thought and verse. had fortune been kinder, the volume of delight would have been greater, but its general character would probably not have changed much. as it is, _the faërie queene_ is the only long poem that a lover of poetry can sincerely wish longer. it deserves some critical examination here from three points of view, regarding respectively its general scheme, its minor details of form in metre and language, and lastly, its general poetical characteristics. the first is simple enough in its complexity. the poem is a long _roman d'aventure_ (which it is perhaps as well to say, once for all, is not the same as a "romance of chivalry," or a "romance of adventure"), redeemed from the aimless prolixity incident to that form by its regular plan, by the intercommunion of the adventures of the several knights (none of whom disappears after having achieved his own quest), and by the constant presence of a not too obtrusive allegory. this last characteristic attaches it on the other side to the poems of the _roman de la rose_ order, which succeeded the _romans d'aventures_ as objects of literary interest and practice, not merely in france, but throughout europe. this allegory has been variously estimated as a merit or defect of the poem. it is sometimes political, oftener religious, very often moral, and sometimes purely personal--the identifications in this latter case being sometimes clear, as that of gloriana, britomart, and belphoebe with queen elizabeth, sometimes probable, as that of duessa with queen mary (not one of spenser's most knightly actions), and of prince arthur with leicester, and sometimes more or less problematical, as that of artegall with lord grey, of timias the squire with raleigh, and so forth. to those who are perplexed by these double meanings the best remark is hazlitt's blunt one that "the allegory won't bite them." in other words, it is always perfectly possible to enjoy the poem without troubling oneself about the allegory at all, except in its broad ethical features, which are quite unmistakable. on the other hand, i am inclined to think that the presence of these under-meanings, with the interest which they give to a moderately instructed and intelligent person who, without too desperate a determination to see into millstones, understands "words to the wise," is a great addition to the hold of the poem over the attention, and saves it from the charge of mere desultoriness, which some, at least, of the other greatest poems of the kind (notably its immediate exemplar, the _orlando furioso_) must undergo. and here it may be noted that the charge made by most foreign critics who have busied themselves with spenser, and perhaps by some of his countrymen, that he is, if not a mere paraphrast, yet little more than a transplanter into english of the italian, is glaringly uncritical. not, perhaps, till ariosto and tasso have been carefully read in the original, is spenser's real greatness understood. he has often, and evidently of purpose, challenged comparison; but in every instance it will be found that his beauties are emphatically his own. he has followed his leaders only as virgil has followed homer; and much less slavishly. it is strange to find english critics of this great if not greatest english poem even nowadays repeating that spenser borrowed his wonderful stanza from the italians. he did nothing of the kind. that the _ottava rima_ on the one hand, and the sonnet on the other, may have suggested the idea of it is quite possible. but the spenserian stanza, as it is justly called, is his own and no one else's, and its merits, especially that primal merit of adaptation to the subject and style of the poem, are unique. nothing else could adapt itself so perfectly to the endless series of vignettes and dissolving views which the poet delights in giving; while, at the same time, it has, for so elaborate and apparently integral a form, a singular faculty of hooking itself on to stanzas preceding and following, so as not to interrupt continuous narrative when continuous narrative is needed. its great compass, admitting of an almost infinite variety of cadence and composition, saves it from the monotony from which even the consummate art of milton could not save blank verse now and then, and from which no writer has ever been able to save the couplet, or the quatrain, or the stanzas ending with a couplet, in narratives of very great length. but the most remarkable instance of harmony between metrical form and other characteristics, both of form and matter, in the metrist has yet to be mentioned. it has been said how well the stanza suits spenser's pictorial faculty; it certainly suits his musical faculty as well. the slightly (very slightly, for he can be vigorous enough) languid turn of his grace, the voluptuous cadences of his rhythm, find in it the most perfect exponent possible. the verse of great poets, especially homer's, has often been compared to the sea. spenser's is more like a river, wide, and deep, and strong, but moderating its waves and conveying them all in a steady, soft, irresistible sweep forwards. to aid him, besides this extraordinary instrument of metre, he had forged for himself another in his language. a great deal has been written on this--comments, at least of the unfavourable kind, generally echoing ben jonson's complaint that spenser "writ no language"; that his dialect is not the dialect of any actual place or time, that it is an artificial "poetic diction" made up of chaucer, and of northern dialect, and of classicisms, and of foreign words, and of miscellaneous archaisms from no matter where. no doubt it is. but if any other excuse than the fact of a beautiful and satisfactory effect is wanted for the formation of a poetic diction different from the actually spoken or the ordinarily written tongue of the day (and i am not sure that any such excuse is required) it is to be found at once. there was no actually spoken or ordinarily written tongue in spenser's day which could claim to be "queen's english." chaucer was obsolete, and since chaucer there was no single person who could even pretend to authority. every writer more or less endowed with originality was engaged in beating out for himself, from popular talk, and from classical or foreign analogy, an instrument of speech. spenser's verse language and lyly's prose are the most remarkable results of the process; but it was, in fact, not only a common but a necessary one, and in no way to be blamed. as for the other criterion hinted at above, no one is likely to condemn the diction according to that. in its remoteness without grotesqueness, in its lavish colour, in its abundance of matter for every kind of cadence and sound-effect, it is exactly suited to the subject, the writer, and the verse. it is this singular and complete adjustment of worker and implement which, with other peculiarities noted or to be noted, gives _the faërie queene_ its unique unicity, if such a conceit may be pardoned. from some points of view it might be called a very artificial poem, yet no poem runs with such an entire absence of effort, with such an easy eloquence, with such an effect, as has been said already, of flowing water. with all his learning, and his archaisms, and his classicisms, and his platonisms, and his isms without end, hardly any poet smells of the lamp less disagreeably than spenser. where milton forges and smelts, his gold is native. the endless, various, brightly-coloured, softly and yet distinctly outlined pictures rise and pass before the eyes and vanish--the multiform, sweetly-linked, softly-sounding harmonies swell and die and swell again on the ear--without a break, without a jar, softer than sleep and as continuous, gayer than the rainbow and as undiscoverably connected with any obvious cause. and this is the more remarkable because the very last thing that can be said of spenser is that he is a poet of mere words. milton himself, the severe milton, extolled his moral teaching; his philosophical idealism is evidently no mere poet's plaything or parrot-lesson, but thoroughly thought out and believed in. he is a determined, almost a savage partisan in politics and religion, a steady patriot, something of a statesman, very much indeed of a friend and a lover. and of all this there is ample evidence in his verse. yet the alchemy of his poetry has passed through the potent alembics of verse and phrase all these rebellious things, and has distilled them into the inimitably fluent and velvet medium which seems to lull some readers to inattention by its very smoothness, and deceive others into a belief in its lack of matter by the very finish and brilliancy of its form. the show passages of the poem which are most generally known--the house of pride, the cave of despair, the entrance of belphoebe, the treasury of mammon, the gardens of acrasia, the sojourn of britomart in busirane's castle, the marriage of the thames and medway, the discovery of the false florimel, artegall and the giant, calidore with meliboeus, the processions of the seasons and the months--all these are not, as is the case with so many other poets, mere purple patches, diversifying and relieving dullness, but rather remarkable, and as it happens easily separable examples of a power which is shown constantly and almost evenly throughout. those who admire them do well; but they hardly know spenser. he, more than almost any other poet, must be read continuously and constantly till the eye and ear and mind have acquired the freedom of his realm of enchantment, and have learnt the secret (as far as a mere reader may learn it) of the poetical spells by which he brings together and controls its wonders. the talk of tediousness, the talk of sameness, the talk of coterie-cultivation in spenser shows bad taste no doubt; but it rather shows ignorance. the critic has in such cases stayed outside his author; he speaks but of what he has _not_ seen. the comparative estimate is always the most difficult in literature, and where it can be avoided it is perhaps best to avoid it. but in spenser's case this is not possible. he is one of those few who can challenge the title of "greatest english poet," and the reader may almost of right demand the opinion on this point of any one who writes about him. for my part i have no intention of shirking the difficulty. it seems to me that putting shakespere aside as _hors concours_, not merely in degree but in kind, only two english poets can challenge spenser for the primacy. these are milton and shelley. the poet of _the faërie queene_ is generally inferior to milton in the faculty of concentration, and in the minting of those monumental phrases, impressive of themselves and quite apart from the context, which often count highest in the estimation of poetry. his vocabulary and general style, if not more remote from the vernacular, have sometimes a touch of deliberate estrangement from that vernacular which is no doubt of itself a fault. his conception of a great work is looser, more excursive, less dramatic. as compared with shelley he lacks not merely the modern touches which appeal to a particular age, but the lyrical ability in which shelley has no equal among english poets. but in each case he redeems these defects with, as it seems to me, far more than counterbalancing merits. he is never prosaic as milton, like his great successor wordsworth, constantly is, and his very faults are the faults of a poet. he never (as shelley does constantly) dissolves away into a flux of words which simply bids good-bye to sense or meaning, and wanders on at large, unguided, without an end, without an aim. but he has more than these merely negative merits. i have seen long accounts of spenser in which the fact of his invention of the spenserian stanza is passed over almost without a word of comment. yet in the formal history of poetry (and the history of poetry must always be pre-eminently a history of form) there is simply no achievement so astonishing as this. that we do not know the inventors of the great single poetic vehicles, the hexameter, the iambic senarius, the english heroic, the french alexandrine, is one thing. it is another that in spenser's case alone can the invention of a complicated but essentially integral form be assigned to a given poet. it is impossible to say that sappho invented the sapphic, or alcæus the alcaic: each poet may have been a vespucci to some precedent columbus. but we are in a position to say that spenser did most unquestionably invent the english spenserian stanza--a form only inferior in individual beauty to the sonnet, which is itself practically _adespoton_, and far superior to the sonnet in its capacity of being used in multiples as well as singly. when the unlikelihood of such a complicated measure succeeding in narrative form, the splendid success of it in the _faërie queene_, and the remarkable effects which have subsequently been got out of it by men so different as thomson, shelley, and lord tennyson, are considered, spenser's invention must, i think, be counted the most considerable of its kind in literature. but it may be very freely admitted that this technical merit, great as it is, is the least part of the matter. whosoever first invented butterflies and pyramids in poetry is not greatly commendable, and if spenser had done nothing but arrange a cunning combination of eight heroics, with interwoven rhymes and an alexandrine to finish with, it may be acknowledged at once that his claims to primacy would have to be dismissed at once. it is not so. independently of _the faërie queene_ altogether he has done work which we must go to milton and shelley themselves to equal. the varied and singularly original strains of _the calendar_, the warmth and delicacy combined of the _epithalamion_, the tone of mingled regret and wonder (not inferior in its characteristic renaissance ring to du bellay's own) of _the ruins of rome_, the different notes of the different minor poems, are all things not to be found in any minor poet. but as does not always happen, and as is perhaps not the case with milton, spenser's greatest work is also his best. in the opinion of some at any rate the poet of _lycidas_, of _comus_, of _samson agonistes_, even of the _allegro_ and _penseroso_, ranks as high as, if not above, the poet of _paradise lost_. but the poet of _the faërie queene_ could spare all his minor works and lose only, as has been said, quantity not quality of greatness. it is hardly necessary at this time of day to repeat the demonstration that macaulay in his famous jibe only succeeded in showing that he had never read what he jibed at; and though other decriers of spenser's masterpiece may not have laid themselves open to quite so crushing a retort, they seldom fail to show a somewhat similar ignorance. for the lover of poetry, for the reader who understands and can receive the poetic charm, the revelation of beauty in metrical language, no english poem is the superior, or, range and variety being considered, the equal of _the faërie queene_. take it up where you will, and provided only sufficient time (the reading of a dozen stanzas ought to suffice to any one who has the necessary gifts of appreciation) be given to allow the soft dreamy versicoloured atmosphere to rise round the reader, the languid and yet never monotonous music to gain his ear, the mood of mixed imagination and heroism, adventure and morality, to impress itself on his mind, and the result is certain. to the influence of no poet are the famous lines of spenser's great nineteenth-century rival so applicable as to spenser's own. the enchanted boat, angel-guided, floating on away, afar, without conscious purpose, but simply obeying the instinct of sweet poetry, is not an extravagant symbol for the mind of a reader of spenser. if such readers want "criticisms of life" first of all, they must go elsewhere, though they will find them amply given, subject to the limitations of the poetical method. if they want story they may complain of slackness and deviations. if they want glorifications of science and such like things, they had better shut the book at once, and read no more on that day nor on any other. but if they want poetry--if they want to be translated from a world which is not one of beauty only into one where the very uglinesses are beautiful, into a world of perfect harmony in colour and sound, of an endless sequence of engaging event and character, of noble passions and actions not lacking their due contrast, then let them go to spenser with a certainty of satisfaction. he is not, as are some poets, the poet of a certain time of life to the exclusion of others. he may be read in childhood chiefly for his adventure, in later youth for his display of voluptuous beauty, in manhood for his ethical and historical weight, in age for all combined, and for the contrast which his bright universe of invention affords with the work-day jejuneness of this troublesome world. but he never palls upon those who have once learnt to taste him; and no poet is so little of an acquired taste to those who have any liking for poetry at all. he has been called the poet's poet--a phrase honourable but a little misleading, inasmuch as it first suggests that he is not the poet of the great majority of readers who cannot pretend to be poets themselves, and secondly insinuates a kind of intellectual and æsthetic pharisaism in those who do admire him, which may be justly resented by those who do not. let us rather say that he is the poet of all others for those who seek in poetry only poetical qualities, and we shall say not only what is more than enough to establish his greatness but what, as i for one believe, can be maintained in the teeth of all gainsayers.[ ] [ ] of spenser as of two other poets in this volume, shakespere and milton, it seemed to be unnecessary and even impertinent to give any extracts. their works are, or ought to be, in all hands; and even if it were not so, no space at my command could give sample of their infinite varieties. the volume, variety, and vigour of the poetical production of the period in which spenser is the central figure--the last twenty years of the sixteenth century--is perhaps proportionally the greatest, and may be said to be emphatically the most distinguished in purely poetical characteristics of any period in our history. every kind of poetical work is represented in it, and every kind (with the possible exception of the semi-poetical kind of satire) is well represented. there is, indeed, no second name that approaches spenser's, either in respect of importance or in respect of uniform excellence of work. but in the most incomplete production of this time there is almost always that poetical spark which is often entirely wanting in the finished and complete work of other periods. i shall, therefore, divide the whole mass into four groups, each with certain distinguished names at its head, and a crowd of hardly undistinguished names in its rank and file. these four groups are the sonneteers, the historians, the satirists, and lastly, the miscellaneous lyrists and poetical miscellanists. although it is only recently that its mass and its beauty have been fully recognised, the extraordinary outburst of sonnet-writing at a certain period of elizabeth's reign has always attracted the attention of literary historians. for many years after wyatt and surrey's work appeared the form attracted but little imitation or practice. about spenser himself probably, sidney and thomas watson certainly, devoted much attention to it; but it was some dozen years later that the most striking crop of sonnets appeared. between and there were published more than a dozen collections, chiefly or wholly of sonnets, and almost all bearing the name of a single person, in whose honour they were supposed to be composed. so singular is this coincidence, showing either an intense _engouement_ in literary society, or a spontaneous determination of energy in individuals, that the list with dates is worth giving. it runs thus:--in came barnes's _parthenophil and parthenophe_, fletcher's _licia_, and lodge's _phillis_. in followed constable's _diana_, daniel's _delia_,[ ] the anonymous _zepheria_, drayton's _idea_, percy's _coelia_, and willoughby's _avisa_; added the _alcilia_ of a certain j. c., and spenser's perfect _amoretti_; gave griffin's _fidessa_, lynch's _diella_, and smith's _chloris_, while shakespere's earliest sonnets were probably not much later. then the fashion changed, or the vein was worked out, or (more fancifully) the impossibility of equalling spenser and shakespere choked off competitors. the date of lord brooke's singular _coelica_, not published till long afterwards, is uncertain; but he may, probably, be classed with sidney and watson in period. [ ] _delia_ had appeared earlier in , and partially in ; but the text of is the definitive one. several of these dates are doubtful or disputed. fulke, or, as he himself spelt it, foulke greville, in his later years lord brooke,[ ] was of a noble house in warwickshire connected with the beauchamps and the willoughbys. he was born in , was educated at shrewsbury with philip sidney, whose kinsman, lifelong friend, and first biographer he was--proceeded, not like sidney to oxford, but to cambridge (where he was a member, it would seem, of jesus college, not as usually said of trinity)--received early lucrative preferments chiefly in connection with the government of wales, was a favourite courtier of elizabeth's during all her later life, and, obtaining a royal gift of warwick castle, became the ancestor of the present earls of warwick. in he became chancellor of the exchequer. lord brooke, who lived to a considerable age, was stabbed in a rather mysterious manner in by a servant named haywood, who is said to have been enraged by discovering that his master had left him nothing in his will. the story is, as has been said, mysterious, and the affair seems to have been hushed up. lord brooke was not universally popular, and a very savage contemporary epitaph on him has been preserved. but he had been the patron of the youthful davenant, and has left not a little curious literary work, which has only been recently collected, and little of which saw the light in his own lifetime. of his two singular plays, _mustapha_ and _alaham_ (closet-dramas having something in common with the senecan model), _mustapha_ was printed in ; but it would seem piratically. his chief prose work, the _life of sidney_, was not printed till . his chief work in verse, the singular _poems of monarchy_ (ethical and political treatises), did not appear till eighteen years later, as well as the allied _treatise on religion_. but poems or tracts on human learning, on wars, and other things, together with his tragedies as above, had appeared in . this publication, a folio volume, also contained by far the most interesting part of his work, the so-called sonnet collection of coelica--a medley, like many of those mentioned in this chapter, of lyrics and short poems of all lengths and metrical arrangements, but, unlike almost all of them, dealing with many subjects, and apparently addressed to more than one person. it is here, and in parts of the prose, that the reader who has not a very great love for elizabethan literature and some experience of it, can be recommended to seek confirmation of the estimate in which greville was held by charles lamb, and of the very excusable and pious, though perhaps excessive, admiration of his editor dr. grosart. even _coelica_ is very unlikely to find readers as a whole, owing to the strangely repellent character of brooke's thought, which is intricate and obscure, and of his style, which is at any rate sometimes as harsh and eccentric as the theories of poetry which made him compose verse-treatises on politics. nevertheless there is much nobility of thought and expression in him, and not unfrequent flashes of real poetry, while his very faults are characteristic. he may be represented here by a piece from _coelica_, in which he is at his very best, and most poetical because most simple-- [ ] he is a little liable to be confounded with two writers (brothers of a patronymic the same as his title) samuel and christopher brooke, the latter of whom wrote poems of some merit, which dr. grosart has edited. "i, with whose colours myra dressed her head, i, that ware posies of her own hand making, i, that mine own name in the chimnies read by myra finely wrought ere i was waking: must i look on, in hope time coming may with change bring back my turn again to play? "i, that on sunday at the church-stile found a garland sweet with true love knots in flowers, which i to wear about mine arms, was bound that each of us might know that all was ours: must i lead now an idle life in wishes, and follow cupid for his loaves and fishes? "i, that did wear the ring her mother left, i, for whose love she gloried to be blamed, i, with whose eyes her eyes committed theft, i, who did make her blush when i was named: must i lose ring, flowers, blush, theft, and go naked, watching with sighs till dead love be awaked? "i, that when drowsy argus fell asleep, like jealousy o'erwatchèd with desire, was ever warnéd modesty to keep while her breath, speaking, kindled nature's fire: must i look on a-cold while others warm them? do vulcan's brothers in such fine nets arm them? "was it for this that i might myra see _washing the water with her beauties white_? yet would she never write her love to me: thinks wit of change when thoughts are in delight? mad girls may safely love as they may leave; no man can print a kiss: lines may deceive." had brooke always written with this force and directness he would have been a great poet. as it is, he has but the ore of poetry, not the smelted metal. for there is no doubt that sidney here holds the primacy, not merely in time but in value, of the whole school, putting spenser and shakespere aside. that thirty or forty years' diligent study of italian models had much to do with the extraordinary advance visible in his sonnets over those of tottel's _miscellany_ is, no doubt, undeniable. but many causes besides the inexplicable residuum of fortunate inspiration, which eludes the most careful search into literary cause and effect, had to do with the production of the "lofty, insolent, and passionate vein," which becomes noticeable in english poetry for the first time about , and which dominates it, if we include the late autumn-summer of milton's last productions, for a hundred years. perhaps it is not too much to say that this makes its very first appearance in sidney's verse, for _the shepherd's calendar_, though of an even more perfect, is of a milder strain. the inevitable tendency of criticism to gossip about poets instead of criticising poetry has usually mixed a great deal of personal matter with the accounts of _astrophel and stella_, the series of sonnets which is sidney's greatest literary work, and which was first published some years after his death in an incorrect and probably pirated edition by thomas nash. there is no doubt that there was a real affection between sidney (astrophel) and penelope devereux (stella), daughter of the earl of essex, afterwards lady rich, and that marriage proving unhappy, lady mountjoy. but the attempts which have been made to identify every hint and allusion in the series with some fact or date, though falling short of the unimaginable folly of scholastic labour-lost which has been expended on the sonnets of shakespere, still must appear somewhat idle to those who know the usual genesis of love-poetry--how that it is of imagination all compact, and that actual occurrences are much oftener occasions and bases than causes and material of it. it is of the smallest possible importance or interest to a rational man to discover what was the occasion of sidney's writing these charming poems--the important point is their charm. and in this respect (giving heed to his date and his opportunities of imitation) i should put sidney third to shakespere and spenser. the very first piece of the series, an oddly compounded sonnet of thirteen alexandrines and a final heroic, strikes the note of intense and fresh poetry which is only heard afar off in surrey and wyatt, which is hopelessly to seek in the tentatives of turberville and googe, and which is smothered with jejune and merely literary ornament in the less formless work of sidney's contemporary, thomas watson. the second line-- "that she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain," the couplet-- "oft turning others' leaves to see if thence would flow some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburnt brain," and the sudden and splendid finale-- "'fool!' said my muse, 'look in thy heart and write!'" are things that may be looked for in vain earlier. a little later we meet with that towering soar of verse which is also peculiar to the period: "when nature made her chief work--stella's eyes, in colour black why wrapt she beams so bright?"-- lines which those who deprecate insistence on the importance of form in poetry might study with advantage, for the thought is a mere commonplace conceit, and the beauty of the phrase is purely derived from the cunning arrangement and cadence of the verse. the first perfectly charming sonnet in the english language--a sonnet which holds its own after three centuries of competition--is the famous "with how sad steps, o moon, thou climbst the skies," where lamb's stricture on the last line as obscure seems to me unreasonable. the equally famous phrase, "that sweet enemy france," which occurs a little further on is another, and whether borrowed from giordano bruno or not is perhaps the best example of the felicity of expression in which sidney is surpassed by few englishmen. nor ought the extraordinary variety of the treatment to be missed. often as sidney girds at those who, like watson, "dug their sonnets out of books," he can write in the learned literary manner with the best. the pleasant ease of his sonnet to the sparrow, "good brother philip," contrasts in the oddest way with his allegorical and mythological sonnets, in each of which veins he indulges hardly less often, though very much more wisely than any of his contemporaries. nor do the other "songs of variable verse," which follow, and in some editions are mixed up with the sonnets, display less extraordinary power. the first song, with its refrain in the penultimate line of each stanza, "to you, to you, all song of praise is due," contrasts in its throbbing and burning life with the faint and misty imagery, the stiff and wooden structure, of most of the verse of sidney's predecessors, and deserves to be given in full:-- "doubt you to whom my muse these notes intendeth; which now my breast o'ercharged to music lendeth? to you! to you! all song of praise is due: only in you my song begins and endeth. "who hath the eyes which marry state with pleasure, who keeps the keys of nature's chiefest treasure? to you! to you! all song of praise is due: only for you the heaven forgat all measure. "who hath the lips, where wit in fairness reigneth? who womankind at once both decks and staineth? to you! to you! all song of praise is due: only by you cupid his crown maintaineth. "who hath the feet, whose steps all sweetness planteth? who else; for whom fame worthy trumpets wanteth? to you! to you! all song of praise is due: only to you her sceptre venus granteth. "who hath the breast, whose milk doth passions nourish? whose grace is such, that when it chides doth cherish? to you! to you! all song of praise is due: only through you the tree of life doth flourish. "who hath the hand, which without stroke subdueth? who long dead beauty with increase reneweth? to you! to you! all song of praise is due: only at you all envy hopeless rueth. "who hath the hair, which loosest fastest tieth? who makes a man live then glad when he dieth? to you! to you! all song of praise is due: only of you the flatterer never lieth. "who hath the voice, which soul from senses sunders? whose force but yours the bolts of beauty thunders? to you! to you! all song of praise is due: only with you not miracles are wonders. "doubt you to whom my muse these notes intendeth? which now my breast o'ercharged to music lendeth? to you! to you! all song of praise is due: only in you my song begins and endeth." nor is its promise belied by those which follow, and which are among the earliest and the most charming of the rich literature of songs that really are songs--songs to music--which the age was to produce. all the scanty remnants of his other verse are instinct with the same qualities, especially the splendid dirge, "ring out your bells, let mourning shows be spread," and the pretty lines "to the tune of wilhelmus van nassau." i must quote the first:-- "ring out your bells! let mourning shows be spread, for love is dead. all love is dead, infected with the plague of deep disdain; worth as nought worth rejected. and faith, fair scorn doth gain. from so ungrateful fancy, from such a female frenzy, from them that use men thus, good lord, deliver us! "weep, neighbours, weep! do you not hear it said that love is dead? his deathbed, peacock's folly; his winding-sheet is shame; his will, false seeming wholly; his sole executor, blame. from so ungrateful fancy, from such a female frenzy, from them that use men thus, good lord, deliver us! "let dirge be sung, and trentals rightly read, for love is dead. sir wrong his tomb ordaineth my mistress' marble heart; which epitaph containeth 'her eyes were once his dart.' from so ungrateful fancy, from such a female frenzy, from them that use men thus, good lord, deliver us! "alas, i lie. rage hath this error bred, love is not dead. love is not dead, but sleepeth in her unmatchèd mind: where she his counsel keepeth till due deserts she find. therefore from so vile fancy to call such wit a frenzy, who love can temper thus, good lord, deliver us!" the verse from the _arcadia_ (which contains a great deal of verse) has been perhaps injuriously affected in the general judgment by the fact that it includes experiments in the impossible classical metres. but both it and the translations from the psalms express the same poetical faculty employed with less directness and force. to sum up, there is no elizabethan poet, except the two named, who is more unmistakably imbued with poetical quality than sidney. and hazlitt's judgment on him, that he is "jejune" and "frigid" will, as lamb himself hinted, long remain the chiefest and most astonishing example of a great critic's aberrations when his prejudices are concerned. had hazlitt been criticising thomas watson, his judgment, though harsh, would have been not wholly easy to quarrel with. it is probably the excusable but serious error of judgment which induced his rediscoverer, professor arber, to rank watson above sidney in gifts and genius, that has led other critics to put him unduly low. watson himself, moreover, has invited depreciation by his extreme frankness in confessing that his _passionate century_ is not a record of passion at all, but an elaborate literary _pastiche_ after this author and that. i fear it must be admitted that the average critic is not safely to be trusted with such an avowal of what he is too much disposed to advance as a charge without confession. watson, of whom as usual scarcely anything is known personally, was a londoner by birth, an oxford man by education, a friend of most of the earlier literary school of the reign, such as lyly, peele, and spenser, and a tolerably industrious writer both in latin and english during his short life, which can hardly have begun before , and was certainly closed by . he stands in english poetry as the author of the _hecatompathia_ or _passionate century_ of sonnets ( ), and the _tears of fancy_, consisting of sixty similar poems, printed after his death. the _tears of fancy_ are regular quatorzains, the pieces composing the _hecatompathia_, though called sonnets, are in a curious form of eighteen lines practically composed of three six-line stanzas rhymed a b, a b, c c, and not connected by any continuance of rhyme from stanza to stanza. the special and peculiar oddity of the book is, that each sonnet has a prose preface as thus: "in this passion the author doth very busily imitate and augment a certain ode of ronsard, which he writeth unto his mistress. he beginneth as followeth, _plusieurs_, etc." here is a complete example of one of watson's pages:-- "there needeth no annotation at all before this passion, it is of itself so plain and easily conveyed. yet the unlearned may have this help given them by the way to know what galaxia is or pactolus, which perchance they have not read of often in our vulgar rhymes. galaxia (to omit both the etymology and what the philosophers do write thereof) is a white way or milky circle in the heavens, which ovid mentioneth in this manner-- _est via sublimis coelo manifesta sereno,_ _lactea nomen habet, candore notabilis ipso._ --metamorph. lib. . and cicero thus in somnio scipionis: _erat autem is splendissimo candore inter flammas circulus elucens, quem vos (ut a graijs accepistis) orbem lacteum nuncupatis._ pactolus is a river in lydia, which hath golden sands under it, as tibullus witnesseth in this verse:-- _nec me regna juvant, nec lydius aurifer amnis._--tibul. lib. . who can recount the virtues of my dear, or say how far her fame hath taken flight, that cannot tell how many stars appear in part of heaven, which galaxia hight, or number all the moats in phoebus' rays, or golden sands whereon pactolus plays? and yet my hurts enforce me to confess, in crystal breast she shrouds a bloody heart, which heart in time will make her merits less, unless betimes she cure my deadly smart: for now my life is double dying still, and she defamed by sufferance of such ill; and till the time she helps me as she may, let no man undertake to tell my toil, but only such, as can distinctly say, what monsters nilus breeds, or afric soil: for if he do, his labour is but lost, whilst i both fry and freeze 'twixt flame and frost." now this is undoubtedly, as watson's contemporaries would have said, "a cooling card" to the reader, who is thus presented with a series of elaborate poetical exercises affecting the acutest personal feeling, and yet confessedly representing no feeling at all. yet the _hecatompathia_ is remarkable, both historically and intrinsically. it does not seem likely that at its publication the author can have had anything of sidney's or much of spenser's before him; yet his work is only less superior to the work of their common predecessors than the work of these two. by far the finest of his _century_ is the imitation of ferrabosco-- "resolved to dust intombed here lieth love." the quatorzains of the _tears of fancy_ are more attractive in form and less artificial in structure and phraseology, but it must be remembered that by their time sidney's sonnets were known and spenser had written much. the seed was scattered abroad, and it fell in congenial soil in falling on watson, but the _hecatompathia_ was self-sown. this difference shows itself very remarkably in the vast outburst of sonneteering which, as has been remarked, distinguished the middle of the last decade of the sixteenth century. all these writers had sidney and spenser before them, and they assume so much of the character of a school that there are certain subjects, for instance, "care-charming sleep," on which many of them (after sidney) composed sets of rival poems, almost as definitely competitive as the sonnets of the later "uranie et job" and "belle matineuse" series in france. nevertheless, there is in all of them--what as a rule is wanting in this kind of clique verse--the independent spirit, the original force which makes poetry. the smiths and the fletchers, the griffins and the lynches, are like little geysers round the great ones: the whole soil is instinct with fire and flame. we shall, however, take the production of the four remarkable years - separately, and though in more than one case we shall return upon their writers both in this chapter and in a subsequent one, the unity of the sonnet impulse seems to demand separate mention for them here. in the influence of the sidney poems (published, it must be remembered, in ) was new, and the imitators, except watson (of whom above), display a good deal of the quality of the novice. the chief of them are barnabe barnes, with his _parthenophil and parthenophe_, giles fletcher (father of the jacobean poets, giles and phineas fletcher), with his _licia_, and thomas lodge, with his _phillis_. barnes is a modern discovery, for before dr. grosart reprinted him in , from the unique original at chatsworth, for thirty subscribers only (of whom i had the honour to be one), he was practically unknown. mr. arber has since, in his _english garner_, opened access to a wider circle, to whom i at least do not grudge their entry. as with most of these minor elizabethan poets, barnes is a very obscure person. a little later than _parthenophil_ he wrote _a divine centurie of spiritual sonnets_, having, like many of his contemporaries, an apparent desire poetically to make the best of both worlds. he also wrote a wild play in the most daring elizabethan style, called _the devil's charter_, and a prose political _treatise of offices_. barnes was a friend of gabriel harvey's, and as such met with some rough usage from nash, marston, and others. his poetical worth, though there are fine passages in _the devil's charter_ and in the _divine centurie_, must rest on _parthenophil_. this collection consists not merely of sonnets but of madrigals, sestines, canzons, and other attempts after italian masters. the style, both verbal and poetical, needs chastising in places, and barnes's expression in particular is sometimes obscure. he is sometimes comic when he wishes to be passionate, and frequently verbose when he wishes to be expressive. but the fire, the full-bloodedness, the poetical virility, of the poems is extraordinary. a kind of intoxication of the eternal-feminine seems to have seized the poet to an extent not otherwise to be paralleled in the group, except in sidney; while sidney's courtly sense of measure and taste did not permit him barnes's forcible extravagances. here is a specimen:-- "phoebus, rich father of eternal light, and in his hand a wreath of heliochrise he brought, to beautify those tresses, whose train, whose softness, and whose gloss more bright, apollo's locks did overprize. thus, with this garland, whiles her brows he blesses, the golden shadow with his tincture coloured her locks, aye gilded with the cincture." giles fletcher's _licia_ is a much more pale and colourless performance, though not wanting in merit. the author, who was afterwards a most respectable clergyman, is of the class of _amoureux transis_, and dies for licia throughout his poems, without apparently suspecting that it was much better to live for her. his volume contained some miscellaneous poems, with a dullish essay in the historical style (see _post_), called _the rising of richard to the crown_. very far superior is lodge's _phillis_, the chief poetical work of that interesting person, except some of the madrigals and odd pieces of verse scattered about his prose tracts (for which see chapter vi.) _phillis_ is especially remarkable for the grace and refinement with which the author elaborates the sidneian model. lodge, indeed, as it seems to me, was one of the not uncommon persons who can always do best with a model before them. he euphuised with better taste than lyly, but in imitation of him; his tales in prose are more graceful than those of greene, whom he copied; it at least seems likely that he out-marlowed marlowe in the rant of the _looking-glass for london_, and the stiffness of the _wounds of civil war_, and he chiefly polished sidney in his sonnets and madrigals. it is not to be denied, however, that in three out of these four departments he gave us charming work. his mixed allegiance to marlowe and sidney gave him command of a splendid form of decasyllable, which appears often in _phillis_, as for instance-- "about thy neck do all the graces throng and lay such baits as might entangle death," where it is worth noting that the whole beauty arises from the dexterous placing of the dissyllable "graces," and the trisyllable "entangle," exactly where they ought to be among the monosyllables of the rest. the madrigals "love guards the roses of thy lips," "my phillis hath the morning sun," and "love in my bosom like a bee" are simply unsurpassed for sugared sweetness in english. perhaps this is the best of them:-- "love in my bosom like a bee, doth suck his sweet; now with his wings he plays with me, now with his feet. within mine eyes he makes his nest his bed amidst my tender breast, my kisses are his daily feast; and yet he robs me of my rest? 'ah, wanton! will ye?' "and if i sleep, then percheth he, with pretty flight,[ ] and makes his pillow of my knee the livelong night. strike i my lute, he tunes the string. he music plays, if so i sing. he lends me every lovely thing yet cruel! he, my heart doth sting. 'whist, wanton! still ye!' "else i with roses, every day will whip you hence, and bind you, when you want to play, for your offence. i'll shut my eyes to keep you in, i'll make you fast it for your sin, i'll count your power not worth a pin. alas, what hereby shall i win if he gainsay me? "what if i beat the wanton boy with many a rod? he will repay me with annoy because a god. then sit thou safely on my knee, and let thy bower my bosom be. lurk in mine eyes, i like of thee. o cupid! so thou pity me, spare not, but play thee." [ ] printed in _england's helicon_ "sleight." was the most important of all the sonnet years, and here we are chiefly bound to mention authors who will come in for fuller notice later. the singular book known as willoughby's _avisa_ which, as having a supposed bearing on shakespere and as containing much of that personal puzzlement which rejoices critics, has had much attention of late years, is not strictly a collection of sonnets; its poems being longer and of differing stanzas. but in general character it falls in with the sonnet-collections addressed or devoted to a real or fanciful personage. it is rather satirical than panegyrical in character, and its poetical worth is very far from high. william percy, a friend of barnes (who dedicated the _parthenophil_ to him), son of the eighth earl of northumberland, and a retired person who seems to have passed the greater part of a long life in oxford "drinking nothing but ale," produced a very short collection entitled _coelia_, not very noteworthy, though it contains (probably in imitation of barnes) one of the tricky things called echo-sonnets, which, with dialogue-sonnets and the like, have sometimes amused the leisure of poets. much more remarkable is the singular anonymous collection called _zepheria_. its contents are called not sonnets but canzons, though most of them are orthodox quatorzains somewhat oddly rhymed and rhythmed. it is brief, extending only to forty pieces, and, like much of the poetry of the period, begins and ends with italian mottoes or dedication-phrases. but what is interesting about it is the evidence it gives of deep familiarity not only with italian but with french models. this appears both in such words as "jouissance," "thesaurise," "esperance," "souvenance," "vatical" (a thoroughly ronsardising word), with others too many to mention, and in other characteristics. mr. sidney lee, in his most valuable collection of these sonneteers, endeavours to show that this french influence was less uncommon than has sometimes been thought. putting this aside, the characteristic of _zepheria_ is unchastened vigour, full of promise, but decidedly in need of further schooling and discipline, as the following will show:-- "o then desire, father of jouissance, the life of love, the death of dastard fear, the kindest nurse to true persèverance, mine heart inherited, with thy love's revere. [?] beauty! peculiar parent of conceit, prosperous midwife to a travelling muse, the sweet of life, nepenthe's eyes receipt, thee into me distilled, o sweet, infuse! love then (the spirit of a generous sprite, an infant ever drawing nature's breast, the sum of life, that chaos did unnight!) dismissed mine heart from me, with thee to rest. and now incites me cry, 'double or quit! give back my heart, or take his body to it!'" this cannot be said of the three remarkable collections yet to be noticed which appeared in this year, to wit, constable's _diana_, daniel's _delia_, and drayton's _idea_. these three head the group and contain the best work, after shakespere and spenser and sidney, in the english sonnet of the time. constable's sonnets had appeared partly in , and as they stand in fullest collection were published in or before . afterwards he wrote, like others, "divine" sonnets (he was a roman catholic) and some miscellaneous poems, including a very pretty "song of venus and adonis." he was a close friend of sidney, many of whose sonnets were published with his, and his work has much of the sidneian colour, but with fewer flights of happily expressed fancy. the best of it is probably the following sonnet, which is not only full of gracefully expressed images, but keeps up its flight from first to last--a thing not universal in these elizabethan sonnets:-- "my lady's presence makes the roses red, because to see her lips they blush for shame. the lily's leaves, for envy, pale became; and her white hands in them this envy bred. the marigold the leaves abroad doth spread; because the sun's and her power is the same. the violet of purple colour came, dyed in the blood she made my heart to shed. in brief all flowers from her their virtue take; from her sweet breath, their sweet smells do proceed; the living heat which her eyebeams doth make warmeth the ground, and quickeneth the seed. the rain, wherewith she watereth the flowers, falls from mine eyes, which she dissolves in showers." samuel daniel had an eminently contemplative genius which might have anticipated the sonnet as it is in wordsworth, but which the fashion of the day confined to the not wholly suitable subject of love. in the splendid "care-charmer sleep," one of the tournament sonnets above noted, he contrived, as will be seen, to put his subject under the influence of his prevailing faculty. "care-charmer sleep, son of the sable night, brother to death, in silent darkness born, relieve my anguish, and restore the light, with dark forgetting of my cares, return; and let the day be time enough to mourn the shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth; let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn without the torment of the night's untruth. cease, dreams, th' imag'ry of our day-desires, to model forth the passions of the morrow, never let rising sun approve you liars, to add more grief to aggravate my sorrow. still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain; and never wake to feel the day's disdain." but as a rule he is perhaps too much given to musing, and too little to rapture. in form he is important, as he undoubtedly did much to establish the arrangement of three alternate rhymed quatrains and a couplet which, in shakespere's hands, was to give the noblest poetry of the sonnet and of the world. he has also an abundance of the most exquisite single lines, such as "o clear-eyed rector of the holy hill," and the wonderful opening of sonnet xxvii., "the star of my mishap imposed this pain." the sixty-three sonnets, varied in different editions of drayton's _idea_, are among the most puzzling of the whole group. their average value is not of the very highest. yet there are here and there the strangest suggestions of drayton's countryman, shakespere, and there is one sonnet, no. , beginning, "since there's no help, come let us kiss and part," which i have found it most difficult to believe to be drayton's, and which is shakespere all over. that drayton was the author of _idea_ as a whole is certain, not merely from the local allusions, but from the resemblance to the more successful exercises of his clear, masculine, vigorous, fertile, but occasionally rather unpoetical style. the sonnet just referred to is itself one of the very finest existing--perhaps one of the ten or twelve best sonnets in the world, and it may be worth while to give it with another in contrast:-- "our flood's queen, thames, for ships and swans is crowned; and stately severn for her shore is praised. the crystal trent for fords and fish renowned; and avon's fame to albion's cliffs is raised; carlegion chester vaunts her holy dee; york many wonders of her ouse can tell. the peak her dove, whose banks so fertile be; and kent will say her medway doth excel. cotswold commends her isis to the tame; our northern borders boast of tweed's fair flood our western parts extol their wily's fame; and the old lea brags of the danish blood. arden's sweet ankor, let thy glory be that fair idea only lives by thee!" * * * * * "since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part! nay, i have done. you get no more of me and i am glad, yea, glad with all my heart that thus so cleanly i myself can free. shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, and when we meet at any time again be it not seen in either of our brows that we one jot of former love retain. now at the last gasp of love's latest breath, when, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies; when faith is kneeling by his bed of death, and innocence is closing up his eyes: now, if thou would'st, when all have given him over, from death to life thou might'st him yet recover!" chiefly contributed the curious production called _alcilia_, by j. c., who gives the name of sonnets to a series of six-line stanzas, varied occasionally by other forms, such as that of the following pretty verses. it may be noted that the citation of proverbs is very characteristic of _alcilia_:-- "love is sorrow mixed with gladness, fear with hope, and hope with madness. long did i love, but all in vain; i loving, was not loved again: for which my heart sustained much woe. it fits not maids to use men so, just deserts are not regarded, never love so ill rewarded. but 'all is lost that is not sought,' 'oft wit proves best that's dearest bought.' "women were made for men's relief; to comfort, not to cause their grief. where most i merit, least i find: no marvel, since that love is blind. had she been kind as she was fair, my case had been more strange and rare. but women love not by desert, reason in them hath weakest part. then henceforth let them love that list, i will beware of 'had i wist.'" (putting the _amoretti_, which is sometimes assigned to this year, aside) was again fruitful with griffin's _fidessa_, lynch's _diella_, and smith's _chloris_. _fidessa_, though distinctly "young," is one of the most interesting of the clearly imitative class of these sonnets, and contains some very graceful poetry, especially the following, one of the sleep class, which will serve as a good example of the minor sonneteers:-- "care-charmer sleep! sweet ease in restless misery! the captive's liberty, and his freedom's song! balm of the bruisèd heart! man's chief felicity! brother of quiet death, when life is too too long! a comedy it is, and now an history; what is not sleep unto the feeble mind? it easeth him that toils, and him that's sorry; it makes the deaf to hear; to see, the blind; ungentle sleep! thou helpest all but me, for when i sleep my soul is vexèd most. it is fidessa that doth master thee if she approach; alas! thy power is lost. but here she is! see, how he runs amain! i fear, at night, he will not come again." _diella_, a set of thirty-eight sonnets prefixed to the "amorous poem of diego and genevra," is more elaborate in colouring but somewhat less fresh and genuine; while _chloris_, whose author was a friend of spenser's, approaches to the pastoral in the plan and phrasing of its fifty sonnets. such are the most remarkable members of a group of english poetry, which yields to few such groups in interest. it is connected by a strong similarity of feeling--if any one likes, even by a strong imitation of the same models. but in following those models and expressing those feelings, its members, even the humblest of them, have shown remarkable poetical capacity; while of the chiefs we can only say, as has been said more than once already, that the matter and form together acknowledge, and indeed admit of, no superior. in close connection with these groups of sonnets, displaying very much the same poetical characteristics and in some cases written by the same authors, there occurs a great body of miscellaneous poetical writing produced during the last twenty years of the sixteenth century, and ranging from long poems of the allegorical or amatory kind to the briefest lyrics and madrigals. sometimes this work appeared independently; sometimes it was inserted in the plays and prose pamphlets of the time. as has already been said, some of our authors, notably lodge and greene, did in this way work which far exceeds in merit any of their more ambitious pieces, and which in a certain unborrowed and incommunicable poetic grace hardly leaves anything of the time behind it. shakespere himself, in _venus and adonis_ and _lucrece_, has in a more elaborate but closely allied kind of poetry displayed less mature, but scarcely less, genius than in his dramatic and sonnet work. it is my own opinion that the actual poetical worth of richard barnfield, to whom an exquisite poem in _the passionate pilgrim_, long ascribed to shakespere, is now more justly assigned, has, owing to this assignment and to the singular character of his chief other poem, _the affectionate shepherd_, been considerably overrated. it is unfortunately as complete if not as common a mistake to suppose that any one who disdains his country's morality must be a good poet, as to set down any one who disdains it without further examination for a bad one. the simple fact, as it strikes a critic, is that "as it fell upon a day" is miles above anything else of barnfield's, and is not like anything else of his, while it is very like things of shakespere's. the best thing to be said for barnfield is that he was an avowed and enthusiastic imitator and follower of spenser. his poetical work (we might have included the short series of sonnets to _cynthia_ in the division of sonneteers) was all written when he was a very young man, and he died when he was not a very old one, a bachelor country-gentleman in warwickshire. putting the exquisite "as it fell upon a day" out of question (which, if he wrote it, is one of the not very numerous examples of perfect poetry written by a very imperfect poet), barnfield has, in no extraordinary measure, the common attributes of this wonderful time--poetical enthusiasm, fresh and unhackneyed expression, metrical charm, and gorgeous colouring, which does not find itself ill-matched with accurate drawing of nature. he is above the average elizabethan, and his very bad taste in _the affectionate shepherd_ (a following of virgil's second eclogue) may be excused as a humanist crotchet of the time. his rarity, his eccentricity, and the curious mixing up of his work with shakespere's have done him something more than yeoman's service with recent critics. but he may have a specimen:-- "and thus it happened: death and cupid met upon a time at swilling bacchus' house, where dainty cates upon the board were set, and goblets full of wine to drink carouse: where love and death did love the liquor so that out they fall, and to the fray they go. "and having both their quivers at their back filled full of arrows--the one of fatal steel, the other all of gold; death's shaft was black, but love's was yellow--fortune turned her wheel, and from death's quiver fell a fatal shaft that under cupid by the wind was waft. "and at the same time by ill hap there fell another arrow out of cupid's quiver; the which was carried by the wind at will, and under death the amorous shaft did shiver.[ ] they being parted, love took up death's dart, and death took up love's arrow for his part." [ ] not, of course = "break," but "shudder." there is perhaps more genuine poetic worth, though there is less accomplishment of form, in the unfortunate father robert southwell, who was executed as a traitor on the th of february . southwell belonged to a distinguished family, and was born (probably) at horsham st. faiths, in norfolk, about the year . he was stolen by a gipsy in his youth, but was recovered; and a much worse misfortune befell him in being sent for education not to oxford or cambridge but to douay, where he got into the hands of the jesuits, and joined their order. he was sent on a mission to england; and (no doubt conscientiously) violating the law there, was after some years of hiding and suspicion betrayed, arrested, treated with great harshness in prison, and at last, as has been said, executed. no specific acts of treason were even charged against him; and he earnestly denied any designs whatever against the queen and kingdom, nor can it be doubted that he merely paid the penalty of others' misdeeds. his work both in prose and poetry was not inconsiderable, and the poetry was repeatedly printed in rather confusing and imperfect editions after his death. the longest, but by no means the best, piece is _st. peter's complaint_. the best unquestionably is _the burning babe_, which, though fairly well known, must be given:-- "as i in hoary winter's night stood shivering in the snow, surpris'd i was with sudden heat, which made my heart to glow; and lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near, a pretty babe all burning bright, did in the air appear, who scorchèd with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed, as though his floods should quench his flames which with his tears were fed; 'alas!' quoth he, 'but newly born, in fiery heats i fry, yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but i! my faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns, love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and scorns; the fuel justice layeth on, and mercy blows the coals; the metal in this furnace wrought are men's defilèd souls, for which, as now on fire i am, to work them to their good so will i melt into a bath to wash them in my blood:' with these he vanished out of sight, and swiftly shrunk away, and straight i callèd unto mind that it was christmas day." something of the glow of this appears elsewhere in the poems, which are, without exception, religious. they have not a little of the "hectic" tone, which marks still more strongly the chief english roman catholic poet of the next century, crashaw; but are never, as crashaw sometimes is, hysterical. on the whole, as was remarked in a former chapter, they belong rather to the pre-spenserian class in diction and metre, though with something of the italian touch. occasional roughnesses in them may be at least partly attributed to the evident fact that the author thought of nothing less than of merely "cultivating the muses." his religious fervour is of the simplest and most genuine kind, and his poems are a natural and unforced expression of it. it is difficult in the brief space which can here be allotted to the subject to pass in review the throng of miscellaneous poets and poetry indicated under this group. the reprints of dr. grosart and mr. arber, supplemented in a few cases by recourse to the older recoveries of brydges, haslewood, park, collier, and others, bring before the student a mass of brilliant and beautiful matter, often mixed with a good deal of slag and scoriæ, but seldom deficient in the true poetical ore. the mere collections of madrigals and songs, actually intended for casual performance at a time when almost every accomplished and well-bred gentleman or lady was expected to oblige the company, which mr. arber's invaluable _english garner_ and mr. bullen's _elizabethan lyrics_ give from the collections edited or produced by byrd, yonge, campion, dowland, morley, alison, wilbye, and others, represent such a body of verse as probably could not be got together, with the same origin and circumstances, in any quarter-century of any nation's history since the foundation of the world. in campion especially the lyrical quality is extraordinary. he was long almost inaccessible, but mr. bullen's edition of has made knowledge of him easy. his birth-year is unknown, but he died in . he was a cambridge man, a member of the inns of court, and a physician in good practice. he has left us a masque; four _books of airs_ ( - ?), in which the gems given below, and many others, occur; and a sometimes rather unfairly characterised critical treatise, _observations on the art of english poesy_, in which he argues against rhyme and for strict quantitative measures, but on quite different lines from those of the craze of stanyhurst and harvey. some of his illustrations of his still rather unnatural fancy (especially "rose-cheeked laura," which is now tolerably familiar in anthologies) are charming, though never so charming as his rhymed "airs." the poetry is, indeed, mostly in flashes, and it is not very often that any song is a complete gem, like the best of the songs from the dramatists, one or two of which will be given presently for comparison. but by far the greater number contain and exemplify those numerous characteristics of poetry, as distinguished from verse, which at one time of literary history seem naturally to occur--seem indeed to be had for the gathering by any one who chooses--while at another time they are but sparingly found in the work of men of real genius, and seem altogether to escape men of talent, accomplishment, and laborious endeavour. here are a few specimens from peele and others, especially campion. as it is, an exceptional amount of the small space possible for such things in this volume has been given to them, but there is a great temptation to give more. lyly's lyrical work, however, is fairly well known, and more than one collection of "songs from the dramatists" has popularised others. _Æ._ "fair and fair, and twice so fair, as fair as any may be; the fairest shepherd on our green, a love for any lady. _par._ fair and fair, and twice so fair, as fair as any may be: thy love is fair for thee alone, and for no other lady. _Æ._ my love is fair, my love is gay, as fresh as bin the flowers in may, and of my love my roundelay concludes with cupid's curse, they that do change old love for new pray gods, they change for worse! _ambo, simul._ they that do change, etc., etc. _Æ._ fair and fair, etc. _par._ fair and fair, etc. _Æ._ my love can pipe, my love can sing, my love can many a pretty thing, and of his lovely praises ring my merry, merry roundelays. amen to cupid's curse, they that do change, etc." peele. "his golden locks time hath to silver turned; o time too swift, o swiftness never ceasing! his youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurned, but spurned in vain; youth waneth by increasing: beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen. duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green. "his helmet now shall make a hive for bees, and lovers' songs be turned to holy psalms; a man-at-arms must now serve on his knees, and feed on prayers, which are old age's alms: but though from court to cottage he depart, his saint is sure of his unspotted heart. "and when he saddest sits in homely cell, he'll teach his swains this carol for a song: 'blessed be the hearts that wish my sovereign well, cursed be the souls that think her any wrong.' goddess allow this aged man his right, to be your beadsman now that was your knight." peele. "fain would i change that note to which fond love hath charm'd me, long, long to sing by rote fancying that that harm'd me: yet when this thought doth come, 'love is the perfect sum of all delight!' i have no other choice either for pen or voice to sing or write. "o love, they wrong thee much that say thy sweet is bitter, when thy rich fruit is such as nothing can be sweeter. fair house of joy and bliss where truest pleasure is, i do adore thee; i know thee what thou art. i serve thee with my heart and fall before thee. _anon. in_ bullen. "turn all thy thoughts to eyes, turn all thy hairs to ears, change all thy friends to spies, and all thy joys to fears: true love will yet be free in spite of jealousy. "turn darkness into day, conjectures into truth, believe what th' curious say, let age interpret youth: true love will yet be free in spite of jealousy. "wrest every word and look, rack every hidden thought; or fish with golden hook, true love cannot be caught: for that will still be free in spite of jealousy." campion _in_ bullen. "come, o come, my life's delight! let me not in languor pine! love loves no delay; thy sight the more enjoyed, the more divine. o come, and take from me the pain of being deprived of thee! "thou all sweetness dost enclose like a little world of bliss; beauty guards thy looks, the rose in them pure and eternal is: come, then, and make thy flight as swift to me as heavenly light!" campion. "follow your saint, follow with accents sweet! haste you, sad notes, fall at her flying feet! there, wrapped in cloud of sorrow, pity move, and tell the ravisher of my soul i perish for her love. but if she scorns my never-ceasing pain, then burst with sighing in her sight and ne'er return again. "all that i sang still to her praise did tend, still she was first, still she my songs did end; yet she my love and music both doth fly, the music that her echo is and beauty's sympathy: then let my notes pursue her scornful flight! it shall suffice that they were breathed and died for her delight." campion. "what if a day, or a month, or a year, crown thy delights with a thousand sweet contentings! cannot a chance of a night or an hour cross thy desires with as many sad tormentings? fortune, honour, beauty, youth, are but blossoms dying, wanton pleasure, doating love, are but shadows flying. all our joys are but toys! idle thoughts deceiving: none have power, of an hour, in their lives bereaving. "earth's but a point to the world, and a man is but a point to the world's comparèd centre! shall then a point of a point be so vain as to triumph in a silly point's adventure? all is hazard that we have, there is nothing biding; days of pleasure are like streams through fair meadows gliding. weal and woe, time doth go! time is never turning; secret fates guide our states, both in mirth and mourning." campion. "'twas i that paid for all things, 'twas others drank the wine, i cannot now recall things; live but a fool, to pine. 'twas i that beat the bush, the bird to others flew; for she, alas, hath left me. falero! lero! loo! "if ever that dame nature (for this false lover's sake) another pleasing creature like unto her would make; let her remember this, to make the other true! for this, alas! hath left me. falero! lero! loo! "no riches now can raise me, no want makes me despair, no misery amaze me, nor yet for want i care: i have lost a world itself, my earthly heaven, adieu! since she, alas! hath left me. falero! lero! loo!" _anon. in_ arber. beside these collections, which were in their origin and inception chiefly musical, and literary, as it were, only by parergon, there are successors of the earlier miscellanies in which, as in _england's helicon_ and the celebrated _passionate pilgrim_, there is some of the most exquisite of our verse. and, yet again, a crowd of individual writers, of few of whom is much known, contributed, not in all cases their mites by any means, but often very respectable sums, to the vast treasury of english poetry. there is sir edward dyer, the friend of raleigh and sidney, who has been immortalised by the famous "my mind to me a kingdom is," and who wrote other pieces not much inferior. there is raleigh, to whom the glorious preparatory sonnet to _the faërie queene_ would sufficiently justify the ascription of "a vein most lofty, insolent, and passionate," if a very considerable body of verse (independent of the fragmentary _cynthia_) did not justify this many times over, as two brief quotations in addition to the sonnet will show:-- "methought i saw the grave where laura lay, within that temple where the vestal flame was wont to burn: and, passing by that way to see that buried dust of living fame, whose tomb fair love and fairer virtue kept, all suddenly i saw the fairy queen, at whose approach the soul of petrarch wept; and from henceforth those graces were not seen, for they this queen attended; in whose stead oblivion laid him down on laura's hearse. hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed, and groans of buried ghosts the heavens did pierce: where homer's spright did tremble all for grief, and curse the access of that celestial thief." * * * * * "three things there be that prosper all apace, and flourish while they are asunder far; but on a day they meet all in a place, and when they meet they one another mar. "and they be these--the wood, the weed, the wag: the wood is that that makes the gallows tree; the weed is that that strings the hangman's bag; the wag, my pretty knave, betokens thee. "now mark, dear boy--while these assemble not, green springs the tree, hemp grows, the wag is wild; but when they meet, it makes the timber rot, it frets the halter, and it chokes the child. "god bless the child!" * * * * * "give me my scallop-shell of quiet, my staff of faith to walk upon, my scrip of joy, immortal diet, my bottle of salvation, my gown of glory, hope's true gage; and thus i'll take my pilgrimage. "blood must be my body's balmer; no other balm will there be given; whilst my soul, like quiet palmer, travelleth towards the land of heaven; over the silver mountains where spring the nectar fountains: there will i kiss the bowl of bliss; and drink mine everlasting fill upon every milken hill. my soul will be a-dry before, but after it will thirst no more." there is lord oxford, sidney's enemy (which he might be if he chose), and apparently a coxcomb (which is less pardonable), but a charming writer of verse, as in the following:-- "come hither, shepherd swain! sir, what do you require? i pray thee, shew to me thy name! my name is fond desire. "when wert thou born, desire? in pomp and prime of may. by whom, sweet boy, wert thou begot? by fond conceit, men say. "tell me, who was thy nurse fresh youth, in sugared joy. what was thy meat and daily food? sad sighs, with great annoy. "what hadst thou then to drink? unfeigned lovers' tears. what cradle wert thou rocked in? in hope devoid of fears. "what lulled thee then asleep? sweet speech which likes me best. tell me, where is thy dwelling-place? in gentle hearts i rest. "what thing doth please thee most? to gaze on beauty still. whom dost thou think to be thy foe? disdain of my good will. "doth company displease? yes, surely, many one. where doth desire delight to live? he loves to live alone. "doth either time or age bring him unto decay? no, no! desire both lives and dies a thousand times a day. "then, fond desire, farewell! thou art no mate for me; i should be loath, methinks, to dwell with such a one as thee. there is, in the less exalted way, the industrious man of all work, nicholas breton, whom we shall speak of more at length among the pamphleteers, and john davies of hereford, no poet certainly, but a most industrious verse-writer in satiric and other forms. mass of production, and in some cases personal interest, gives these a certain standing above their fellows. but the crowd of those fellows, about many of whom even the painful industry of the modern commentator has been able to tell us next to nothing, is almost miraculous when we remember that printing was still carried on under a rigid censorship by a select body of monopolists, and that out of london, and in rare cases the university towns, it was impossible for a minor poet to get into print at all unless he trusted to the contraband presses of the continent. in dealing with this crowd of enthusiastic poetical students it is impossible to mention all, and invidious to single out some only. the very early and interesting _posy of gillyflowers_ of humphrey gifford ( ) exhibits the first stage of our period, and might almost have been referred to the period before it; the same humpty-dumpty measure of eights and sixes, and the same vestiges of rather infantine alliteration being apparent in it, though something of the fire and variety of the new age of poetry appears beside them, notably in this most spirited war-song:-- (_for soldiers._) "ye buds of brutus' land, courageous youths now play your parts,[ ] unto your tackle stand, abide the brunt with valiant hearts, for news is carried to and fro, that we must forth to warfare go: then muster now in every place, and soldiers are pressed forth apace. faint not, spend blood to do your queen and country good: fair words, good pay, will make men cast all care away. "the time of war is come, prepare your corslet, spear, and shield: methinks i hear the drum strike doleful marches to the field. tantara, tantara the trumpets sound, which makes our hearts with joy abound. the roaring guns are heard afar, and everything announceth war. serve god, stand stout; bold courage brings this gear about; fear not, forth run: faint heart fair lady never won. "ye curious carpet-knights that spend the time in sport and play, abroad and see new sights, your country's cause calls you away: do not, to make your ladies' game, bring blemish to your worthy name. away to field and win renown, with courage beat your enemies down; stout hearts gain praise, when dastards sail in slander's seas. hap what hap shall, we soon shall die but once for all. "alarm! methinks they cry. be packing mates, begone with speed, our foes are very nigh: shame have that man that shrinks at need. unto it boldly let us stand, god will give right the upper hand. our cause is good we need not doubt: in sign of courage give a shout; march forth, be strong, good hap will come ere it be long. shrink not, fight well, for lusty lads must bear the bell. "all you that will shun evil must dwell in warfare every day. the world, the flesh, the devil always do seek our souls' decay. strive with these foes with all your might, so shall you fight a worthy fight. that conquest dost deserve most praise, whose vice do[th] yield to virtue's ways. beat down foul sin, a worthy crown then shall ye win: if ye live well, in heaven with christ our souls shall dwell." [ ] i print this as in the original, but perhaps the rhythm, which is an odd one, would be better marked if lines and were divided into sixes and eights, lines and into eights, and lines and into fours and eights as the rhyme ends. of the same date, or indeed earlier, are the miscellaneous poems of thomas howell, entitled _the arbour of amity_, and chiefly of an ethical character. less excusable for the uncouthness of his verse is matthew grove, who, writing, or at least publishing, his poems in , should have learnt something, but apparently had not. it has to be said in excuse of him that his date and indeed existence are shadowy, even among the shadowy elizabethan bards; his editor, in worse doggerel than his own, frankly confessing that he knew nothing about him, not so much as whether he was alive or dead. but his work, howell's, and even part of gifford's, is chiefly interesting as giving us in the very sharpest contrast the differences of the poetry before and after the melodious bursts of which spenser, sidney, and watson were the first mouthpieces. except an utter dunce (which grove does not seem to have been by any means) no one who had before him _the shepherd's calendar_, or the _hecatompathia_, or a ms. copy of _astrophel and stella_, could have written as grove wrote. there are echoes of this earlier and woodener matter to be found later, but, as a whole, the passionate love of beauty, the sense--if only a groping sense--of form, and the desire to follow, and if possible improve upon the models of melodious verse which the sidneian school had given, preserved even poetasters from the lowest depths. to classify the miscellaneous verse of - (for the second decade is much richer than the first) under subjects and styles is a laborious and, at best, an uncertain business. the semi-mythological love-poem, with a more or less tragic ending, had not a few followers; the collection of poems of various character in praise of a real or imaginary mistress, similar in design to the sonnet collections, but either more miscellaneous in form or less strung together in one long composition, had even more; while the collection pure and simple, resembling the miscellanies in absence of special character, but the work of one, not of many writers, was also plentifully represented. satirical allegory, epigram, and other kinds, had numerous examples. but there were two classes of verse which were both sufficiently interesting in themselves and were cultivated by persons of sufficient individual repute to deserve separate and detailed mention. these were the historical poem or history--a kind of companion production to the chronicle play or chronicle, and a very popular one--which, besides the names of warner, daniel, and drayton, counted not a few minor adherents among elizabethan bards. such were the already-mentioned giles fletcher; such fitz-geoffrey in a remarkable poem on drake, and gervase markham in a not less noteworthy piece on the last fight of _the revenge_; such numerous others, some of whom are hardly remembered, and perhaps hardly deserve to be. the other, and as a class the more interesting, though nothing actually produced by its practitioners may be quite equal to the best work of drayton and daniel, was the beginning of english satire. this beginning is interesting not merely because of the apparent coincidence of instinct which made four or five writers of great talent simultaneously hit on the style, so that it is to this day difficult to award exactly the palm of priority, but also because the result of their studies, in some peculiar and at first sight rather inexplicable ways, is some of the most characteristic, if very far from being some of the best, work of the whole poetical period with which we are now busied. in passing, moreover, from the group of miscellaneous poets to these two schools, if we lose not a little of the harmony and lyrical sweetness which characterise the best work of the elizabethan singer proper, we gain greatly in bulk and dignity of work and in intrinsic value. of at least one of the poets mentioned in the last paragraph his modern editor--a most enthusiastic and tolerant godfather of waifs and strays of literature--confesses that he really does not quite know why he should be reprinted, except that the original is unique, and that almost every scrap of literature in this period is of some value, if only for lexicographic purposes. no one would dream of speaking thus of drayton or of daniel, of lodge, hall, donne, or marston; while even warner, the weakest of the names to which we shall proceed to give separate notice, can be praised without too much allowance. in the latter case, moreover, if not in the first (for the history-poem, until it was taken up in a very different spirit at the beginning of this century, never was a success in england), the matter now to be reviewed, after being in its own kind neglected for a couple of generations, served as forerunner, if not exactly as model, to the magnificent satiric work of dryden, and through his to that of pope, young, churchill, cowper, and the rest of the more accomplished english satirists. the acorn of such an oak cannot be without interest. the example of _the mirror for magistrates_ is perhaps sufficient to account for the determination of a certain number of elizabethan poets towards english history; especially if we add the stimulating effect of holinshed's _chronicle_, which was published in . the first of the so-called historians, william warner, belongs in point of poetical style to the pre-spenserian period, and like its other exponents employs the fourteener; while, unlike some of them, he seems quite free from any italian influence in phraseology or poetical manner. nevertheless _albion's england_ is, not merely in bulk but in merit, far ahead of the average work of our first period, and quite incommensurable with such verse as that of grove. it appeared by instalments ( - - ). of its author, william warner, the old phrase has to be repeated, that next to nothing is known of him. he was an oxfordshire man by birth, and an oxford man by education; he had something to do with cary, lord hunsdon, became an attorney of the common pleas, and died at amwell suddenly in his bed in , being, as it is guessed rather than known, fifty years old or thereabouts. _albion's england_ was seized as contraband, by orders of the archbishop of canterbury--a proceeding for which no one has been able to account (the suggestion that parts of it are indelicate is, considering the manners of the time, quite ludicrous), and which may perhaps have been due to some technical informality. it is thought that he is the author of a translation of plautus's _menæchmi_; he certainly produced in ? a prose story, or rather collection of stories, entitled _syrinx_, which, however, is scarcely worth reading. _albion's england_ is in no danger of incurring that sentence. in the most easily accessible edition, that of chalmers's "poets," it is spoilt by having the fourteeners divided into eights and sixes, and it should if possible be read in the original arrangement. considering how few persons have written about it, an odd collection of critical slips might be made. philips, milton's nephew, in this case it may be hoped, not relying on his uncle, calls warner a "good plain writer of moral rules and precepts": the fact being that though he sometimes moralises he is in the main a story-teller, and much more bent on narrative than on teaching. meres calls him "a refiner of the english tongue," and attributes to him "rare ornaments and resplendent habiliments of the pen": the truth being that he is (as philips so far correctly says) a singularly plain, straightforward, and homely writer. others say that he wrote in "alexandrines"--a blunder, and a serious one, which has often been repeated up to the present day in reference to other writers of the seven-foot verse. he brings in, according to the taste and knowledge of his time, all the fabulous accounts of the origins of britain, and diversifies them with many romantic and pastoral histories, classical tales, and sometimes mere _fabliaux_, down to his own time. the chief of the episodes, the story of argentile and curan, has often, and not undeservedly, met with high praise, and sometimes in his declamatory parts warner achieves a really great success. probably, however, what commended his poem most to the taste of the day was its promiscuous admixture of things grave and gay--a mixture which was always much to the taste of elizabeth's men, and the popularity of which produced and fostered many things, from the matchless tragi-comedy of _hamlet_ and _macbeth_ to the singularly formless pamphlets of which we shall speak hereafter. the main interest of warner is his insensibility to the new influences which spenser and sidney directed, and which are found producing their full effect on daniel and drayton. there were those in his own day who compared him to homer: one of the most remarkable instances of thoroughly unlucky critical extravagance to be found in literary history, as the following very fair average specimen will show:-- "henry (as if by miracle preserved by foreigns long, from hence-meant treasons) did arrive to right his natives' wrong: and chiefly to lord stanley, and some other succours, as did wish and work for better days, the rival welcome was. now richard heard that richmond was assisted and ashore, and like unkennel'd cerberus, the crookèd tyrant swore, and all complexions act at once confusedly in him: he studieth, striketh, threats, entreats, and looketh mildly grim, mistrustfully he trusteth, and he dreadingly did dare, and forty passions in a trice, in him consort and square. but when, by his consented force, his foes increasèd more, he hastened battle, finding his co-rival apt therefore. when richmond, orderly in all, had battlèd his aid, inringèd by his complices, their cheerful leader said: 'now is the time and place (sweet friends) and we the persons be that must give england breath, or else unbreathe for her must we. no tyranny is fabled, and no tyrant was in deed worse than our foe, whose works will act my words, if well he speed: for ill to ills superlative are easily enticed, but entertains amendment as the gergesites did christ. be valiant then, he biddeth so that would not be outbid, for courage yet shall honour him though base, that better did. i am right heir lancastrian, he, in york's destroyèd right usurpeth: but through either ours, for neither claim i fight, but for our country's long-lack'd weal, for england's peace i war: wherein he speed us! unto whom i all events refer.' meanwhile had furious richard set his armies in array, and then, with looks even like himself, this or the like did say: 'why, lads, shall yonder welshman with his stragglers overmatch? disdain ye not such rivals, and defer ye their dispatch? shall tudor from plantagenet, the crown by cracking snatch? know richard's very thoughts' (he touch'd the diadem he wore) 'be metal of this metal: then believe i love it more than that for other law than life, to supersede my claim, and lesser must not be his plea that counterpleads the same.' the weapons overtook his words, and blows they bravely change, when, like a lion thirsting blood, did moody richard range, and made large slaughters where he went, till richmond he espied, whom singling, after doubtful swords, the valorous tyrant died." of the sonnet compositions of daniel and drayton something has been said already. but daniel's sonnets are a small and drayton's an infinitesimal part of the work of the two poets respectively. samuel daniel was a somersetshire man, born near taunton in . he is said to have been the son of a music master, but was educated at oxford, made powerful friends, and died an independent person at beckington, in the county of his birth, in the year . he was introduced early to good society and patronage, became tutor to lady anne clifford, a great heiress of the north, was favoured by the earl of southampton, and became a member of the pembroke or _arcadia_ coterie. his friends or his merits obtained for him, it is said, the mastership of the revels, the posts of gentleman extraordinary to james i., and groom of the privy chamber to anne of denmark. his literary production besides _delia_ was considerable. with the first authorised edition of that collection he published _the complaint of rosamond_; a historical poem of great grace and elegance though a little wanting in strength. in came his interesting senecan tragedy of _cleopatra_; in the first part of his chief work, _the history of the civil wars_, and in a collected folio of "works." then he rested, at any rate from publication, till , when he produced _philotas_, another senecan tragedy in verse. in prose he wrote the admirable _defence of rhyme_, which finally smashed the fancy for classical metres dear even to such a man as campion. _hymen's triumph_, a masque of great beauty, was not printed till four years before his death. he also wrote a history of england as well as minor works. the poetical value of daniel may almost be summed up in two words--sweetness and dignity. he is decidedly wanting in strength, and, despite _delia_, can hardly be said to have had a spark of passion. even in his own day it was doubted whether he had not overweighted himself with his choice of historical subjects, though the epithet of "well-languaged," given to him at the time, evinces a real comprehension of one of his best claims to attention. no writer of the period has such a command of pure english, unadulterated by xenomania and unweakened by purism, as daniel. whatever unfavourable things have been said of him from time to time have been chiefly based on the fact that his chaste and correct style lacks the fiery quaintness, the irregular and audacious attraction of his contemporaries. nor was he less a master of versification than of vocabulary. his _defence of rhyme_ shows that he possessed the theory: all his poetical works show that he was a master of the practice. he rarely attempted and probably would not have excelled in the lighter lyrical measures. but in the grave music of the various elaborate stanzas in which the elizabethan poets delighted, and of which the spenserian, though the crown and flower, is only the most perfect, he was a great proficient, and his couplets and blank verse are not inferior. some of his single lines have already been quoted, and many more might be excerpted from his work of the best elizabethan brand in the quieter kind. quiet, indeed, is the overmastering characteristic of daniel. it was this no doubt which made him prefer the stately style of his senecan tragedies, and the hardly more disturbed structure of pastoral comedies and tragi-comedies, like the _queen's arcadia_ and _hymen's triumph_, to the boisterous revels of the stage proper in his time. he had something of the schoolmaster in his nature as well as in his history. nothing is more agreeable to him than to moralise; not indeed in any dull or crabbed manner, but in a mellifluous and at the same time weighty fashion, of which very few other poets have the secret. it is perhaps by his scrupulous propriety, by his anxious decency (to use the word not in its modern and restricted sense, but in its proper meaning of the generally becoming), that daniel brought upon himself the rather hard saying that he had a manner "better suiting prose." the sentence will scarcely be echoed by any one who has his best things before him, however much a reader of some of the duller parts of the historical poems proper may feel inclined to echo it. of his sonnets one has been given. the splendid epistle to the countess of cumberland is not surpassed as ethical poetry by anything of the period, and often as it has been quoted, it must be given again, for it is not and never can be too well known:-- "he that of such a height hath built his mind, and reared the dwelling of his thoughts so strong, as neither fear nor hope can shake the frame of his resolvèd powers; nor all the wind of vanity or malice pierce to wrong his settled peace, or to disturb the same: what a fair seat hath he, from whence he may the boundless wastes and wealds of man survey! "and with how free an eye doth he look down upon these lower regions of turmoil! where all the storms of passion mainly beat on flesh and blood: where honour, power, renown, are only gay afflictions, golden toil; where greatness stands upon as feeble feet as frailty doth; and only great doth seem to little minds, who do it so esteem. "he looks upon the mightiest monarch's wars but only as on stately robberies; where evermore the fortune that prevails must be the right: the ill-succeeding mars the fairest and the best fac'd enterprise. great pirate pompey lesser pirates quails: justice, he sees (as if seducèd) still conspires with power, whose cause must not be ill. "he sees the face of right t'appear as manifold as are the passions of uncertain man; who puts it in all colours, all attires, to serve his ends, and make his courses hold. he sees, that let deceit work what it can, plot and contrive base ways to high desires, that the all-guiding providence doth yet all disappoint, and mocks the smoke of wit. "nor is he mov'd with all the thunder cracks of tyrants' threats, or with the surly brow of power, that proudly sits on others' crimes; charg'd with more crying sins than those he checks. the storms of sad confusion, that may grow up in the present for the coming times appal not him; that hath no side at all, but of himself, and knows the worst can fall. "although his heart (so near allied to earth) cannot but pity the perplexèd state of troublous and distress'd mortality, that thus make way unto the ugly birth of their own sorrows, and do still beget affliction upon imbecility: yet seeing thus the course of things must run, he looks thereon not strange, but as fore-done. "and whilst distraught ambition compasses, and is encompass'd; whilst as craft deceives, and is deceiv'd: whilst man doth ransack man and builds on blood, and rises by distress; and th' inheritance of desolation leaves to great-expecting hopes: he looks thereon, as from the shore of peace, with unwet eye, and bears no venture in impiety." in sharp contrast with this the passage from _hymen's triumph_, "ah, i remember well, and how can i," shows the sweetness without namby-pambyness which daniel had at constant command. something of the same contrast may be found between the whole of _hymen's triumph_ and the _queen's arcadia_ on the one side, and _cleopatra_ and _philotas_ on the other. all are written in mixed blank and rhymed verse, much interlaced and "enjambed." the best of the historical poems is, by common consent, _rosamond_, which is instinct with a most remarkable pathos, nor are fine passages by any means to seek in the greater length and less poetical subject of _the civil wars of york and lancaster_. the fault of this is that the too conscientious historian is constantly versifying what must be called mere expletive matter. this must always make any one who speaks with critical impartiality admit that much of daniel is hard reading; but the soft places (to use the adjective in no ill sense) are frequent enough, and when the reader comes to them he must have little appreciation of poetry if he does not rejoice in the foliage and the streams of the poetical oasis which has rewarded him after his pilgrimage across a rather arid wilderness. michael drayton was much better fitted for the arduous, and perhaps not wholly legitimate, business of historical poetry than daniel. if his genius was somewhat less fine, it was infinitely better thewed and sinewed. his ability, indeed, to force any subject which he chose to treat into poetry is amazing, and can hardly be paralleled elsewhere except in a poet who was born but just before drayton's death, john dryden. he was pretty certainly a gentleman by birth, though not of any great possessions, and is said to have been born at hartshill, in warwickshire, in the year . he is also said, but not known, to have been a member of the university of oxford, and appears to have been fairly provided with patrons, in the family of some one of whom he served as page, though he never received any great or permanent preferment.[ ] on the other hand, he was not a successful dramatist (the only literary employment of the time that brought in much money), and friend as he was of nearly all the men of letters of the time, it is expressly stated in one of the few personal notices we have of him, that he could not "swagger in a tavern or domineer in a hothouse" [house of ill-fame]--that is to say, that the hail-fellow well-met bohemianism of the time, which had led marlowe and many of his group to evil ends, and which was continued in a less outrageous form under the patronage of ben jonson till far into the next age, had no charms for him. yet he must have lived somehow and to a good age, for he did not die till the d december . he was buried in westminster abbey, a fact which drew from goldsmith, in _the citizen of the world_, a gibe showing only the lamentable ignorance of the best period of english poetry, in which goldsmith was not indeed alone, but in which he was perhaps pre-eminent among contemporaries eminent for it. [ ] drayton has been thoroughly treated by professor oliver elton in _michael drayton_ (london, ), enlarged from a monograph for the spenser society. drayton's long life was as industrious as it was long. he began in with a volume of sacred verse, the _harmony of the church_, which, for some reason not merely undiscovered but unguessed, displeased the censors, and was never reprinted with his other works until recently. two years later appeared _idea, the shepherd's garland_--a collection of eclogues not to be confounded with the more famous collection of sonnets in praise of the same real or fancied mistress which appeared later. in the first of these drayton called himself "rowland," or "roland," a fact on which some rather rickety structures of guesswork have been built as to allusions to him in spenser. his next work was _mortimeriados_, afterwards refashioned and completed under the title of _the barons' wars_, and this was followed in by one of his best works, _england's heroical epistles_. _the owl_, some _legends_, and other poems succeeded; and in he began to collect his works, which were frequently reprinted. the mighty poem of the _polyolbion_ was the fruit of his later years, and, in strictness, belongs to the period of a later chapter; but drayton's muse is eminently one and indivisible, and, notwithstanding the fruits of pretty continual study which his verses show, they belong, in the order of thought, to the middle and later elizabethan period rather than to the jacobean. few poets of anything like drayton's volume (of which some idea may be formed by saying that his works, in the not quite complete form in which they appear in chalmers, fill five hundred of the bulky pages of that work, each page frequently containing a hundred and twenty-eight lines) show such uniform mixture of imagination and vigour. in the very highest and rarest graces of poetry he is, indeed, by common consent wanting, unless one of these graces in the uncommon kind of the war-song be allowed, as perhaps it may be, to the famous and inimitable though often imitated _ballad of agincourt_, "to the brave cambro-britons and their harp," not to be confounded with the narrative "battle of agincourt," which is of a less rare merit. the agincourt ballad, "fair stood the wind for france," is quite at the head of its own class of verse in england--campbell's two masterpieces, and lord tennyson's still more direct imitation in the "six hundred," falling, the first somewhat, and the last considerably, short of it. the sweep of the metre, the martial glow of the sentiment, and the skill with which the names are wrought into the verse, are altogether beyond praise. drayton never, unless the enigmatical sonnet to idea (see _ante_) be really his, rose to such concentration of matter and such elaborate yet unforced perfection of manner as here, yet his great qualities are perceptible all over his work. the enormous _polyolbion_, written in a metre the least suitable to continuous verse of any in english--the alexandrine--crammed with matter rebel to poetry, and obliging the author to find his chief poetical attraction rather in superadded ornament, in elaborately patched-on passages, than in the actual and natural evolution of his theme, is still a very great work in another than the mechanical sense. here is a fairly representative passage:-- "the haughty cambrian hills enamoured of their praise, (as they who only sought ambitiously to raise the blood of god-like brute) their heads do proudly bear: and having crown'd themselves sole regents of the air (another war with heaven as though they meant to make) did seem in great disdain the bold affront to take, that any petty hill upon the english side, should dare, not (with a crouch) to veil unto their pride. when wrekin, as a hill his proper worth that knew, and understood from whence their insolency grew, for all that they appear'd so terrible in sight, yet would not once forego a jot that was his right, and when they star'd on him, to them the like he gave, and answer'd glance for glance, and brave for brave: that, when some other hills which english dwellers were, the lusty wrekin saw himself so well to bear against the cambrian part, respectless of their power; his eminent disgrace expecting every hour those flatterers that before (with many cheerful look) had grac'd his goodly sight, him utterly forsook, and muffled them in clouds, like mourners veiled in black, which of their utmost hope attend the ruinous wrack: that those delicious nymphs, fair team and rodon clear (two brooks of him belov'd, and two that held him dear; he, having none but them, they having none but he which to their mutual joy might either's object be) within their secret breast conceivèd sundry fears, and as they mix'd their streams, for him so mix'd their tears. whom, in their coming down, when plainly he discerns, for them his nobler heart in his strong bosom yearns: but, constantly resolv'd, that dearer if they were the britons should not yet all from the english bear; 'therefore,' quoth he, 'brave flood, tho' forth by cambria brought, yet as fair england's friend, or mine thou would'st be thought (o severn) let thine ear my just defence partake.'" happy phrases abound, and, moreover, every now and then there are set pieces, as they may be called, of fanciful description which are full of beauty; for drayton (a not very usual thing in a man of such unflagging industry, and even excellence of work) was full of fancy. the fairy poem of _nymphidia_ is one of the most graceful trifles in the language, possessing a dancing movement and a felicitous choice of imagery and language which triumphantly avoid the trivial on the one hand, and the obviously burlesque on the other. the singular satirical or quasi-satirical poems of _the mooncalf_, _the owl_, and _the man in the moon_, show a faculty of comic treatment less graceful indeed, but scarcely inferior, and the lyrics called _odes_ (of which the _ballad of agincourt_ is sometimes classed as one) exhibit a command of lyric metre hardly inferior to the command displayed in that masterpiece. in fact, if ever there was a poet who could write, and write, perhaps beautifully, certainly well, about any conceivable broomstick in almost any conceivable manner, that poet was drayton. his historical poems, which are inferior in bulk only to the huge _polyolbion_, contain a great deal of most admirable work. they consist of three divisions--_the barons' wars_ in eight-lined stanzas, the _heroic epistles_ (suggested, of course, by ovid, though anything but ovidian) in heroic couplets, _the miseries of queen margaret_ in the same stanza as _the barons' wars_, and _four legends_ in stanzas of various form and range. that this mass of work should possess, or should, indeed, admit of the charms of poetry which distinguish _the faërie queene_ would be impossible, even if drayton had been spenser, which he was far from being. but to speak of his "dull creeping narrative," to accuse him of the "coarsest vulgarities," of being "flat and prosaic," and so on, as was done by eighteenth-century critics, is absolutely uncritical, unless it be very much limited. _the barons' wars_ is somewhat dull, the author being too careful to give a minute history of a not particularly interesting subject, and neglecting to take the only possible means of making it interesting by bringing out strongly the characters of heroes and heroines, and so infusing a dramatic interest. but this absence of character is a constant drawback to the historical poems of the time. and even here we find many passages where the drawback of the stanza for narrative is most skilfully avoided, and where the vigour of the single lines and phrases is unquestionable on any sound estimate. still the stanza, though drayton himself defends it (it should be mentioned that his prose prefaces are excellent, and constitute another link between him and dryden), is something of a clog; and the same thing is felt in _the miseries of queen margaret_ and the _legends_, where, however, it is again not difficult to pick out beauties. the _heroical epistles_ can be praised with less allowance. their shorter compass, their more manageable metre (for drayton was a considerable master of the earlier form of couplet), and the fact that a personal interest is infused in each, give them a great advantage; and, as always, passages of great merit are not infrequent. finally, drayton must have the praise (surely not quite irrelevant) of a most ardent and lofty spirit of patriotism. never was there a better englishman, and as his love of his country spirited him up to the brilliant effort of the _ballad of agincourt_, so it sustained him through the "strange herculean task" of the _polyolbion_, and often put light and life into the otherwise lifeless mass of the historic poems. yet i have myself no doubt that these historic poems were a mistake, and that their composition, though prompted by a most creditable motive, the burning attachment to england which won the fight with spain, and laid the foundation of the english empire, was not altogether, perhaps was not by any means, according to knowledge. the almost invariable, and i fear it must be said, almost invariably idle controversy about priority in literary styles has been stimulated, in the case of english satire, by a boast of joseph hall's made in his own _virgidemiarum_-- "follow me who list, and be the _second_ english satirist." it has been pleaded in hall's favour that although the date of publication of his _satires_ is known, the date of their composition is not known. it is not even necessary to resort to this kind of special pleading; for nothing can be more evident than that the bravado is not very serious. on the literal supposition, however, and if we are to suppose that publication immediately followed composition, hall was anticipated by more than one or two predecessors, in the production of work not only specifically satirical but actually called satire, and by two at least in the adoption of the heroic couplet form which has ever since been consecrated to the subject. satirical poetry, of a kind, is of course nearly if not quite as old as the language, and in the hands of skelton it had assumed various forms. but the satire proper--the following of the great roman examples of horace, juvenal, and persius in general lashing of vice and folly--can hardly trace itself further back in england than george gascoigne's _steel glass_, which preceded hall's _virgidemiarum_ by twenty years, and is interesting not only for itself but as being ushered in by the earliest known verses of walter raleigh. it is written in blank verse, and is a rather rambling commentary on the text _vanitas vanitatum_, but it expressly calls itself a satire and answers sufficiently well to the description. more immediate and nearer examples were to be found in the satires of donne and lodge. the first named were indeed, like the other poetical works of their marvellously gifted writer, not published till many years after; but universal tradition ascribes the whole of donne's profane poems to his early youth, and one document exists which distinctly dates "john donne, his satires," as early as . we shall therefore deal with them, as with the other closely connected work of their author, here and in this chapter. but there has to be mentioned first the feebler but chronologically more certain work of thomas lodge, _a fig for momus_, which fulfils both the requirements of known date and of composition in couplets. it appeared in , two years before hall, and is of the latest and weakest of lodge's verse work. it was written or at least produced when he was just abandoning his literary and adventurous career and settling down as a quiet physician with no more wild oats to sow, except, perhaps, some participation in popish conspiracy. the style did not lend itself to the display of any of lodge's strongest gifts--romantic fancy, tenderness and sweetness of feeling, or elaborate embroidery of precious language. he follows horace pretty closely and with no particular vigour. nor does the book appear to have attracted much attention, so that it is just possible that hall may not have heard of it. if, however, he had not, it is certainly a curious coincidence that he, with donne and lodge, should all have hit on the couplet as their form, obvious as its advantages are when it is once tried. for the rhyme points the satirical hits, while the comparatively brief space of each distich prevents that air of wandering which naturally accompanies satire in longer stanzas. at any rate after the work (in so many ways remarkable) of donne, hall, and marston, there could hardly be any more doubt about the matter, though part of the method which these writers, especially donne and marston, took to give individuality and "bite" to their work was as faulty as it now seems to us peculiar. ben jonson, the least gushing of critics to his contemporaries, said of john donne that he was "the first poet of the world in some things," and i own that without going through the long catalogue of singularly contradictory criticisms which have been passed on donne, i feel disposed to fall back on and adopt this earliest, simplest, and highest encomium. possibly ben might not have meant the same things that i mean, but that does not matter. it is sufficient for me that in one special point of the poetic charm--the faculty of suddenly transfiguring common things by a flood of light, and opening up strange visions to the capable imagination--donne is surpassed by no poet of any language, and equalled by few. that he has obvious and great defects, that he is wholly and in all probability deliberately careless of formal smoothness, that he adopted the fancy of his time for quaint and recondite expression with an almost perverse vigour, and set the example of the topsy-turvified conceits which came to a climax in crashaw and cleveland, that he is almost impudently licentious in thought and imagery at times, that he alternates the highest poetry with the lowest doggerel, the noblest thought with the most trivial crotchet--all this is true, and all this must be allowed for; but it only chequers, it does not obliterate, the record of his poetic gifts and graces. he is, moreover, one of the most historically important of poets, although by a strange chance there is no known edition of his poems earlier than , some partial and privately printed issues having disappeared wholly if they ever existed. his influence was second to the influence of no poet of his generation, and completely overshadowed all others, towards his own latter days and the decades immediately following his death, except that of jonson. thomas carew's famous description of him as "a king who ruled as he thought fit the universal monarchy of wit," expresses the general opinion of the time; and even after the revolt headed by waller had dethroned him from the position, dryden, his successor in the same monarchy, while declining to allow him the praise of "the best poet" (that is, the most exact follower of the rules and system of versifying which dryden himself preferred), allowed him to be "the greatest wit of the nation." his life concerns us little, and its events are not disputed, or rather, in the earlier part, are still rather obscure. born in , educated at both universities and at lincoln's inn, a traveller, a man of pleasure, a law-student, a soldier, and probably for a time a member of the roman church, he seems just before reaching middle life to have experienced some religious change, took orders, became a famous preacher, was made dean of st. paul's, and died in . it has been said that tradition and probability point to the composition of most, and that all but certain documentary evidence points to the composition of some, of his poems in the earlier part of his life. unless the date of the harleian ms. is a forgery, some of his satires were written in or before , when he was but twenty years old. the boiling passion, without a thought of satiety, which marks many of his elegies would also incline us to assign them to youth, and though some of his epistles, and many of his miscellaneous poems, are penetrated with a quieter and more reflective spirit, the richness of fancy in them, as well as the amatory character of many, perhaps the majority, favour a similar attribution. all alike display donne's peculiar poetical quality--the fiery imagination shining in dark places, the magical illumination of obscure and shadowy thoughts with the lightning of fancy. in one remarkable respect donne has a peculiar cast of thought as well as of manner, displaying that mixture of voluptuous and melancholy meditation, that swift transition of thought from the marriage sheet to the shroud, which is characteristic of french renaissance poets, but less fully, until he set the example, of english. the best known and most exquisite of his fanciful flights, the idea of the discovery of "a bracelet of bright hair about the bone" of his own long interred skeleton: the wish-- "i long to talk with some old lover's ghost who died before the god of love was born," and others, show this peculiarity. and it recurs in the most unexpected places, as, for the matter of that, does his strong satirical faculty. in some of his poems, as the _anatomy of the world_, occasioned by the death of mrs. elizabeth drury, this melancholy imagery mixed with touches (only touches here) of the passion which had distinguished the author earlier (for the _anatomy_ is not an early work), and with religious and philosophical meditation, makes the strangest amalgam--shot through, however, as always, with the golden veins of donne's incomparable poetry. expressions so strong as this last may seem in want of justification. and the three following pieces, the "dream," a fragment of satire, and an extract from the _anatomy_, may or may not, according to taste, supply it:-- "dear love, for nothing less than thee would i have broke this happy dream. it was a theme for reason, much too strong for fantasy: therefore thou wak'dst me wisely; yet my dream thou brok'st not, but continued'st it: thou art so true, that thoughts of thee suffice to make dreams true, and fables histories; enter these arms, for since thou thought'st it best not to dream all my dream, let's act the rest. "as lightning or a taper's light thine eyes, and not thy noise, wak'd me; yet i thought thee (for thou lov'st truth) an angel at first sight, but when i saw thou saw'st my heart and knew'st my thoughts beyond an angel's art, when thou knew'st what i dreamt, then thou knew'st when excess of joy would wake me, and cam'st then; _i must confess, it could not choose but be_ _profane to think thee anything but thee._ "coming and staying show'd thee thee, but rising makes me doubt that now thou art not thou. that love is weak where fears are strong as he; 'tis not all spirit, pure and brave, if mixture it of fear, shame, honour, have. perchance as torches which must ready be men light, and put out, so thou deal'st with me. thou cam'st to kindle, goest to come: then i will dream that hope again, or else would die." * * * * * "o age of rusty iron! some better wit call it some worse name, if ought equal it. th' iron age was, when justice was sold: now injustice is sold dearer far; allow all claim'd fees and duties, gamesters, anon the money, which you sweat and swear for's gone into other hands; so controverted lands 'scape, like angelica, the striver's hands. if law be in the judge's heart, and he have no heart to resist letter or fee, where wilt thou appeal? power of the courts below flows from the first main head, and these can throw thee, if they suck thee in, to misery, to fetters, halters. but if th' injury steel thee to dare complain, alas! thou go'st against the stream upwards when thou art most heavy and most faint; and in these labours they 'gainst whom thou should'st complain will in thy way become great seas, o'er which when thou shalt be forc'd to make golden bridges, thou shalt see that all thy gold was drowned in them before." * * * * * "she, whose fair body no such prison was but that a soul might well be pleased to pass an age in her; she, whose rich beauty lent mintage to other beauties, for they went but for so much as they were like to her; she, in whose body (if we dare prefer this low world to so high a mark as she), the western treasure, eastern spicery, europe and afric, and the unknown rest were easily found, or what in them was best; and when we've made this large discovery of all, in her some one part then will be twenty such parts, whose plenty and riches is enough to make twenty such worlds as this; she, whom had they known, who did first betroth the tutelar angels and assigned one both to nations, cities, and to companies, to functions, offices, and dignities, and to each several man, to him and him, they would have giv'n her one for every limb; she, of whose soul if we may say 'twas gold, her body was th' electrum and did hold many degrees of that; we understood her by her sight; _her pure and eloquent blood_ _spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought_ _that one might almost say, her body thought_; she, she thus richly and largely hous'd is gone and chides us, slow-paced snails who crawl upon our prison's prison earth, nor think us well longer than whilst we bear our brittle shell." but no short extracts will show donne, and there is no room for a full anthology. he must be read, and by every catholic student of english literature should be regarded with a respect only "this side idolatry," though the respect need not carry with it blindness to his undoubtedly glaring faults. those faults are not least seen in his satires, though neither the unbridled voluptuousness which makes his elegies shocking to modern propriety, nor the far-off conceit which appears in his meditative and miscellaneous poems, is very strongly or specially represented here. nor, naturally enough, is the extreme beauty of thought and allusion distinctly noteworthy in a class of verse which does not easily admit it. on the other hand, the force and originality of donne's intellect are nowhere better shown. it is a constant fault of modern satirists that in their just admiration for horace and juvenal they merely paraphrase them, and, instead of going to the fountainhead and taking their matter from human nature, merely give us fresh studies of _ibam forte via sacra_ or the tenth of juvenal, adjusted to the meridians of paris or london. although donne is not quite free from this fault, he is much freer than either of his contemporaries, regnier or hall. and the rough vigour of his sketches and single lines is admirable. yet it is as rough as it is vigorous; and the breakneck versification and contorted phrase of his satires, softened a little in hall, roughened again and to a much greater degree in marston, and reaching, as far as phrase goes, a rare extreme in the _transformed metamorphosis_ of cyril tourneur, have been the subject of a great deal of discussion. it is now agreed by all the best authorities that it would be a mistake to consider this roughness unintentional or merely clumsy, and that it sprung, at any rate in great degree, from an idea that the ancients intended the _satura_ to be written in somewhat unpolished verse, as well as from a following of the style of persius, the most deliberately obscure of all latin if not of all classical poets. in language donne is not (as far as his satires are concerned) a very great sinner; but his versification, whether by his own intention or not, leaves much to desire. at one moment the ten syllables are only to be made out by a chaucerian lengthening of the mute _e_; at another the writer seems to be emulating wyatt in altering the accent of syllables, and coolly making the final iambus of a line out of such a word as "answer." it is no wonder that poets of the "correct" age thought him in need of rewriting; though even they could not mistake the force of observation and expression which characterises his satires, and which very frequently reappears even in his dreamiest metaphysics, his most recondite love fancies, and his warmest and most passionate hymns to aphrodite pandemos. these artificial characteristics are supplemented in the elizabethan satirists, other than donne, by yet a third, which makes them, i confess, to me rather tedious reading, independently of their shambling metre, and their sometimes almost unconstruable syntax. this is the absurd affectation of extreme moral wrath against the corruptions of their time in which they all indulge. marston, who is nearly the foulest, if not quite the foulest writer of any english classic, gives himself the airs of the most sensitive puritan; hall, with a little less of this contrast, sins considerably in the same way, and adds to his delinquencies a most petulant and idle attempt to satirise from the purely literary point of view writers who are a whole head and shoulders above himself. and these two, followed by their imitator, guilpin, assail each other in a fashion which argues either a very absurd sincerity of literary jealousy, or a very ignoble simulation of it, for the purpose of getting up interest on the part of the public. nevertheless, both marston and hall are very interesting figures in english literature, and their satirical performances cannot be passed over in any account of it. joseph hall was born near ashby de la zouch, of parents in the lower yeoman rank of life, had his education at the famous puritan college of emanuel at cambridge, became a fellow thereof, proceeded through the living of hawstead and a canonry at wolverhampton to the sees of exeter and norwich, of the latter of which he was violently deprived by the parliament, and, not surviving long enough to see the restoration, died ( ) in a suburb of his cathedral city. his later life was important for religious literature and ecclesiastical politics, in his dealings with the latter of which he came into conflict, not altogether fortunately for the younger and greater man of letters, with john milton. his satires belong to his early cambridge days, and to the last decade of the sixteenth century. they have on the whole been rather overpraised, though the variety of their matter and the abundance of reference to interesting social traits of the time to some extent redeem them. the worst point about them, as already noted, is the stale and commonplace impertinence with which their author, unlike the best breed of young poets and men of letters, attempts to satirise his literary betters; while they are to some extent at any rate tarred with the other two brushes of corrupt imitation of the ancients, and of sham moral indignation. indeed the want of sincerity--the evidence of the literary exercise--injures hall's satirical work in different ways throughout. we do not, as we read him, in the least believe in his attitude of hebrew prophet crossed with roman satirist, and the occasional presence of a vigorous couplet or a lively metaphor hardly redeems this disbelief. nevertheless, hall is here as always a literary artist--a writer who took some trouble with his writings; and as some of his satires are short, a whole one may be given:-- "a gentle squire would gladly entertain into his house some trencher-chaplain;[ ] some willing man that might instruct his sons and that would stand to good conditions. first, that he lie upon the truckle bed, whiles his young master lieth o'er his head. second, that he do, on no default,[ ] ever presume to sit above the salt. third, that he never change his trencher twice. fourth, that he use all common courtesies; sit bare at meals, and one half rise and wait. last, that he never his young master beat, but he must ask his mother to define, how many jerks she would his breech should line. all these observ'd he could contented be to give five marks and winter livery." [ ] "chaplain"--trisyllable like "capellan." [ ] missing syllable. john marston, who out-halled hall in all his literary misdeeds, was, it would appear, a member of a good shropshire family which had passed into warwickshire. he was educated at coventry school, and at brasenose college, oxford, and passed early into london literary society, where he involved himself in the inextricable and not-much-worth-extricating quarrels which have left their mark in jonson's and dekker's dramas. in the first decade of the seventeenth century he wrote several remarkable plays, of much greater literary merit than the work now to be criticised. then he took orders, was presented to the living of christchurch, and, like others of his time, seems to have forsworn literature as an unholy thing. he died in . here we are concerned only with two youthful works of his--_pigmalion's image_ and some satires in , followed in the same year by a sequel, entitled _the scourge of villainy_. in these works he called himself "w. kinsayder," a pen-name for which various explanations have been given. it is characteristic and rather comical that, while both the earlier satires and _the scourge_ denounce lewd verse most fullmouthedly, _pigmalion's image_ is a poem in the _venus and adonis_ style which is certainly not inferior to its fellows in luscious descriptions. it was, in fact, with the _satires_ and much similar work, formally condemned and burnt in . both in hall and in marston industrious commentators have striven hard to identify the personages of the satire with famous living writers, and there may be a chance that some at least of their identifications (as of marston's tubrio with marlowe) are correct. but the exaggeration and insincerity, the deliberate "society-journalism" (to adopt a detestable phrase for a corresponding thing of our own days), which characterise all this class of writing make the identifications of but little interest. in every age there are writers who delight in representing that age as the very worst of the history of the world, and in ransacking literature and imagination for accusations against their fellows. the sedate philosopher partly brings and partly draws the conviction that one time is very like another. marston, however, has fooled himself and his readers to the very top of his and their bent; and even churchill, restrained by a more critical atmosphere, has not come quite near his confused and only half-intelligible jumble of indictments for indecent practices and crude philosophy of the moral and metaphysical kind. a vigorous line or phrase occasionally redeems the chaos of rant, fustian, indecency, ill-nature, and muddled thought. "ambitious gorgons, wide-mouth'd lamians, shape-changing proteans, damn'd briarians, is minos dead, is radamanth asleep, that ye thus dare unto jove's palace creep? what, hath ramnusia spent her knotted whip, that ye dare strive on hebe's cup to sip? ye know apollo's quiver is not spent, but can abate your daring hardiment. python is slain, yet his accursed race dare look divine astrea in the face; chaos return and with confusion involve the world with strange disunion; for pluto sits in that adorèd chair which doth belong unto minerva's heir. o hecatombs! o catastrophe! from midas' pomp to trus' beggary! prometheus, who celestial fire did steal from heaven, therewith to inspire our earthly bodies with a sense-ful mind, whereby we might the depth of nature find, is ding'd to hell, and vulture eats his heart which did such deep philosophy impart to mortal men." the contrast of this so-called satire, and the really satiric touches of marston's own plays, when he was not cramped by the affectations of the style, is very curious. edward gilpin or guilpin, author of the rare book _skialetheia_, published between the dates of hall and marston, is, if not a proved plagiarist from either, at any rate an obvious follower in the same track. there is the same exaggeration, the same petulant ill-nature, the same obscurity of phrase and ungainliness of verse, and the same general insincerity. but the fine flower of the whole school is perhaps to be found in the miraculous _transformed metamorphosis_, attributed to the powerful but extravagant dramatist, cyril tourneur, who wrote this kind of thing:-- "from out the lake a bridge ascends thereto, whereon in female shape a serpent stands. who eyes her eye, or views her blue-vein'd brow, with sense-bereaving glozes she enchants, and when she sees a worldling blind that haunts the pleasure that doth seem there to be found, she soothes with leucrocutanized sound. "thence leads an entry to a shining hall bedecked with flowers of the fairest hue; the thrush, the lark, and night's-joy nightingale there minulize their pleasing lays anew, this welcome to the bitter bed of rue; this little room will scarce two wights contain t' enjoy their joy, and there in pleasure reign. "but next thereto adjoins a spacious room, more fairly fair adorned than the other: (o woe to him at sin-awhaping doom, that to these shadows hath his mind given over) for (o) he never shall his soul recover: if this sweet sin still feeds him with her smack and his repentant hand him hales not back."[ ] [ ] mr. churton collins is "tolerably confident," and perhaps he might have been quite certain, that leucrocutanized refers to one of the fauna of fancy,--a monster that spoke like a man. "minulise," from minurizô, "i sing." "to awhape" = "to confound." we could hardly end with anything farther removed from the clear philosophy and the serene loveliness of _the faërie queene_. chapter v the second dramatic period--shakespere the difficulty of writing about shakespere is twofold; and though it is a difficulty which, in both its aspects, presents itself when other great writers are concerned, there is no other case in which it besets the critic to quite the same extent. almost everything that is worth saying has been already said, more or less happily. a vast amount has been said which is not in the least worth saying, which is for the most part demonstrably foolish or wrong. as shakespere is by far the greatest of all writers, ancient or modern, so he has been the subject of commentatorial folly to an extent which dwarfs the expense of that folly on any other single subject. it is impossible to notice the results of this folly except at great length; it is doubtful whether they are worth noticing at all; yet there is always the danger either that some mischievous notions may be left undisturbed by the neglect to notice them, or that the critic himself may be presumed to be ignorant of the foolishness of his predecessors. these inconveniences, however, must here be risked, and it may perhaps be thought that the necessity of risking them is a salutary one. in no other case is it so desirable that an author should be approached by students with the minimum of apparatus. the scanty facts and the abundant fancies as to shakespere's life are a commonplace of literature. he was baptized on the th of april at stratford-on-avon, and must have been born either on the same day, or on one of those immediately preceding. his father was john shakespere, his mother mary arden, both belonging to the lower middle class and connected, personally and by their relations, with yeomanry and small landed gentry on the one side, and with well-to-do tradesmen on the other. nothing is known of his youth and little of his education; but it was a constant tradition of men of his own and the immediately succeeding generation that he had little school learning. before he was nineteen he was married, at the end of november , to anne hathaway, who was seven years his senior. their first child, susannah, was baptized six months later. he is said to have left stratford for london in , or thereabouts, and to have connected himself at once with the theatre, first in humble and then in more important positions. but all this is mist and myth. he is transparently referred to by robert greene in the summer or autumn of , and the terms of the reference prove his prosperity. the same passage brought out a complimentary reference to shakespere's intellectual and moral character from chettle, greene's editor. he published _venus and adonis_ in , and _lucrece_ next year. his plays now began to appear rapidly, and brought him money enough to buy, in , the house of new place at stratford, and to establish himself there after, it is supposed, twelve years' almost complete absence from his birthplace and his family. documentary references to his business matters now become not infrequent, but, except as showing that he was alive and prosperous, they are quite uninteresting. the same may be said of the marriages and deaths of his children. in appeared the _sonnets_, some of which had previously been printed in unauthorised and piratical publications. he died on the d of april (supposed generally to be his birthday) , and was buried at stratford. his plays had been only surreptitiously printed, the retention of a play in manuscript being of great importance to the actors, and the famous first folio did not appear till seven years after his death. the canon of shakespere's plays, like everything else connected with him, has been the subject of endless discussion. there is no reasonable doubt that in his earlier days (the first printed play among those ordinarily assigned to him, _romeo and juliet_, dates from ) he had taken part in dramatic work which is now mostly anonymous or assigned to other men, and there is also no doubt that there may be passages in the accepted plays which he owed to others. but my own deliberate judgment is that no important and highly probable ascription of extant work to shakespere can be made outside the canon as usually printed, with the doubtful exception of _the two noble kinsmen_; and i do not believe that in the plays usually accepted, any very important or characteristic portion is not shakespere's. as for shakespere-bacon theories, and that kind of folly, they are scarcely worthy even of mention. nor among the numerous other controversies and errors on the subject shall i meddle with more than one--the constantly repeated assertion that england long misunderstood or neglected shakespere, and that foreign aid, chiefly german (though some include voltaire!), was required to make her discover him. a very short way is possible with this absurdity. it would be difficult to name any men more representative of cultivated literary opinion and accomplishment in the six generations (taking a generation at the third of a century) which passed between shakespere's death and the battle of waterloo (since when english admiration of shakespere will hardly be denied), than ben jonson, john milton, john dryden, alexander pope, samuel johnson, and samuel taylor coleridge. their lives overlapped each other considerably, so that no period is left uncovered. they were all typical men of letters, each of his own time, and four at least of them were literary dictators. now, ben jonson's estimate of shakespere in prose and verse is on record in more places than one, and is as authentic as the silly stories of his envy are mythical. if milton, to his eternal disgrace, flung, for party purposes, the study of shakespere as a reproach in his dead king's face, he had himself long before put on record his admiration for him, and his own study is patent to every critical reader of his works. dryden, but a year or two after the death of shakespere's daughter, drew up that famous and memorable eulogy which ought to be familiar to all, and which, long before any german had spoken of shakespere, and thirty years before voltaire had come into the world, exactly and precisely based the structure of shakespere-worship. pope edited shakespere. johnson edited him. coleridge is acknowledged as, with his contemporaries lamb and hazlitt, the founder of modern appreciation. it must be a curious reckoning which, in face of such a catena as this, stretching its links over the whole period, maintains that england wanted germans to teach her how to admire the writer whom germans have done more to mystify and distort than even his own countrymen. the work of shakespere falls into three divisions very unequal in bulk. there is first (speaking both in the order of time and in that of thought, though not in that of literary importance and interest) the small division of poems, excluding the _sonnets_, but including _venus and adonis_, _the rape of lucrece_, and the few and uncertain but exquisite scraps, the _lover's complaint_, _the passionate pilgrim_, and so forth. all these are likely to have been the work of early youth, and they are much more like the work of other men than any other part of shakespere's work, differing chiefly in the superior sweetness of those wood-notes wild, which milton justly, if not altogether adequately, attributed to the poet, and in the occasional appearance of the still more peculiar and unique touches of sympathy with and knowledge of universal nature which supply the main shakesperian note. the _venus_ and the _lucrece_ form part of a large collection (see last chapter) of extremely luscious, not to say voluptuous, poetry which the imitation of italian models introduced into england, which has its most perfect examples in the earlier of these two poems, in numerous passages of spenser, and in the _hero and leander_ of marlowe, but which was written, as will have been seen from what has been already said, with extraordinary sweetness and abundance, by a vast number of elizabethan writers. there are extant mere _adespota_, and mere "minor poems" (such as the pretty "britain's ida," which used to be printed as spenser's, and which some critics have rather rashly given to phineas fletcher), good enough to have made reputation, if not fortune, at other times. there is no reason to attribute to shakespere on the one hand, any deliberate intention of executing a _tour de force_ in the composition of these poems or, in his relinquishment of the style, any deliberate rejection of the kind as unworthy of his powers on the other. he appears to have been eminently one of those persons who care neither to be in nor out of the fashion, but follow it as far as suits and amuses them. yet, beautiful as these poems are, they so manifestly do not present their author at the full of his powers, or even preluding in the kind wherein the best of those powers were to be shown, that they require comparatively little critical notice. as things delightful to read they can hardly be placed too high, especially the _venus_; as evidences of the poet's many-sided nature, they are interesting. but they are in somewhat other than the usual sense quite "simple, sensuous, and passionate." the misplaced ingenuity which, neglecting the _unum necessarium_, will busy itself about all sorts of unnecessary things, has accordingly been rather hard put to it with them, and to find any pasture at all has had to browse on questions of dialect, and date, and personal allusion, even more jejune and even more unsubstantial than usual. it is quite otherwise with the _sonnets_. in the first place nowhere in shakespere's work is it more necessary to brush away the cobwebs of the commentators. this side of madness, no vainer fancies have ever entered the mind of man than those which have been inspired by the immaterial part of the matter. the very initials of the dedicatee "w. h." have had volumes written about them; the _sonnets_ themselves have been twisted and classified in every conceivable shape; the persons to whom they are addressed, or to whom they refer, have been identified with half the gentlemen and ladies of elizabeth's court, and half the men of letters of the time; and every extremity and eccentricity of non-natural interpretation has been applied to them. when they are freed from this torture and studied rationally, there is nothing mysterious about them except the mystery of their poetical beauty. some of them are evidently addressed in the rather hyperbolical language of affection, common at the time, and derived from the study of greek and italian writers, to a man; others, in language not hyperbolical at all, to a woman. disdain, rivalry, suspense, short-lived joy, long sorrow, all the symptoms and concomitants of the passion of love--which are only commonplaces as death and life are commonplace--form their motives. for my part i am unable to find the slightest interest or the most rudimentary importance in the questions whether the mr. w. h. of the dedication was the earl of pembroke, and if so, whether he was also the object of the majority of the _sonnets_; whether the "dark lady," the "woman coloured ill," was miss mary fitton; whether the rival poet was chapman. very likely all these things are true: very likely not one of them is true. they are impossible of settlement, and if they were settled they would not in the slightest degree affect the poetical beauty and the human interest of the _sonnets_, which, in a strange _reductio ad absurdum_ of eighteenth century commonsense criticism, hallam thought it impossible not to wish that shakespere had not written, and which some critics, not perhaps of the least qualified, have regarded as the high-water mark of english, if not of all, poetry. this latter estimate will only be dismissed as exaggerated by those who are debarred from appreciation by want of sympathy with the subject, or distracted by want of comprehension of it. a harmony of the two chief opposing theories of poetry will teach us that we must demand of the very highest poetry first--the order is not material--a certain quality of expression, and secondly, a certain quality of subject. "what that quality of subject must be has been, as it seems to me, crudely and wrongly stated, but rightly indicated, in mr. matthew arnold's formula of the "criticism of life." that is to say, in less debatable words, the greatest poet must show most knowledge of human nature. now both these conditions are fulfilled in the sonnets of shakespere with a completeness and intensity impossible to parallel elsewhere. the merits of the formal and expressive part hardly any one will now question; the sonnets may be opened almost at random with the certainty of finding everywhere the phrases, the verses, the passages which almost mechanically recur to our minds when we are asked to illustrate the full poetical capacity and beauty of the english tongue, such as: "the painful warrior, famousèd for fight, after a thousand victories once foiled, is from the book of honour razed quite and all the rest forgot for which he toiled;" or "when to the sessions of sweet silent thought i summon up remembrance of things past;" or "was it the proud full sail of his great verse, bound for the prize of all too precious you?" or "then hate me if thou wilt," with the whole sonnet which it opens; or "when in the chronicle of a wasted time i see descriptions of the fairest wights, and beauty making beautiful old rhyme in praise of ladies dead and lovely knights;" or that most magnificent quatrain of all, "let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove." any competent judge of the formal part of poetry must admit that its force can no farther go. verse and phrase cannot be better moulded to the melodious suggestion of beauty. nor, as even these scraps show, is the thought below the verse. even if hallam's postulate of misplaced and ill-regulated passion be granted (and i am myself very far from granting it), the extraordinary wealth of thought, of knowledge, of nature, of self-knowledge, of clear vision of others in the very midst of the circumstances which might make for unclear vision, is still unmistakable. and if the poet's object was to catch up the sum of love and utter it with or even without any special relation to his own actual feelings for any actual person (a hypothesis which human nature in general, and the nature of poets in particular, makes not improbable), then it can only be said that he has succeeded. from sappho and solomon to shelley and mr. swinburne, many bards have spoken excellently of love: but what they have said could be cut out of shakespere's sonnets better said than they have said it, and yet enough remain to furnish forth the greatest of poets. with the third and in every sense chief division of the work, the necessities for explanation and allowance cease altogether. the thirty-seven plays of the ordinary shakesperian canon comprise the greatest, the most varied, the most perfect work yet done by any man in literature; and what is more, the work of which they consist is on the whole the most homogeneous and the least unequal ever so done. the latter statement is likely to be more questioned than the former; but i have no fear of failing to make it out. in one sense, no doubt, shakespere is unequal--as life is. he is not always at the tragic heights of othello and hamlet, at the comic raptures of falstaff and sir toby, at the romantic ecstasies of romeo and titania. neither is life. but he is always--and this is the extraordinary and almost inexplicable difference, not merely between him and all his contemporaries, but between him and all other writers--at the height of the particular situation. this unique quality is uniquely illustrated in his plays. the exact order of their composition is entirely unknown, and the attempts which have been made to arrange it into periods, much more to rank play after play in regular sequence, are obvious failures, and are discredited not merely by the inadequate means--such as counting syllables and attempting to classify the cadence of lines--resorted to in order to effect them, but by the hopeless discrepancy between the results of different investigators and of the same investigator at different times. we know indeed pretty certainly that _romeo and juliet_ was an early play, and _cymbeline_ a late one, with other general facts of the same kind. we know pretty certainly that the _henry the sixth_ series was based on a previous series on the same subject in which shakespere not improbably had a hand; that _king john_ and _the taming of the shrew_ had in the same way first draughts from the same or other hands, and so forth. but all attempts to arrange and elucidate a chronological development of shakespere's mind and art have been futile. practically the shakesperian gifts are to be found _passim_ in the shakesperian canon--even in the dullest of all the plays, as a whole, _the two gentlemen of verona_, even in work so alien from his general practice, and so probably mixed with other men's work, as _titus andronicus_ and _pericles_. there are rarely elsewhere--in _the maid's tragedy_ of fletcher, in _the duchess of malfi_ of webster, in _the changeling_ of middleton--passages or even scenes which might conceivably have been shakespere's. but there is, with the doubtful exception of _the two noble kinsmen_, no play in any other man's work which as a whole or in very great part is shakesperian, and there is no play usually recognised as shakespere's which would not seem out of place and startling in the work of any contemporary. this intense, or rather (for intense is not the right word) this extraordinarily diffused character, is often supposed to be a mere fancy of shakespere-worshippers. it is not so. there is something, not so much in the individual flashes of poetry, though it is there too, as in the entire scope and management of shakespere's plays, histories, tragedies, and comedies alike, which distinguishes them, and it is exactly the characteristic noted above, and well put by dryden in his famous definition of shakespere. perhaps the first branch or phase of this distinction is that shakespere is never, in the vulgar sense of the word, unnatural. he has not the slightest objection to horrors; the alarmed foreign critics who described his theatre as a "shambles" need not have gone farther than his greatest plays to justify themselves literally. but with barely even the exception which has so often to be made of _titus andronicus_, his horrors are never sought beyond a certain usual and probable round of circumstance, and are almost always tempered and humanised by touches of humour or pathos, or both. the cool sarcastic villany of aaron (a mood hit off nowhere out of shakespere, except in middleton's de flores, and not fully there) is the point on which i should chiefly put the finger to justify at least a partial shakesperian authorship. contrast the character with the nightmare ghastlinesses and extravagances not merely of tourneur and webster, but even of marlowe in barabas, and the difference of shakespere's handling will be felt at once. another point which has been often, yet perhaps not quite fully, noticed is the distinct and peculiar attitude of shakespere towards what is in the common sense called morality. nobody can possibly call him squeamish: i do not know that even any french naturalist of the latest school has charged the author of _pericles_, and _love's labour lost_, and _henry iv._, with that _pruderie bête_ of which they accuse scott. but he never makes those forms of vice which most trouble and corrupt society triumphant; he never diverges into the morbid pathology of the amatory passion, and above all, and most remarkably of all, though i think least remarked, he never makes his personages show the singular toleration of the most despicable immorality which almost all his dramatic contemporaries exhibit. one is constantly astonished at the end of an elizabethan play, when, after vice has been duly baffled or punished, and virtue rewarded (for they all more or less follow that rule), reconciliations and forgivenesses of injuries follow, to observe the complacency with which husbands who have sold their wives' favours, wives who have been at the command of the first comer or the highest bidder, mix cheek by jowl, and apparently unrebuked, with the modest maidens, the virtuous matrons, the faithful lovers of the piece. shakespere never does this. mrs. quickly is indeed at one time the confidante of anne fenton, and at another the complaisant hostess of doll tear-sheet, but not in the same play. we do not find marina's master and mistress rewarded, as they would very likely have been by fletcher or middleton, with comfortable if not prominent posts at the court of pericles, or the government-house of mytilene. the ugly and artistically unmanageable situation of the husband who trades in his wife's honour simply does not occur in all the wide license and variety of shakespere's forty plays. he is in his own sense liberal as the most easy going can demand, but he never mixes vice and virtue. yet again, while practising this singular moderation in the main element, in the most fertile motives, of tragedy and comedy respectively, he is equally alone in his use in both of the element of humour. and here we are on dangerous ground. to many excellent persons of all times since his own, as well as in it, shakespere's humour and his use of it have been stumbling-blocks. some of them have been less able to away with the use, some with the thing. shakesperian clowns are believed to be red rags to some experienced playwrights and accomplished wits of our own days: the porter in _macbeth_, the gravediggers in _hamlet_, the fool in _lear_, even the humours in _love's labour lost_ and _the merchant of venice_ have offended. i avow myself an impenitent shakesperian in this respect also. the constant or almost constant presence of that humour which ranges from the sarcastic quintessence of iago, and the genial quintessence of falstaff, through the fantasies of feste and edgar, down to the sheer nonsense which not unfrequently occurs, seems to me not only delightful in itself, but, as i have hinted already, one of the chief of those spells by which shakespere has differentiated his work in the sense of universality from that of all other dramatists. i have used the word nonsense, and i may be thought to have partly given up my case by it. but nonsense, as hardly any critic but hazlitt has had the courage to avow openly, is no small part of life, and it is a part the relish of which englishmen, as the same great but unequal critic justly maintains, are almost alone in enjoying and recognising. it is because shakespere dares, and dares very frequently, simply _desipere_, simply to be foolish, that he is so pre-eminently wise. the others try to be always wise, and, alas! it is not necessary to complete the antithesis. these three things--restraint in the use of sympathy with suffering, restraint in the use of interest in voluptuous excess, and humour--are, as it seems to me, the three chief distinguishing points in shakespere's handling which are not found in any of his contemporaries, for though there is humour in not a few of these, none of them is a perfect humorist in the same sense. here, as well as in that general range or width of subject and thought which attracted dryden's eulogium, he stands alone. in other respects he shares the qualities which are perceptible almost throughout this wonderfully fertile department of literature; but he shares them as infinitely the largest shareholder. it is difficult to think of any other poet (for with homer we are deprived of the opportunity of comparison) who was so completely able to meet any one of his contemporaries on that contemporary's own terms in natural gift. i say natural gift because, though it is quite evident that shakespere was a man of no small reading, his deficiencies in general education are too constantly recorded by tradition, and rendered too probable by internal evidence, to be ignored or denied by any impartial critic. but it is difficult to mention a quality possessed by any of the school (as it is loosely called), from marlowe to shirley, which he had not in greater measure; while the infinite qualities which he had, and the others each in one way or another lacked, are evident. on only one subject--religion--is his mouth almost closed; certainly, as the few utterances that touch it show, from no incapacity of dealing with it, and apparently from no other dislike than a dislike to meddle with anything outside of the purely human province of which he felt that he was universal master--in short from an infinite reverence. it will not be expected that in a book like the present--the whole space of which might very well be occupied, without any of the undue dilation which has been more than once rebuked, in dealing with shakespere alone--any attempt should be made to criticise single plays, passages, and characters. it is the less of a loss that in reality, as the wisest commentators have always either begun or ended by acknowledging, shakespere is your only commentator on shakespere. even the passages which corrupt printing, or the involved fashion of speaking peculiar to the time, make somewhat obscure at first, will in almost every case yield to the unassisted cogitation of any ordinarily intelligent person; and the results so reached are far more likely to be the true results than the elaborate emendations which delight a certain class of editors. a certain amount of mere glossary is of course necessary, but otherwise the fewer corks and bladders the swimmer takes with him when he ventures into "the ocean which is shakespere," the better. there are, however, certain common errors, some of which have survived even the last century of shakespere-study and shakespere-worship, which must perhaps be discussed. for in the case of the greatest writers, the business of the critic is much more to shovel away the rubbish of his predecessors than to attempt any accumulation of his own. the chief of these errors--or rather that error which practically swallows up all the others and can produce them again at any time--is that shakespere was, if not exactly an inspired idiot, at any rate a mainly tentative if not purely unconscious artist, much of whose work is only not bad as art, while most, if not all of it, was originally produced with a minimum of artistic consciousness and design. this enormous error, which is protean in form, has naturally induced the counter error of a too great insistence on the consciousness and elaboration of shakespere's art. the most elaborate theories of this art have been framed--theories involving the construction of perhaps as much baseless fabric as anything else connected with the subject, which is saying a great deal. it appears to me in the highest degree improbable that shakespere had before him consciously more than three purposes; but these three i think that he constantly had, and that he was completely successful in achieving them. the first was to tell in every play a dramatically complete story; the second was to work that story out by the means of purely human and probable characters; and the third was to give such form and ornaments to the working out as might please the playgoers of his day. in pursuing the first two he was the poet or dramatist of all time. in pursuing the third he was the intelligent playwright. but (and here is the source of the common error) it by no means follows that his attention, and his successful attention, to his third purpose in any way interferes with, or degrades, his excellence as a pursuer of the first two. in the first place, it can escape no careful student that the merely playwright part of shakespere's work is (as is the case with no other dramatic author whatever) singularly separable. no generation since his death has had the slightest difficulty in adapting by far the greater part of his plays to use and popularity in its own day, though the adaptation may have varied in liberty and in good taste with the standards of the time. at the present day, while almost all other old dramatists have ceased to be acted at all, or are acted merely as curiosities, the adaptation of shakespere has become more and more a process of simple omission (without the addition or alteration of anything) of parts which are either unsuited to modern manners or too long for modern patience. with the two usual exceptions, _pericles_ and _titus andronicus_ (which, despite the great beauty of parts, are evidently less shakesperian as wholes than any others), there is not a single play of the whole number that could not be--there are not many that have not been--acted with success in our time. it would be difficult to find a stronger differentia from the work of the mere playwright, who invariably thinks first of the temporary conditions of success, and accordingly loses the success which is not temporary. but the second great difference of shakespere is, that even what may be in comparison called the ephemeral and perishable parts of him have an extraordinary vitality, if not theatrical yet literary, of their own. the coarser scenes of _measure for measure_ and _the comedy of errors_, the satire on fleeting follies in _love's labour lost_, the uncomelier parts of _all's well that ends well_, the doll tear-sheet business of _henry iv._, the comic by-play of _troilus and cressida_, may seem mere wood, hay, and stubble in comparison with the nobler portions. yet the fire of time has not consumed them: they are as delightful as ever in the library if not on the stage. little or nothing need be said in defence of shakespere as an artist from the attacks of the older or unity criticism. that maleficent giant can now hardly grin at the pilgrims whom he once harassed. but there are many persons who, not dreaming of the unities, still object in language less extravagant than voltaire's or george the third's, but with hardly less decision, to the "sad stuff," the _fumier_ of shakespere's admixture of comedy with tragedy, of his digressions and episodes, of his multifarious underplots and minor groups, and ramifications of interest or intrigue. the reply to this is not (as it might be, if any reply were not superfluous, in the case of the unity objection) a reply of demonstration. if any person experienced in literature, and with an interest in it, experienced in life and with an interest in that, asserts that caliban and trinculo interfere with his enjoyment of ferdinand and miranda; that the almost tragedy of hero is marred for him by the comedy of beatrice and the farce of dogberry; that he would have preferred _a midsummer night's dream_ without the tedious brief effort of quince and his companions; that the solemnity and passion of _hamlet_ and _macbeth_ cause in him a revulsion against the porter and the gravedigger; that the fool and edgar are out of place in _lear_,--it is impossible to prove to him by the methods of any euclid or of any aldrich that he is wrong. the thing is essentially, if not wholly, a matter of taste. it is possible, indeed, to point out, as in the case of the unities, that the objectors, if they will maintain their objection, must deny the position that the dramatic art holds up the mirror to nature, and that if they deny it, the burden--a burden never yet successfully taken up by any one--of framing a new definition rests upon them. but this is only a partial and somewhat inconclusive argument, and the person who genuinely dislikes these peculiarities of shakespere is like a man who genuinely dislikes wine or pictures or human faces, that seem delightful and beautiful to others. i am not aware of any method whereby i can prove that the most perfect claret is better than zoedone in flavour, or that the most exquisite creation of botticelli or leonardo is more beautiful than the cuts on the sides of railway novels. again, it is matter of taste. it will be seen that i am not for my part afraid to avow myself a thoroughgoing shakesperian, who accepts the weak points of his master as well as the strong. it is often forgotten (indeed i do not know where i have seen it urged) that there is in shakespere's case an excuse for the thousand lines that good ben jonson would have liked him to blot,--an excuse which avails for no one else. no one else has his excuse of universality; no one else has attempted to paint, much less has painted, the whole of life. it is because shakespere has attempted this, and, in the judgment of at least some, has succeeded in it, that the spots in his sun are so different from the spots in all other suns. i do not know an unnatural character or an unnatural scene in shakespere, even among those which have most evidently been written to the gallery. everything in him passes, in some mysterious way, under and into that "species of eternity" which transforms all the great works of art, which at once prevents them from being mere copies of nature, and excuses whatever there is of nature in them that is not beautiful or noble. if this touch is wanting anywhere (and it is wanting very seldom), that, i take it, is the best, indeed the only, sign that that passage is not shakespere's,--that he had either made use of some other man's work, or that some other man had made use of his. if such passages were of more frequent occurrence, this argument might be called a circular one. but the proportion of such passages as i at least should exclude is so small, and the difference between them and the rest is so marked, that no improper begging of the question can be justly charged. the plays in the _globe_ edition contain just a thousand closely-printed pages. i do not think that there are fifty in all, perhaps not twenty--putting scraps and patches together--in which the shakesperian touch is wanting, and i do not think that that touch appears outside the covers of the volume once in a thousand pages of all the rest of english literature. the finest things of other men,--of marlowe, of fletcher, of webster (who no doubt comes nearest to the shakesperian touch, infinitely as he falls short of the shakesperian range),--might conceivably be the work of others. but the famous passages of shakespere, too numerous and too well known to quote, could be no one else's. it is to this point that æsthetic criticism of shakespere is constantly coming round with an almost monotonous repetition. as great as all others in their own points of greatness; holding points of greatness which no others even approach; such is shakespere. there is a certain difficulty--most easily to be appreciated by those who have most carefully studied the literature of the period in question, and have most fully perceived the mistakes which confusion of exact date has induced in the consideration of the very complex subject before us--in selecting dramatists to group with shakespere. the obvious resource of taking him by himself would frustrate the main purpose of this volume, which is to show the general movement at the same time as the individual developments of the literature of - . in one sense shakespere might be included in any one of three out of the four chapters which we have here devoted to the elizabethan dramatists. his earliest known, and probably much of his unknown work coincides with the period of tentative; and his latest work overlaps very much of that period of ripe and somewhat over-ripe performance, at the head of which it has here been thought good to set beaumont and fletcher. but there is a group of four notable persons who appear to have especial rights to be classed with him, if not in greatness, yet in character of work, and in the influences which played on that work. they all, like him, took an independent part in the marvellous wit-combat of the last decade of elizabeth, and they all like him survived, though for different lengths of time, to set an example to the third generation. they are all, even the meanest of them, distinctly great men, and free alike from the immaturity, visible even in lyly and marlowe, which marked some of their older contemporaries, and from the decadence, visible even in fletcher and massinger, which marred their younger followers. furthermore, they were mixed up, as regards one another, in an inextricable but not uninteresting series of broils and friendships, to some part of which shakespere himself may have been by no means a stranger. these reasons have seemed sufficient for separating them from the rest, and grouping them round the captain. they are benjamin jonson, george chapman, john marston, and thomas dekker. the history of ben jonson (the literary history that is to say, for the known facts of his life are simple enough) is curious and perhaps unique. nothing is really known of his family; but as, at a time when scotchmen were not loved in england, he maintained his annandale origin, there should be, especially after mr. symonds's investigations as to his career, no doubt that he at least believed himself to be of border extraction, as was also, it may be remembered, his great disciple, panegyrist, slanderer, and (with the substitution of an easy for a rugged temper), analogue, john dryden. the fact of these two typical englishmen being of half or whole scotch descent will not surprise any one who does not still ignore the proper limits of england. nobody doubts that his father (or rather stepfather, for he was a posthumous child, born , and his mother married again) was a bricklayer, or that he went to westminster school; it seems much more dubious whether he had any claim to anything but an honorary degree from either university, though he received that from both. probably he worked at bricklaying, though the taunts of his rivals would, in face of the undoubted fact of his stepfather's profession, by no means suffice to prove it. certainly he went through the chequered existence of so many elizabethan men of letters; was a soldier in flanders, an actor, a duellist (killing his man, and escaping consequences only by benefit of clergy), a convert to romanism, a "revert" to the anglican church, a married man, a dramatist. the great play of _every man in his humour_, afterwards very much altered, was perhaps acted first at the rose theatre in , and it established jonson's reputation, though there is no reasonable doubt that he had written other things. his complicated associations and quarrels with dekker, marston, chapman, and others, have occupied the time of a considerable number of persons; they lie quite beyond our subject, and it may be observed without presumption that their direct connection, even with the literary work (_the poetaster_, _satiromastix_, and the rest) which is usually linked to them, will be better established when critics have left off being uncertain whether _a_ was _b_, or _b_, _c_. even the most famous story of all (the disgrace of jonson with others for _eastward ho!_ as a libel against the scots, for which he was imprisoned, and, being threatened with mutilation, was by his roman mother supplied with poison), though told by himself, does not rest on any external evidence. what is certain is that jonson was in great and greater request, both as a writer of masks and other _divertissements_ for the court, and as a head and chief of literary conviviality at the "mermaid," and other famous taverns. here, as he grew older, there grew up round him that "tribe of ben," or admiring clique of young literary men, which included almost all the most remarkable poets, except milton, of the late jacobean and early caroline period, and which helped to spread his fame for at least two generations, and (by waller's influence on saint-evremond) to make him the first english man of letters who was introduced by a great critic of the continent to continental attention as a worker in the english vernacular. at last he was made poet laureate, and in he took a journey to scotland, and stayed there for some time with drummond of hawthornden. the celebrated conversations noted by the host have been the very centre battle-ground of all fights about ben jonson's character. it is sufficient here to say that though ben's chief defender, gifford, may have been too hard on drummond, it is difficult, if not impossible, to think that the "notes of conversations" were made in a friendly spirit. they contain for their bulk an extraordinary amount of interesting matter, and much sound criticism; but which of us in modern days would care to have such "notes" taken? a man thinks that there are faults in a friend's work, and in the usual exaggeration of conversation he says that it is "rubbish." the drummonds of this world note it down and it passes as a deliberate judgment. he must be a fortunate man, or an exceptional recluse, who has not found some good-natured friend anticipate drummond, and convey the crude expression (probably heightened in conveyance) direct to the person concerned. after this visit (which must have been at the end of ) jonson suffered the calamity of having his study destroyed by fire, and lost much ms. work. he lived many years longer and retained his literary primacy, but was unfortunate in money matters, and even in reception of his work by the public, though the literary men of his day made no mistake about him. he died in , and the last of the many stories clustering round his name is the famous one of the inscription, "o rare ben jonson!" a year later, a _tombeau_, or collection of funeral poems, entitled _jonsonus virbius_, showed the estimate entertained of him by the best and brightest wits of the time. his life was thus a life of struggle, for he was never rich, and lived for the most part on the most unsatisfactory of all sources of income--casual bounties from the king and others. it is not improbable that his favour with the court and with templar society (which was then very unpopular with the middle classes), had something to do with the ill-reception of his later plays. but his literary influence was very great, and with donne he determined much of the course of english poetry for many years, and retained a great name even in the comparative eclipse of the "giant race" after the restoration. it was only when the study of shakespere became a favourite subject with persons of more industry than intelligence in the early eighteenth century, that a singular fabric of myth grew up round ben jonson. he was pictured as an incarnation of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, directed in the first place towards shakespere, and then towards all other literary craftsmen. william gifford, his first competent editor, set himself to work to destroy this, and undoubtedly succeeded. but the acrimony with which gifford tinctured all his literary polemic perhaps rather injured his treatment of the case; even yet it may be doubted whether ben jonson has attained anything like his proper place in english literary history. putting aside the abiding influence of a good long-continued course of misrepresentation, it is still not difficult to discover the source of this under-estimate, without admitting the worst view or even any very bad view of ben jonson's character, literary and personal. it may be granted that he was rough and arrogant, a scholar who pushed scholarship to the verge of pedantry, a critic who sometimes forgot that though a schoolmaster may be a critic, a critic should not be merely a schoolmaster. his work is saturated with that contempt of the _profanum vulgus_ which the _profanum vulgus_ (humanly enough) seldom fails to return. moreover, it is extremely voluminous, and it is by no means equal. of his eighteen plays, three only--_every man in his humour_, _the alchemist_, and the charming fragment of _the sad shepherd_--can be praised as wholes. his lovely _masques_ are probably unread by all but a few scores, if so many, in each generation. his noble sinewy prose is, for the most part, unattractive in subject. his minor poems, though not a few of them are known even to smatterers in literature, are as a whole (or at least it would seem so) unknown. yet his merits are extraordinary. "never" in his plays (save _the sad shepherd_) "tender," and still more rarely "sublime," he yet, in words much better applied to him than to his pupil dryden, "wrestles with and conquers time." even his enemies admit his learning, his vigour, his astonishing power of work. what is less generally admitted, despite in one case at least the celebrity of the facts that prove it, is his observation, his invention, and at times his anomalous and seemingly contradictory power of grace and sweetness. there is no more singular example of the proverb, "out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong sweetness," which has been happily applied to victor hugo, than the composition, by the rugged author of _sejanus_ and _catiline_, of _the devil is an ass_ and _bartholomew fair_, of such things as "here lies to each her parents ruth;" or the magnificent song, "drink to me only with thine eyes;" or the crown and flower of all epitaphs, "underneath this sable herse."[ ] [ ] ben is sometimes deprived of this, _me judice_, most irreligiously. but these three universally-known poems only express in quintessence a quality of jonson's which is spread all about his minor pieces, which appears again perfectly in _the sad shepherd_, and which he seems to have kept out of his plays proper rather from bravado than for any other reason. his prose will be noticed separately in the next chapter, but it may be observed here that it is saturated with the same literary flavour which pervades all his work. none of his dramatic fellows wrote anything that can compare to it, just as none of them wrote anything that surpasses the songs and snatches in his plays, and the best things in his miscellaneous works. the one title which no competent criticism has ever grudged him is that of best epitaph-writer in the english language, and only those who have failed to consider the difficulties and the charm of that class of composition will consider this faint praise. nevertheless, it was no doubt upon drama that jonson concentrated his powers, and the unfavourable judgments which have been delivered on him chiefly refer to this. a good deal of controversy has arisen out of the attribution to him, which is at least as old as _the return from parnassus_, of being minded to classicise the english drama. it is certain that he set a value on the unities which no other english dramatist has set, and that in _the alchemist_ at least he has given something like a perfect example of them, which is at the same time an admirable play. whether this attention is at all responsible for the defects which are certainly found in his work is a very large question. it cannot be denied that in that work, with perhaps the single exception just mentioned, the reader (it is, except in the case of _every man in his humour_, generations since the playgoer had any opportunity of judging) finds a certain absence of sympathetic attraction, as well as, for all the formal unity of the pieces, a lack of that fusing poetic force which makes detail into a whole. the amazing strength of jonson's genius, the power with which he has compelled all manner of unlikely elements into his service, is evident enough, but the result usually wants charm. the drawbacks are (always excepting _the alchemist_) least perceptible in _every man in his humour_, the first sprightly runnings (unless _the case is altered_ is older) of jonson's fancy, the freshest example of his sharp observation of "humours." later he sometimes overdid this observation, or rather he failed to bring its results sufficiently into poetic or dramatic form, and, therefore, is too much for an age and too little for all time. but _every man in his humour_ is really charming. bobadil, master stephen, and kitely attain to the first rank of dramatic characters, and others are not far behind them in this respect. the next play, _every man out of his humour_, is a great contrast, being, as even the doughty gifford admits, distinctly uninteresting as a whole, despite numerous fine passages. perhaps a little of its want of attraction must be set down to a pestilent habit of jonson's, which he had at one time thought of applying to _every man in his humour_, the habit of giving foreign, chiefly italian, appellations to his characters, describing, and as it were labelling them--deliro, macilente, and the like. this gives an air of unreality, a figurehead and type character. _cynthia's revels_ has the same defects, but is to some extent saved by its sharp raillery of euphuism. with _the poetaster_ jonson began to rise again. i think myself that the personages and machinery of the augustan court would be much better away, and that the implied satire on contemporaries would be tedious if it could not, as it fortunately can, be altogether neglected. but in spite of these drawbacks, the piece is good. of _sejanus_ and jonson's later roman play _catiline_ i think, i confess, better than the majority of critics appear to think. that they have any very intense tragic interest will, indeed, hardly be pretended, and the unfortunate but inevitable comparison with _coriolanus_ and _julius cæsar_ has done them great and very unjust harm. less human than shakespere's "godlike romans" (who are as human as they are godlike), jonson's are undoubtedly more roman, and this, if it is not entirely an attraction, is in its way a merit. but it was not till after _sejanus_ that the full power of jonson appeared. his three next plays, _volpone_, _epicene_, and _the alchemist_, could not have been written by any one but himself, and, had they not been written, would have left a gap in english which nothing from any other literature could supply. if his attitude had been a little less virtuous and a little more sarcastic, jonson would in these three plays have anticipated swift. of the three, i prefer the first and the last--the last being the best of all. _epicene_ or the _silent woman_ was specially liked by the next generation because of its regularity, and of the skill with which the various humours are all wrought into the main plot. both these things are undeniable, and many of the humours are in themselves amusing enough. but still there is something wanting, which is supplied in _volpone_ and _the alchemist_. it has been asked whether that disregard of probability, which is one of jonson's greatest faults, does not appear in the recklessness with which "the fox" exposes himself to utter ruin, not so much to gratify any sensual desire or obtain any material advantage, as simply to indulge his combined hypocrisy and cynicism to the very utmost. the answer to this question will very much depend on each reader's taste and experience. it is undeniable that there have been examples of perverse indulgence in wickedness for wickedness' sake, which, rare as they are, go far to justify the creation of volpone. but the unredeemed villany of the hero, with whom it is impossible in any way to sympathise, and the sheer brutality of the fortune-hunting dupes who surround him, make it easier to admire than to like the play. i have little doubt that jonson was to some extent sensible of this, for the comic episode or underplot of sir politick and lady would-be is very much more loosely connected with the centre interest (it is only by courtesy that it can be said to be connected at all), than is usual with him, and this is an argument in favour of its having been introduced as a makeweight. from the drawbacks of both these pieces _the alchemist_ is wholly free. jonson here escaped his usual pitfall of the unsympathetic, for the vices and follies he satirises are not loathsome, only contemptible at worst, and not always that. he found an opportunity of exercising his extraordinary faculty of concentration as he nowhere else did, and has given us in sir epicure mammon a really magnificent picture of concupiscence, of sensual appetite generally, sublimed by heat of imagination into something really poetic. the triumvirate of adventurers, subtle, dol and face (for dol has virile qualities), are not respectable, but one does not hate them; and the gulls are perfection. if any character could be spared it is the "angry boy," a young person whose humours, as jonson himself admits of another character elsewhere, are "more tedious than diverting." _the alchemist_ was followed by _catiline_, and _catiline_ by _bartholomew fair_, a play in which singularly vivid and minute pictures of manners, very amusing sketches of character, and some capital satire on the puritans, do not entirely redeem a profusion of the coarsest possible language and incident. _the devil is an ass_ comes next in time, and though no single character is the equal of zeal-of-the-land busy in _bartholomew fair_, the play is even more amusing. the four last plays, _the staple of news_, _the magnetic lady_, _the new inn_, and _the tale of a tub_, which jonson produced after long absence from the stage, were not successful, and were both unkindly and unjustly called by dryden "ben's dotages." as for the charming _sad shepherd_, it was never acted, and is now unfinished, though it is believed that the poet completed it. it stands midway as a pastoral _féerie_ between his regular plays and the great collection of ingenious and graceful masques and entertainments, which are at the top of all such things in england (unless _comus_ be called a masque), and which are worth comparing with the ballets and spectacle pieces of molière. perhaps a complete survey of jonson's work indicates, as his greatest defect, the want of passion. he could be vigorous, he could be dignified, he could be broadly humorous, and, as has been said, he could combine with these the apparently incompatible, or, at least, not closely-connected faculty of grace. of passion, of rapture, there is no trace in him, except in the single instance--in fire mingled with earth--of sir epicure mammon. but the two following passages--one from _sejanus_, one from _the sad shepherd_--will show his dignity and his pathos. no extract in brief could show his humour:-- _arr._ "i would begin to study 'em,[ ] if i thought they would secure me. may i pray to jove in secret and be safe? ay, or aloud, with open wishes, so i do not mention tiberius or sejanus? yes i must, if i speak out. 'tis hard that. may i think and not be racked? what danger is't to dream, talk in one's sleep or cough? who knows the laws? may i shake my head without a comment? say it rains, or it holds up, and not be thrown upon the gemonies? these now are things, whereon men's fortune, yea, their fate depends. nothing hath privilege 'gainst the violent ear. no place, no day, no hour, we see, is free, not our religious and most sacred times from some one kind of cruelty: all matter, nay, all occasion pleaseth. madmen's rage, the idleness of drunkards, women's nothing, jester's simplicity, all, all is good that can be catcht at. nor is now the event of any person, or for any crime to be expected; for 'tis always one: death, with some little difference of place or time. what's this? prince nero, guarded!" [ ] to wit the "arts" of suffering and being silent, by which his interlocutor lepidus has explained his own safety from delation. * * * * * _Æg._ "a spring, now she is dead! of what? of thorns, briars and brambles? thistles, burs and docks? cold hemlock, yews? the mandrake, or the box? these may grow still: but what can spring beside? did not the whole earth sicken when she died as if there since did fall one drop of dew, but what was wept for her! or any stalk did bear a flower, or any branch a bloom, after her wreath was made! in faith, in faith, you do not fair to put these things upon me, which can in no sort be: earine who had her very being and her name with the first knots or buddings of the spring, born with the primrose and the violet or earliest roses blown: when cupid smiled and venus led the graces out to dance, and all the flowers and sweets in nature's lap leaped out and made their solemn conjuration to last but while she lived! do not i know how the vale withered the same day? how dove, dean, eye, and erwash, idel, snite and soare each broke his urn, and twenty waters more that swelled proud trent, shrunk themselves dry, that since no sun or moon, or other cheerful star, looked out of heaven, but all the cope was dark as it were hung so for her exequies! and not a voice or sound to ring her knell but of that dismal pair, the screeching owl and buzzing hornet! hark! hark! hark! the foul bird! how she flutters with her wicker wings! peace! you shall hear her screech. _cla._ good karolin, sing, help to divert this phant'sy. _kar._ all i can: _sings while Æg. reads the song._ 'though i am young and cannot tell either what death or love is well, yet i have heard they both bear darts and both do aim at human hearts: and then again, i have been told, love wounds with heat, as death with cold; so that i fear they do but bring extremes to touch and mean one thing. 'as in a ruin we it call one thing to be blown up, or fall; or to our end, like way may have, by a flash of lightning or a wave: so love's inflamèd shaft or brand may kill as soon as death's cold hand, except love's fires the virtue have to fright the frost out of the grave.'" of no two contemporary men of letters in england can it be said that they were, intellectually speaking, so near akin as ben jonson and george chapman. the translator of homer was a good deal older than jonson, and exceedingly little is known of his life. he was pretty certainly born near hitchin in hertfordshire, the striking situation of which points his reference to it even in these railroad days. the date is uncertain--it may have been , and was certainly not later than --so that he was the oldest of the later elizabethan school who survived into the caroline period. he perhaps entered the university of oxford in . his first known work, _the shadow of night_, dates from ; and a reference of meres's shows that he was known for tragedy four years later. in he, jonson (a constant friend of his whose mutual fidelity refutes of itself the silly calumnies as to jonson's enviousness, for of chapman only, among his colleagues, was he likely to be jealous), and marston were partners in the venture of _eastward ho!_ which, for some real or fancied slight on scotland, exposed the authors to danger of the law. he was certainly a _protégé_ of prince henry, the english marcellus, and he seems to have received patronage from a much less blameless patron, carr, earl of somerset. his literary activity was continuous and equal, but it was in his later days that he attempted and won the crown of the greatest of english translators. "georgius chapmannus, homeri metaphrastes" the posy of his portrait runs, and he himself seems to have quite sunk any expectation of fame from his original work in the expectation of remembrance as a translator of the prince of poets. many other interesting traits suggest, rather than ascertain, themselves in reference to him, such as his possible connection with the early despatch of english troupes of players to germany, and his adoption of contemporary french subjects for english tragedy. but of certain knowledge of him we have very little. what is certain is that, like drayton (also a friend of his), he seems to have lived remote and afar from the miserable quarrels and jealousies of his time; that, as has been already shown by dates, he was a kind of english fontenelle in his overlapping of both ends of the great school of english poets; and that absolutely no base personal gossip tarnishes his poetical fame. the splendid sonnet of keats testifies to the influence which his work long had on those englishmen who were unable to read homer in the original. a fine essay of mr. swinburne's has done, for the first time, justice to his general literary powers, and a very ingenious and, among such hazardous things, unusually probable conjecture of mr. minto's identifies him with the "rival poet" of shakespere's _sonnets_. but these are adventitious claims to fame. what is not subject to such deduction is the assertion that chapman was a great englishman who, while exemplifying the traditional claim of great englishmen to originality, independence, and versatility of work, escaped at once the english tendency to lack of scholarship, and to ignorance of contemporary continental achievements, was entirely free from the fatal philistinism in taste and in politics, and in other matters, which has been the curse of our race, was a royalist, a lover, a scholar, and has left us at once one of the most voluminous and peculiar collections of work that stand to the credit of any literary man of his country. it may be that his memory has gained by escaping the danger of such revelations or scandals as the jonson confessions to drummond, and that the lack of attraction to the ordinary reader in his work has saved him from that comparison which (it has perhaps been urged _ad nauseam_) is the bane of just literary judgment. to those who always strive to waive all such considerations, these things will make but little difference. the only complete edition of chapman's works dates from our own days, and its three volumes correspond to a real division of subject. although, in common with all these writers, chapman has had much uncertain and some improbable work fathered on him, his certain dramas supply one of the most interesting studies in our period. as usual with everyone except shakespere and (it is a fair reason for the relatively disproportionate estimate of these so long held) beaumont and fletcher, they are extremely unequal. not a certain work of chapman is void of interest. the famous _eastward ho!_ (one of the liveliest comedies of the period dealing with london life) was the work of three great writers, and it is not easy to distribute its collaboration. that it is not swamped with "humours" may prove that jonson's learned sock was put on by others. that it is neither grossly indecent nor extravagantly sanguinary, shows that marston had not the chief hand in it, and so we are left to chapman. what he could do is not shown in the list of his own certain plays till _all fools_. _the blind beggar of alexandria_ ( ?) and _an humorous day's mirth_ show that singular promiscuousness--that heaping together of scenes without order or connection--which we have noticed in the first dramatic period, not to mention that the way in which the characters speak of themselves, not as "i" but by their names in the third person, is also unmistakable. but _all fools_ is a much more noteworthy piece, and though mr. swinburne may have praised it rather highly, it would certainly take place in a collection of the score best comedies of the time not written by shakespere. _the gentleman usher_ and _monsieur d'olive_ belong to the same school of humorous, not too pedantic comedy, and then we come to the strange series of chapman's french tragedies, _bussy d'ambois_, _the revenge of bussy d'ambois_, _byron's conspiracy_, _the tragedy of charles, duke of byron_, and _the tragedy of philip chabot, admiral of france_. these singular plays stand by themselves. whether the strong influence which marlowe exercised on chapman led the later poet (who it must be remembered was not the younger) to continue _the massacre of paris_, or what other cause begat them, cannot now be asserted or even guessed without lost labour. a famous criticism of dryden's attests his attention to them, but does not, perhaps, to those who have studied dryden deeply, quite express the influence which chapman had on the leader of post-restoration tragedy. as plays, the whole five are models of what plays should not be; in parts, they are models of what plays should be. then chapman returned to the humour-comedy and produced two capital specimens of it in _may-day_ and _the widow's tears_. _alphonsus, emperor of germany_, which contains long passages of german, and _revenge for honour_, two tragedies which were not published till long after chapman's death, are to my mind very dubiously his. mr. swinburne, in dealing with them, availed himself of the hypothesis of a mellowing, but at the same time weakening of power by age. it may be so, and i have not the slightest intention of pronouncing decidedly on the subject. they bear to my mind much more mark of the decadent period of charles i., when the secret of blank verse was for a time lost, and when even men who had lived in personal friendship with their great predecessors lapsed into the slipshod stuff that we find in davenant, in his followers, and among them even in the earlier plays of dryden. it is, of course, true that this loosening and slackening of the standard betrays itself even before the death of chapman, which happened in . but i cannot believe that the author of _bussy d'ambois_ (where the verse is rude enough but never lax) and the contemporary or elder of shakespere, marlowe, and all the great race, could ever have been guilty of the slovenliness which, throughout, marks _revenge for honour_. the second part of chapman's work, his original verse, is much inferior in bulk and in interest of matter to the first and third. yet, is it not perhaps inferior to either in giving evidence of the author's peculiarities; while the very best thing he ever wrote (a magnificent passage in _the tears of peace_) is contained in it. its component parts are, however, sufficiently odd. it opens with a strange poem called _the shadow of night_, which mr. swinburne is not wrong in classing among the obscurest works in english. the mischievous fashion of enigmatic writing, already glanced at in the section on satire, was perhaps an offshoot of euphuism; and certainly chapman, who never exhibits much taint of euphuism proper, here out-herods herod and out-tourneurs tourneur. it was followed by an equally singular attempt at the luscious school of which _venus and adonis_ is the most famous. _ovid's banquet of sense_ has received high praise from critics whom i esteem. for my own part i should say that it is the most curious instance of a radically unpassionate nature, trying to lash itself into passion, that our language contains. then chapman tried an even bolder flight in the same dialect--the continuation of marlowe's unfinished _hero and leander_. in this attempt, either by sheer force of his sinewy athletics, or by some inspiration derived from the "dead shepherd," his predecessor, he did not fail, curious as is the contrast of the two parts. _the tears of peace_, which contains his finest work, is in honour of prince henry--a worthy work on a worthy subject, which was followed up later by an epicedium on the prince's lamented death. besides some epigrams and sonnets, the chief other piece of this division is the disastrous _andromeda liberata_, which unluckily celebrates the nuptials--stained with murder, adultery, and crime of all sorts--of frances howard and robert carr. it is in chapman's most allusive and thorniest style, but is less interesting intrinsically than as having given occasion to an indignant prose vindication by the poet, which, considering his self-evident honesty, is the most valuable document in existence for explaining the apparently grovelling panegyric of the sixteenth and seventeenth century. it makes clear (what indeed an intelligent reader might gather for himself) that the traditional respect for rank and station, uniting with the tendency to look for patterns and precedents in the classics for almost everything, made of these panegyrics a kind of school exercise, in which the excellence of the subject was taken for granted, and the utmost hyperbole of praise was only a "common form" of composition, to which the poet imparted or added what grace of style or fancy he could, with hardly a notion of his ascriptions being taken literally. but if chapman's dramas have been greatly undervalued, and if his original poems are an invaluable help to the study of the time, there is no doubt that it is as a translator that he made and kept the strongest hold on the english mind. he himself spoke of his homeric translations (which he began as early as , doing also hesiod, some juvenal, and some minor fragments, pseudo-virgilian, petrarchian and others) as "the work that he was born to do." his version, with all its faults, outlived the popularity even of pope, was for more than two centuries the resort of all who, unable to read greek, wished to know what the greek was, and, despite the finical scholarship of the present day, is likely to survive all the attempts made with us. i speak with all humility, but as having learnt homer from homer himself, and not from any translation, prose or verse. i am perfectly aware of chapman's outrageous liberties, of his occasional unfaithfulness (for a libertine need not necessarily be unfaithful in translation), and of the condescension to his own fancies and the fancies of his age, which obscures not more perhaps than some condescensions which nearness and contemporary influences prevent some of us from seeing the character of the original. but at the same time, either i have no skill in criticism, and have been reading greek for fifty years to none effect, or chapman is far nearer homer than any modern translator in any modern language. he is nearer in the iliad than in the odyssey--an advantage resulting from his choice of vehicle. in the odyssey he chose the heroic couplet, which never can give the rise and fall of the hexameter. in the iliad, after some hesitation between the two (he began as early as ), he preferred the fourteener, which, at its best, is the hexameter's nearest substitute. with chapman it is not always at its best--very far from it. if he never quite relapses into the sheer doggerel of the first period, he sometimes comes perilously near to it. but he constantly lifts his wings and soars in a quite different measure which, when he keeps it up for a little, gives a narrative vehicle unsurpassed, and hardly equalled, in english poetry for variation of movement and steady forward flow combined. the one point in which the homeric hexameter is unmatched among metres is its combination of steady advance with innumerable ripples and eddies in its course, and it is here that chapman (though of course not fully) can partly match it. it is, however, one of the testimonies to the supreme merit of the homeric poems that every age seems to try to imitate them in its own special mannerisms, and that, consequently, no age is satisfied with the attempts of another. it is a second, that those who know the original demur at all. the characteristics of chapman, then, are very much those of jonson with a difference. both had the same incapacity of unlaboured and forceless art, the same insensibility to passion, the same inability to rise above mere humours and contemporary oddities into the region of universal poetry. both had the same extensive learning, the same immense energy, the same (if it must be said) arrogance and contempt of the vulgar. in casual strokes, though not in sustained grasp, chapman was jonson's superior; but unlike jonson he had no lyric gift, and unlike jonson he let his learning and his ambitious thought clog and obscure the flow of his english. nor does he show in any of his original work the creative force of his younger friend. with the highest opinion reasonably possible of chapman's dramas, we cannot imagine him for a moment composing a _volpone_ or an _alchemist_--even a _bartholomew fair_; while he was equally, or still more, incapable of jonson's triumphs in epigram and epitaph, in song and ode. a certain shapelessness is characteristic of everything that chapman did--an inability, as mr. swinburne (to whom every one who now writes on chapman must acknowledge indebtedness), has said, "to clear his mouth of pebbles, and his brow of fog." his long literary life, which must have exceeded half a century, and his great learning, forbid our setting this down as it may be set in the case of many of his contemporaries, and especially in the case of those two to whom we are now coming, as due to youth, to the imperfect state of surrounding culture, to want of time for perfecting his work, and so forth. he is the "bègue de vilaines," the heroic stammerer of english literature--a man who evidently had some congenital defect which all his fire and force, all his care and curiosity, could not overcome. yet are his doings great, and it is at least probable that if he had felt less difficulty in original work, he would not have been prompted to set about and finish the noble work of translation which is among the best products of an unsatisfactory kind, and which will outlive the cavils of generations of etymologists and aorist-grinders. he has been so little read that four specimens of his different manners--the early "tenebrous" style of _the shadow of night_, the famous passage from _bussy d'ambois_ which excited lamb's enthusiasm, and a sample from both _iliad_ and _odyssey_--may be given: "in this vast thicket (whose description's task the pens of fairies and of fiends would ask: so more than human-thoughted horrible) the souls of such as lived implausible, in happy empire of this goddess' glories, and scorned to crown her fanes with sacrifice,[ ] did ceaseless walk; exspiring fearful groans, curses and threats for their confusions. her darts, and arrows, some of them had slain: others her dogs eat, painting her disdain, after she had transformed them into beasts: others her monsters carried to their nests, rent them in pieces, and their spirits sent to this blind shade, to wail their banishment. the huntsmen hearing (since they could not hear) their hounds at fault, in eager chase drew near, mounted on lions, unicorns, and boars, and saw their hounds lie licking of their sores some yearning at the shroud, as if they chid her stinging tongues, that did their chase forbid: by which they knew the game was that way gone. then each man forced the beast he rode upon, t' assault the thicket; whose repulsive thorns so gall'd the lions, boars, and unicorns, dragons and wolves, that half their courages were spent in roars, and sounds of heaviness: yet being the princeliest, and hardiest beasts, that gave chief fame to those ortygian forests, and all their riders furious of their sport, a fresh assault they gave, in desperate sort: and with their falchions made their way in wounds, the thicket open'd, and let in the hounds." [ ] the rhyme, bad as it is, is not unprecedented. * * * * * _bu._ "what dismal change is here; the good old friar is murther'd, being made known to serve my love; and now his restless spirit would forewarn me of some plot dangerous and imminent. note what he wants? he wants his upper weed, he wants his life and body; which of these should be the want he means, and may supply me with any fit forewarning? this strange vision (together with the dark prediction used by the prince of darkness that was raised by this embodied shadow) stir my thoughts with reminiscion of the spirit's promise, who told me, that by any invocation i should have power to raise him, though it wanted the powerful words and decent rites of art; never had my set brain such need of spirit t' instruct and cheer it; now, then, i will claim performance of his free and gentle vow t' appear in greater light and make more plain his rugged oracle. i long to know how my dear mistress fares, and be inform'd what hand she now holds on the troubled blood of her incensed lord. methought the spirit (when he had utter'd his perplex'd presage) threw his changed countenance headlong into clouds, his forehead bent, as it would hide his face, he knock'd his chin against his darken'd breast, and struck a churlish silence through his powers. terror of darkness! o, thou king of flames! that with thy music-footed horse dost strike the clear light out of crystal on dark earth, and hurl'st instructive fire about the world, wake, wake, the drowsy and enchanted night that sleeps with dead eyes in this heavy riddle; or thou great prince of shades where never sun sticks his far darted beams, whose eyes are made to shine in darkness, and see ever best where sense is blindest: open now the heart of thy abashed oracle, that for fear of some ill it includes, would fain lie hid, and rise thou with it in thy greater light." * * * * * "for hector's glory still he stood, and ever went about to make him cast the fleet such fire, as never should go out; heard thetis' foul petition, and wished in any wise the splendour of the burning ships might satiate his eyes.[ ] from him yet the repulse was then to be on troy conferred, the honour of it given the greeks; which thinking on, he stirr'd with such addition of his spirit, the spirit hector bore to burn the fleet, that of itself was hot enough before. but now he fared like mars himself, so brandishing his lance as, through the deep shades of a wood, a raging fire should glance, held up to all eyes by a hill; about his lips a foam stood as when th' ocean is enraged; his eyes were overcome with fervour and resembled flames, set off by his dark brows, and from his temples his bright helm abhorrèd lightnings throws; for jove, from forth the sphere of stars, to his state put his own and all the blaze of both the hosts confined in him alone. and all this was, since after this he had not long to live, this lightning flew before his death, which pallas was to give (a small time thence, and now prepared) beneath the violence of great pelides. in meantime, his present eminence thought all things under it; and he, still where he saw the stands of greatest strength and bravest arm'd, there he would prove his hands, or no where; offering to break through, but that passed all his power although his will were past all theirs, they stood him like a tower conjoined so firm, that as a rock, exceeding high and great, and standing near the hoary sea, bears many a boisterous threat of high-voiced winds and billows huge, belched on it by the storms; so stood the greeks great hector's charge, nor stirred their battellous forms." [ ] this line alone would suffice to exhibit chapman's own splendour at his best. * * * * * "this the goddess told, and then the morning in her throne of gold surveyed the vast world; by whose orient light the nymph adorn'd me with attires as bright, her own hands putting on both shirt and weed robes fine, and curious, and upon my head an ornament that glittered like a flame; girt me in gold; and forth betimes i came amongst my soldiers, roused them all from sleep, and bade them now no more observance keep of ease, and feast, but straight a shipboard fall, for now the goddess had inform'd me all. their noble spirits agreed; nor yet so clear could i bring all off, but elpenor there his heedless life left. he was youngest man of all my company, and one that wan least fame for arms, as little for his brain; who (too much steep'd in wine and so made fain to get refreshing by the cool of sleep, apart his fellows plung'd in vapours deep, and they as high in tumult of their way) suddenly waked and (quite out of the stay a sober mind had given him) would descend a huge long ladder, forward, and an end fell from the very roof, full pitching on the dearest joint his head was placed upon, which quite dissolved, let loose his soul to hell." with regard to marston (of whose little-known personality something has been said in connection with his satires) i find myself somewhat unable to agree with the generality of critics, who seem to me to have been rather taken in by his blood-and-thunder work, his transpontine declamation against tyrants, and his affectation of a gloomy or furious scorn against mankind. the uncouthness, as well as the suspicion of insincerity, which we noted in his satirical work, extend, as it seems to me, also to his dramas; and if we class him as a worker in horrors with marlowe earlier, and with webster and ford later, the chief result will be to show his extreme inferiority to them. he is even below tourneur in this respect, while, like tourneur, he is exposed to the charge of utterly neglecting congruity and proportion. with him we relapse not merely from the luminous perfection of shakespere, from the sane order of work which was continued through fletcher, and the best of fletcher's followers, but from the more artificial unity of jonson, back into the chaotic extravagances of the first period. marston, like the rest, is fond of laughing at _jeronimo_, but his own tragic construction and some of his own tragic scenes are hardly less bombastic, and scarcely at all less promiscuous than the tangled horrors of that famous melodrama. marston, it is true, has lucid intervals--even many of them. hazlitt has succeeded in quoting many beautiful passages, one of which was curiously echoed in the next age by nat. lee, in whom, indeed, there was a strong vein of elizabethan melodrama. the sarcasm on philosophical study in _what you will_ is one of the very best things of its own kind in the range of english drama,--light, sustained, not too long nor too short, in fact, thoroughly "hit off." "_delight_ my spaniel slept, whilst i baused[ ] leaves, tossed o'er the dunces, pored on the old print of titled words, and still my spaniel slept. whilst i wasted lamp oil, bated my flesh, shrunk up my veins, and still my spaniel slept, and still i held converse with zabarell, aquinas, scotus, and the musty saws of antique donate: still my spaniel slept. still on went i: first _an sit anima_, then, an' 'twere mortal. o hold, hold! at that they are at brain buffets, fell by the ears, amain [pell-mell] together--still my spaniel slept. then whether 'twere corporeal, local, fixed, _ex traduce_; but whether 't had free will or no, hot philosophers stood banding factions all so strongly propped, i staggered, knew not which was firmer part; but thought, quoted, read, observed and pried, stuffed noting-books, and still my spaniel slept. at length he waked and yawned, and by yon sky for aught i know, he knew as much as i." [ ] kissed. there is real pathos in _antonio and mellida_, and real satire in _parasitaster_ and _the malcontent_. hazlitt (who had a very high opinion of marston) admits that the remarkable inequalities of this last piece "seem to show want of interest in the subject." this is an odd explanation, but i suspect it is really only an anticipation in more favourable words of my own theory, that marston's tragic and satiric moods were not really sincere; that he was a clever man who found a fashion of satire and a fashion of blood-and-thunder tragedy prevailing, and threw himself into both without much or any heart in the matter. this is supported by the curious fact that almost all his plays (at least those extant) were produced within a very few years, - , though he lived some thirty years after the latter date, and quite twenty after his last dated appearances in literature, _the insatiate countess_, and _eastward ho!_ that he was an ill-tempered person with considerable talents, who succeeded, at any rate for a time, in mistaking his ill-temper for _sæva indignatio_, and his talents for genius, is not, i think, too harsh a description of marston. in the hotbed of the literary influences of the time these conditions of his produced some remarkable fruit. but when the late professor minto attributes to him "amazing and almost titanic energy," mentions "life" several times over as one of the chief characteristics of his personages (i should say that they had as much life as violently-moved marionettes), and discovers "amiable and admirable characters" among them, i am compelled not, of course, to be positive that my own very different estimate is right, but to wonder at the singularly different way in which the same things strike different persons, who are not as a rule likely to look at them from very different points of view. marston's plays, however, are both powerful enough and famous enough to call for a somewhat more detailed notice. _antonio and mellida_, the earliest and if not the best as a whole, that which contains the finest scenes and fragments, is in two parts--the second being more properly called _the revenge of antonio_. the revenge itself is of the exaggerated character which was so popular with the elizabethan dramatists, but in which (except in the famous cornwall and gloucester scene in _lear_) shakespere never indulged after his earliest days. the wicked tyrant's tongue is torn out, his murdered son's body is thrown down before him, and then the conspirators, standing round, gibe, curse, and rant at him for a couple of pages before they plunge their swords into his body. this goodly conclusion is led up to by a sufficient quantity of antecedent and casual crimes, together with much not very excellent fooling by a court gull, balurdo, who might be compared with shakespere's fools of the same kind, to the very great advantage of those who do not appreciate the latter. the beautiful descriptive and reflective passages which, in lamb's _extracts_, gave the play its reputation, chiefly occur towards the beginning, and this is the best of them:-- _and._ "why man, i never was a prince till now. 'tis not the bared pate, the bended knees, gilt tipstaves, tyrian purple, chairs of state, troops of pied butterflies, that flutter still in greatness summer, that confirm a prince: 'tis not the unsavoury breath of multitudes, shouting and clapping, with confused din; that makes a prince. no, lucio, he's a king, a true right king, that dares do aught save wrong, fears nothing mortal, but to be unjust, who is not blown up with the flattering puffs of spungy sycophants: who stands unmov'd despite the jostling of opinion: who can enjoy himself, maugre the throng that strive to press his quiet out of him: who sits upon jove's footstool as i do adoring, not affecting majesty: whose brow is wreathèd with the silver crown of clear content: this, lucio, is a king, and of this empire, every man's possessed that's worth his soul." _sophonisba_, which followed, is much less rambling, but as bloody and extravagant. the scene where the witch erichtho plays succubus to syphax, instead of the heroine, and in her form, has touches which partly, but not wholly, redeem its extravagance, and the end is dignified and good. _what you will_, a comedy of intrigue, is necessarily free from marston's worst faults, and here the admirable passage quoted above occurs. but the main plot--which turns not only on the courtship, by a mere fribble, of a lady whose husband is supposed to be dead, and who has very complacently forgotten all about him, but on a ridiculous plot to foist a pretender off as the dead husband itself--is simply absurd. the lack of probability, which is the curse of the minor elizabethan drama, hardly anywhere appears more glaringly. _parasitaster_, or _the fawn_, a satirical comedy, is much better, but the jealous hatred of _the dutch courtesan_ is again not made probable. then came marston's completest work in drama, _the malcontent_, an anticipation, after elizabethan fashion, of _le misanthrope_ and _the plain dealer_. though not free from marston's two chief vices of coarseness and exaggerated cynicism, it is a play of great merit, and much the best thing he has done, though the reconciliation, at the end, of such a husband and such a wife as piero and aurelia, between whom there is a chasm of adultery and murder, again lacks verisimilitude. it is to be observed that both in _the fawn_ and _the malcontent_ there are disguised dukes--a fact not testifying any very great originality, even in borrowing. of _eastward ho!_ we have already spoken, and it is by no means certain that _the insatiate countess_ is marston's. his reputation would not lose much were it not. a _fabliau_-like underplot of the machinations of two light-o'-love citizens' wives against their husbands is not unamusing, but the main story of the countess isabella, a modern messalina (except that she adds cruelty to the vices of messalina) who alternately courts lovers and induces their successors to assassinate them, is in the worst style of the whole time--the tragedy of lust that is not dignified by the slightest passion, and of murder that is not excused by the slightest poetry of motive or treatment. though the writing is not of the lowest order, it might have been composed by any one of some thirty or forty writers. it was actually attributed at the time to william barksted, a minor poet of some power, and i am inclined to think it not marston's, though my own estimate of him is, as will have been seen, not so high as some other estimates. it is because those estimates appear to me unduly high that i have rather accentuated the expression of my own lower one. for the last century, and perhaps longer, the language of hyperbole has been but too common about our dramatists, and i have known more than one case in which the extravagant praise bestowed upon them has, when students have come to the works themselves, had a very disastrous effect of disappointment. it is, therefore, all the more necessary to be candid in criticism where criticism seems to be required. as to the last of our good company, there is fortunately very little risk of difference of opinion. a hundred years ago thomas dekker was probably little more than a name to all but professed students of elizabethan literature, and he waited longer than any of his fellows for due recognition by presentation of his work in a complete form. it was not until the year that his plays were collected; it was not till eleven years later that his prose works had the same honour. yet, since attention was directed to dekker in any way, the best authorities have been unanimous in his praise. lamb's famous outburst of enthusiasm, that he had "poetry enough for anything," has been soberly endorsed by two full generations of the best judges, and whatever differences of detail there may be as to his work, it is becoming more and more the received, and correctly-received opinion, that, as his collaborator webster came nearest to shakespere in universalising certain types in the severer tragedy, so dekker has the same honour on the gently pathetic side. yet this great honour is done to one of the most shadowy personalities in literature. we have four goodly volumes of his plays and five of his other works; yet of thomas dekker, the man, we know absolutely less than of any one of his shadowy fellows. we do not know when he was born, when he died, what he did other than writing in the certainly long space between the two unknown dates. in he was by his own words a man of threescore, which, as it has been justly remarked, may mean anything between fifty-five and seventy. he was in circumstances a complete contrast to his fellow-victim in jonson's satire, marston. marston was apparently a gentleman born and bred, well connected, well educated, possessed of some property, able to make testamentary dispositions, and probably in the latter part of his life, when dekker was still toiling at journalism of various kinds, a beneficed clergyman in country retirement. dekker was, it is to be feared, what the arrogance of certain members of the literary profession has called, and calls, a gutter-journalist--a man who had no regular preparation for the literary career, and who never produced anything but hand-to-mouth work. jonson went so far as to say that he was a "rogue;" but ben, though certainly not a rogue, was himself not to be trusted when he spoke of people that he did not like; and if there was any but innocent roguery in dekker he has contrived to leave exactly the opposite impression stamped on every piece of his work. and it is particularly interesting to note, that constantly as he wrote in collaboration, one invariable tone, and that the same as is to be found in his undoubtedly independent work, appears alike in plays signed with him by persons so different as middleton and webster, as chettle and ford. when this is the case, the inference is certain, according to the strictest rules of logic. we can define dekker's idiosyncrasy almost more certainly than if he had never written a line except under his own name. that idiosyncrasy consists, first, of an exquisite lyrical faculty, which, in the songs given in all collections of extracts, equals, or almost equals, that of shakespere; secondly, of a faculty for poetical comedy, for the comedy which transcends and plays with, rather than grasps and exposes, the vices and follies of men; thirdly, for a touch of pathos again to be evened only to shakespere's; and lastly, for a knack of representing women's nature, for which, except in the master of all, we may look in vain throughout the plentiful dramatic literature of the period, though touches of it appear in greene's margaret of fressingfield, in heywood, in middleton, and in some of the anonymous plays which have been fathered indifferently, and with indifferent hopelessness of identification, on some of the greatest of names of the period, on some of the meanest, and on an equal number of those that are neither great nor mean. dekker's very interesting prose works we shall treat in the next chapter, together with the other tracts into whose class they fall, and some of his plays may either go unnoticed, or, with those of the dramatists who collaborated with him, and whose (notably in the case of _the roaring girl_) they pretty evidently were more than his. his own characteristic pieces, or those in which his touch shows most clearly, though they may not be his entirely, are _the shoemaker's holiday_, _old fortunatus_, _satiromastix_, _patient grissil_, _the honest whore_, _the whore of babylon_, _if it be not good the devil is in it_, _the virgin martyr_, _match me in london_, _the son's darling_, and _the witch of edmonton_. in everyone of these the same characteristics appear, but the strangely composite fashion of writing of the time makes them appear in differing measures. _the shoemaker's holiday_ is one of those innumerable and yet singular pieces in which the taste of the time seems to have so much delighted, and which seem so odd to modern taste,--pieces in which a plot or underplot, as the case may be, of the purest comedy of manners, a mere picture of the life, generally the lower middle-class life of the time, is united with hardly a thought of real dramatic conjunction to another plot of a romantic kind, in which noble and royal personages, with, it may be, a dash of history, play their parts. the crowning instance of this is middleton's _mayor of queenborough_; but there are scores and hundreds of others, and dekker specially affects it. _the shoemaker's holiday_ is principally distinguished by the directness and raciness of its citizen sketches. _satiromastix_ (the second title of which is "the untrussing of the humorous poet") is dekker's reply to _the poetaster_, in which he endeavours to retort jonson's own machinery upon him. with his customary disregard of congruity, however, he has mixed up the personages of horace, crispinus, demetrius, and tucca, not with a roman setting, but with a purely romantic story of william rufus and sir walter tyrrel, and the king's attempt upon the fidelity of tyrrel's bride. this incongruous mixture gives one of the most charming scenes of his pen, the apparent poisoning of celestina by her father to save her honour. but as lamb himself candidly confessed, the effect of this in the original is marred, if not ruined, by the farcical surroundings, and the more farcical upshot of the scene itself,--the poisoning being, like juliet's, a mere trick, though very differently fortuned. in _patient grissil_ the two exquisite songs, "art thou poor" and "golden slumbers kiss thine eyes," and the sympathetic handling of griselda's character (the one of all others to appeal to dekker) mark his work. in all the other plays the same notes appear, and there is no doubt that mr. swinburne is wholly right in singling out from _the witch of edmonton_ the feminine characters of susan, winifred, and the witch herself, as showing dekker's unmatched command of the colours in which to paint womanhood. in the great debate as to the authorship of _the virgin martyr_, everything is so much conjecture that it is hard to pronounce authoritatively. gifford's cool assumption that everything bad in the play is dekker's, and everything good massinger's, will not hold for a moment; but, on the other side, it must be remembered that since lamb there has been a distinct tendency to depreciate massinger. all that can be said is, that the grace and tenderness of the virgin's part are much more in accordance with what is certainly dekker's than with what is certainly massinger's, and that either was quite capable of the hircius and spungius passages which have excited so much disgust and indignation--disgust and indignation which perhaps overlook the fact that they were no doubt inserted with the express purpose of heightening, by however clumsily designed a contrast, the virgin purity of dorothea the saint. it will be seen that i have reserved _old fortunatus_ and _the honest whore_ for separate notice. they illustrate, respectively, the power which dekker has in romantic poetry, and his command of vivid, tender, and subtle portraiture in the characters, especially, of women. both, and especially the earlier play, exhibit also his rapid careless writing, and his ignorance of, or indifference to, the construction of a clear and distinctly outlined plot. _old fortunatus_ tells the well-known story of the wishing cap and purse, with a kind of addition showing how these fare in the hands of _fortunatus's_ sons, and with a wild intermixture (according to the luckless habit above noted) of kings and lords, and pseudo-historical incidents. no example of the kind is more chaotic in movement and action. but the interlude of fortune with which it is ushered in is conceived in the highest romantic spirit, and told in verse of wonderful effectiveness, not to mention two beautiful songs; and throughout the play the allegorical or supernatural passages show the same character. nor are the more prosaic parts inferior, as, for instance, the pretty dialogue of orleans and galloway, cited by lamb, and the fine passage where andelocia says what he will do "to-morrow." _fort._ "no more: curse on: your cries to me are music, and fill the sacred roundure of mine ears with tunes more sweet than moving of the spheres. curse on: on our celestial brows do sit unnumbered smiles, which then leap from their throne when they see peasants dance and monarchs groan. behold you not this globe, this golden bowl, this toy call'd world at our imperial feet? this world is fortune's ball wherewith she sports. sometimes i strike it up into the air, and then create i emperors and kings. sometimes i spurn it: at which spurn crawls out that wild beast multitude: curse on, you fools. 'tis i that tumble princes from their thrones, and gild false brows with glittering diadems. 'tis i that tread on necks of conquerors, and when like semi-gods they have been drawn, in ivory chariots to the capitol, circled about with wonder of all eyes the shouts of every tongue, love of all hearts being swoll'n with their own greatness, i have prick'd the bladder of their pride, and made them die, as water bubbles, without memory. i thrust base cowards into honour's chair, whilst the true spirited soldier stands by bare headed, and all bare, whilst at his scars they scoff, that ne'er durst view the face of wars. i set an idiot's cap on virtue's head, turn learning out of doors, clothe wit in rags and paint ten thousand images of loam in gaudy silken colours: on the backs of mules and asses i make asses ride only for sport, to see the apish world worship such beasts with sound idolatry. this fortune does, and when this is done, she sits and smiles to hear some curse her name, and some with adoration crown her fame. * * * * * _and._ "to-morrow? ay to-morrow thou shalt buy them. to-morrow tell the princess i will love her, to-morrow tell the king i'll banquet him, to-morrow, shadow, will i give thee gold, to-morrow pride goes bare, and lust a-cold. to-morrow will the rich man feed the poor, and vice to-morrow virtue will adore. to-morrow beggars shall be crownèd kings. this no-time, morrow's time, no sweetness sings. i pray thee hence: bear that to agripyne." the whole is, as a whole, to the last degree crude and undigested, but the ill-matured power of the writer is almost the more apparent. _the honest whore_, in two parts, is, as far as general character goes, a mixed comedy of intrigue and manners combining, or rather uniting (for there is little combination of them), four themes--first, the love of hippolito for the princess infelice, and his virtuous motions followed by relapse; secondly, the conversion by him of the courtesan bellafront, a damsel of good family, from her evil ways, and her marriage to her first gallant, a hairbrained courtier named matheo; thirdly, matheo's ill-treatment of bellafront, her constancy and her rejection of the temptations of hippolito, who from apostle has turned seducer, with the humours of orlando friscobaldo, bellafront's father, who, feigning never to forgive her, watches over her in disguise, and acts as guardian angel to her reckless and sometimes brutal husband; and lastly, the other humours of a certain marvellously patient citizen who allows his wife to hector him, his customers to bully and cheat him, and who pushes his eccentric and unmanly patience to the point of enduring both madhouse and jail. lamb, while ranking a single speech of bellafront's very high, speaks with rather oblique approval of the play, and hazlitt, though enthusiastic for it, admires chiefly old friscobaldo and the ne'er-do-well matheo. my own reason for preferring it to almost all the non-tragical work of the time out of shakespere, is the wonderful character of bellafront, both in her unreclaimed and her reclaimed condition. in both she is a very woman--not as conventional satirists and conventional encomiasts praise or rail at women, but as women are. if her language in her unregenerate days is sometimes coarser than is altogether pleasant, it does not disguise her nature,--the very nature of such a woman misled by giddiness, by curiosity, by love of pleasure, by love of admiration, but in no thorough sense depraved. her selection of matheo not as the instrument of her being "made an honest woman," not apparently because she had any love for him left, or had ever had much, but because he was her first seducer, is exactly what, after a sudden convincing of sin, such a woman would have done; and if her patience under the long trial of her husband's thoughtlessness and occasional brutality seem excessive, it will only seem so to one who has been unlucky in his experience. matheo indeed is a thorough good-for-nothing, and the natural man longs that bellafront might have been better parted; but dekker was a very moral person in his own way, and apparently he would not entirely let her--imogen gone astray as she is--off her penance. chapter vi later elizabethan and jacobean prose one name so far dominates the prose literature of the last years of elizabeth, and that of the whole reign of james, that it has probably alone secured attention in the general memory, except such as may be given to the purple patches (of the true tyrian dye, but not extremely numerous) which decorate here and there the somewhat featureless expanse of sir walter raleigh's _history of the world_. that name, it is scarcely necessary to say, is the name of francis bacon. bacon's eventful life, his much debated character, his philosophical and scientific position, are all matters beyond our subject. but as it is of the first importance in studying that subject to keep dates and circumstances generally, if not minutely, in view, it may be well to give a brief summary of his career. he was born in , the son of sir nicholas bacon, lord keeper; he went very young to cambridge, and though early put to the study of the law, discovered an equally early bent in another direction. he was unfortunate in not obtaining the patronage then necessary to all men not of independent fortune. though elizabeth was personally familiar with him, she gave him nothing of importance--whether owing to the jealousy of his uncle and cousin, burleigh and robert cecil, is a point not quite certain. the patronage of essex did him very little good, and drew him into the worst action of his life. but after elizabeth's death, and when a man of middle age, he at last began to mount the ladder, and came with some rapidity to the summit of his profession, being made lord chancellor, and created baron verulam and viscount st. alban. the title lord bacon he never bore in strictness, but it has been consecrated by the use of many generations, and it is perhaps pedantry to object to it. entangled as a courtier in the rising hatred of the court felt by the popular party, exposed by his own carelessness, if not by actual venality in office, to the attacks of his enemies, and weakly supported, if supported at all, by the favourite buckingham (who seems to have thought that bacon took too much upon himself in state affairs), he lost, in , all his places and emoluments, and was heavily fined. the retirement of his last few years produced much literary fruit, and he died (his death being caused or hastened by an injudicious experiment) in . great as is the place that bacon occupies in english literature, he occupies it, as it were, _malgré lui_. unlike almost all the greatest men of his own and even of the preceding generation, he seems to have thought little of the capacities, and less of the chances of the english language. he held (and, unluckily for him, expressed his opinion in writing) that "these modern languages will at one time or the other play the bankrupt with books," and even when he wrote in the despised vernacular he took care to translate his work, or have it translated, into latin in order to forestall the oblivion he dreaded. nor is this his only phrase of contempt towards his mother-tongue--the tongue which in his own lifetime served as a vehicle to a literature compared with which the whole literary achievement of latin antiquity is but a neat school exercise, and which in every point but accomplished precision of form may challenge comparison with greek itself. this insensibility of bacon's is characteristic enough, and might, if this were the place for any such subtlety, be connected with the other defects of his strangely blended character--his pusillanimity, his lack of passion (let any one read the essay on love, and remember that some persons, not always inmates of lunatic asylums, have held that bacon wrote the plays of shakespere), his love of empty pomp and display, and so forth. but the english language which he thus despised had a noble and worthy revenge on bacon. of his latin works hardly anything but the _novum organum_ is now read even for scholastic purposes, and it is not certain that, but for the saving influences of academical study and prescription, even that might not slip out of the knowledge of all but specialists. but with the wider and wider spread and study of english the _essays_ and _the advancement of learning_ are read ever more and more, and the only reason that _the history of henry vii._, _the new atlantis_, and the _sylva sylvarum_ do not receive equal attention, lies in the comparative obsoleteness of their matter, combined with the fact that the matter is the chief thing on which attention is bestowed in them. even in the two works noted, the _essays_ and _the advancement_, which can go both together in a small volume, bacon shows himself at his very greatest in all respects, and (ignorant or careless as he was of the fact) as one of the greatest writers of english prose before the accession of charles i. the characteristics of style in these two works are by no means the same; but between them they represent fairly enough the characteristics of all bacon's english prose. it might indeed be desirable in studying it to add to them the _henry the seventh_, which is a model of clear historical narration, not exactly picturesque, but never dull; and though not exactly erudite, yet by no means wanting in erudition, and exhibiting conclusions which, after two centuries and a half of record-grubbing, have not been seriously impugned or greatly altered by any modern historian. in this book, which was written late, bacon had, of course, the advantage of his long previous training in the actual politics of a school not very greatly altered since the time he was describing, but this does not diminish the credit due to him for formal excellence. the _essays_--which bacon issued for the first time, to the number of ten, in , when he was, comparatively speaking, a young man, which he reissued largely augmented in , and yet again just before his death, in their final and fullest condition--are not so much in the modern sense essays as collections of thoughts more or less connected. we have, indeed, the genesis of them in the very interesting commonplace book called the _promus_ [butler or storekeeper] _of elegancies_, the publication of which, as a whole, was for some reason or other not undertaken by mr. spedding, and is due to mrs. henry pott. here we have the quaint, but never merely quaint, analogies, the apt quotations, the singular flashes of reflection and illustration, which characterise bacon, in their most unformed and new-born condition. in the _essays_ they are worked together, but still sententiously, and evidently with no attempt at sustained and fluent connection of style. that montaigne must have had some influence on bacon is, of course, certain; though few things can be more unlike than the curt severity of the scheme of the english essays and the interminable diffuseness of the french. yet here and there are passages in montaigne which might almost be the work of a french bacon, and in bacon passages which might easily be the work of an english montaigne. in both there is the same odd mixture of dignity and familiarity--the familiarity predominating in montaigne, the dignity in bacon--and in both there is the union of a rich fancy and a profound interest in ethical questions, with a curious absence of passion and enthusiasm--a touch, as it may almost be called, of philistinism, which in bacon's case contrasts most strangely with his frequently gorgeous language, and the evident richness of his imagination, or at least his fancy. the scheme and manner of these essays naturally induced a sententious and almost undeveloped manner of writing. an extraordinary number of separate phrases and sentences, which have become the common property of all who use the language, and are probably most often used without any clear idea of their author, may be disinterred from them, as well as many striking images and pregnant thoughts, which have had less general currency. but the compression of them (which is often so great that they might be printed sentence by sentence like verses of the bible) prevents the author from displaying his command of a consecutive, elaborated, and harmonised style. what command he had of that style may be found, without looking far, in the _henry the seventh_, in the _atlantis_, and in various minor works, some originally written in latin and translated, such as the magnificent passage which dean church has selected as describing the purpose and crown of the baconian system. in such passages the purely oratorical faculty which he undoubtedly had (though like all the earlier oratory of england, with rare exceptions, its examples remain a mere tradition, and hardly even that) displays itself; and one cannot help regretting that, instead of going into the law, where he never attained to much technical excellence, and where his mere promotion was at first slow, and was no sooner quickened than it brought him into difficulties and dangers, he had not sought the safer and calmer haven of the church, where he would have been more at leisure to "take all knowledge to be his province;" would have been less tempted to engage in the treacherous, and to him always but half-congenial, business of politics, and would have forestalled, and perhaps excelled, jeremy taylor as a sacred orator. if bacon be jeremy's inferior in exuberant gorgeousness, he is very much his superior in order and proportion, and quite his equal in sudden flashes of a quaint but illuminative rhetoric. for after all that has been said of bacon and his philosophy, he was a rhetorician rather than a philosopher. half the puzzlement which has arisen in the efforts to get something exact out of the stately periods and splendid promises of the _novum organum_ and its companions has arisen from oversight of this eminently rhetorical character; and this character is the chief property of his style. it may seem presumptuous to extend the charges of want of depth which were formulated by good authorities in law and physics against bacon in his own day, yet he is everywhere "not deep." he is stimulating beyond the recorded power of any other man except socrates; he is inexhaustible in analogy and illustration, full of wise saws, and of instances as well ancient as modern. but he is by no means an accurate expositor, still less a powerful reasoner, and his style is exactly suited to his mental gifts; now luminously fluent, now pregnantly brief; here just obscure enough to kindle the reader's desire of penetrating the obscurity, there flashing with ornament which perhaps serves to conceal a flaw in the reasoning, but which certainly serves to allure and retain the attention of the student. all these characteristics are the characteristics rather of the great orator than of the great philosopher. his constant practice in every kind of literary composition, and in the meditative thought which constant literary composition perhaps sometimes tempts its practitioners to dispense with, enabled him to write on a vast variety of subjects, and in many different styles. but of these it will always be found that two were most familiar to him, the short sententious apothegm, parallel, or image, which suggests and stimulates even when it does not instruct, and the half-hortatory half-descriptive _discours d'ouverture_, where the writer is the unwearied panegyrist of promised lands not perhaps to be identified with great ease on any chart.[ ] [ ] of bacon in prose, as of spenser, shakespere, and milton in verse, it does not seem necessary to give extracts, and for the same reason. a parallel in the plutarchian manner between bacon and raleigh would in many ways be pleasant, but only one point of it concerns us here,--that both had been happier and perhaps had done greater things had they been simple men of letters. unlike bacon, who, though he wrote fair verse, shows no poetical bent, raleigh was _homo utriusque linguæ_, and his works in verse, unequal as they are, occasionally touch the loftiest summits of poetry. it is very much the same in his prose. his minor books, mostly written hurriedly, and for a purpose, have hardly any share of the graces of style; and his masterpiece, the famous _history of the world_, is made up of short passages of the most extraordinary beauty, and long stretches of monotonous narration and digression, showing not much grace of style, and absolutely no sense of proportion or skill in arrangement. the contrast is so strange that some have sought to see in the undoubted facts that raleigh, in his tedious prison labours, had assistants and helpers (ben jonson among others), a reason for the superior excellence of such set pieces as the preface, the epilogue, and others, which are scattered about the course of the work. but independently of the other fact that excellence of the most diverse kind meets us at every turn, though it also deserts us at every turn, in raleigh's varied literary work, and that it would be absurd to attribute all these passages to some "affable familiar ghost," there is the additional difficulty that in none of his reported helpers' own work do the peculiar graces of the purple passages of the _history_ occur. the immortal descant on mortality with which the book closes, and which is one of the highest achievements of english prose, is not in the least like jonson, not in the least like selden, not in the least like any one of whose connection with raleigh there is record. donne might have written it; but there is not the smallest reason for supposing that he did, and many for being certain that he did not. therefore, it is only fair to give raleigh himself the credit for this and all other passages of the kind. their character and, at the same time, their comparative rarity are both easily explicable. they are all obviously struck off in moments of excitement--moments when the writer's variable and fanciful temperament was heated to flashing-point and gave off almost spontaneously these lightnings of prose as it gave, on other occasions, such lightnings of poetry as _the faërie queene_ sonnet, as "the lie," and as the other strange jewels (cats' eyes and opals, rather than pearls or diamonds), which are strung along with very many common pebbles on raleigh's poetical necklace. in style they anticipate browne (who probably learnt not a little from them) more than any other writer; and they cannot fairly be said to have been anticipated by any englishman. the low and stately music of their cadences is a thing, except in browne, almost unique, and it is not easy to trace it to any peculiar mannerism of vocabulary or of the arrangement of words. but raleigh's usual style differs very little from that of other men of his day, who kept clear at once of euphuism and burlesque. being chiefly narrative, it is rather plainer than hooker, who has some few points of resemblance with raleigh, but considerably freer from the vices of desultoriness and awkward syntax, than most writers of the day except hooker. but its most interesting characteristic to the student of literature must always be the way in which it leads up to, without in the least foretelling, the bursts of eloquence already referred to. even milton's alternations of splendid imagery with dull and scurrilous invective, are hardly so strange as raleigh's changes from jog-trot commonplace to almost inspired declamation, if only for the reason that they are much more intelligible. it must also be mentioned that raleigh, like milton, seems to have had little or no humour. the opening and closing passages of the _history_ are almost universally known; a quainter, less splendid, but equally characteristic one may be given here though mr. arber has already extracted it:-- "the four complexions resemble the four elements; and the seven ages of man, the seven planets. whereof our infancy is compared to the moon; in which we seem only to live and grow, as plants. "the second age, to mercury; wherein we are taught and instructed. "our third age, to venus; the days of love, desire and vanity. "the fourth, to the sun; the strong, flourishing and beautiful age of man's life. "the fifth, to mars; in which we seek honour and victory; and in which our thoughts travel to ambitious ends. "the sixth age is ascribed to jupiter; in which we begin to take account of our times, judge of ourselves, and grow to the perfection of our understanding. "the last and seventh, to saturn; wherein our days are sad and overcast; and in which we find by dear and lamentable experience, and by the loss which can never be repaired, that, of all our vain passions and affections past, the sorrow only abideth. our attendants are sicknesses and variable infirmities: and by how much the more we are accompanied with plenty, by so much the more greedily is our end desired. whom, when time hath made unsociable to others, we become a burden to ourselves: being of no other use than to hold the riches we have from our successors. in this time it is, when we, for the most part (and never before) prepare for our eternal habitation, which we pass on unto with many sighs, groans and sad thoughts: and in the end (by the workmanship of death) finish the sorrowful business of a wretched life. towards which we always travel, both sleeping and waking. neither have those beloved companions of honour and riches any power at all to hold us any one day by the glorious promise of entertainments: but by what crooked path soever we walk, the same leadeth on directly to the house of death, whose doors lie open at all hours, and to all persons." but great as are bacon and raleigh, they cannot approach, as writers of prose, the company of scholarly divines who produced--what is probably the greatest prose work in any language--the authorised version of the bible in english. now that there is at any rate some fear of this masterpiece ceasing to be what it has been for three centuries--the school and training ground of every man and woman of english speech in the noblest uses of english tongue--every one who values that mother tongue is more especially bound to put on record his own allegiance to it. the work of the company appears to have been loyally performed in common; and it is curious that such an unmatched result should have been the result of labours thus combined, and not, as far as is known, controlled by any one guiding spirit. among the translators were many excellent writers,--an advantage which they possessed in a much higher degree than their revisers in the nineteenth century, of whom few would be mentioned among the best living writers of english by any competent authority. but, at the same time, no known translator under james has left anything which at all equals in strictly literary merit the authorised version, as it still is and as long may it be. the fact is, however, less mysterious after a little examination than it may seem at first sight. putting aside all questions as to the intrinsic value of the subject-matter as out of our province, it will be generally admitted that the translators had in the greater part of the old testament, in a large part of the apocrypha, and in no small part of the new testament, matter as distinguished from form, of very high literary value to begin with in their originals. in the second place, they had, in the septuagint and in the vulgate, versions also of no small literary merit to help them. in the third place, they had in the earlier english versions excellent quarries of suitable english terms, if not very accomplished models of style. these, however, were not in any way advantages peculiar to themselves. the advantages which, in a manner at least, were peculiar to themselves may be divided into two classes. they were in the very centre of the great literary ferment of which in this volume i am striving to give a history as little inadequate as possible. they had in the air around them an english purged of archaisms and uncouthnesses, fully adapted to every literary purpose, and yet still racy of the soil, and free from that burden of hackneyed and outworn literary platitudes and commonplaces with which centuries of voluminous literary production have vitiated and loaded the english of our own day. they were not afraid of latinising, but they had an ample stock of the pure vernacular to draw on. these things may be classed together. on the other side, but equally healthful, may be put the fact that the style and structure of the originals and earlier versions, and especially that verse division which has been now so unwisely abandoned, served as safeguards against the besetting sin of all prose writers of their time, the habit of indulging in long wandering sentences, in paragraphs destitute of proportion and of grace, destitute even of ordinary manageableness and shape. the verses saved them from that once for all; while on the other hand their own taste, and the help given by the structure of the original in some cases, prevented them from losing sight of the wood for the trees, and omitting to consider the relation of verse to verse, as well as the antiphony of the clauses within the verse. men without literary faculty might no doubt have gone wrong; but these were men of great literary faculty, whose chief liabilities to error were guarded against precisely by the very conditions in which they found their work. the hour had come exactly, and so for once had the men. the result of their labours is so universally known that it is not necessary to say very much about it; but the mere fact of the universal knowledge carries with it a possibility of under-valuation. in another place, dealing with the general subject of english prose style, i have selected the sixth and seventh verses of the eighth chapter of solomon's song as the best example known to me of absolutely perfect english prose--harmonious, modulated, yet in no sense trespassing the limits of prose and becoming poetry. i have in the same place selected, as a companion passage from a very different original, the charity passage of the first epistle to the corinthians, which has been so miserably and wantonly mangled and spoilt by the bad taste and ignorance of the late revisers. i am tempted to dwell on this because it is very germane to our subject. one of the blunders which spoils this passage in the revised version is the pedantic substitution of "mirror" for "glass," it having apparently occurred to some wiseacre that glass was not known to the ancients, or at least used for mirrors. had this wiseacre had the slightest knowledge of english literature, a single title of gascoigne's, "the steel glass," would have dispensed him at once from any attempt at emendation; but this is ever and always the way of the sciolist. fortunately such a national possession as the original authorised version, when once multiplied and dispersed by the press, is out of reach of vandalism. the improved version, constructed on very much the same principle as davenant's or ravenscroft's improvements on shakespere, may be ordered to be read in churches, and substituted for purposes of taking oaths. but the original (as it may be called in no burlesque sense such as that of a famous story) will always be the text resorted to by scholars and men of letters for purposes of reading, and will remain the authentic lexicon, the recognised source of english words and constructions of the best period. the days of creation; the narratives of joseph and his brethren, of ruth, of the final defeat of ahab, of the discomfiture of the assyrian host of sennacherib; the moral discourses of ecclesiastes and ecclesiasticus and the book of wisdom; the poems of the psalms and the prophets; the visions of the revelation,--a hundred other passages which it is unnecessary to catalogue,--will always be the _ne plus ultra_ of english composition in their several kinds, and the storehouse from which generation after generation of writers, sometimes actually hostile to religion and often indifferent to it, will draw the materials, and not unfrequently the actual form of their most impassioned and elaborate passages. revision after revision, constructed in corrupt following of the transient and embarrassed phantoms of ephemeral fashion in scholarship, may sink into the great mother of dead dogs after setting right a tense here, and there transferring a rendering from text to margin or from margin to text. but the work of the unrevised version will remain unaffected by each of these futile exercitations. all the elements, all the circumstances of a translation as perfect as can be accomplished in any circumstances and with any elements, were then present, and the workers were worthy of the work. the plays of shakespere and the english bible are, and will ever be, the twin monuments not merely of their own period, but of the perfection of english, the complete expressions of the literary capacities of the language, at the time when it had lost none of its pristine vigour, and had put on enough but not too much of the adornments and the limitations of what may be called literary civilisation. the boundary between the prose of this period and that which we shall treat later as "caroline" is not very clearly fixed. some men, such as hall and donne, whose poetical work runs parallel to that in prose which we are now noticing, come as prose writers rather under the later date; others who continued to write till long after elizabeth's death, and even after that of james, seem, by their general complexion, to belong chiefly to the earlier day. the first of these is ben jonson, whose high reputation in other ways has somewhat unduly damaged, or at least obscured, his merits as a prose writer. his two chief works in this kind are his _english grammar_, in which a sound knowledge of the rules of english writing is discovered, and the quaintly named _explorata_ or _discoveries_ and _timber_--a collection of notes varying from a mere aphorism to a respectable essay. in these latter a singular power of writing prose appears. the book was not published till after ben's death, and is thought to have been in part at least written during the last years of his life. but there can be no greater contrast than exists between the prose style usual at that time--a _style tourmenté_, choked with quotation, twisted in every direction by allusion and conceit, and marred by perpetual confusions of english with classical grammar--and the straightforward, vigorous english of these _discoveries_. they come, in character as in time, midway between hooker and dryden, and they incline rather to the more than to the less modern form. here is found the prose character of shakespere which, if less magniloquent than that in verse, has a greater touch of sheer sincerity. here, too, is an admirable short tractate on style which exemplifies what it preaches; and a large number of other excellent things. some, it is true, are set down in a shorthand fashion as if (which doubtless they were) they were commonplace-book notes for working up in due season. but others and perhaps the majority (they all baconian-wise have latin titles, though only one or two have the text in latin) are written with complete attention to literary presentment; seldom though sometimes relapsing into loose construction of sentences and paragraphs, the besetting sin of the day, and often presenting, as in the following, a model of sententious but not dry form:-- "we should not protect our sloth with the patronage of difficulty. it is a false quarrel against nature that she helps understanding but in a few, when the most part of mankind are inclined by her thither, if they would take the pains; no less than birds to fly, horses to run, etc., which if they lose it is through their own sluggishness, and by that means become her prodigies, not her children. i confess nature in children is more patient of labour in study than in age; for the sense of the pain, the judgment of the labour is absent, they do not measure what they have done. and it is the thought and consideration that affects us more than the weariness itself. plato was not content with the learning that athens could give him, but sailed into italy, for pythagoras' knowledge: and yet not thinking himself sufficiently informed, went into egypt, to the priests, and learned their mysteries. he laboured, so must we. many things may be learned together and performed in one point of time; as musicians exercise their memory, their voice, their fingers, and sometimes their head and feet at once. and so a preacher, in the invention of matter, election of words, composition of gesture, look, pronunciation, motion, useth all these faculties at once: and if we can express this variety together, why should not divers studies, at divers hours, delight, when the variety is able alone to refresh and repair us? as when a man is weary of writing, to read; and then again of reading, to write. wherein, howsoever we do many things, yet are we (in a sort) still fresh to what we begin; we are recreated with change as the stomach is with meats. but some will say, this variety breeds confusion, and makes that either we lose all or hold no more than the last. why do we not then persuade husbandmen that they should not till land, help it with marle, lime, and compost? plant hop gardens, prune trees, look to beehives, rear sheep, and all other cattle at once? it is easier to do many things and continue, than to do one thing long." no other single writer until we come to the pamphleteers deserves separate or substantive mention; but in many divisions of literature there were practitioners who, if they have not kept much notoriety as masters of style, were well thought of even in that respect in their day, and were long authorities in point of matter. the regular theological treatises of the time present nothing equal to hooker, who in part overlapped it, though the jesuit parsons has some name for vigorous writing. in history, knolles, the historian of the turks, and sandys, the eastern traveller and sacred poet, bear the bell for style among their fellows, such as hayward, camden, spelman, speed, and stow. daniel the poet, a very good prose writer in his way, was also a historian of england, but his chief prose work was his _defence of rhyme_. he had companions in the critical task; but it is curious and by no means uninstructive to notice, that the immense creative production of the time seems to have to a great extent smothered the theoretic and critical tendency which, as yet not resulting in actual performance, betrayed itself at the beginning of the period in webbe and puttenham, in harvey and sidney. the example of eden in collecting and englishing travels and voyages was followed by several writers, of whom two, successively working and residing, the elder at oxford, and the younger at cambridge, made the two greatest collections of the kind in the language for interest of matter, if not for perfection of style. these were richard hakluyt and samuel purchas, a venerable pair. the perhaps overpraised, but still excellent characters of the unfortunate sir thomas overbury and the prose works, such as the _counterblast_ and _demonology_, of james i., are books whose authors have made them more famous than their intrinsic merits warrant, and in the various collections of "works" of the day, older and newer, we shall find examples nearly as miscellaneous as those of the class of writers now to be noticed. of all this miscellaneous work it is impossible to give examples, but one critical passage from daniel, and one descriptive from hakluyt may serve:-- "methinks we should not so soon yield up our consents captive to the authority of antiquity, unless we saw more reason; all our understandings are not to be built by the square of greece and italy. we are the children of nature as well as they, we are not so placed out of the way of judgment but that the same sun of discretion shineth upon us; we have our portion of the same virtues, as well as of the same vices, et catilinam quocunque in populo videas, quocunque sub axe. time and the turn of things bring about these faculties according to the present estimation; and, res temporibus, non tempore rebus servire opportet. so that we must never rebel against use; quem penes arbitrium est, et vis et norma loquendi. it is not the observing of trochaics nor their iambics, that will make our writings aught the wiser: all their poesy and all their philosophy is nothing, unless we bring the discerning light of conceit with us to apply it to use. it is not books, but only that great book of the world, and the all-overspreading grace of heaven that makes men truly judicial. nor can it but touch of arrogant ignorance to hold this or that nation barbarous, these or those times gross, considering how this manifold creature man, wheresoever he stand in the world, hath always some disposition of worth, entertains the order of society, affects that which is most in use, and is eminent in some one thing or other that fits his humour or the times. the grecians held all other nations barbarous but themselves; yet pyrrhus, when he saw the well ordered marching of the romans, which made them see their presumptuous error, could say it was no barbarous manner of proceeding. the goths, vandals, and longobards, whose coming down like an inundation overwhelmed, as they say, all the glory of learning in europe, have yet left us still their laws and customs, as the originals of most of the provincial constitutions of christendom; which, well considered with their other courses of government, may serve to clear them from this imputation of ignorance. and though the vanquished never speak well of the conqueror, yet even through the unsound coverings of malediction appear these monuments of truth, as argue well their worth, and proves them not without judgment, though without greek and latin." * * * * * "to speak somewhat of these islands, being called, in old time, _insulæ fortunæ_, by the means of the flourishing thereof. the fruitfulness of them doth surely exceed far all other that i have heard of. for they make wine better then any in spain: and they have grapes of such bigness that they may be compared to damsons, and in taste inferior to none. for sugar, suckets, raisons of the sun, and many other fruits, abundance: for rosin, and raw silk, there is great store. they want neither corn, pullets, cattle, nor yet wild fowl. "they have many camels also: which, being young, are eaten of the people for victuals; and being old, they are used for carriage of necessities. whose property is, as he is taught, to kneel at the taking of his load, and the unlading again; of understanding very good, but of shape very deformed; with a little belly; long misshapen legs; and feet very broad of flesh, without a hoof, all whole saving the great toe; a back bearing up like a molehill, a large and thin neck, with a little head, with a bunch of hard flesh which nature hath given him in his breast to lean upon. this beast liveth hardly, and is contented with straw and stubble; but of strong force, being well able to carry five hundredweight. "in one of these islands called ferro, there is, by the reports of the inhabitants, a certain tree which raineth continually; by the dropping whereof the inhabitants and cattle are satisfied with water: for other water have they none in all the island. and it raineth in such abundance that it were incredible unto a man to believe such a virtue to be in a tree; but it is known to be a divine matter, and a thing ordained by god: at whose power therein, we ought not to marvel, seeing he did, by his providence (as we read in the scriptures) when the children of israel were going into the land of promise, feed them with manna from heaven, for the space of forty years. of these trees aforesaid, we saw in guinea many; being of great height, dropping continually; but not so abundantly as the other, because the leaves are narrower and are like the leaves of a pear tree. about these islands are certain flitting islands, which have been oftentimes seen; and when men approach near them, they vanished: as the like hath been of these now known (by the report of the inhabitants) which were not found but of a long time, one after the other; and, therefore, it should seem he is not yet born, to whom god hath appointed the finding of them. "in this island of teneriff, there is a hill called the pike, because it is piked; which is, in height, by their report, twenty leagues: having, both winter and summer, abundance of snow on the top of it. this pike may be seen, in a clear day, fifty leagues off; but it sheweth as though it were a black cloud a great height in the element. i have heard of none to be compared with this in height; but in the indies i have seen many, and, in my judgment, not inferior to the pike: and so the spaniards write." one of the most remarkable developments of english prose at the time, and one which has until very recently been almost inaccessible, except in a few examples, to the student who has not the command of large libraries, while even by such students it has seldom been thoroughly examined, is the abundant and very miscellaneous collection of what are called, for want of a better name, pamphlets. the term is not too happy, but there is no other (except the still less happy miscellany) which describes the thing. it consists of a vast mass of purely popular literature, seldom written with any other aim than that of the modern journalist. that is to say, it was written to meet a current demand, to deal with subjects for one reason or other interesting at the moment, and, as a matter of course, to bring in some profit to the writer. these pamphlets are thus as destitute of any logical community of subject as the articles which compose a modern newspaper--a production the absence of which they no doubt supplied, and of which they were in a way the forerunners. attempts to classify their subjects could only end in a hopeless cross division. they are religious very often; political very seldom (for the fate of the luckless stubbes in his dealings with the french marriage was not suited to attract); politico-religious in at least the instance of one famous group, the so-called martin marprelate controversy; moral constantly; in very many, especially the earlier instances, narrative, and following to a large extent in the steps of lyly and sidney; besides a large class of curious tracts dealing with the manners, and usually the bad side of the manners, of the town. of the vast miscellaneous mass of these works by single unimportant or unknown authors it is almost impossible to give any account here, though valuable instances will be found of them in mr. arber's _english garner_. but the works of the six most important individual writers of them--greene, nash, harvey, dekker, lodge, breton (to whom might be added the verse-pamphleteer, but in no sense poet, rowlands)--are luckily now accessible as wholes, lodge and rowlands having been published, or at least privately printed for subscribers, by the hunterian club of glasgow, and the other five by the prolific industry of dr. grosart. the reprints of petheram and of mr. arber, with new editions of lyly and others, have made most of the marprelate tracts accessible. some notice of these collections will not only give a fair idea of the entire miscellaneous prose of the elizabethan period, but will also fill a distinct gap in most histories of it. it will not be necessary to enter into much personal detail about their authors, for most of them have been noticed already in other capacities, and of breton and rowlands very little indeed is known. greene and lodge stand apart from their fellows in this respect, that their work is, in some respects at any rate, much more like literature and less like journalism, though by an odd and apparently perverse chance, this difference has rather hurt than saved it in the estimation of posterity. for the kind of literature which both wrote in this way has gone out of fashion, and its purely literary graces are barely sufficient to save it from the point of view of form; while the bitter personalities of nash, and the quaint adaptations of bygone satire to contemporary london life in which dekker excelled, have a certain lasting interest of matter. on the other hand, the two companions of marlowe have the advantage (which they little anticipated, and would perhaps less have relished) of surviving as illustrations of shakespere, of the shakescene who, decking himself out in their feathers, has by that act rescued _pandosto_ and _euphues' golden legacy_ from oblivion by associating them with the immortality of _as you like it_ and _the winter's tale_. owing to the different forms in which this fleeting and unequal work has been reprinted, it is not very easy to decide off-hand on the relative bulk of the authors' works. but the palm in this respect must be divided between robert greene and nicholas breton, the former of whom fills eleven volumes of loosely-printed crown octavo, and the latter (in prose only) a thick quarto of very small and closely-printed double columns. greene, who began his work early under the immediate inspiration first of his travels and then of lyly's _euphues_, started, as early as , with _mamillia, a looking-glass for the ladies of england_, which, both in general character and in peculiarities of style, is an obvious copy of _euphues_. _the mirror of modesty_ is more of a lay sermon, based on the story of susanna. _the tritameron of love_ is a dialogue without action, but _arbasto, or the anatomie of fortune_ returns to the novel form, as does _the card of fancy_. _planetomachia_ is a collection of stories, illustrating the popular astrological notions, with an introduction on astrology generally. _penelope's web_ is another collection of stories, but _the spanish masquerado_ is one of the most interesting of the series. written just at the time of the armada, it is pure journalism--a _livre de circonstance_ composed to catch the popular temper with aid of a certain actual knowledge, and a fair amount of reading. then greene returned to euphuism in _menaphon_, and in _euphues, his censure to philautus_; nor are _perimedes the blacksmith_ and _tully's love_ much out of the same line. _the royal exchange_ again deviates, being a very quaint collection, quaintly arranged, of moral maxims, apophthegms, short stories, etc., for the use of the citizens. next, the author began the curious series, at first perhaps not very sincere, but certainly becoming so at last, of half-personal reminiscences and regrets, less pointed and well arranged than villon's, but remarkably similar. the first and longest of these was _greene's never too late_, with its second part _francesco's fortunes_. _greene's metamorphosis_ is euphuist once more, and _greene's mourning garment_ and _greene's farewell to folly_ are the same, with a touch of personality. then he diverged into the still more curious series on "conny-catching"--rooking, gulling, cheating, as we should call it. there are five or six of these tracts, and though there is not a little bookmaking in them, they are unquestionably full of instruction as to the ways of the time. _philomela_ returns once more to euphuism, but greene is soon back again with _a quip for an upstart courtier_, a piece of social satire, flying rather higher than his previous attempts. the zigzag is kept up in _orpharion_, the last printed (at least in the only edition now known) of the author's works during his lifetime. not till after his death did the best known and most personal of all his works appear, the famous _groat's worth of wit bought with a million of repentance_, in which the "shakescene" passage and the exhortation to his friends to repentance occur. two more tracts in something the same style--_greene's repentance_ and _greene's vision_--followed. their genuineness has been questioned, but seems to be fairly certain. this full list--to which must be added the already mentioned _pandosto, the triumph of time_, or _dorastus and fawnia_, and the translated _debate between folly and love_--of a certainly not scanty life-work (greene died when he was quite a young man, and wrote plays besides) has been given, because it is not only the earliest, but perhaps the most characteristic of the whole. despite the apparently unsuitable forms, it is evident that the writer is striving, without knowing it, at what we call journalism. but fashion and the absence of models cramp and distort his work. its main features are to be found in the personal and satirical pieces, in the vivid and direct humanity of some touches in the euphuist tract-romances, in the delightful snatches of verse which intersperse and relieve the heterogeneous erudition, the clumsy dialogue, and the rococo style. the two following extracts give, the first a specimen of greene's ornate and euphuist style from _orpharion_, the second a passage from his autobiographical or semi-autobiographical confessions in the _groat's worth_:-- "i am lydia that renowned princess, whose never matched beauty seemed like the gorgeous pomp of phoebus, too bright for the day: rung so strongly out of the trump of fame as it filled every ear with wonder: daughter to astolpho, the king of lydia: who thought himself not so fortunate for his diadem, sith other kings could boast of crowns, nor for his great possessions, although endued with large territories, as happy that he had a daughter whose excellency in favour stained venus, whose austere chastity set diana to silence with a blush. know whatsoever thou art that standest attentive to my tale, that the ruddiest rose in all damasco, the whitest lilies in the creeks of danuby, might not if they had united their native colours, but have bashed at the vermilion stain, flourish'd upon the pure crystal of my face: the marguerites of the western indies, counted more bright and rich than that which cleopatra quaffed to anthony, the coral highest in his pride upon the afric shores, might well be graced to resemble my teeth and lips, but never honoured to overreach my pureness. remaining thus the mirror of the world, and nature's strangest miracle, there arrived in our court a thracian knight, of personage tall, proportioned in most exquisite form, his face but too fair for his qualities, for he was a brave and a resolute soldier. this cavalier coming amongst divers others to see the royalty of the state of lydia, no sooner had a glance of my beauty, but he set down his staff, resolving either to perish in so sweet a labyrinth, or in time happily to stumble out with theseus. he had not stayed long in my father's court, but he shewed such knightly deeds of chivalry amongst the nobility, lightened with the extraordinary sparks of a courageous mind, that not only he was liked and loved of all the chief peers of the realms, but the report of his valour coming to my father's ears, he was highly honoured of him, and placed in short time as general of his warlike forces by land. resting in this estimation with the king, preferment was no means to quiet his mind, for love had wounded so deep, as honour by no means might remedy, that as the elephants can hardly be haled from the sight of the waste, or the roe buck from gazing at red cloth, so there was no object that could so much allure the wavering eyes of this thracian called acestes, as the surpassing beauty of the princess lydia, yea, so deeply he doted, that as the chameleon gorgeth herself with gazing into the air, so he fed his fancy with staring on the heavenly face of his goddess, so long dallying in the flame, that he scorched his wings and in time consumed his whole body. being thus passionate, having none so familiar as he durst make his confidant he fell thus to debate with himself." * * * * * "on the other side of the hedge sat one that heard his sorrow, who getting over, came towards him, and brake off his passion. when he approached, he saluted roberto in this sort: gentleman, quoth he (for so you seem) i have by chance heard you discourse some part of your grief; which appeareth to be more than you will discover, or i can conceit. but if you vouchsafe such simple comfort as my ability will yield, assure yourself, that i will endeavour to do the best, that either may procure your profit, or bring you pleasure: the rather, for that i suppose you are a scholar, and pity it is men of learning should live in lack. "roberto wondering to hear such good words, for that this iron age affords few that esteem of virtue; returned him thankful gratulations and (urged by necessity) uttered his present grief, beseeching his advice how he might be employed. 'why, easily,' quoth he, 'and greatly to your benefit: for men of my profession get by scholars their whole living.' 'what is your profession?' said roberto. 'truly, sir,' said he, 'i am a player.' 'a player!' quoth roberto. 'i took you rather for a gentleman of great living, for if by outward habit men should be censured, i tell you, you would be taken for a substantial man.' 'so am i, where i dwell' (quoth the player) 'reputed able, at my proper cost, to build a windmill. what though the world once went hard with me, when i was fain to carry my playing fardel a foot-back; _tempora mutantur_, i know you know the meaning of it better than i, but i thus construe it; it is otherwise now; for my very share in playing apparel will not be sold for two hundred pounds.' 'truly' (said roberto) 'it is strange that you should so prosper in that vain practise, for that it seems to me your voice is nothing gracious.' 'nay, then,' said the player, 'i mislike your judgment: why, i am as famous for delphrigas, and the king of fairies, as ever was any of my time. the twelve labours of hercules have i terribly thundered on the stage, and placed three scenes of the devil on the highway to heaven.' 'have ye so?' (said roberto) 'then i pray you, pardon me.' 'nay more' (quoth the player) 'i can serve to make a pretty speech, for i was a country author, passing at a moral, for it was i that penn'd the moral of man's wit, the dialogue of dives, and for seven years' space was absolute interpreter of the puppets. but now my almanach is out of date. the people make no estimation of morals teaching education. was not this pretty for a plain rhyme extempore? if ye will ye shall have more.' 'nay, it is enough,' said roberto, 'but how mean you to use me?' 'why, sir, in making plays,' said the other, 'for which you shall be well paid, if you will take the pains.'" these same characteristics, though without the prevailing and in part obviously sincere melancholy which marks greene's regrets, also distinguish lodge's prose work to such an extent that remarks on the two might sometimes be made simply interchangeable. but fortune was kinder to lodge than to his friend and collaborator. nor does he seem to have had any occasion to "tread the burning marl" in company with conny-catchers and their associates. lodge began with critical and polemical work--an academic if not very urbane reply to stephen gosson's _school of abuse_; but in the _alarum against usurers_, which resembles and even preceded greene's similar work, he took to the satirical-story-form. indeed, the connection between lodge and greene was so close, and the difficulty of ascertaining the exact dates of their compositions is so great, that it is impossible to be sure which was the precise forerunner. certainly if lodge set greene an example in the _alarum against usurers_, he followed greene's lead in _forbonius and prisceria_ some years afterwards, having written it on shipboard in a venture against the spaniards. lodge produced much the most famous book of the euphuist school, next to _euphues_ itself, as well as the best known of this pamphlet series, in _rosalynde_ or _euphues' golden legacy_, from which shakespere took the story of _as you like it_, and of which an example follows:-- "'ah phoebe,' quoth he, 'whereof art thou made, that thou regardest not thy malady? am i so hateful an object, that thine eyes condemn me for an abject? or so base, that thy desires cannot stoop so low as to lend me a gracious look? my passions are many, my loves more, my thoughts loyalty, and my fancy faith: all devoted in humble devoir to the service of phoebe; and shall i reap no reward for such fealties? the swain's daily labours is quit with the evening's hire, the ploughman's toil is eased with the hope of corn, what the ox sweats out at the plough he fatteneth at the crib: but unfortunate montanus[ ] hath no salve for his sorrows, nor any hope of recompense for the hazard of his perplexed passions. if phoebe, time may plead the proof of my truth, twice seven winters have i loved fair phoebe: if constancy be a cause to further my suit, montanus' thoughts have been sealed in the sweet of phoebe's excellence, as far from change as she from love: if outward passions may discover inward affections, the furrows in my face may discover the sorrows of my heart, and the map of my looks the grief of my mind. thou seest (phoebe) the tears of despair have made my cheeks full of wrinkles, and my scalding sighs have made the air echo her pity conceived in my plaints; philomel hearing my passions, hath left her mournful tunes to listen to the discourse of miseries. i have portrayed in every tree the beauty of my mistress, and the despair of my loves. what is it in the woods cannot witness my woes? and who is it would not pity my plaints? only phoebe. and why? because i am montanus, and she phoebe: i a worthless swain, and she the most excellent of all fairies. beautiful phoebe! oh might i say pitiful, then happy were i though i tasted but one minute of that good hap. measure montanus, not by his fortunes, but by his loves, and balance not his wealth but his desires, and lend but one gracious look to cure a heap of disquieted cares: if not, ah if phoebe cannot love, let a storm of frowns end the discontent of my thoughts, and so let me perish in my desires, because they are above my deserts: only at my death this favour cannot be denied me, that all shall say montanus died for love of hard hearted phoebe.' at these words she filled her face full of frowns and made him this short and sharp reply. "'importunate shepherd, whose loves are lawless because restless: are thy passions so extreme, that thou canst not conceal them with patience? or art thou so folly-sick, that thou must needs be fancy-sick, and in thy affection tied to such an exigent as none serves but phoebe? well, sir, if your market can be made nowhere else, home again, for your mart is at the fairest. phoebe is no lettuce for your lips, and her grapes hang so high, that gaze at them you may, but touch them you cannot. yet montanus i speak not this in pride, but in disdain: not that i scorn thee, but that i hate love: for i count it as great honour to triumph over fancy as over fortune. rest thee content therefore montanus, cease from thy loves, and bridle thy looks, quench the sparkles before they grow to a farther flame; for in loving me, thou shalt but live by loss, and what thou utterest in words are all written in the wind. wert thou (montanus) as fair as paris, as hardy as hector, as constant as troilus, as loving as leander, phoebe could not love, because she cannot love at all: and therefore if thou pursue me with phoebus, i must flie with daphne.'" [ ] the silvius, it may be just necessary to observe, of _as you like it_. this book seems to have been very successful, and lodge began to write pamphlets vigorously, sometimes taking up the social satire, sometimes the moral treatise, sometimes (and then most happily) the euphuist romance, salted with charming poems. his last prose work in this kind (he wrote other things later) was the pretty and prettily-named _margarite of america_, in . the names of nash and harvey are intertwined even more closely than those of greene and lodge; but the conjunction is not a grasp of friendship but a grip of hatred--a wrestle, not an embrace. the fact of the quarrel has attracted rather disproportionate attention from the days of isaac disraeli onwards; and its original cause is still extremely obscure and very unimportant. by some it is connected, causally as well as accidentally, with the martin marprelate business; by some with the fact that harvey belonged to the inner sidneian clique, nash to the outer ring of professional journalists and bohemians. it at any rate produced some remarkable varieties of the pamphlet, and demonstrated the keen interest which the world takes in the proceedings of any couple of literary men who choose to abuse and befoul one another. harvey, though no mean scholar, was in mere writing no match for nash; and his chief answer to the latter, _pierce's supererogation_, is about as rambling, incoherent, and ineffective a combination of pedantry and insolence as need be wished for. it has some not uninteresting, though usually very obscure, hints on literary matters. besides this, harvey wrote letters to spenser with their well-known criticism and recommendation of classical forms, and _foure letters touching robert greene and others: with the trimming of thomas nash, gentleman_. a sample of him, not in his abusive-dull, but in his scholarly-dull manner, may be given:-- "mine own rules and precepts of art, i believe will fall out not greatly repugnant, though peradventure somewhat different: and yet i am not so resolute, but i can be content to reserve the copying out and publishing thereof, until i have a little better consulted with my pillow, and taken some further advice of madame sperienza. in the mean time, take this for a general caveat, and say i have revealed one great mystery unto you: i am of opinion, there is no one more regular and justifiable direction, either for the assured and infallible certainty of our english artificial prosody particularly, or generally to bring our language into art, and to frame a grammar or rhetoric thereof; than first of all universally to agree upon one and the same orthography in all points conformable and proportionate to our common natural prosody: whether sir thomas smithies in that respect be the most perfit, as surely it must needs be very good; or else some other of profounder learning and longer experience, than sir thomas was, shewing by necessary demonstration, wherein he is defective, will undertake shortly to supply his wants and make him more absolute. myself dare not hope to hop after him, till i see something or other, to or fro, publicly and authentically established, as it were by a general council, or act of parliament: and then peradventure, standing upon firmer ground, for company sake, i may adventure to do as others do. _interim_, credit me, i dare give no precepts, nor set down any certain general art: and yet see my boldness, i am not greatly squeamish of my _particular examples_, whereas he that can but reasonably skill of the one, will give easily a shrewd guess at the other: considering that the one fetcheth his original and offspring from the other. in which respect, to say troth, we beginners have the start, and advantage of our followers, who are to frame and conform both their examples and precepts, according to precedent which they have of us: as no doubt homer or some other in greek, and ennius, or i know not who else in latin, did prejudice, and overrule those that followed them, as well for the quantities of syllables, as number of feet, and the like: their only examples going for current payment, and standing instead of laws, and rules with the posterity." in harvey, more perhaps than anywhere else in prose, appears the abusive exaggeration, not humorous or rabelaisian, but simply rancorous and dull, which mars so much elizabethan work. in order not to fall into the same error ourselves, we must abstain from repeating the very strong language which has sometimes been applied to his treatment of dead men, and such dead men as greene and marlowe, for apparently no other fault than their being friends of his enemy nash. it is sufficient to say that harvey had all the worst traits of "donnishness," without having apparently any notion of that dignity which sometimes half excuses the don. he was emphatically of mr. carlyle's "acrid-quack" genus. thomas nash will himself hardly escape the charge of acridity, but only injustice or want of discernment will call him a quack. unlike harvey, but like greene and lodge, he was a verse as well as a prose writer. but his verse is in comparison unimportant. nor was he tempted to intersperse specimens of it in his prose work. the absolutely best part of that work--the anti-martinist pamphlets to be noticed presently--is only attributed to him conjecturally, though the grounds of attribution are very strong. but his characteristics are fully evident in his undoubted productions. the first of these in pamphlet form is the very odd thing called _pierce penniless_ [the name by which nash became known], _his supplication to the devil_. it is a kind of rambling condemnation of luxury, for the most part delivered in the form of burlesque exhortation, which the mediæval _sermons joyeux_ had made familiar in all european countries. probably some allusions in this refer to harvey, whose pragmatical pedantry may have in many ways annoyed nash, a cambridge man like himself. at any rate the two soon plunged into a regular battle, the documents of which on nash's side are, first a prognostication, something in the style of rabelais, then a formal confutation of the _four letters_, and then the famous lampoon entitled _have with you to saffron walden_ [harvey's birthplace], of which here is a specimen:-- "his father he undid to furnish him to the court once more, where presenting himself in all the colours of the rainbow, and a pair of moustaches like a black horse tail tied up in a knot, with two tufts sticking out on each side, he was asked by no mean personage, _unde hæc insania_? whence proceedeth this folly or madness? and he replied with that weather-beaten piece of a verse out of the grammar, _semel insanivimus omnes_, once in our days there is none of us but have played the idiots; and so was he counted and bade stand by for a nodgscomb. he that most patronized him, prying more searchingly into him, and finding that he was more meet to make sport with than any way deeply to be employed, with fair words shook him off, and told him he was fitter for the university, than for the court or his turn, and so bade god prosper his studies, and sent for another secretary to oxford. "readers, be merry; for in me there shall want nothing i can do to make you merry. you see i have brought the doctor out of request at court, and it shall cost me a fall, but i will get him hooted out of the university too, ere i give him over. what will you give me when i bring him upon the stage in one of the principalest colleges in cambridge? lay any wager with me, and i will; or if you lay no wager at all, i'll fetch him aloft in pedantius, that exquisite comedy in trinity college; where under the chief part, from which it took his name, as namely the concise and firking finicaldo fine school master, he was full drawn and delineated from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. the just manner of his phrase in his orations and disputations they stuffed his mouth with, and no buffianism throughout his whole books, but they bolstered out his part with; as those ragged remnants in his four familiar epistles 'twixt him and _senior immerito, raptim scripta, noste manum et stylum_, with innumerable other of his rabble-routs: and scoffing his _musarum lachrymæ_ with _flebo amorem meum etiam musarum lachrymis_; which, to give it his due, was a more collachrymate wretched treatise than my _piers penniless_, being the pitifulest pangs that ever any man's muse breathed forth. i leave out half; not the carrying up of his gown, his nice gait on his pantoffles, or the affected accent of his speech, but they personated. and if i should reveal all, i think they borrowed his gown to play the part in, the more to flout him. let him deny this (and not damn himself) for his life if he can. let him deny that there was a shew made at clare hall of him and his two brothers, called, "_tarra, rantantara turba tumultuosa trigonum tri-harveyorum tri-harmonia_ let him deny that there was another shew made of the little minnow his brother, _dodrans dick_, at peter-house called, "_duns furens._ dick harvey in a frensy. whereupon dick came and broke the college glass windows; and doctor perne (being then either for himself or deputy vice-chancellor) caused him to be fetched in, and set in the stocks till the shew was ended, and a great part of the night after." _the terrors of the night_, a discourse of apparitions, for once, among these oddly-named pieces, tells a plain story. its successor, _christ's tears over jerusalem_, nash's longest book, is one of those rather enigmatical expressions of repentance for loose life which were so common at the time, and which, according to the charity of the reader, may be attributed to real feeling, to a temporary access of _katzen-jammer_, or to downright hypocrisy, bent only on manufacturing profitable "copy," and varying its style to catch different tastes. the most unfavourable hypothesis is probably unjust, and a certain tone of sincerity also runs through the next book, _the unfortunate traveller_, in which nash, like many others, inveighs against the practice of sending young englishmen to be corrupted abroad. it is noteworthy that this (the place of which in the history of the novel has been rather exaggerated) is the oldest authority for the romance of surrey and geraldine; but it is uncertain whether this was pure invention on nash's part or not. nash's _lenten stuff_ is very interesting, being a panegyric on great yarmouth and its famous staple commodity (though nash was actually born at lowestoft). in nash's work we find a style both of treatment and language entirely different from anything of greene's or lodge's. he has no euphuism, his forte being either extravagant burlesque (in which the influence of rabelais is pretty directly perceptible, while he himself acknowledges indebtedness to some other sources, such as bullen or bullein, a dialogue writer of the preceding generation), or else personal attack, boisterous and unscrupulous, but often most vigorous and effective. diffuseness and want of keeping to the point too frequently mar nash's work; but when he shakes himself free from them, and goes straight for his enemy or his subject, he is a singularly forcible writer. in his case more than in any of the others, the journalist born out of due time is perceptible. he had perhaps not much original message for the world. but he had eminently the trick both of damaging controversial argument made light to catch the popular taste, and of easy discussion or narrative. the chief defects of his work would probably have disappeared of themselves if he had had to write not pamphlets, but articles. he did, however, what he could; and he is worthy of a place in the history of literature if only for the sake of _have with you to saffron walden_--the best example of its own kind to be found before the end of the seventeenth century, if not the beginning of the eighteenth. thomas dekker was much less of a born prose writer than his half-namesake, nash. his best work, unlike nash's, was done in verse, and, while he was far nash's superior, not merely in poetical expression but in creative grasp of character, he was entirely destitute of nash's incisive and direct faculty of invective. nevertheless his work, too, is memorable among the prose work of the time, and for special reasons. his first pamphlet (according to the peculiarity already noted in rowlands's case) is not prose at all, but verse--yet not the verse of which dekker had real mastery, being a very lamentable ballad of the destruction of jerusalem, entitled _canaan's calamity_ ( ). the next, _the wonderful year_, is the account of london in plague time, and has at least the interest of being comparable with, and perhaps that of having to some extent inspired, defoe's famous performance. then, and of the same date, follows a very curious piece, the foreign origin of which has not been so generally noticed as that of dekker's most famous prose production. _the bachelor's banquet_ is in effect only a free rendering of the immortal fifteenth century satire, assigned on no very solid evidence to antoine de la salle, the _quinze joyes de mariage_, the resemblance being kept down to the recurrence at the end of each section of the same phrase, "in lob's pound," which reproduces the less grotesque "dans la nasse" of the original. but here, as later, the skill with which dekker adapts and brings in telling circumstances appropriate to his own day deserves every acknowledgment. _dekker's dreame_ is chiefly verse and chiefly pious; and then at a date somewhat later than that of our present period, but connected with it by the fact of authorship, begins a very interesting series of pieces, more vivid if somewhat less well written than greene's, and connected with his "conny-catching" course. _the bellman of london_, _lanthorn and candlelight_, _a strange horse-race_, _the seven deadly sins of london_, _news from hell_, _the double p.p._, and _the gull's hornbook_, are all pamphlets of this class; the chief interest resting in _news from hell_ (which, according to the author's scheme, connects itself with nash's _pierce penniless_, and is the devil's answer thereto) and _the gull's hornbook_ ( ). this last, the best known of dekker's work, is an englishing of the no less famous _grobianus_ of frederick dedekind, and the same skill of adaptation which was noticed in _the bachelor's banquet_ is observable here. the spirit of these works seems to have been so popular that dekker kept it up in _the dead term_ [long vacation], _work for armourers_ (which, however, is less particular and connects itself with nash's sententious work), _the raven's almanack_, and _a rod for runaways_ ( ). _the four birds of noah's ark_, which dr. grosart prints last, is of a totally different character, being purely a book of piety. it is thus inferior in interest to the series dealing with the low life of london, which contains most curious studies of the ancient order of ragamuffins (as a modern satirist has pleasantly called them), and bears altogether marks of greater sincerity than the parallel studies of other writers. for about dekker, hack and penny-a-liner as he undoubtedly was, there was a simplicity, a truth to nature, and at the same time a faculty of dramatic presentation in which greene, lodge, and nash were wholly wanting; and his prose pamphlets smack of these good gifts in their measure as much as _the honest whore_. indeed, on the whole, he seems to be the most trustworthy of these chroniclers of the english picaroons; and one feels disposed to believe that if the things which he tells did not actually happen, something very like them was probably happening every day in london during the time of "eliza and our james." for the time of eliza and our james was by no means a wholly heroic period, and it only loses, not gains, by the fiction that every man of letters was a spenser and every man of affairs a sidney or even a raleigh. extracts from _the seven deadly sins_ and _the gull's hornbook_ may be given:-- "o candle-light! and art thou one of the cursed crew? hast thou been set at the table of princes and noblemen? have all sorts of people done reverence unto thee, and stood bare so soon as ever they have seen thee? have thieves, traitors, and murderers been afraid to come in thy presence, because they knew thee just, and that thou wouldest discover them? and art thou now a harbourer of all kinds of vices? nay, dost thou play the capital vice thyself? hast thou had so many learned lectures read before thee, and is the light of thy understanding now clean put out, and have so many profound scholars profited by thee? hast thou done such good to universities, been such a guide to the lame, and seen the doing of so many good works, yet dost thou now look dimly, and with a dull eye, upon all goodness? what comfort have sick men taken (in weary and irksome nights) but only in thee? thou hast been their physician and apothecary, and when the relish of nothing could please them, the very shadow of thee hath been to them a restorative consolation. the nurse hath stilled her wayward infant, shewing it but to thee: what gladness hast thou put into mariners' bosoms when thou hast met them on the sea! what joy into the faint and benighted traveller when he has met thee on the land! how many poor handicraftsmen by thee have earned the best part of their living! and art thou now become a companion for drunkards, for leachers, and for prodigals? art thou turned reprobate? thou wilt burn for it in hell. and so odious is this thy apostasy, and hiding thyself from the light of the truth, that at thy death and going out of the world, even they that love thee best will tread thee under their feet: yea, i that have thus played the herald, and proclaimed thy good parts, will now play the crier and call thee into open court, to arraign thee for thy misdemeanours." * * * * * "for do but consider what an excellent thing sleep is: it is so inestimable a jewel that, if a tyrant would give his crown for an hour's slumber, it cannot be bought: of so beautiful a shape is it, that though a man lie with an empress, his heart cannot be at quiet till he leaves her embracements to be at rest with the other: yea, so greatly indebted are we to this kinsman of death, that we owe the better tributary, half of our life to him: and there is good cause why we should do so: for sleep is that golden chain that ties health and our bodies together. who complains of want? of wounds? of cares? of great men's oppressions? of captivity? whilst he sleepeth? beggars in their beds take as much pleasure as kings: can we therefore surfeit on this delicate ambrosia? can we drink too much of that whereof to taste too little tumbles us into a churchyard, and to use it but indifferently throws us into bedlam? no, no, look upon endymion, the moon's minion, who slept three score and fifteen years, and was not a hair the worse for it. can lying abed till noon (being not the three score and fifteenth thousand part of his nap) be hurtful? "besides, by the opinion of all philosophers and physicians, it is not good to trust the air with our bodies till the sun with his flame-coloured wings hath fanned away the misty smoke of the morning, and refined that thick tobacco-breath which the rheumatic night throws abroad of purpose to put out the eye of the element: which work questionless cannot be perfectly finished till the sun's car-horses stand prancing on the very top of highest noon: so that then (and not till then) is the most healthful hour to be stirring. do you require examples to persuade you? at what time do lords and ladies use to rise but then? your simpering merchants' wives are the fairest lyers in the world: and is not eleven o'clock their common hour? they find (no doubt) unspeakable sweetness in such lying, else they would not day by day put it so in practice. in a word, mid-day slumbers are golden; they make the body fat, the skin fair, the flesh plump, delicate and tender; they set a russet colour on the cheeks of young women, and make lusty courage to rise up in men; they make us thrifty, both in sparing victuals (for breakfasts thereby are saved from the hell-mouth of the belly) and in preserving apparel; for while we warm us in our beds our clothes are not worn. "the casements of thine eyes being then at this commendable time of the day newly set open, choose rather to have thy wind-pipe cut in pieces than to salute any man. bid not good-morrow so much as to thy father, though he be an emperor. an idle ceremony it is and can do him little good; to thyself it may bring much harm: for if he be a wise man that knows how to hold his peace, of necessity must he be counted a fool that cannot keep his tongue." the voluminous work in pamphlet kind of nicholas breton, still more the verse efforts closely akin to it of samuel rowlands, john davies of hereford and some others, must be passed over with very brief notice. dr. grosart's elaborate edition of the first-named has given a vast mass of matter very interesting to the student of literature, but which cannot be honestly recommended to the general reader. breton, whose long life and perpetual literary activity fill up great part of our whole period, was an essex gentleman of a good family (a fact which he never forgot), and apparently for some time a dependent of the well-known countess of pembroke, sidney's sister. a much older man than most of the great wits of elizabeth's reign, he also survived most of them, and his publications, if not his composition, cover a full half century, though he was _nel mezzo del cammin_ at the date of the earliest. he was probably born some years before the middle of the sixteenth century, and certainly did not die before the first year of charles i. if we could take as his the charming lullaby of _the arbour of amorous devices_ he would stand (if only as a kind of "single-speech") high as a poet. but i fear that dr. grosart's attribution of it to him is based on little external and refuted by all internal evidence. his best certain thing is the pretty "phillida and corydon" idyll, which may be found in _england's helicon_ or in mr. ward's _poets_. but i own that i can never read this latter without thinking of two lines of fulke greville's in the same metre and on no very different theme-- "o'er enamelled meads they went, quiet she, he passion-rent," which are simply worth all the works of breton, prose and verse, unless we count the _lullaby_, put together. in the _mots rayonnants_, the _mots de lumière_, he is sadly deficient. but his work (which is nearly as plentiful in verse as in prose) is, as has been said, very interesting to the literary student, because it shows better perhaps than anything else the style of literature which a man, disdaining to condescend to burlesque or bawdry, not gifted with any extraordinary talent, either at prose or verse, but possessed of a certain literary faculty, could then produce with a fair chance of being published and bought. it cannot be said that the result shows great daintiness in breton's public. the verse, with an improvement in sweetness and fluency, is very much of the doggerel style which was prevalent before spenser; and the prose, though showing considerable faculty, if not of invention, yet of adroit imitation of previously invented styles, is devoid of distinction and point. there are, however, exercises after breton's own fashion in almost every popular style of the time--euphuist romances, moral treatises, packets of letters, collections of jests and short tales, purely religious tractates, characters (after the style later illustrated by overbury and earle), dialogues, maxims, pictures of manners, collections of notes about foreign countries,--in fact, the whole farrago of the modern periodical. the pervading characteristics are breton's invariable modesty, his pious and, if i may be permitted to use the word, gentlemanly spirit, and a fashion of writing which, if not very pointed, picturesque, or epigrammatic, is clear, easy, and on the whole rather superior, in observance of the laws of grammar and arrangement, to the work of men of much greater note in his day. the verse pamphlets of rowlands (whom i have not studied as thoroughly as most others), davies, and many less voluminous men, are placed here with all due apology for the liberty. they are seldom or never of much formal merit, but they are interesting, first, because they testify to the hold which the mediæval conception of verse, as a general literary medium as suitable as prose and more attractive, had upon men even at this late time; and secondly, because, like the purely prose pamphlets, they are full of information as to the manners of the time. for rowlands i may refer to mr. gosse's essay. john davies of hereford, the writing-master, though he has been carefully edited for students, and is by no means unworthy of study, has had less benefit of exposition to the general reader. he was not a genius, but he is a good example of the rather dull man who, despite the disfavour of circumstance, contrives by much assiduity and ingenious following of models to attain a certain position in literature. there are john davieses of hereford in every age, but since the invention and filing of newspapers their individuality has been not a little merged. the anonymous journalist of our days is simply to the historian such and such a paper, volume so-and-so, page so much, column this or that. the good john davies, living in another age, still stands as _nominis umbra_, but with a not inconsiderable body of work to throw the shadow. one of the most remarkable, and certainly one of not the least interesting developments of the elizabethan pamphlet remains to be noticed. this is the celebrated series of "martin marprelate" tracts, with the replies which they called forth. indeed the popularity of this series may be said to have given a great impulse to the whole pamphleteering system. it is somewhat unfortunate that this interesting subject has never been taken up in full by a dispassionate historian of literature, sufficiently versed in politics and in theology. in mid-nineteenth century most, but by no means all of the more notable tracts were reprinted by john petheram, a london bookseller, whose productions have since been issued under the well-known imprint of john russell smith, the publisher of the _library of old authors_. this gave occasion to a review in _the christian remembrancer_, afterwards enlarged and printed as a book by mr. maskell, a high churchman who subsequently seceded to the church of rome. this latter accident has rather unfavourably and unfairly affected later judgments of his work, which, however, is certainly not free from party bias. it has scarcely been less unlucky that the chief recent dealers with the matter, professor arber (who projected a valuable reprint of the whole series in his _english scholars' library_, and who prefaced it with a quite invaluable introductory sketch), and dr. grosart, who also included divers anti-martinist tracts in his privately printed _works of nashe_, are very strongly prejudiced on the puritan side.[ ] between these authorities the dispassionate inquirer who attacks the texts for himself is likely to feel somewhat in the position of a man who exposes himself to a cross fire. the martin marprelate controversy, looked at without prejudice but with sufficient information, shows itself as a very early example of the reckless violence of private crotcheteers on the one hand, and of the rather considerable unwisdom of the official defenders of order on the other. "martin's" method was to a certain extent an anticipation of the famous move by which pascal, fifty years later, "took theology out of the schools into drawing-rooms," except that martin and his adversaries transferred the venue rather to the tap-room than to the drawing-room. the controversy between the framers of the church of england in its present state, and the hot gospellers who, with thomas cartwright at their head, denied the proposition (not deniable or denied now by any sane and scholarly disputant) that church discipline and government are points left to a great extent undefined in the scriptures, had gone on for years before martin appeared. cartwright and whitgift had fought, with a certain advantage of warmth and eloquence on cartwright's side, and with an immense preponderance of logical cogency on whitgift's. many minor persons had joined in the struggle, and at last a divine, more worthy than wise, john bridges, dean of salisbury, had produced on the orthodox side one of those enormous treatises (it had some fifteen hundred quarto pages) which are usually left unread by the side they favour, and which exasperate the side they oppose. the ordinary law of the time, moreover, which placed large powers in the hands of the bishops, and especially entrusted them with a rigid and complete censorship of the press, had begun to be put in force severely against the more outspoken partisans. any one who will take the trouble to read the examination of henry barrow, which mr. arber has reprinted,[ ] or even the "moderate" tracts of nicholas udall, which in a manner ushered in the marprelate controversy, will probably be more surprised at the long-suffering of the judges than at the sufferings of their prisoners. barrow, in a long and patient examination before the council, of which the bishop of london and the archbishop of canterbury were members, called them to their faces the one a "wolf," a "bloody persecutor," and an "apostate," the other "a monster" and "the second beast that is spoken of in the revelations." the "moderate" udall, after publishing a dialogue (in which an anglican bishop called diotrephes is represented, among other things, as planning measures against the puritans in consort with a papist and an usurer), further composed a _demonstration of discipline_ in which, writing, according to mr. arber, "without any satire or invective," he calls the bishops merely _qua_ bishops, "the wretched fathers of a filthy mother," with abundant epithets to match, and rains down on every practice of the existing church government such terms as "blasphemous," "damnable," "hellish," and the like. to the modern reader who looks at these things with the eyes of the present day, it may of course seem that it would have been wiser to let the dogs bark. but that was not the principle of the time: and as mr. arber most frankly admits, it was certainly not the principle of the dogs themselves. the puritans claimed for themselves a not less absolute right to call in the secular arm if they could, and a much more absolute certainty and righteousness for their tenets than the very hottest of their adversaries. [ ] this prejudice is naturally still stronger in some american writers, notably dr. dexter. [ ] arber, _introductory sketch_. p. _sqq._ all the quotations and references which follow will be found in arber's and petheram's reprints or in grosart's _nash_, vol. . if the works cited are not given as wholes in them, the fact will be noted. (see also mr. bond's _lyly_.) udall was directly, as well as indirectly, the begetter of the martin marprelate controversy: though after he got into trouble in connection with it, he made a sufficiently distinct expression of disapproval of the martinist methods, and it seems to have been due more to accident and his own obstinacy than anything else that he died in prison instead of being obliged with the honourable banishment of a guinea chaplaincy. his printer, waldegrave, had had his press seized and his license withdrawn for _diotrephes_, and resentment at this threw what, in the existing arrangements of censorship and the stationers' monopoly, was a very difficult thing to obtain--command of a practical printer--into the hands of the malcontents. chief among these malcontents was a certain reverend john penry, a welshman by birth, a member, as was then not uncommon, of both universities, and the author, among other more dubious publications, of a plea, intemperately stated in parts, but very sober and sensible at bottom, for a change in the system of allotting and administering the benefices of the church in wales. which plea, be it observed in passing, had it been attended to, it would have been better for both the church and state of england at this day. the pamphlet[ ] contained, however, a distinct insinuation against the queen, of designedly keeping wales in ignorance and subjection--an insinuation which, in those days, was equivalent to high treason. the book was seized, and the author imprisoned ( ). now when, about a year after, and in the very height of the danger from the armada, waldegrave's livelihood was threatened by the proceedings above referred to, it would appear that he obtained from the continent, or had previously secreted from his confiscated stock, printing tools, and that he and penry, at the house of mistress crane, at east molesey, in surrey, printed a certain tract, called, for shortness, "the epistle."[ ] this tract, of the authorship and character of which more presently, created a great sensation. it was immediately followed, the press being shifted for safety to the houses of divers puritan country gentlemen, by the promised _epitome_. so great was the stir, that a formal answer of great length was put forth by "t. c." (well known to be thomas cooper, bishop of winchester), entitled, _an admonition to the people of england_. the martinists, from their invisible and shifting citadel, replied with perhaps the cleverest tract of the whole controversy, named, with deliberate quaintness, _hay any work for cooper?_[ ] ("have you any work for the cooper?" said to be an actual trade london cry). thenceforward the _mêlée_ of pamphlets, answers, "replies, duplies, quadruplies," became in small space indescribable. petheram's prospectus of reprints (only partially carried out) enumerates twenty-six, almost all printed in the three years - ; mr. arber, including preliminary works, counts some thirty. the perambulating press was once seized (at newton lane, near manchester), but martin was not silenced. it is certain (though there are no remnants extant of the matter concerned) that martin was brought on the stage in some form or other, and though the duration of the controversy was as short as its character was hot, it was rather suppressed than extinguished by the death of udall in prison, and the execution of penry and barrow in . [ ] large extracts from it are given by arber. [ ] as the titles of these productions are highly characteristic of the style of the controversy, and, indeed, are sometimes considerably more poignant than the text, it may be well to give some of them in full as follows:-- _the epistle._--oh read over d. john bridges, for it is a worthy work: or an epitome of the first book of that right worshipful volume, written against the puritans, in the defence of the noble clergy, by as worshipful a priest, john bridges, presbyter, priest or elder, doctor of divillity [_sic_], and dean of sarum, wherein the arguments of the puritans are wisely presented, that when they come to answer m. doctor, they must needs say something that hath been spoken. compiled for the behoof and overthrow of the parsons fyckers and currats [_sic_] that have learnt their catechisms, and are past grace: by the reverend and worthy martin marprelate, gentleman, and dedicated to the confocation [_sic_] house. the epitome is not yet published, but it shall be when the bishops are at convenient leisure to view the same. in the mean time let them be content with this learned epistle. printed, oversea, in europe, within two furlongs of a bouncing priest, at the cost and charges of m. marprelate, gentleman. [ ] hay any work for cooper, or a brief pistle directed by way of an hublication [_sic_] to the reverend bishops, counselling them if they will needs be barrelled up for fear of smelling in the nostrils of her majesty and the state, that they would use the advice of reverend martin for the providing of their cooper; because the reverend t. c. (by which mystical letters is understood either the bouncing parson of east meon or tom cokes his chaplain), hath shewed himself in his late admonition to the people of england to be an unskilful and beceitful [_sic_] tub-trimmer. wherein worthy martin quits him like a man, i warrant you in the modest defence of his self and his learned pistles, and makes the cooper's hoops to fly off, and the bishops' tubs to leak out of all cry. penned and compiled by martin the metropolitan. printed in europe, not far from some of the bouncing priests. the actual authorship of the martinist tracts is still purely a matter of hypothesis. penry has been the general favourite, and perhaps the argument from the difference of style in his known works is not quite convincing. the american writer dr. dexter, a fervent admirer, as stated above, of the puritans, is for barrow. mr. arber thinks that a gentleman of good birth named job throckmorton, who was certainly concerned in the affair, was probably the author of the more characteristic passages. fantastic suggestions of jesuit attempts to distract the anglican church have also been made,--attempts sufficiently refuted by the improbability of the persons known to be concerned lending themselves to such an intrigue, for, hotheads as penry and the rest were, they were transparently honest. on the side of the defence, authorship is a little better ascertained. of cooper's work there is no doubt, and some purely secular men of letters were oddly mixed up in the affair. it is all but certain that john lyly wrote the so-called _pap with a hatchet_,[ ] which in deliberate oddity of phrase, scurrility of language, and desultoriness of method outvies the wildest martinist outbursts. the later tract, _an almond for a parrot_,[ ] which deserves a very similar description, may not improbably be the same author's; and dr. grosart has reasonably attributed four anti-martinist tracts (_a countercuff to martin junior_ [_martin junior_ was one of the marprelate treatises], _pasquil's return_, _martin's month's mind_, and _pasquil's apology_), to nash. but the discussion of such questions comes but ill within the limits of such a book as the present. [ ] pap with a hatchet, alias a fig for my godson! or crack me this nut, or a country cuff that is a sound box of the ear for the idiot martin for to hold his peace, seeing the patch will take no warning. written by one that dares call a dog a dog, and made to prevent martin's dog-days. imprinted by john-a-noke and john-a-stile for the baylive [_sic_] of withernam, _cum privilegio perennitatis_; and are to be sold at the sign of the crab-tree-cudgel in thwackcoat lane. a sentence. martin hangs fit for my mowing. [ ] an almond for a parrot, or cuthbert curryknaves alms. fit for the knave martin, and the rest of those impudent beggars that cannot be content to stay their stomachs with a benefice, but they will needs break their fasts with our bishops. _rimarum sum plenus._ therefore beware, gentle reader, you catch not the hicket with laughing. imprinted at a place, not far from a place, by the assigns of signior somebody, and are to be sold at his shop in troubleknave street at the sign of the standish. the discussion of the characteristics of the actual tracts, as they present themselves and whosoever wrote them, is, on the other hand, entirely within our competence. on the whole the literary merit of the treatises has, i think, been overrated. the admirers of martin have even gone so far as to traverse penry's perfectly true statement that in using light, not to say ribald, treatment of a serious subject, he was only following [marnix de sainte aldegonde and] other protestant writers, and have attributed to him an almost entire originality of method, owing at most something to the popular "gags" of the actor richard tarleton, then recently dead. this is quite uncritical. an exceedingly free treatment of sacred and serious affairs had been characteristic of the reformers from luther downward, and the new martin only introduced the variety of style which any writer of considerable talents is sure to show. his method, at any rate for a time, is no doubt sufficiently amusing, though it is hardly effective. serious arguments are mixed up with the wildest buffoonery, and unconscious absurdities (such as a solemn charge against the unlucky bishop aylmer because he used the phrase "by my faith," and enjoyed a game at bowls) with the most venomous assertion or insinuation of really odious offences. the official answer to the _epistle_ and the _epitome_ has been praised by no less a person than bacon[ ] for its gravity of tone. unluckily dr. cooper was entirely destitute of the faculty of relieving argument with humour. he attacks the theology of the martinists with learning and logic that leave nothing to desire; but unluckily he proceeds in precisely the same style to deal laboriously with the quips assigned by martin to mistress margaret lawson (a noted puritan shrew of the day), and with mere idle things like the assertion that whitgift "carried dr. perne's cloakbag." the result is that, as has been said, the rejoinder _hay any work for cooper_ shows martin, at least at the beginning, at his very best. the artificial simplicity of his distortions of cooper's really simple statements is not unworthy of swift, or of the best of the more recent practitioners of the grave and polite kind of political irony. but this is at the beginning, and soon afterwards martin relapses for the most part into the alternation between serious argument which will not hold water and grotesque buffoonery which has little to do with the matter. a passage from the _epistle_ lampooning aylmer, bishop of london, and a sample each of _pap with a hatchet_ and the _almond_, will show the general style. but the most characteristic pieces of all are generally too coarse and too irreverent to be quotable:-- [ ] in his _advertisement touching the controversies of the church of england_ (works. folio, , ii. p. ). [sidenote: _i'll make you weary of it dumb john, except you leave persecuting._] "well now to mine eloquence, for i can do it i tell you. who made the porter of his gate a dumb minister? dumb john of london. who abuseth her majesty's subjects, in urging them to subscribe contrary to law? john of london. who abuseth the high commission, as much as any? john london (and d. stanhope too). who bound an essex minister, in _l._ to wear the surplice on easter day last? john london. who hath cut down the elms at fulham? john london. who is a carnal defender of the breach of the sabbath in all the places of his abode? john london. who forbiddeth men to humble themselves in fasting and prayer before the lord, and then can say unto the preachers, now you were best to tell the people that we forbid fasts? john london. who goeth to bowls upon the sabbath? dumb dunstical john of good london hath done all this. i will for this time leave this figure, and tell your venerable masterdoms a tale worth the hearing: i had it at the second hand: if he that told it me added anything, i do not commend him, but i forgive him: the matter is this. a man dying in fulham, made one of the bishop of london's men his executor. the man had bequeathed certain legacies unto a poor shepherd in the town. the shepherd could get nothing of the bishop's man, and therefore made his moan unto a gentleman of fulham, that belongeth to the court of requests. the gentleman's name is m. madox. the poor man's case came to be tried in the court of requests. the b. man desired his master's help: dumb john wrote to the masters of requests to this effect, and i think these were his words: "'my masters of the requests, the bearer hereof being my man, hath a cause before you: inasmuch as i understand how the matter standeth, i pray you let my man be discharged the court, and i will see an agreement made. fare you well.' the letter came to m. d. dale, he answered it in this sort: "'my lord of london, this man delivered your letter, i pray you give him his dinner on christmas day for his labour, and fare you well.' "dumb john not speeding this way, sent for the said m. madox: he came, some rough words passed on both sides, presbyter john said, master madox was very saucy, especially seeing he knew before whom he spake: namely, the lord of fulham. whereunto the gentleman answered that he had been a poor freeholder in fulham, before don john came to be l. there, hoping also to be so, when he and all his brood (my lady his daughter and all) should be gone. at the hearing of this speech, the wasp got my brother by the nose, which made him in his rage to affirm, that he would be l. of fulham as long as he lived in despite of all england. nay, soft there, quoth m. madox, except her majesty. i pray you, that is my meaning, call dumb john, and i tell thee madox that thou art but a jack to use me so: master madox replying, said that indeed his name was john, and if every john were a jack, he was content to be a jack (there he hit my l. over the thumbs). the b. growing in choler, said that master madox his name did shew what he was, for saith he, thy name is mad ox, which declareth thee to be an unruly and mad beast. m. madox answered again, that the b. name, if it were descanted upon, did most significantly shew his qualities. for said he, you are called elmar, but you may be better called marelm, for you have marred all the elms in fulham: having cut them all down. this far is my worthy story, as worthy to be printed, as any part of dean john's book, i am sure." * * * * * "to the father and the two sons, huff, ruff, and snuff,[ ] the three tame ruffians of the church, which take pepper in the nose, because they cannot mar prelates: greeting. "room for a royster; so that's well said. ach, a little farther for a good fellow. now have at you all my gaffers of the railing religion, 'tis i that must take you a peg lower. i am sure you look for more work, you shall have wood enough to cleave, make your tongue the wedge, and your head the beetle. i'll make such a splinter run into your wits, as shall make them rankle till you become fools. nay, if you shoot books like fools' bolts, i'll be so bold as to make your judgments quiver with my thunderbolts. if you mean to gather clouds in the commonwealth, to threaten tempests, for your flakes of snow, we'll pay you with stones of hail; if with an easterly wind you bring caterpillers into the church, with a northern wind we'll drive barrens into your wits. "we care not for a scottish mist, though it wet us to the skin, you shall be sure your cockscombs shall not be missed, but pierced to the skulls. i profess railing, and think it as good a cudgel for a martin, as a stone for a dog, or a whip for an ape, or poison for a rat. "yet find fault with no broad terms, for i have measured yours with mine, and i find yours broader just by the list. say not my speeches are light, for i have weighed yours and mine, and i find yours lighter by twenty grains than the allowance. for number you exceed, for you have thirty ribald words for my one, and yet you bear a good spirit. i was loth so to write as i have done, but that i learned, that he that drinks with cutters, must not be without his ale daggers; nor he that buckles with martin, without his lavish terms. "who would curry an ass with an ivory comb? give the beast thistles for provender. i do but yet angle with a silken fly, to see whether martins will nibble; and if i see that, why then i have worms for the nonce, and will give them line enough like a trout, till they swallow both hook and line, and then, martin, beware your gills, for i'll make you dance at the pole's end. "i know martin will with a trice bestride my shoulders. well, if he ride me, let the fool sit fast, for my wit is very hickish: which if he spur with his copper reply, when it bleeds, it will all to besmear their consciences. "if a martin can play at chess, as well as his nephew the ape, he shall know what it is for a scaddle pawn to cross a bishop in his own walk. such diedappers must be taken up, else they'll not stick to check the king. rip up my life, discipher my name, fill thy answer as full of lies as of lines, swell like a toad, hiss like an adder, bite like a dog, and chatter like a monkey, my pen is prepared and my mind; and if ye chance to find any worse words than you brought, let them be put in your dad's dictionary. and so farewell, and be hanged, and i pray god ye fare no worse. "yours at an hour's warning, "double v." [ ] well-known stage characters in preston's _cambyses_. * * * * * "by this time i think, good-man puritan, that thou art persuaded, that i know as well as thy own conscience thee, namely martin makebate of england, to be a most scurvy and beggarly benefactor to obedience, and _per consequens_, to fear neither men, nor that god who can cast both body and soul into unquenchable fire. in which respect i neither account you of the church, nor esteem of your blood, otherwise than the blood of infidels. talk as long as you will of the joys of heaven, or pains of hell, and turn from yourselves the terror of that judgment how you will, which shall bereave blushing iniquity of the fig-leaves of hypocrisy, yet will the eye of immortality discern of your painted pollutions, as the ever-living food of perdition. the humours of my eyes are the habitations of fountains, and the circumference of my heart the enclosure of fearful contrition, when i think how many souls at that moment shall carry the name of martin on their foreheads to the vale of confusion, in whose innocent blood thou swimming to hell, shalt have the torments of ten thousand thousand sinners at once, inflicted upon thee. there will envy, malice, and dissimulation be ever calling for vengeance against thee, and incite whole legions of devils to thy deathless lamentation. mercy will say unto thee, i know thee not, and repentance, what have i to do with thee? all hopes shall shake the head at thee, and say: there goes the poison of purity, the perfection of impiety, the serpentine seducer of simplicity. zeal herself will cry out upon thee, and curse the time that ever she was mashed by thy malice, who like a blind leader of the blind, sufferedst her to stumble at every step in religion, and madest her seek in the dimness of her sight, to murder her mother the church, from whose paps thou like an envious dog but yesterday pluckedst her. however, proud scorner, thy whorish impudency may happen hereafter to insist in the derision of these fearful denunciations, and sport thy jester's pen at the speech of my soul, yet take heed least despair be predominant in the day of thy death, and thou instead of calling for mercy to thy jesus, repeat more oftener to thyself, _sic morior damnatus ut judas_! and thus much, martin, in the way of compassion, have i spoke for thy edification, moved thereto by a brotherly commiseration, which if thou be not too desperate in thy devilish attempts, may reform thy heart to remorse, and thy pamphlets to some more profitable theme of repentance." if martin marprelate is compared with the _epistolæ obscurorum virorum_ earlier, or the _satire menippée_ very little later, the want of polish and directness about contemporary english satire will be strikingly apparent. at the same time he does not compare badly with his own antagonists. the divines like cooper are, as has been said, too serious. the men of letters like lyly and nash are not nearly serious enough, though some exception may be made for nash, especially if _pasquil's apology_ be his. they out-martin martin himself in mere abusiveness, in deliberate quaintness of phrase, in fantastic vapourings and promises of the dreadful things that are going to be done to the enemy. they deal some shrewd hits at the glaring faults of their subject, his outrageous abuse of authorities, his profanity, his ribaldry, his irrelevance; but in point of the three last qualities there is not much to choose between him and them. one line of counter attack they did indeed hit upon, which was followed up for generations with no small success against the nonconformists, and that is the charge of hypocritical abuse of the influence which the nonconformist teachers early acquired over women. the germs of the unmatched passages to this effect in _the tale of a tub_ may be found in the rough horseplay of _pap with a hatchet_ and _an almond for a parrot_. but the spirit of the whole controversy is in fact a spirit of horseplay. abuse takes the place of sarcasm, rabelaisian luxuriance of words the place of the plain hard hitting, with no flourishes or capers, but with every blow given straight from the shoulder, which dryden and halifax, swift and bentley, were to introduce into english controversy a hundred years later. the peculiar exuberance of elizabethan literature, evident in all its departments, is nowhere more evident than in this department of the prose pamphlet, and in no section of that department is it more evident than in the tracts of the martin marprelate controversy. never perhaps were more wild and whirling words used about any exceedingly serious and highly technical matter of discussion; and probably most readers who have ventured into the midst of the tussle will sympathise with the adjuration of _plain percivall the peacemaker of england_ (supposed to be richard harvey, brother of gabriel, who was himself not entirely free from suspicion of concernment in the matter), "my masters, that strive for this supernatural art of wrangling, let all be husht and quiet a-god's name." it is needless to say that the disputants did not comply with plain percivall's request. indeed they bestowed some of their choicest abuse on him in return for his advice. not even by the casting of the most peacemaking of all dust, that of years and the grave, can it be said that these jars at last _compacta quiescunt_. for it is difficult to find any account of the transaction which does not break out sooner or later into strong language. chapter vii the third dramatic period i have chosen, to fill the third division of our dramatic chapters, seven chief writers of distinguished individuality, reserving a certain fringe of anonymous plays and of less famous personalities for the fourth and last. the seven exceptional persons are beaumont and fletcher, webster, middleton, heywood, tourneur, and day. it would be perhaps lost labour to attempt to make out a severe definition, shutting these off on the one hand from their predecessors, on the other from those that followed them. we must be satisfied in such cases with an approach to exactness, and it is certain that while most of the men just named had made some appearance in the latest years of elizabeth, and while one or two of them lasted into the earliest years of charles, they all represent, in their period of flourishing and in the character of their work, the jacobean age. in some of them, as in middleton and day, the elizabethan type prevails; in others, as in fletcher, a distinctly new flavour--a flavour not perceptible in shakespere, much less in marlowe--appears. but in none of them is that other flavour of pronounced decadence, which appears in the work of men so great as massinger and ford, at all perceptible. we are still in the creative period, and in some of the work to be now noticed we are in a comparatively unformed stage of it. it has been said, and not unjustly said, that the work of beaumont and fletcher belongs, when looked at on one side, not to the days of elizabeth at all, but to the later seventeenth century; and this is true to the extent that the post-restoration dramatists copied fletcher and followed fletcher very much more than shakespere. but not only dates but other characteristics refer the work of beaumont and fletcher to a distinctly earlier period than the work of their, in some sense, successors massinger and ford. it will have been observed that i cleave to the old-fashioned nomenclature, and speak of "beaumont and fletcher." until very recently, when two new editions have made their appearance, there was for a time a certain tendency to bring fletcher into greater prominence than his partner, but at the same time and on the whole to depreciate both. i am in all things but ill-disposed to admit innovation without the clearest and most cogent proofs; and although the comparatively short life of beaumont makes it impossible that he should have taken part in some of the fifty-two plays traditionally assigned to the partnership (we may perhaps add mr. bullen's remarkable discovery of _sir john barneveldt_, in which massinger probably took beaumont's place), i see no reason to dispute the well-established theory that beaumont contributed at least criticism, and probably original work, to a large number of these plays; and that his influence probably survived himself in conditioning his partner's work. and i am also disposed to think that the plays attributed to the pair have scarcely had fair measure in comparison with the work of their contemporaries, which was so long neglected. beaumont and fletcher kept the stage--kept it constantly and triumphantly--till almost, if not quite, within living memory; while since the seventeenth century, and since its earlier part, i believe that very few plays of dekker's or middleton's, of webster's or of ford's, have been presented to an english audience. this of itself constituted at the great revival of interest in elizabethan literature something of a prejudice in favour of _les oubliés et les dédaignés_, and this prejudice has naturally grown stronger since all alike have been banished from the stage. the copper captain and the humorous lieutenant, bessus and monsieur thomas, are no longer on the boards to plead for their authors. the comparative depreciation of lamb and others is still on the shelves to support their rivals. although we still know but little about either beaumont or fletcher personally, they differ from most of their great contemporaries by having come of "kenned folk," and by having to all appearance, industrious as they were, had no inducement to write for money. francis beaumont was born at gracedieu, in leicestershire in . he was the son of a chief-justice; his family had for generations been eminent, chiefly in the law; his brother, sir john beaumont, was not only a poet of some merit, but a man of position, and francis himself, two years before his death in , married a kentish heiress. he was educated at broadgates hall (now pembroke college), oxford, and seems to have made acquaintance with john fletcher soon after quitting the university. fletcher was five years older than his friend, and of a clerical family, his father being bishop of london, and his uncle, giles fletcher (the author of _licia_), a dignitary of the church. the younger giles fletcher and his brother phineas were thus cousins of the dramatist. fletcher was a cambridge man, having been educated at benet college (at present and indeed originally known as corpus christi). little else is known of him except that he died of the plague in , nine years after beaumont's death, as he had been born five years before him. these two men, however, one of whom was but thirty and the other not fifty when he died, have left by far the largest collection of printed plays attributed to any english author. a good deal of dispute has been indulged in as to their probable shares,--the most likely opinion being that fletcher was the creator and beaumont (whose abilities in criticism were recognised by such a judge as ben jonson) the critical and revising spirit. about a third of the whole number have been supposed to represent beaumont's influence more or less directly. these include the two finest, _the maid's tragedy_ and _philaster_; while as to the third play, which may be put on the same level, _the two noble kinsmen_, early assertion, confirmed by a constant catena of the best critical authority, maintains that beaumont's place was taken by no less a collaborator than shakespere. fletcher, as has been said, wrote in conjunction with massinger (we know this for certain from sir aston cokain), and with rowley and others, while shirley seems to have finished some of his plays. some modern criticism has manifested a desire to apply the always uncertain and usually unprofitable tests of separation to the great mass of his work. with this we need not busy ourselves. the received collection has quite sufficient idiosyncrasy of its own as a whole to make it superfluous for any one, except as a matter of amusement, to try to split it up. its characteristics are, as has been said, sufficiently marked, both in defects and in merits. the comparative depreciation which has come upon beaumont and fletcher naturally fixes on the defects. there is in the work of the pair, and especially in fletcher's work when he wrought alone, a certain loose fluency, an ungirt and relaxed air, which contrasts very strongly with the strenuous ways of the elder playwrights. this exhibits itself not in plotting or playwork proper, but in style and in versification (the redundant syllable predominating, and every now and then the verse slipping away altogether into the strange medley between verse and prose, which we shall find so frequent in the next and last period), and also in the characters. we quit indeed the monstrous types of cruelty, of lust, of revenge, in which many of the elizabethans proper and of fletcher's own contemporaries delighted. but at the same time we find a decidedly lowered standard of general morality--a distinct approach towards the _fay ce que voudras_ of the restoration. we are also nearer to the region of the commonplace. nowhere appears that attempt to grapple with the impossible, that wrestle with the hardest problems, which marlowe began, and which he taught to some at least of his followers. and lastly--despite innumerable touches of tender and not a few of heroic poetry--the actual poetical value of the dramas at their best is below that of the best work of the preceding time, and of such contemporaries as webster and dekker. beaumont and fletcher constantly delight, but they do not very often transport, and even when they do, it is with a less strange rapture than that which communicates itself to the reader of shakespere _passim_, and to the readers of many of shakespere's fellows here and there. this, i think, is a fair allowance. but, when it is made, a goodly capital whereon to draw still remains to our poets. in the first place, no sound criticism can possibly overlook the astonishing volume and variety of their work. no doubt they did not often (if they ever did) invent their fables. but they have never failed to treat them in such a way as to make them original, and this of itself shows a wonderful faculty of invention and constitutes an inexhaustible source of pleasure. this pleasure is all the more pleasurable because the matter is always presented in a thoroughly workmanlike form. the shapelessness, the incoherence, the necessity for endless annotation and patching together, which mar so many even of the finest elizabethan plays, have no place in beaumont and fletcher. their dramatic construction is almost narrative in its clear and easy flow, in its absence of puzzles and piecings. again, their stories are always interesting, and their characters (especially the lighter ones) always more or less attractive. it used to be fashionable to praise their "young men," probably because of the agreeable contrast which they present with the brutality of the restoration hero; but their girls are more to my fancy. they were not straightlaced, and have left some sufficiently ugly and (let it be added) not too natural types of sheer impudence, such as the megra of _philaster_. nor could they ever attain to the romantic perfection of imogen in one kind, of rosalind in another, of juliet in a third. but for portraits of pleasant english girls not too squeamish, not at all afraid of love-making, quite convinced of the hackneyed assertion of the mythologists that jests and jokes go in the train of venus, but true-hearted, affectionate, and of a sound, if not a very nice morality, commend me to fletcher's dorotheas, and marys, and celias. add to this the excellence of their comedy (there is little better comedy of its kind anywhere than that of _a king and no king_, of the _humorous lieutenant_, of _rule a wife and have a wife_), their generally high standard of dialogue verse, their charming songs, and it will be seen that if they have not the daemonic virtue of a few great dramatic poets, they have at any rate very good, solid, pleasant, and plentiful substitutes for it. it is no light matter to criticise more than fifty plays in not many times fifty lines; yet something must be said about some of them at any rate. the play which usually opens the series, _the maid's tragedy_, is perhaps the finest of all on the purely tragic side, though its plot is a little improbable, and to modern notions not very agreeable. hazlitt disliked it much; and though this is chiefly to be accounted for by the monarchical tone of it, it is certainly faulty in parts. it shows, in the first place, the authors' greatest dramatic weakness--a weakness common indeed to all their tribe except shakespere--the representation of sudden and quite insufficiently motived moral revolutions; and, secondly, another fault of theirs in the representation of helpless and rather nerveless virtue punished without fault of its own indeed, but also without any effort. the aspatia of _the maid's tragedy_ and the bellario of _philaster_, pathetic as they are, are also slightly irritating. still the pathos is great, and the quarrel or threatened quarrel of the friends amintor and melantius, the horrible trial put upon amintor by his sovereign and the abandoned evadne, as well as the whole part of evadne herself when she has once been (rather improbably) converted, are excellent. a passage of some length from the latter part of the play may supply as well as another the sufficient requirement of an illustrative extract:-- _evad._ "o my lord! _amin._ how now? _evad._ my much abused lord! (_kneels._) _amin._ this cannot be. _evad._ i do not kneel to live, i dare not hope it; the wrongs i did are greater: look upon me though i appear with all my faults. _amin._ stand up. this is a new way to beget more sorrow. heav'n knows, i have too many; do not mock me; though i am tame and bred up with my wrongs which are my foster-brothers, i may leap like a hand-wolf into my natural wildness and do an outrage: pray thee, do not mock me. _evad._ my whole life is so leprous, it infects all my repentance: i would buy your pardon though at the highest set, even with my life: that slight contrition, that's no sacrifice for what i have committed. _amin._ sure i dazzle. there cannot be a faith in that foul woman that knows no god more mighty than her mischiefs: thou dost still worse, still number on thy faults to press my poor heart thus. can i believe there's any seed of virtue in that woman left to shoot up, that dares go on in sin known, and so known as thine is? o evadne! 'would, there were any safety in thy sex, that i might put a thousand sorrows off, and credit thy repentance! but i must not; thou'st brought me to that dull calamity, to that strange misbelief of all the world and all things that are in it; that, i fear i shall fall like a tree, and find my grave, only remembering that i grieve. _evad._ my lord, give me your griefs: you are an innocent, a soul as white as heav'n. let not my sins perish your noble youth: i do not fall here to shadows by dissembling with my tears (as, all say, women can) or to make less what my hot will hath done, which heav'n and you knows to be tougher than the hand of time can cut from man's remembrance; no, i do not; i do appear the same, the same evadne drest in the shames i liv'd in; the same monster: but these are names of honour, to what i am; i do present myself the foulest creature most pois'nous, dang'rous, and despis'd of men, lerna e'er bred, or nilus: i am hell, till you, my dear lord, shoot your light into me the beams of your forgiveness: i am soul-sick; and wither with the fear of one condemn'd, till i have got your pardon. _amin._ rise, evadne. those heavenly powers, that put this good into thee, grant a continuance of it: i forgive thee; make thyself worthy of it, and take heed, take heed, evadne, this be serious; mock not the pow'rs above, that can and dare give thee a great example of their justice to all ensuing eyes, if that thou playest with thy repentance, the best sacrifice. _evad._ i have done nothing good to win belief, my life hath been so faithless; all the creatures made for heav'n's honours, have their ends, and good ones, all but the cozening crocodiles, false women; they reign here like those plagues, those killing sores, men pray against; and when they die, like tales ill told, and unbeliev'd they pass away and go to dust forgotten: but, my lord, those short days i shall number to my rest, (as many must not see me) shall, though late (though in my evening, yet perceive a will,) since i can do no good, because a woman, reach constantly at something that is near it; i will redeem one minute of my age, or, like another niobe, i'll weep till i am water. _amin._ i am now dissolv'd. my frozen soul melts: may each sin thou hast find a new mercy! rise, i am at peace: hadst thou been thus, thus excellently good, before that devil king tempted thy frailty, sure, thou hadst made a star. give me thy hand; from this time i will know thee, and as far as honour gives me leave, be thy amintor. when we meet next, i will salute thee fairly and pray the gods to give thee happy days. my charity shall go along with thee though my embraces must be far from thee. i should ha' kill'd thee, but this sweet repentance locks up my vengeance, for which thus i kiss thee, the last kiss we must take." the beautiful play of _philaster_ has already been glanced at; it is sufficient to add that its detached passages are deservedly the most famous of all. the insufficiency of the reasons of philaster's jealousy may be considered by different persons as affecting to a different extent the merit of the piece. in these two pieces tragedy, or at least tragi-comedy, has the upper hand; it is in the next pair as usually arranged (for the chronological order of these plays is hitherto unsolved) that fletcher's singular _vis comica_ appears. _a king and no king_ has a very serious plot; and the loves of arbaces and panthea are most lofty, insolent, and passionate. but the comedy of bessus and his two swordsmen, which is fresh and vivid even after bobadil and parolles (i do not say falstaff, because i hold it a vulgar error to consider falstaff as really a coward at all), is perhaps more generally interesting. as for _the scornful lady_ it is comedy pure and simple, and very excellent comedy too. the callousness of the younger loveless--an ugly forerunner of restoration manners--injures it a little, and the instantaneous and quite unreasonable conversion of the usurer morecraft a little more. but the humours of the lady herself (a most molièresque personage), and those of roger and abigail, with many minor touches, more than redeem it. the plays which follow [ ] are all comical and mostly farcical. the situations, rather than the expressions of _the custom of the country_, bring it under the ban of a rather unfair condemnation of dryden's, pronounced when he was quite unsuccessfully trying to free the drama of himself and his contemporaries from collier's damning charges. but there are many lively traits in it. _the elder brother_ is one of those many variations on _cedant arma togæ_ which men of letters have always been somewhat prone to overvalue; but the excellent comedy of _the spanish curate_ is not impaired by the fact that dryden chose to adapt it after his own fashion in the _spanish friar_. in _wit without money_, though it is as usual amusing, the stage preference for a "roaring boy," a senseless crack-brained spendthrift, appears perhaps a little too strongly. _the beggar's bush_ is interesting because of its early indications of cant language, connecting it with brome's _jovial crew_, and with dekker's thieves' latin pamphlets. but the faults and the merits of fletcher have scarcely found better expression anywhere than in _the humorous lieutenant_. celia is his masterpiece in the delineation of the type of girl outlined above, and awkward as her double courtship by demetrius and his father antigonus is, one somehow forgives it, despite the nauseous crew of go-betweens of both sexes whom fletcher here as elsewhere seems to take a pleasure in introducing. as for the lieutenant he is quite charming; and even the ultra-farcical episode of his falling in love with the king owing to a philtre is well carried off. then follows the delightful pastoral of _the faithful shepherdess_, which ranks with jonson's _sad shepherd_ and with _comus_, as the three chiefs of its style in english. _the loyal subject_ falls a little behind, as also does _the mad lover_; but _rule a wife and have a wife_ again rises to the first class. inferior to shakespere in the power of transcending without travestying human affairs, to jonson in sharply presented humours, to congreve and sheridan in rattling fire of dialogue, our authors have no superior in half-farcical, half-pathetic comedy of a certain kind, and they have perhaps nowhere shown their power better than in the picture of the copper captain and his wife. the flagrant absurdity of _the laws of candy_ (which put the penalty of death on ingratitude, and apparently fix no criterion of what ingratitude is, except the decision of the person who thinks himself ungratefully treated), spoils a play which is not worse written than the rest. but in _the false one_, based on egyptian history just after pompey's death, and _valentinian_, which follows with a little poetical license the crimes and punishment of that emperor, a return is made to pure tragedy--in both cases with great success. the magnificent passage which hazlitt singled out from _the false one_ is perhaps the author's or authors' highest attempt in tragic declamation, and may be considered to have stopped not far short of the highest tragic poetry. [ ] it may perhaps be well to mention that the references to "volumes" are to the ten-volume edition of , by theobald, seward, and others. "'oh thou conqueror, thou glory of the world once, now the pity: thou awe of nations, wherefore didst thou fall thus? what poor fate followed thee, and plucked thee on to trust thy sacred life to an egyptian? the life and light of rome to a blind stranger, that honourable war ne'er taught a nobleness nor worthy circumstance show'd what a man was? that never heard thy name sung but in banquets and loose lascivious pleasures? to a boy that had no faith to comprehend thy greatness no study of thy life to know thy goodness?... egyptians, dare you think your high pyramides built to out-dure the sun, as you suppose, where your unworthy kings lie rak'd in ashes, are monuments fit for him! no, brood of nilus, nothing can cover his high fame but heaven; no pyramid set off his memories, but the eternal substance of his greatness, to which i leave him.'" the chief fault of _valentinian_ is that the character of maximus is very indistinctly drawn, and that of eudoxia nearly unintelligible. these two pure tragedies are contrasted with two comedies, _the little french lawyer_ and _monsieur thomas_, which deserve high praise. the fabliau-motive of the first is happily contrasted with the character of lamira and the friendship of clerimont and dinant; while no play has so many of fletcher's agreeable young women as _monsieur thomas_. _the bloody brother_, which its title speaks as sufficiently tragical, comes between two excellent comedies, _the chances_ and _the wild goose chase_, which might serve as well as any others for samples of the whole work on its comic side. in _the chances_ the portrait of the hare-brained don john is the chief thing; in _the wild goose chase_, as in _monsieur thomas_, a whole bevy of lively characters, male and female, dispute the reader's attention and divide his preference. _a wife for a month_ sounds comic, but is not a little alloyed with tragedy; and despite the pathos of its central situation, is marred by some of fletcher's ugliest characters--the characters which shakespere in pandarus and the nurse in _romeo and juliet_ took care to touch with his lightest finger. _the lover's progress_, a doubtful tragedy, and _the pilgrim_, a good comedy (revived at the end of the century, as was _the prophetess_ with certain help from dryden), do not require any special notice. between these two last comes _the captain_, a comedy neither of the best nor yet of the worst. the tragi-comic _queen of corinth_ is a little heavy; but in _bonduca_ we have one of the very best of the author's tragedies, the scenes with caratach and his nephew, the boy hengo, being full of touches not wholly unworthy of shakespere. _the knight of the burning pestle_ (where fletcher, forsaking his usual fantastic grounds of a france that is scarcely french, and an italy that is extremely un-italian, comes to simple pictures of london middle-class life, such as those of jonson or middleton) is a very happy piece of work indeed, despite the difficulty of working out its double presentment of burlesque knight-errantry and straightforward comedy of manners. in _love's pilgrimage_, with a spanish subject and something of a spanish style, there is not enough central interest, and the fortunes by land and sea of _the double marriage_ do not make it one of fletcher's most interesting plays. but _the maid in the mill_ and _the martial maid_ are good farce, which almost deserves the name of comedy; and _the knight of malta_ is a romantic drama of merit. in _women pleased_ the humours of avarice and hungry servility are ingeniously treated, and one of the starveling penurio's speeches is among the best-known passages of all the plays, while the anti-puritan satire of hope-on-high bomby is also noteworthy. the next four plays are less noticeable, and indeed for two volumes, of the edition referred to, we come to fewer plays that are specially good. _the night walker_; or, _the little thief_, though not very probable in its incidents, has a great deal of lively business, and is particularly noteworthy as supplying proof of the singular popularity of bell-ringing with all classes of the population in the seventeenth century,--a popularity which probably protected many old bells in the mania for church desecration. not much can be said for _the woman's prize_, or, _the tamer tamed_, an avowed sequel, and so to speak, antidote to _the taming of the shrew_, which chiefly proves that it is wise to let shakespere alone. the authors have drawn to some extent on the _lysistrata_ to aid them, but have fallen as far short of the fun as of the indecency of that memorable play. with _the island princess_ we return to a fair, though not more than a fair level of romantic tragi-comedy, but _the noble gentleman_ is the worst play ever attributed (even falsely) to authors of genius. the subject is perfectly uninteresting, the characters are all fools or knaves, and the means adopted to gull the hero through successive promotions to rank, and successive deprivations of them (the genuineness of neither of which he takes the least trouble to ascertain), are preposterous. _the coronation_ is much better, and _the sea voyage_, with a kind of amazon story grafted upon a hint of _the tempest_, is a capital play of its kind. better still, despite a certain looseness both of plot and moral, is _the coxcomb_, where the heroine viola is a very touching figure. the extravagant absurdity of the traveller antonio is made more probable than is sometimes the case with our authors, and the situations of the whole join neatly, and pass trippingly. _wit at several weapons_ deserves a somewhat similar description, and so does _the fair maid of the inn_; while _cupid's revenge_, though it shocked the editors of as a pagan kind of play, has a fine tragical zest, and is quite true to classical belief in its delineation of the ruthlessness of the offended deity. undoubtedly, however, the last volume of this edition supplies the most interesting material of any except the first. here is _the two noble kinsmen_, a play founded on the story of palamon and arcite, and containing what i think irrefragable proofs of shakespere's writing and versification, though i am unable to discern anything very shakesperian either in plot or character. then comes the fine, though horrible tragedy of _thierry and theodoret_, in which the misdeeds of queen brunehault find chroniclers who are neither squeamish nor feeble. the beautiful part of ordella in this play, though somewhat sentimental and improbable (as is always the case with fletcher's very virtuous characters) ranks at the head of its kind, and is much superior to that of aspatia in _the maid's tragedy_. _the woman hater_, said to be fletcher's earliest play, has a character of rare comic, or at least farcical virtue in the smell-feast lazarillo with his odyssey in chase of the umbrana's head (a delicacy which is perpetually escaping him); and _the nice valour_ contains, in chamont and his brother, the most successful attempts of the english stage at the delineation of the point of honour gone mad. not so much, perhaps, can be said for _an honest man's fortune_, which, with a mask and a clumsy, though in part beautiful, piece entitled _four plays in one_, makes up the tale. but whosoever has gone through that tale will, if he has any taste for the subject, admit that such a total of work, so varied in character, and so full of excellences in all its variety, has not been set to the credit of any name or names in english literature, if we except only shakespere. of the highest and most terrible graces, as of the sweetest and most poetical, beaumont and fletcher may have little to set beside the masterpieces of some other men; for accomplished, varied, and fertile production, they need not fear any competition. it has not been usual to put thomas middleton in the front rank among the dramatists immediately second to shakespere; but i have myself no hesitation in doing so. if he is not such a poet as webster, he is even a better, and certainly a more versatile, dramatist; and if his plays are inferior as plays to those of fletcher and massinger, he has a mastery of the very highest tragedy, which neither of them could attain. except the best scenes of _the white devil_, and _the duchess of malfi_, there is nothing out of shakespere that can match the best scenes of _the changeling_; while middleton had a comic faculty, in which, to all appearance, webster was entirely lacking. a little more is known about middleton than about most of his fellows. he was the son of a gentleman, and was pretty certainly born in london about . it does not appear that he was a university man, but he seems to have been at gray's inn. his earliest known work was not dramatic, and was exceedingly bad. in he published a verse paraphrase of the _wisdom of solomon_, which makes even that admirable book unreadable; and if, as seems pretty certain, the _microcynicon_ of two years later is his, he is responsible for one of the worst and feeblest exercises in the school--never a very strong one--of hall and marston. some prose tracts of the usual kind are not better; but either at the extreme end of the sixteenth century, or in the very earliest years of the next, middleton turned his attention to the then all absorbing drama, and for many years was (chiefly in collaboration) a busy playwright. we have some score of plays which are either his alone, or in greatest part his. the order of their composition is very uncertain, and as with most of the dramatists of the period, not a few of them never appeared in print till long after the author's death. he was frequently employed in composing pageants for the city of london, and in was appointed city chronologer. in middleton got into trouble. his play, _the game of chess_, which was a direct attack on spain and rome, and a personal satire on gondomar, was immensely popular, but its nine days' run was abruptly stopped on the complaint of the spanish ambassador; the poet's son, it would seem, had to appear before the council, and middleton himself was (according to tradition) imprisoned for some time. in this same year he was living at newington butts. he died there in the summer of , and was succeeded as chronologer by ben jonson. his widow, magdalen, received a gratuity from the common council, but seems to have followed her husband in a little over a year. middleton's acknowledged, or at least accepted, habit of collaboration in most of the work usually attributed to him, and the strong suspicion, if not more than suspicion, that he collaborated in other plays, afford endless opportunity for the exercise of a certain kind of criticism. by employing another kind we can discern quite sufficiently a strong individuality in the work that is certainly, in part or in whole, his; and we need not go farther. he seems to have had three different kinds of dramatic aptitude, in all of which he excelled. the larger number of his plays consist of examples of the rattling comedy of intrigue and manners, often openly representing london life as it was, sometimes transplanting what is an evident picture of home manners to some foreign scene apparently for no other object than to make it more attractive to the spectators. to any one at all acquainted with the elizabethan drama their very titles speak them. these titles are _blurt master constable_, _michaelmas term_, _a trick to catch the old one_, _the family of love_ [a sharp satire on the puritans], _a mad world, my masters_, _no wit no help like a woman's_, _a chaste maid in cheapside_, _anything for a quiet life_, _more dissemblers besides women_. as with all the humour-comedies of the time, the incidents are not unfrequently very improbable, and the action is conducted with such intricacy and want of clearly indicated lines, that it is sometimes very difficult to follow. at the same time, middleton has a faculty almost peculiar to himself of carrying, it might almost be said of hustling, the reader or spectator along, so that he has no time to stop and consider defects. his characters are extremely human and lively, his dialogue seldom lags, his catastrophes, if not his plots, are often ingenious, and he is never heavy. the moral atmosphere of his plays is not very refined,--by which i do not at all mean merely that he indulges in loose situations and loose language. all the dramatists from shakespere downwards do that; and middleton is neither better nor worse than the average. but in striking contrast to shakespere and to others, middleton has no kind of poetical morality in the sense in which the term poetical justice is better known. he is not too careful that the rogues shall not have the best of it; he makes his most virtuous and his vilest characters hobnob together very contentedly; and he is, in short, though never brutal, like the post-restoration school, never very delicate. the style, however, of these works of his did not easily admit of such delicacy, except in the infusion of a strong romantic element such as that which shakespere almost always infuses. middleton has hardly done it more than once--in the charming comedy of _the spanish gipsy_,--and the result there is so agreeable that the reader only wishes he had done it oftener. usually, however, when his thoughts took a turn of less levity than in these careless humorous studies of contemporary life, he devoted himself not to the higher comedy, but to tragedy of a very serious class, and when he did this an odd phenomenon generally manifested itself. in middleton's idea of tragedy, as in that of most of the playwrights, and probably all the playgoers of his day, a comic underplot was a necessity; and, as we have seen, he was himself undoubtedly able enough to furnish such a plot. but either because he disliked mixing his tragic and comic veins, or for some unknown reason, he seems usually to have called in on such occasions the aid of rowley, a vigorous writer of farce, who had sometimes been joined with him even in his comic work. now, not only was rowley little more than a farce writer, but he seems to have been either unable to make, or quite careless of making, his farce connect itself in any tolerable fashion with the tragedy of which it formed a nominal part. the result is seen in its most perfect imperfection in the two plays of _the mayor of queenborough_ and _the changeling_, both named from their comic features, and yet containing tragic scenes, the first of a very high order, the second of an order only overtopped by shakespere at his best. the humours of the cobbler mayor of queenborough in the one case, of the lunatic asylum and the courting of its keeper's wife in the other, are such very mean things that they can scarcely be criticised. but the desperate love of vortiger for rowena in _the mayor_, and the villainous plots against his chaste wife, castiza, are real tragedy. even these, however, fall far below the terrible loves, if loves they are to be called, of beatrice-joanna, the heroine of _the changeling_, and her servant, instrument, and murderer, de flores. the plot of the tragic part of this play is intricate and not wholly savoury. it is sufficient to say that beatrice having enticed de flores to murder a lover whom she does not love, that so she may marry a lover whom she does love, is suddenly met by the murderer's demand of her honour as the price of his services. she submits, and afterwards has to purchase fresh aid of murder from him by a continuance of her favours that she may escape detection by her husband. thus, roughly described, the theme may look like the undigested horrors of _lust's dominion_, of _the insatiate countess_, and of _the revenger's tragedy_. it is, however, poles asunder from them. the girl, with her southern recklessness of anything but her immediate desires, and her southern indifference to deceiving the very man she loves, is sufficiently remarkable, as she stands out of the canvas. but de flores,--the broken gentleman, reduced to the position of a mere dependant, the libertine whose want of personal comeliness increases his mistress's contempt for him, the murderer double and treble dyed, as audacious as he is treacherous, and as cool and ready as he is fiery in passion,--is a study worthy to be classed at once with iago, and inferior only to iago in their class. the several touches with which these two characters and their situations are brought out are as shakesperian as their conception, and the whole of that part of the play in which they figure is one of the most wonderful triumphs of english or of any drama. even the change of manners and a bold word or two here and there, may not prevent me from giving the latter part of the central scene:-- _beat._ "why 'tis impossible thou canst be so wicked, or shelter such a cunning cruelty, to make his death the murderer of my honour! thy language is so bold and vicious, i cannot see which way i can forgive it with any modesty. _de f._ pish![ ] you forget yourself: a woman dipped in blood, and talk of modesty! _beat._ o misery of sin! would i'd been bound perpetually unto my living hate in that pisacquo, than to hear[ ] these words. think but upon the distance that creation set 'twixt thy blood and mine, and keep thee there. _de f._ look but unto your conscience, read me _there_; 'tis a true book, you'll find me there your equal: pish! fly not to your birth, but settle you in what the act has made you; you're no more now. you must forget your parentage to me; you are the deed's creature;[ ] by that name you lost your first condition, and i shall urge[ ] you as peace and innocency has turn'd you out, and made you one with me. _beat._ with thee, foul villain! _de f._ yes, my fair murderess: do _you_ urge _me_? though thou writ'st maid, thou whore in thine affection! 'twas changed from thy first love, and that's a kind of whoredom in thy heart: and he's changed now to bring thy second on, thy alsemero, whom by all sweets that ever darkness tasted if i enjoy thee not, thou ne'er enjoyest! i'll blast the hopes and joys of marriage, i'll confess all; my life i rate at nothing. _beat._ de flores! _de f._ i shall rest from all (lover's)[ ] plagues then, i live in pain now; that [love] shooting eye will burn my heart to cinders. _beat._ o sir, hear me! _de f._ she that in life and love refuses me, in death and shame my partner she shall be. _beat._ (_kneeling_). stay, hear me once for all: i make thee master of all the wealth i have in gold and jewels; let me go poor unto my bed with honour and i am rich in all things. _de f._ let this silence thee; the wealth of all valencia shall not buy my pleasure from me. can you weep fate from its determined purpose? so soon may you weep me. _beat._ vengeance begins; murder, i see, is followed by more sins: was my creation in the womb so curst it must engender with a viper first? _de f._ (_raising her_). come, rise and shroud your blushes in my bosom, silence is one of pleasure's best receipts. thy peace is wrought for ever in this yielding. 'las, how the turtle pants! thou'lt love anon what thou so fear'st and faint'st to venture on." [ ] in orig. "push," cf. "tush." [ ] rather than hear. [ ] a trisyllable, as in strictness it ought to be. [ ] = "claim." [ ] this omission and the substitution in the next line are due to dyce, and may be called _certissima emendatio_. two other remarkable plays of middleton's fall with some differences under the same second division of his works. these are _the witch_ and _women beware women_. except for the inevitable and rather attractive comparison with _macbeth_, _the witch_ is hardly interesting. it consists of three different sets of scenes most inartistically blended,--an awkward and ineffective variation on the story of alboin, rosmunda and the skull for a serious main plot, some clumsy and rather unsavoury comic or tragi-comic interludes, and the witch scenes. the two first are very nearly worthless; the third is intrinsically, though far below _macbeth_, interesting enough and indirectly more interesting because of the questions which have been started, as to the indebtedness of the two poets to each other. the best opinion seems to be that shakespere most certainly did not copy middleton, nor (a strange fancy of some) did he collaborate with middleton, and that the most probable thing is that both borrowed their names, and some details from reginald scot's _discovery of witchcraft_. _women beware women_ on the other hand is one of middleton's finest works, inferior only to _the changeling_ in parts, and far superior to it as a whole. the temptation of bianca, the newly-married wife, by the duke's instrument, a cunning and shameless woman, is the title-theme, and in this part again middleton's shakesperian verisimilitude and certainty of touch appear. the end of the play is something marred by a slaughter more wholesale even than that of _hamlet_, and by no means so well justified. lastly, _a fair quarrel_ must be mentioned, because of the very high praise which it has received from lamb and others. this praise has been directed chiefly to the situation of the quarrel between captain ager and his friend, turning on a question (the point of family honour), finely but perhaps a little tediously argued. the comic scenes, however, which are probably rowley's, are in his best vein of bustling swagger. i have said that middleton, as it seems to me, has not been fully estimated. it is fortunately impossible to say the same of webster, and the reasons of the difference are instructive. middleton's great fault is that he never took trouble enough about his work. a little trouble would have made _the changeling_ or _women beware women_, or even _the spanish gipsy_, worthy to rank with all but shakespere's very masterpieces. webster also was a collaborator, apparently an industrious one; but he never seems to have taken his work lightly. he had, moreover, that incommunicable gift of the highest poetry in scattered phrases which, as far as we can see, middleton had not. next to nothing is known of him. he may have been parish clerk of st. andrew's, holborn; but the authority is very late, and the commentators seemed to have jumped at it to explain webster's fancy for details of death and burial--a cause and effect not sufficiently proportioned. mr. dyce has spent much trouble in proving that he could not have been the author of some puritan tracts published a full generation after the date of his masterpieces. heywood tells us that he was generally called "jack," a not uncommon thing when men are christened john. he himself has left us a few very sententiously worded prefaces which do not argue great critical taste. we know from the usual sources (henslowe's diaries) that he was a working furnisher of plays, and from many rather dubious title-pages we suppose or know some of the plays he worked at. _northward ho! westward ho!_ and _sir john wyatt_ are pieces of dramatic journalism in which he seems to have helped dekker. he adapted, with additions, marston's _malcontent_, which is, in a crude way, very much in his own vein: he contributed (according to rather late authority) some charming scenes (elegantly extracted, on a hint of mr. gosse's, by a recent editor) to _a cure for a cuckold_, one of rowley's characteristic and not ungenial botches of humour-comedy; he wrote a bad pageant or two, and some miscellaneous verses. but we know nothing of his life or death, and his fame rests on four plays, in which no other writer is either known or even hinted to have had a hand, and which are in different ways of the first order of interest, if not invariably of the first order of merit. these are _the duchess of malfi_, _the white devil_, _the devil's law case_, and _appius and virginia_. of _appius and virginia_ the best thing to be said is to borrow sainte-beuve's happy description of molière's _don garcie de navarre_, and to call it an _essai pale et noble_. webster is sometimes very close to shakespere; but to read _appius and virginia_, and then to read _julius cæsar_ or _coriolanus_, is to appreciate, in perhaps the most striking way possible, the universality which all good judges from dryden downwards have recognised in the prince of literature. webster, though he was evidently a good scholar, and even makes some parade of scholarship, was a romantic to the core, and was all abroad in these classical measures. _the devil's law case_ sins in the opposite way, being hopelessly undigested, destitute of any central interest, and, despite fine passages, a mere "salmagundi." there remain the two famous plays of _the white devil_ or _vittoria corombona_ and _the duchess of malfi_--plays which were rarely, if ever, acted after their author's days, and of which the earlier and, to my judgment, better was not a success even then, but which the judgment of three generations has placed at the very head of all their class, and which contain magnificent poetry. i have said that in my judgment _the white devil_ is the better of the two; i shall add that it seems to me very far the better. webster's plays are comparatively well known, and there is no space here to tell their rather intricate arguments. it need only be said that the contrast of the two is striking and unmistakable; and that webster evidently meant in the one to indicate the punishment of female vice, in the other to draw pity and terror by the exhibition of the unprevented but not unavenged sufferings of female virtue. certainly both are excellent subjects, and if the latter seem the harder, we have imogen and bellafront to show, in the most diverse material, and with the most diverse setting possible, how genius can manage it. with regard to _the white devil_, it has been suggested with some plausibility that it wants expansion. certainly the action is rather crowded, and the recourse to dumb show (which, however, webster again permitted himself in _the duchess_) looks like a kind of shorthand indication of scenes that might have been worked out. even as it is, however, the sequence of events is intelligible, and the presentation of character is complete. indeed, if there is any fault to find with it, it seems to me that webster has sinned rather by too much detail than by too little. we could spare several of the minor characters, though none are perhaps quite so otiose as delio, julio, and others in _the duchess of malfi_. we feel (or at least i feel) that vittoria's villainous brother flamineo is not as iago and aaron and de flores are each in his way, a thoroughly live creature. we ask ourselves (or i ask myself) what is the good of the repulsive and not in the least effective presentment of the moor zanche. cardinal monticelso is incontinent of tongue and singularly feeble in deed,--for no rational man would, after describing vittoria as a kind of pest to mankind, have condemned her to a punishment which was apparently little more than residence in a rather disreputable but by no means constrained boarding-house, and no omnipotent pope would have let ludivico loose with a clear inkling of his murderous designs. but when these criticisms and others are made, _the white devil_ remains one of the most glorious works of the period. vittoria is perfect throughout; and in the justly-lauded trial scene she has no superior on any stage. brachiano is a thoroughly lifelike portrait of the man who is completely besotted with an evil woman. flamineo i have spoken of, and not favourably; yet in literature, if not in life, he is a triumph; and above all the absorbing tragic interest of the play, which it is impossible to take up without finishing, has to be counted in. but the real charm of _the white devil_ is the wholly miraculous poetry in phrases and short passages which it contains. vittoria's dream of the yew-tree, almost all the speeches of the unfortunate isabella, and most of her rival's, have this merit. but the most wonderful flashes of poetry are put in the mouth of the scoundrel flamineo, where they have a singular effect. the famous dirge which cornelia sings can hardly be spoken of now, except in lamb's artfully simple phrase "i never saw anything like it," and the final speeches of flamineo and his sister deserve the same endorsement. nor is even the proud farewell of the moor zanche unworthy. it is impossible to describe the "whirl of spirits" (as the good old-fashioned phrase has it) into which the reading of this play sets the reader, except by saying that the cause of that whirl is the secret of the best elizabethan writers, and that it is nowhere, out of shakespere, better exemplified than in the scene partly extracted from middleton, and in such passages of _vittoria corombona_ as the following:-- _cor._ "will you make me such a fool? here's a white hand: can blood so soon be wash'd out? let me see; when screech-owls croak upon the chimney-tops and the strange cricket i' the oven sings and hops, when yellow spots do on your hands appear, be certain then you of a corse shall hear. out upon 't, how 'tis speckled! 'h'as handled a toad, sure. cowslip-water is good for the memory: pray, buy me three ounces of 't. _flam._ i would i were from hence. _cor._ do you hear, sir? i'll give you a saying which my grand-mother was wont, when she heard the bell toll, to sing o'er unto her lute. _flam._ do, an' you will, do. _cor._ 'call for the robin-red-breast and the wren, [_cornelia doth this in several forms of distraction._ since o'er shady groves they hover, and with leaves and flowers do cover the friendless bodies of unburied men. call unto his funeral dole the ant, the field mouse, and the mole, to rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm and (when gay tombs are robb'd) sustain no harm, but keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men, for with his nails he'll dig them up again.' they would not bury him 'cause he died in a quarrel; but i have an answer for them: 'let holy church receive him duly since he paid the church-tithes truly.' his wealth is summ'd, and this is all his store. this poor men get, and great men get no more. now the wares are gone, we may shut up shop. bless you, all good people. [_exeunt_ cornelia, zanche, _and_ ladies. _flam._ i have a strange thing in me, to the which i cannot give a name, without it be compassion. i pray, leave me. [_exit_ francisco de medicis. this night i'll know the utmost of my fate; i'll be resolved what my rich sister means to assign me for my service. i have liv'd riotously ill, like some that live in court, and sometimes when my face was full of smiles have felt the maze of conscience in my breast. oft gay and honoured robes those tortures try: we think cag'd birds sing when indeed they cry. [_enter brachiano's ghost, in his leather cassock and_ _breeches, and boots; with a cowl; in his hand a pot_ _of lily flowers, with a skull in't._ ha! i can stand thee: nearer, nearer it. what a mockery hath death made thee! thou look'st sad. in what place art thou? in yon starry gallery? or in the cursèd dungeon?--no? not speak? pray, sir, resolve me, what religion's best for a man to die in? or is it in your knowledge to answer me how long i have to live? that's the most necessary question. not answer? are you still like some great men that only walk like shadows up and down, and to no purpose? say:-- [_the ghost throws earth upon him and shows him the skull._ what's that? o, fatal! he throws earth upon me! a dead man's skull beneath the roots of flowers!-- i pray [you], speak, sir: our italian church-men make us believe dead men hold conference with their familiars, and many times will come to bed to them, and eat with them. [_exit_ ghost. he's gone; and see, the skull and earth are vanished. this is beyond melancholy. i do dare my fate to do its worst. now to my sister's lodging and sum up all these horrors: the disgrace the prince threw on me; next the piteous sight of my dead brother; and my mother's dotage; and last this terrible vision: all these shall with vittoria's bounty turn to good, or i will drown this weapon in her blood." [_exit._ _the duchess of malfi_ is to my thinking very inferior--full of beauties as it is. in the first place, we cannot sympathise with the duchess, despite her misfortunes, as we do with the "white devil." she is neither quite a virtuous woman (for in that case she would not have resorted to so much concealment) nor a frank professor of "all for love." antonio, her so-called husband, is an unromantic and even questionable figure. many of the minor characters, as already hinted, would be much better away. of the two brothers the cardinal is a cold-blooded and uninteresting debauchee and murderer, who sacrifices sisters and mistresses without any reasonable excuse. ferdinand, the other, is no doubt mad enough, but not interestingly mad, and no attempt is made to account in any way satisfactorily for the delay of his vengeance. by common consent, even of the greatest admirers of the play, the fifth act is a kind of gratuitous appendix of horrors stuck on without art or reason. but the extraordinary force and beauty of the scene where the duchess is murdered; the touches of poetry, pure and simple, which, as in the _the white devil_, are scattered all over the play; the fantastic accumulation of terrors before the climax; and the remarkable character of bosola,--justify the high place generally assigned to the work. true, bosola wants the last touches, the touches which shakespere would have given. he is not wholly conceivable as he is. but as a "plain dealer" gone wrong, a "malcontent" (webster's work on that play very likely suggested him), turned villain, a man whom ill-luck and fruitless following of courts have changed from a cynic to a scoundrel, he is a strangely original and successful study. the dramatic flashes in the play would of themselves save it. "i am duchess of malfi still," and the other famous one "cover her face; mine eyes dazzle; she died young," often as they have been quoted, can only be quoted again. they are of the first order of their kind, and, except the "already _my_ de flores!" of _the changeling_, there is nothing in the elizabethan drama out of shakespere to match them. there is no doubt that some harm has been done to thomas heywood by the enthusiastic phrase in which lamb described him as "a prose shakespere." the phrase itself is in the original quite carefully and sufficiently explained and qualified. but unluckily a telling description of the kind is sure to go far, while its qualifications remain behind; and (especially since a reprint by pearson in the year made the plays of heywood, to which one or two have since been added more or less conjecturally by the industry of mr. bullen, accessible as a whole) a certain revolt has been manifested against the encomium. this revolt is the effect of haste. "a prose shakespere" suggests to incautious readers something like swift, like taylor, like carlyle,--something approaching in prose the supremacy of shakespere in verse. but obviously that is not what lamb meant. indeed when one remembers that if shakespere is anything, he is a poet, the phrase may run the risk of receiving an under--not an over--valuation. it is evident, however, to any one who reads lamb's remarks in full and carefully--it is still more evident to any one who without much caring what lamb or any one else has said, reads heywood for himself--what he did mean. he was looking only at one or two sides of the myriad-sided one, and he justly saw that heywood touched shakespere on these sides, if only in an incomplete and unpoetic manner. what heywood has in common with shakespere, though his prosaic rather than poetic treatment brings it out in a much less brilliant way, is his sympathy with ordinary and domestic character, his aversion from the fantastic vices which many of his fellows were prone to attribute to their characters, his humanity, his kindness. the reckless tragedy of blood and massacre, the reckless comedy of revelry and intrigue, were always repulsive to him, as far as we can judge from the comparatively scanty remnant of the hundreds of plays in which he boasted that he had had a hand, if not a chief hand. besides these plays (he confesses to authorship or collaboration in two hundred and twenty) he was a voluminous writer in prose and verse, though i do not myself pretend to much knowledge of his non-dramatic work. its most interesting part would have been a _lives of the poets_, which we know that he intended, and which could hardly have failed to give much information about his famous contemporaries. as it is, his most remarkable and best-known work, not contained in one of his dramas, is the curious and constantly quoted passage half complaining that all the chief dramatists of his day were known by abbreviations of their names, but characteristically and good-humouredly ending with the license-- "i hold he loves me best who calls me tom." we have unfortunately no knowledge which enables us to call him many names except such as are derived from critical examination of his works. little, except that he is said to have been a lincolnshire man and a fellow of peterhouse, is known of his history. his masterpiece, _the woman killed with kindness_ (in which a deceived husband, coming to the knowledge of his shame, drives his rival to repentance, and his wife to repentance and death, by his charity), is not wholly admirable. shakespere would have felt, more fully than heywood, the danger of presenting his hero something of a wittol without sufficient passion of religion or affection to justify his tolerance. but the pathos is so great, the sense of "the pity of it" is so simply and unaffectedly rendered, that it is impossible not to rank heywood very high. the most famous "beauties" are in the following passage:-- _anne._ "o with what face of brass, what brow of steel, can you unblushing speak this to the face of the espoused wife of so dear a friend? it is my husband that maintains your state, will you dishonour him that in your power hath left his whole affairs? i am his wife, is it to _me_ you speak? _wendoll._ "o speak no more: for more than this i know and have recorded within the red-leaved table of my heart. fair and of all beloved, i was not fearful bluntly to give my life unto your hand, and at one hazard all my worldly means. go, tell your husband; he will turn me off and i am then undone: i care not, i, 'twas for your sake. perchance in rage he'll kill me; i care not, 'twas for you. say i incur the general name of villain through the world, of traitor to my friend. i care not, i. beggary, shame, death, scandal and reproach for you i'll hazard all--why, what care i? for you i'll live and in your love i'll die." anne capitulates with a suddenness which has been generally and rightly pronounced a blot on the play; but her husband is informed by a servant and resolves to discover the pair. the action is prolonged somewhat too much, and the somewhat unmanly strain of weakness in frankford is too perceptible; but these scenes are full of fine passages, as this:-- _fr._ "a general silence hath surprised the house, and this is the last door. astonishment, fear and amazement beat[ ] upon my heart even as a madman beats upon a drum. o keep my eyes, you heavens, before i enter, from any sight that may transfix my soul: or if there be so black a spectacle, o strike mine eyes stark blind! or if not so, lend me such patience to digest my grief that i may keep this white and virgin hand from any violent outrage, or red murder, and with that prayer i enter." [ ] first ed. "play," which i am half inclined to prefer. a subsequent speech of his-- "o god, o god that it were possible to undo things done," hardly comes short of the touch which would have given us instead of a prose shakespere a shakespere indeed; and all the rest of the play, as far as the main plot is concerned, is full of pathos. in the great number of other pieces attributed to him, written in all the popular styles, except the two above referred to, merits and defects are mixed up in a very curious fashion. never sinking to the lowest depth of the elizabethan playwright, including some great ones, heywood never rises to anything like the highest height. his chronicle plays are very weak, showing no grasp of heroic character, and a most lamentable slovenliness of rhythm. few things are more curious than to contrast with _henry vi._ (to which some critics will allow little of shakespere's work) and _richard iii._ the two parts of _edward iv._, in which heywood, after a manner, fills the gap. there are good lines here and there, and touching traits; but the whole, as a whole, is quite ludicrously bad, and "written to the gallery," the city gallery, in the most innocent fashion. _if you know not me you know nobody_, or _the troubles of queen elizabeth_, also in two parts, has the same curious innocence, the same prosaic character, but hardly as many redeeming flashes. its first part deals with elizabeth's real "troubles," in her sister's days; its second with the armada period and the founding of the royal exchange. for heywood, unlike most of the dramatists, was always true to the city, even to the eccentric extent of making, in _the four prentices of london_, godfrey of bouillon and his brethren members of the prentice-brotherhood. his classical and allegorical pieces, such as _the golden age_ and its fellows, are most tedious and not at all brief. the four of them (_the iron age_ has two parts) occupy a whole volume of the reprint, or more than four hundred closely printed pages; and their clumsy dramatisation of ovid's _metamorphoses_, with any other classical learning that heywood could think of thrust in, presents (together with various minor pieces of a somewhat similar kind) as striking a contrast with _troilus and cressida_, as _edward iv._ does with _henry vi._ his spectacles and pageants, chiefly in honour of london (_london's jus honorarium_, with other metaphorical latin titles of the same description) are heavy, the weakness of his versification being especially felt in such pieces. his strength lies in the domestic and contemporary drama, where his pathos had free play, unrestrained by the necessity of trying to make it rise to chivalrous or heroic height, and where his keen observation of his fellow-men made him true to mankind in general, at the same time that he gave a vivid picture of contemporary manners. of this class of his plays _a woman killed with kindness_ is undoubtedly the chief, but it has not a few companions, and those in a sufficiently wide and varied class of subject. _the fair maid of the exchange_ is, perhaps, not now found to be so very delectable and full of mirth as it is asserted to be on its title-page, because it is full of that improbability and neglect of verisimilitude which has been noted as the curse of the minor elizabethan drama. the "cripple of fenchurch," the real hero of the piece, is a very unlikely cripple; the heroines chop and change their affections in the most surprising manner; and the characters generally indulge in that curious self-description and soliloquising in dialogue which is never found in shakespere, and is found everywhere else. but it is still a lively picture of contemporary manners. we should be sorry to lose _the fair maid of the west_ with its picture of devonshire sailors, foreign merchants, kings of fez, bashaws of various parts, italian dukes, and what not. the two parts make anything but a good play, but they are decidedly interesting, and their tone supports mr. bullen's conjecture that we owe to heywood the, in parts, admirable play of _dick of devonshire_, a dramatisation of the quarter-staff feats in spain of richard peake of tavistock. _the english traveller_ may rank with _a woman killed with kindness_ as heywood's best plays (there is, indeed, a certain community of subject between them), but _a maidenhead well lost_, and _the witches of lancashire_, are not far behind it; nor is _a challenge for beauty_. we can hardly say so much for _love's mistress_, which dramatises the story of _cupid and psyche_, or for _the wise woman of hogsdon_ (hoxton), a play rather of middleton's type. but in _the royal king and loyal subject_, and in _fortune by land and sea_, the author shows again the sympathy with chivalrous character and adventure which (if he never can be said to be fully up to its level in the matter of poetic expression) was evidently a favourite and constant motive with him. in short, heywood, even at his worst, is a writer whom it is impossible not to like. his very considerable talent, though it stopped short of genius, was united with a pleasant and genial temper, and little as we know of his life, his dedications and prefaces make us better acquainted with his personality than we are with that of much more famous men. no greater contrast is possible than that between our last two names--day and tourneur. little is known of them: day was at cambridge in - ; tourneur shared in the cadiz voyage of and died on its return. both, it is pretty certain, were young men at the end of elizabeth's reign, and were influenced strongly by the literary fashions set by greater men than themselves. but whereas day took to the graceful fantasticalities of lyly and to the not very savage social satire of greene, tourneur (or turner) addressed himself to the most ferocious school of sub-marlovian tragedy, and to the rugged and almost unintelligible satire of marston. something has been said of his effort in the latter vein, the _transformed metamorphosis_. his two tragedies, _the atheist's tragedy_ and _the revenger's tragedy_, have been rather variously judged. the concentration of gloomy and almost insane vigour in _the revenger's tragedy_, the splendid poetry of a few passages which have long ago found a home in the extract books, and the less separable but equally distinct poetic value of scattered lines and phrases, cannot escape any competent reader. but, at the same time, i find it almost impossible to say anything for either play as a whole, and here only i come a long way behind mr. swinburne in his admiration of our dramatists. the _atheist's tragedy_ is an inextricable imbroglio of tragic and comic scenes and characters, in which it is hardly possible to see or follow any clue; while the low extravagance of all the comedy and the frantic rant of not a little of the tragedy combine to stifle the real pathos of some of the characters. _the revenger's tragedy_ is on a distinctly higher level; the determination of vindice to revenge his wrongs, and the noble and hapless figure of castiza, could not have been presented as they are presented except by a man with a distinct strain of genius, both in conception and execution. but the effect, as a whole, is marred by a profusion of almost all the worst faults of the drama of the whole period from peele to davenant. the incoherence and improbability of the action, the reckless, inartistic, butcherly prodigality of blood and horrors, and the absence of any kind of redeeming interest of contrasting light to all the shade, though very characteristic of a class, and that no small one, of elizabethan drama, cannot be said to be otherwise than characteristic of its faults. as the best example (others are _the insatiate countess_, chettle's _hoffmann_, _lust's dominion_, and the singular production which mr. bullen has printed as _the distracted emperor_) it is very well worth reading, and contrasting with the really great plays of the same class, such as _the jew of malta_ and _titus andronicus_, where, though the horrors are still overdone, yet genius has given them a kind of passport. but intrinsically it is mere nightmare. of a very different temper and complexion is the work of john day, who may have been a cambridge graduate, and was certainly a student of gonville and caius, as he describes himself on the title-page of some of his plays and of a prose tract printed by mr. bullen. he appears to have been dead in , and the chief thing positively known about him is that between the beginning of and he collaborated in the surprising number of twenty-one plays (all but _the blind beggar of bethnal green_ unprinted) with haughton, chettle, dekker, and others. _the parliament of bees_, his most famous and last printed work, is of a very uncommon kind in english--being a sort of dramatic allegory, touched with a singularly graceful and fanciful spirit. it is indeed rather a masque than a play, and consists, after the opening parliament held by the master, or viceroy bee (quaintly appearing in the original, which may have been printed in , though no copy seems now discoverable earlier than , as "mr. bee"), of a series of characters or sketches of bee-vices and virtues, which are very human. the termination, which contains much the best poetry in the piece, and much the best that day ever wrote, introduces king oberon giving judgment on the bees from "mr. bee" downwards and banishing offenders. here occurs the often-quoted passage, beginning-- "and whither must these flies be sent?" and including the fine speech of oberon-- "you should have cried so in your youth." it should be observed that both in this play and elsewhere passages occur in day which seem to have been borrowed or stolen from or by other writers, such as dekker and samuel rowley; but a charitable and not improbable explanation of this has been found in the known fact of his extensive and intricate collaboration. _the isle of gulls_, suggested in a way by the _arcadia_, though in general plan also fantastic and, to use a much abused but decidedly convenient word, pastoral, has a certain flavour of the comedy of manners and of contemporary satire. then we have the quaint piece of _humour out of breath_, a kind of study in the for once conjoined schools of shakespere and jonson--an attempt at a combination of humorous and romantic comedy with some pathetic writing, as here:-- "[o] early sorrow art got up so soon? what, ere the sun ascendeth in the east? o what an early waker art thou grown! but cease discourse and close unto thy work. under this drooping myrtle will i sit, and work awhile upon my corded net; and as i work, record my sorrows past, asking old time how long my woes shall last. and first--but stay! alas! what do i see? moist gum-like tears drop from this mournful tree; and see, it sticks like birdlime; 'twill not part, sorrow is even such birdlime at my heart. alas! poor tree, dost thou want company? thou dost, i see't, and i will weep with thee; thy sorrows make me dumb, and so shall mine, it shall be tongueless, and so seem like thine. thus will i rest my head unto thy bark, whilst my sighs ease my sorrows." something the same may be said of _law tricks_, or _who would have thought it?_ which has, however, in the character of the count horatio, a touch of tragedy. another piece of day's is in quite a different vein, being an account in dramatised form of the adventures of the three brothers shirley--a kind of play which, from _sir thomas stukeley_ downwards, appears to have been a very favourite one with elizabethan audiences, though (as might indeed be expected) it was seldom executed in a very successful manner. lastly, or first, if chronological order is taken, comes _the blind beggar of bethnal green_, written by day in conjunction with chettle, and ranging itself with the half historical, half romantic plays which were, as has been pointed out above, favourites with the first school of dramatists. it seems to have been very popular, and had a second and third part, not now extant, but is by no means as much to modern taste as some of the others. indeed both day and tourneur, despite the dates of their pieces, which, as far as known, are later, belong in more ways than one to the early school, and show how its traditions survived alongside of the more perfect work of the greater masters. day himself is certainly not a great master--indeed masterpieces would have been impossible, if they would not have been superfluous, in the brisk purveying of theatrical matter which, from henslowe's accounts, we see that he kept up. he had fancy, a good deal of wit, considerable versatility, and something of the same sunshiny temper, with less of the pathos, that has been noticed in heywood. if he wrote _the maid's metamorphosis_ (also ascribed conjecturally to lyly), he did something less dramatically good, but perhaps poetically better, than his other work; and if, as has sometimes been thought,[ ] _the return from parnassus_ is his, he is richer still. but even without these, his existing poetical baggage (the least part of the work which we know he accomplished) is more than respectable, and shows more perhaps than that of any other distinctly minor writer the vast amount of loose talent--of miscellaneous inspiration--which was afloat in the air of his time. [ ] i agree with professor hales in thinking it very improbable. chapter viii the school of spenser and the tribe of ben the reign of james i. is not, in mere poetry, quite such a brilliant period as it is in drama. the full influence of donne and of jonson, which combined to produce the exquisite if not extraordinarily strong school of caroline poets, did not work in it. of its own bards the best, such as jonson himself and drayton, were survivals of the elizabethan school, and have accordingly been anticipated here. nevertheless, there were not a few verse-writers of mark who may be most conveniently assigned to this time, though, as was the case with so many of their contemporaries, they had sometimes produced work of note before the accession of the british solomon, and sometimes continued to produce it until far into the reign of his son. especially there are some of much mark who fall to be noticed here, because their work is not, strictly speaking, of the schools that flourished under elizabeth, or of the schools that flourished under charles. we shall not find anything of the first interest in them; yet in one way or in another there were few of them who were unworthy to be contemporaries of shakespere. joshua sylvester is one of those men of letters whom accident rather than property seems to have made absurd. he has existed in english literature chiefly as an englisher of the frenchman du bartas, whom an even greater ignorance has chosen to regard as something grotesque. du bartas is one of the grandest, if also one of the most unequal, poets of europe, and joshua sylvester, his translator, succeeded in keeping some of his grandeur if he even added to his inequality. his original work is insignificant compared with his translation; but it is penetrated with the same qualities. he seems to have been a little deficient in humour, and his portrait--crowned with a singularly stiff laurel, throated with a stiffer ruff, and clothed, as to the bust, with a doublet so stiff that it looks like textile armour--is not calculated to diminish the popular ridicule. yet is sylvester not at all ridiculous. he was certainly a kentish man, and probably the son of a london clothier. his birth is guessed, on good grounds, at ; and he was educated at southampton under the famous refugee, saravia, to whom he owed that proficiency in french which made or helped his fame. he did not, despite his wishes, go to either university, and was put to trade. in this he does not seem to have been prosperous; perhaps he gave too much time to translation. he was probably patronised by james, and by prince henry certainly. in the last years of his life he was resident secretary to the english company of merchant venturers at middleburgh, where he died on the th september . he was not a fortunate man, but his descendants seem to have flourished both in england, the west indies and america. as for his literary work, it requires no doubt a certain amount of good will to read it. it is voluminous, even in the original part not very original, and constantly marred by that loquacity which, especially in times of great inspiration, comes upon the uninspired or not very strongly inspired. the point about sylvester, as about so many others of his time, is that, unlike the minor poets of our day and of some others, he has constant flashes--constant hardly separable, but quite perceivable, scraps, which show how genially heated the brain of the nation was. nor should it be forgotten that his du bartas had a great effect for generations. the man of pure science may regret that generations should have busied themselves about anything so thoroughly unscientific; but with that point of view we are unconcerned. the important thing is that the generations in question learnt from sylvester to take a poetical interest in the natural world. john davies of hereford, who must have been born at about the same time as sylvester, and who certainly died in the same year, is another curiosity of literature. he was only a writing-master,--a professor of the curious, elaborate penmanship which is now quite dead,--and he seems at no time to have been a man of wealth. but he was, in his vocation or otherwise, familiar with very interesting people, both of the fashionable and the literary class. he succeeded, poor as he was, in getting thrice married to ladies born; and, though he seems to have been something of a coxcomb, he was apparently as little of a fool as coxcombry will consist with. his work (of the most miscellaneous character and wholly in verse, though in subject as well as treatment often better suiting prose) is voluminous, and he might have been wholly treated (as he has already been referred to) with the verse pamphleteers, especially rowlands, of an earlier chapter. but fluent and unequal as his verse is--obviously the production of a man who had little better to offer than journalism, but for whom the times did not provide the opening of a journalist--there is a certain salt of wit in it which puts him above the mere pamphleteers. his epigrams (most of which are contained in _the scourge of folly_, undated, like others of his books) are by no means despicable; the welsh ancestors, whom he did not fail to commemorate, seem to have endowed him with some of that faculty for lampooning and "flyting" which distinguished the celtic race. that they are frequently lacking in point ought hardly to be objected to him; for the age had construed the miscellaneous examples of martial indulgently, and jonson in his own generation, and herrick after him (two men with whom davies cannot compare for a moment in general power), are in their epigrams frequently as pointless and a good deal coarser. his variations on english proverbs are also remarkable. he had a respectable vein of religious moralising, as the following sonnet from _wit's pilgrimage_ will show:-- "when will doth long to effect her own desires, she makes the wit, as vassal to the will, to do what she, howe'er unright, requires, which wit doth, though repiningly, fulfil. yet, as well pleased (o languishing wit!) he seems to effect her pleasure willingly, and all his reasons to her reach doth fit; so like the world, gets love by flattery. that this is true a thousand witnesses, impartial conscience, will directly prove; then if we would not willingly transgress, our will should swayed be by rules of love, which holds the multitude of sins because her sin morally to him his servants draws." the defect of davies, as of not a few of his contemporaries, is that, having the power of saying things rememberable enough, he set himself to wrap them up and merge them in vast heaps of things altogether unrememberable. his successors have too often resembled him only in the latter part of his gift. his longer works (_mirum in modum_, _summa totalis_, _microcosmus_, _the holy rood_, _humours heaven on earth_, are some of their eccentric titles) might move simple wonder if a century which has welcomed _the course of time_, and _yesterday, to-day, and for ever_, not to mention examples even more recent than these, had any great reason to throw stones at its forerunners. but to deal with writers like davies is a little difficult in a book which aims both at being nothing if not critical, and at doing justice to the minor as well as to the major luminaries of the time: while the difficulty is complicated by the necessity of _not_ saying ditto to the invaluable labourers who have reintroduced him and others like him to readers. i am myself full of the most unfeigned gratitude to my friend dr. grosart, to professor arber, and to others, for sparing students, whose time is the least disposable thing they have, visits to public libraries or begging at rich men's doors for the sight of books. i should be very sorry both as a student and as a lover of literature not to possess davies, breton, sylvester, quarles, and the rest, and not to read them from time to time. but i cannot help warning those who are not professed students of the subject that in such writers they have little good to seek; i cannot help noting the difference between them and other writers of a very different order, and above all i cannot help raising a mild protest against the encomiums which are sometimes passed on them. southey, in that nearly best of modern books unclassified, _the doctor_, has a story of a glover who kept no gloves that were not "best." but when the facts came to be narrowly inquired into, it was found that the ingenious tradesman had no less than five qualities--"best," "better than best," "better than better than best," "best of all," and the "real best." such language is a little delusive, and when i read the epithets of praise which are sometimes lavished, not by the same persons, on breton and watson, i ask myself what we are to say of spenser and shakespere. davies has no doubt also suffered from the fact that he had a contemporary of the same name and surname, who was not only of higher rank, but of considerably greater powers. sir john davies was a wiltshire man of good family: his mother, mary bennet of pyt-house, being still represented by the benett-stanfords of dorsetshire and brighton. born about , he was a member of the university of oxford, and a templar; but appears to have been anything but a docile youth, so that both at oxford and the temple he came to blows with the authorities. he seems, however, to have gone back to oxford, and to have resided there till close of middle life; some if not most of his poems dating thence. he entered parliament in , and after figuring in the opposition during elizabeth's last years, was taken into favour, like others in similar circumstances, by james. immediately after the latter's accession davies became a law officer for ireland, and did good and not unperilous service there. he was mainly resident in ireland for some thirteen years, producing during the time a valuable "discovery of the causes of the irish discontent." for the last ten years of his life he seems to have practised as serjeant-at-law in england, frequently serving as judge or commissioner of assize, and he died in . his poetical work consists chiefly of three things, all written before . these are _nosce teipsum_, or the immortality of the soul, in quatrains, and as light as the unsuitableness of the subject to verse will allow; a singularly clever collection of acrostics called _astraea_, all making the name of elizabetha regina; and the _orchestra_, or poem on dancing, which has made his fame. founded as it is on a mere conceit--the reduction of all natural phenomena to a grave and regulated motion which the author calls dancing--it is one of the very best poems of the school of spenser, and in harmony of metre (the seven-lined stanza) and grace of illustration is sometimes not too far behind spenser himself. an extract from it may be fitly followed by one of the acrostics of _astraea_:-- "as the victorious twins of leda and jove, (that taught the spartans dancing on the sands of swift eurotas) dance in heaven above, knit and united with eternal bands; among the stars, their double image stands, where both are carried with an equal pace, together jumping in their turning race. "this is the net, wherein the sun's bright eye, venus and mars entangled did behold; for in this dance, their arms they so imply, as each doth seem the other to enfold. what if lewd wits another tale have told of jealous vulcan, and of iron chains! yet this true sense that forgèd lie contains. "these various forms of dancing love did frame, and besides these, a hundred millions more; and as he did invent, he taught the same: with goodly gesture, and with comely show, now keeping state, now humbly honouring low. and ever for the persons and the place he taught most fit, and best according grace." * * * * * "each day of thine, sweet month of may, love makes a solemn holy day. i will perform like duty; since thou resemblest every way astraea, queen of beauty. both you, fresh beauties do partake, either's aspect, doth summer make. thoughts of young love awaking, hearts you both do cause to ache; and yet be pleased with aching. right dear art thou, and so is she, even like attractive sympathy gains unto both, like dearness. i ween this made antiquity name thee, sweet may of majesty, as being both like in clearness." the chief direct followers of spenser were, however, giles and phineas fletcher, and william browne. the two first were, as has been said, the cousins of john fletcher the dramatist, and the sons of dr. giles fletcher, the author of _licia_. the exact dates and circumstances of their lives are little known. both were probably born between and . giles, though the younger (?), died vicar of alderton in suffolk in : phineas, the elder (?), who was educated at eton and king's college, cambridge (giles was a member of trinity college in the same university), also took orders, and was for nearly thirty years incumbent of hilgay-in-the-fens, dying in . giles's extant work is a poem in four cantos or parts, generally entitled _christ's victory and triumph_. he chose a curious and rather infelicitous variation on the spenserian stanza _ababbccc_, keeping the alexandrine but missing the seventh line, with a lyrical interlude here and there. the whole treatment is highly allegorical, and the lusciousness of spenser is imitated and overdone. nevertheless the versification and imagery are often very beautiful, as samples of the two kinds will show:-- "the garden like a lady fair was cut that lay as if she slumber'd in delight, and to the open skies her eyes did shut; the azure fields of heav'n were 'sembled right in a large round, set with the flow'rs of light: the flow'rs-de-luce, and the round sparks of dew, that hung upon their azure leaves did shew like twinkling stars, that sparkle in the evening blue. "upon a hilly bank her head she cast, on which the bower of vain-delight was built, white and red roses for her face were placed, and for her tresses marigolds were spilt: them broadly she displayed like flaming gilt, till in the ocean the glad day were drowned: then up again her yellow locks she wound, and with green fillets in their pretty cauls them bound. "what should i here depaint her lily hand, her veins of violets, her ermine breast, which there in orient colours living stand: or how her gown with living leaves is drest, or how her watchman, armed with boughy crest, a wall of prim hid in his bushes bears shaking at every wind their leafy spears while she supinely sleeps, nor to be wakèd fears." * * * * * "see, see the flowers that below, now as fresh as morning blow, and of all the virgin rose, that as bright aurora shows: how they all unleavèd die, losing their virginity; like unto a summer shade, but now born and now they fade. everything doth pass away, there is danger in delay. come, come gather then the rose, gather it, or it you lose. all the sand of tagus' shore into my bosom casts his ore: all the valleys' swimming corn to my house is yearly borne: every grape of every vine is gladly bruis'd to make me wine, while ten thousand kings, as proud, to carry up my train have bow'd, and a world of ladies send me in my chambers to attend me. all the stars in heaven that shine, and ten thousand more, are mine: only bend thy knee to me, thy wooing shall thy winning be." _the purple island_, phineas fletcher's chief work, is an allegorical poem of the human body, written in a stanza different only from that of _christ's victory_ in being of seven lines only, the quintet of giles being cut down to a regular elegiac quatrain. this is still far below the spenserian stanza, and the colour is inferior to that of giles. phineas follows spenser's manner, or rather his mannerisms, very closely indeed, and in detached passages not unsuccessfully, as here, where the transition from spenser to milton is marked:-- "the early morn lets out the peeping day, and strew'd his path with golden marigolds: the moon grows wan, and stars fly all away. whom lucifer locks up in wonted folds till light is quench'd, and heaven in seas hath flung the headlong day: to th' hill the shepherds throng and thirsil now began to end his task and song: "'who now, alas! shall teach my humble vein, that never yet durst peep from covert glade, but softly learnt for fear to sigh and plain and vent her griefs to silent myrtle's shade? who now shall teach to change my oaten quill for trumpet 'larms, or humble verses fill with graceful majesty, and lofty rising skill? "'ah, thou dread spirit! shed thy holy fire, thy holy flame, into my frozen heart; teach thou my creeping measures to aspire and swell in bigger notes, and higher art: teach my low muse thy fierce alarms to ring, and raise my soft strain to high thundering, tune thou my lofty song; thy battles must i sing. "'such as thou wert within the sacred breast of that thrice famous poet, shepherd, king; and taught'st his heart to frame his cantos best of all that e'er thy glorious works did sing; or as, those holy fishers once among, thou flamedst bright with sparkling parted tongues; and brought'st down heaven to earth in those all-conquering songs.'" but where both fail is first in the adjustment of the harmony of the individual stanza as a verse paragraph, and secondly in the management of their fable. spenser has everywhere a certain romance-interest both of story and character which carries off in its steady current, where carrying off is needed, both his allegorising and his long descriptions. the fletchers, unable to impart this interest, or unconscious of the necessity of imparting it, lose themselves in shallow overflowings like a stream that overruns its bank. but giles was a master of gorgeous colouring in phrase and rhythm, while in _the purple island_ there are detached passages not quite unworthy of spenser, when he is not at his very best--that is to say, worthy of almost any english poet. phineas, moreover, has, to leave _britain's ida_ alone, a not inconsiderable amount of other work. his piscatory eclogues show the influence of _the shepherd's calendar_ as closely as, perhaps more happily than, _the purple island_ shows the influence of _the faërie queene_, and in his miscellanies there is much musical verse. it is, however, very noticeable that even in these occasional poems his vehicle is usually either the actual stanza of the _island_, or something equally elaborate, unsuited though such stanzas often are to the purpose. these two poets indeed, though in poetical capacity they surpassed all but one or two veterans of their own generation, seem to have been wholly subdued and carried away by the mighty flood of their master's poetical production. it is probable that, had he not written, they would not have written at all; yet it is possible that, had he not written, they would have produced something much more original and valuable. it ought to be mentioned that the influence of both upon milton, directly and as handing on the tradition of spenser, was evidently very great. the strong cambridge flavour (not very perceptible in spenser himself, but of which milton is, at any rate in his early poems, full) comes out in them, and from _christ's victory_ at any rate the poet of _lycidas_, the _ode on the nativity_, and _paradise regained_, apparently "took up," as the phrase of his own day went, not a few commodities. the same rich borrower owed something to william browne, who, in his turn, like the fletchers, but with a much less extensive indebtedness, levied on spenser. browne, however, was free from the _genius loci_, being a devonshire man born and of exeter college, oxford, by education. he was born, they say, in , published the first part of _britannia's pastorals_ in , made many literary and some noble acquaintances, is thought to have lived for some time at oxford as a tutor, and either in surrey or in his native county for the rest of his life, which is (not certainly) said to have ended about . browne was evidently a man of very wide literary sympathy, which saved him from falling into the mere groove of the fletchers. he was a personal friend and an enthusiastic devotee of jonson, drayton, chapman. he was a student of chaucer and occleve. he was the dear friend and associate of a poet more gifted but more unequal than himself, george wither. all this various literary cultivation had the advantage of keeping him from being a mere mocking-bird, though it did not quite provide him with any prevailing or wholly original pipe of his own. _britannia's pastorals_ (the third book of which remained in ms. for more than two centuries) is a narrative but extremely desultory poem, in fluent and somewhat loose couplets, diversified with lyrics full of local colour, and extremely pleasant to read, though hopelessly difficult to analyse in any short space, or indeed in any space at all. browne seems to have meandered on exactly as the fancy took him; and his ardent love for the country, his really artistic though somewhat unchastened gift of poetical description and presentment enabled him to go on just as he pleased, after a fashion, of which here are two specimens in different measures:-- "'may first (quoth marin) swains give lambs to thee; and may thy flood have seignory of all floods else; and to thy fame meet greater springs, yet keep thy name. may never newt, nor the toad within thy banks make their abode! taking thy journey from the sea may'st thou ne'er happen in thy way on nitre or on brimstone mine, to spoil thy taste! this spring of thine, let it of nothing taste but earth, and salt conceived in their birth. be ever fresh! let no man dare to spoil thy fish, make lock or wear, but on thy margent still let dwell those flowers which have the sweetest smell. and let the dust upon thy strand become like tagus' golden sand. let as much good betide to thee as thou hast favour shew'd to me.'" * * * * * "here left the bird the cherry, and anon forsook her bosom, and for more is gone, making such speedy flights into the thick that she admir'd he went and came so quick. then, lest his many cherries should distaste, some other fruit he brings than he brought last. sometime of strawberries a little stem oft changing colours as he gather'd them, some green, some white, some red, on them infus'd, these lov'd, these fear'd, they blush'd to be so us'd. the peascod green, oft with no little toil he'd seek for in the fattest, fertil'st soil and rend it from the stalk to bring it to her, and in her bosom for acceptance woo her. no berry in the grove or forest grew that fit for nourishment the kind bird knew, nor any powerful herb in open field to serve her brood the teeming earth did yield, but with his utmost industry he sought it, and to the cave for chaste marina brought it." _the shepherd's pipe_, besides reproducing occleve, is in parts reminiscent of chaucer, in parts of spenser, but always characterised by the free and unshackled movement which is browne's great charm; and the same characteristics appear in the few minor poems attributed to him. browne has been compared to keats, who read and loved him, and there are certainly not a few points of resemblance. of keats's higher or more restrained excellences, such as appear in the finest passages of _st. agnes' eve_, and _hyperion_, in the _ode to a grecian urn_, and such minor pieces as _in a drear-nighted december_, browne had nothing. but he, like keats, had that kind of love of nature which is really the love of a lover; and he had, like keats, a wonderful gift of expression of his love.[ ] nor is he ever prosaic, a praise which certainly cannot be accorded to some men of far greater repute, and perhaps of occasionally higher gifts both in his own time and others. the rarest notes of apollo he has not, but he is never driven, as the poet and friend of his, to whom we next come, was often driven, to the words of mercury. this special gift was not very common at the time; and though that time produced better poets than browne, it is worth noting in him. he may never reach the highest poetry, but he is always a poet. [ ] something of the same love, but unluckily much less of the same gift, occurs in the poems of a friend of browne's once hardly known except by some fair verses on shakespere ("renowned spenser," etc.), but made fully accessible by mr. r. warwick bond in . this was william basse, a retainer of the wenman family near thame, the author, probably or certainly, of a quaint defence of retainership, _sword and buckler_ ( ), and of other poems--_pastoral elegies_, _urania_, _polyhymnia_, etc.--together with an exceedingly odd piece, _the metamorphosis of the walnut-tree of boarstall_, which is not quite like anything else of the time. basse, who seems also to have spelt his name "bas," and perhaps lived and wrote through the first forty or fifty years of the seventeenth century, is but a moderate poet. still he is not contemptible, and deserves to rank as a member of the spenserian family on the pastoral side; while the _walnut-tree_, though it may owe something to _the oak and the brere_, has a quaintness which is not in spenser, and not perhaps exactly anywhere else. the comparative impotence of even the best criticism to force writers on public attention has never been better illustrated than in the case of george wither himself. the greater part of a century has passed since charles lamb's glowing eulogy of him was written, and the terms of that eulogy have never been contested by competent authority. yet there is no complete collection of his work in existence, and there is no complete collection even of the poems, saving a privately printed one which is inaccessible except in large libraries, and to a few subscribers. his sacred poems, which are not his best, were indeed reprinted in the library of old authors; and one song of his, the famous "shall i wasting in despair," is universally known. but the long and exquisite poem of _philarete_ was not generally known (if it is generally known now, which may be doubted) till mr. arber reprinted it in the fourth volume of his _english garner_. nor can _fidelia_ and _the shepherd's hunting_, things scarcely inferior, be said to be familiar to the general reader. for this neglect there is but one excuse, and that an insufficient one, considering the immense quantity of very indifferent contemporary work which has had the honour of modern publication. what the excuse is we shall say presently. wither was born at brentworth, in the alresford district of hampshire (a district afterwards delightfully described by him), on th june . his family was respectable; and though not the eldest son, he had at one time some landed property. he was for two years at magdalen college, oxford, of which he speaks with much affection, but was removed before taking his degree. after a distasteful experience of farm work, owing to reverses of fortune in his family he came to london, entered at lincoln's inn, and for some years haunted the town and the court. in he published his _abuses stript and whipt_, one of the general and rather artificial satires not unfashionable at the time. for this, although the book has no direct personal reference that can be discovered, he was imprisoned in the marshalsea; and there wrote the charming poem of _the shepherd's hunting_, , and probably also _fidelia_, an address from a faithful nymph to an inconstant swain, which, though inferior to _the shepherd's hunting_ and to _philarete_ in the highest poetical worth, is a signal example of wither's copious and brightly-coloured style. three years later came the curious personal poem of the _motto_, and in _philarete_ itself, which was followed in the very next year by the _hymns and songs of the church_. although wither lived until d may , and was constantly active with his pen, his _hallelujah_, , another book of sacred verse, is the only production of his that has received or that deserves much praise. the last thirty years of his long life were eventful and unfortunate. after being a somewhat fervent royalist, he suddenly changed his creed at the outbreak of the great rebellion, sold his estate to raise men for the parliament, and was active in its cause with pen as well as with sword. naturally he got into trouble at the restoration (as he had previously done with cromwell), and was imprisoned again, though after a time he was released. at an earlier period he had been in difficulties with the stationers' company on the subject of a royal patent which he had received from james, and which was afterwards (though still fruitlessly) confirmed by charles, for his _hymns_. indeed, wither, though a man of very high character, seems to have had all his life what men of high character not unfrequently have, a certain facility for getting into what is vulgarly called hot-water. the defect in his work, which has been referred to above, and which is somewhat passed over in the criticisms of lamb and others, is its amazing inequality. this is the more remarkable in that evidence exists of not infrequent retouching on his part with the rather unusual result of improvement--a fact which would seem to show that he possessed some critical faculty. such possession, however, seems on the other hand to be quite incompatible with the production of the hopeless doggerel which he not infrequently signs. the felicity of language and the command of rhythmical effect which he constantly displays, are extraordinary, as for instance in the grand opening of his first canticle:-- "come kiss me with those lips of thine, for better are thy loves than wine; and as the pourèd ointments be such is the savour of thy name, and for the sweetness of the same the virgins are in love with thee." compare the following almost unbelievable rubbish-- "as we with water wash away uncleanness from our flesh, and sometimes often in a day ourselves are fain to wash." even in his earlier and purely secular work there is something, though less of this inequality, and its cause is not at all dubious. no poet, certainly no poet of merit, seems to have written with such absolute spontaneity and want of premeditation as wither. the metre which was his favourite, and which he used with most success--the trochaic dimeter catalectic of seven syllables--lends itself almost as readily as the octosyllable to this frequently fatal fluency; but in wither's hands, at least in his youth and early manhood, it is wonderfully successful, as here:-- "and sometimes, i do admire all men burn not with desire. nay, i muse her servants are not pleading love: but o they dare not: and i, therefore, wonder why they do not grow sick and die. sure they would do so, but that, by the ordinance of fate, there is some concealed thing so each gazer limiting, he can see no more of merit than beseems his worth and spirit. for, in her, a grace there shines that o'erdaring thoughts confines, making worthless men despair to be loved of one so fair. yea the destinies agree some good judgments blind should be: and not gain the power of knowing those rare beauties, in her growing. reason doth as much imply, for, if every judging eye which beholdeth her should there find what excellences are; all, o'ercome by those perfections would be captive to affections. so (in happiness unblest) she for lovers should not rest." nor had he at times a less original and happy command of the rhymed decasyllabic couplet, which he sometimes handles after a fashion which makes one almost think of dryden, and sometimes after a fashion (as in the lovely description of alresford pool at the opening of _philarete_) which makes one think of more modern poets still. besides this metrical proficiency and gift, wither at this time (he thought fit to apologise for it later) had a very happy knack of blending the warm amatory enthusiasm of his time with sentiments of virtue and decency. there is in him absolutely nothing loose or obscene, and yet he is entirely free from the milk-and-water propriety which sometimes irritates the reader in such books as habington's _castara_. wither is never mawkish, though he is never loose, and the swing of his verse at its best is only equalled by the rush of thought and feeling which animates it. as it is perhaps necessary to justify this high opinion, we may as well give the "alresford pool" above noted. it is like browne, but it is better than anything browne ever did; being like browne, it is not unlike keats; it is also singularly like mr. william morris. "for pleasant was that pool; and near it, then, was neither rotten marsh nor boggy fen. it was not overgrown with boisterous sedge, nor grew there rudely, then, along the edge a bending willow, nor a prickly bush, nor broad-leafed flag, nor reed, nor knotty rush: but here, well ordered, was a grove with bowers; there, grassy plots, set round about with flowers. here, you might, through the water, see the land appear, strewed o'er with white or yellow sand. yon, deeper was it; and the wind, by whiffs, would make it rise, and wash the little cliffs; on which, oft pluming, sate, unfrighted then the gagling wild goose, and the snow-white swan, with all those flocks of fowl, which, to this day upon those quiet waters breed and play." when to this gift of description is added a frequent inspiration of pure fancy, it is scarcely surprising that-- "such a strain as might befit some brave tuscan poet's wit," to borrow a couplet of his own, often adorns wither's verse. two other poets of considerable interest and merit belong to this period, who are rather scotch than english, but who have usually been included in histories of english literature--drummond of hawthornden, and sir william alexander, earl of stirling. both, but especially drummond, exhibit equally with their english contemporaries the influences which produced the elizabethan jacobean poetry; and though i am not myself disposed to go quite so far, the sonnets of drummond have sometimes been ranked before all others of the time except shakespere's. william drummond was probably born at the beautiful seat whence he derived his designation, on th december . his father was sir john drummond, and he was educated in edinburgh and in france, betaking himself, like almost all young scotchmen of family, to the study of the law. he came back to scotland from france in , and resided there for the greater part of his life, though he left it on at least two occasions for long periods, once travelling on the continent for eight years to recover from the grief of losing a lady to whom he was betrothed, and once retiring to avoid the inconveniences of the civil war. though a royalist, drummond submitted to be requisitioned against the crown, but as an atonement he is said to have died of grief at charles i.'s execution in . the most famous incidents of his life are the visit that ben jonson paid to him, and the much discussed notes of that visit which drummond left in manuscript. it would appear, on the whole, that drummond was an example of a well-known type of cultivated dilettante, rather effeminate, equally unable to appreciate jonson's boisterous ways and to show open offence at them, and in the same way equally disinclined to take the popular side and to endure risk and loss in defending his principles. he shows better in his verse. his sonnets are of the true elizabethan mould, exhibiting the petrarchian grace and romance, informed with a fire and aspiring towards a romantic ideal beyond the italian. like the older writers of the sonnet collections generally, drummond intersperses his quatorzains with madrigals, lyrical pieces of various lengths, and even with what he calls "songs,"--that is to say, long poems in the heroic couplet. he was also a skilled writer of elegies, and two of his on gustavus adolphus and on prince henry have much merit. besides the madrigals included in his sonnets he has left another collection entitled "madrigals and epigrams," including pieces both sentimental and satirical. as might be expected the former are much better than the latter, which have the coarseness and the lack of point noticeable in most of the similar work of this time from jonson to herrick. we have also of his a sacred collection (again very much in accordance with the practice of his models of the preceding generation), entitled _flowers of sion_, and consisting, like the sonnets, of poems of various metres. one of these is noticeable as suggesting the metre of milton's "nativity," but with an alteration of line number and rhyme order which spoils it. yet a fourth collection of miscellanies differs not much in constitution from the others, and drummond's poetical work is completed by some local pieces, such as _forth feasting_, some hymns and divine poems, and an attempt in macaronic called _polemo-middinia_, which is perhaps not his. he was also a prose writer, and a tract, entitled _the cypress grove_, has been not unjustly ranked as a kind of anticipation of sir thomas browne, both in style and substance. of his verse a sonnet and a madrigal may suffice, the first of which can be compared with the sleep sonnet given earlier:-- "sleep, silence' child, sweet father of soft rest, prince whose approach peace to all mortals brings, indifferent host to shepherds and to kings, sole comforter of minds which are oppressed; lo, by thy charming rod, all breathing things lie slumb'ring, with forgetfulness possess'd, and yet o'er me to spread thy drowsy wings thou spar'st, alas! who cannot be thy guest. since i am thine, o come, but with that face to inward light, which thou art wont to show, with feignèd solace ease a true felt woe; or if, deaf god, thou do deny that grace, come as thou wilt, and what thou wilt bequeath: i long to kiss the image of my death." * * * * * "to the delightful green of you, fair radiant een, let each black yield, beneath the starry arch. eyes, burnish'd heavens of love, sinople[ ] lamps of jove, save all those hearts which with your flames you parch two burning suns you prove; all other eyes, compared with you, dear lights are hells, or if not hells, yet dumpish nights. the heavens (if we their glass the sea believe) are green, not perfect blue; they all make fair, whatever fair yet was, and they are fair because they look like you." [ ] in heraldry (but not english heraldry) = "green." sir william alexander, a friend and countryman of drummond (who bewailed him in more than one mournful rhyme of great beauty), was born in of a family which, though it had for some generations borne the quasi-surname alexander, is said to have been a branch of the clan macdonald. alexander early took to a court life, was much concerned in the proposed planting of nova scotia, now chiefly remembered from its connection with the order of baronets, was secretary of state for scotland, and was raised to the peerage. he died in . professor masson has called him "the second-rate scottish sycophant of an inglorious despotism." he might as well be called "the faithful servant of monarchy in its struggle with the encroachments of republicanism," and one description would be as much question-begging as the other. but we are here concerned only with his literary work, which was considerable in bulk and quality. it consists chiefly of a collection of sonnets (varied as usual with madrigals, etc.), entitled _aurora_; of a long poem on _doomsday_ in an eight-lined stanza; of a _paraenesis_ to prince henry; and of four "monarchic tragedies" on _darius_, _croesus_, _alexander_, and _cæsar_, equipped with choruses and other appliances of the literary rather than the theatrical tragedy. it is perhaps in these choruses that alexander appears at his best; for his special forte was grave and stately declamation, as the second of the following extracts will prove. the first is a sonnet from _aurora_:-- "let some bewitched with a deceitful show, love earthly things unworthily esteem'd, and losing that which cannot be redeemed pay back with pain according as they owe: but i disdain to cast my eyes so low, that for my thoughts o'er base a subject seem'd, which still the vulgar course too beaten deem'd; and loftier things delighted for to know. though presently this plague me but with pain, and vex the world with wondering at my woes: yet having gained that long desired repose my mirth may more miraculous remain. that for the which long languishing i pine, it is a show, but yet a show divine." * * * * * "those who command above, high presidents of heaven, by whom all things do move, as they have order given, what worldling can arise against them to repine? whilst castled in the skies with providence divine; they force this peopled round, their judgments to confess, and in their wrath confound proud mortals who transgress the bounds to them assigned by nature in their mind. "base brood of th' earth, vain man, why brag'st thou of thy might? the heavens thy courses scan, thou walk'st still in their sight; ere thou wast born, thy deeds their registers dilate, and think that none exceeds the bounds ordain'd by fate; what heavens would have thee to, though they thy ways abhor, that thou of force must do, and thou canst do no more: this reason would fulfil, their work should serve their will. "are we not heirs of death, in whom there is no trust? who, toss'd with restless breath, are but a drachm of dust; yet fools whenas we err, and heavens do wrath contract, if they a space defer just vengeance to exact, pride in our bosom creeps, and misinforms us thus that love in pleasure sleeps or takes no care of us: 'the eye of heaven beholds what every heart enfolds.'" not a few of his other sonnets are also worth reading, and the unpromising subject of _doomsday_ (which connects itself in style partly with spenser, but perhaps still more with _the mirror for magistrates_), does not prevent it from containing fine passages. alexander had indeed more power of sustained versification than his friend drummond, though he hardly touches the latter in point of the poetical merit of short isolated passages and poems. both bear perhaps a little too distinctly the complexion of "_gentlemen_ of the press"--men who are composing poems because it is the fashion, and because their education, leisure, and elegant tastes lead them to prefer that form of occupation. but perhaps what is most interesting about them is the way in which they reproduce on a smaller scale the phenomenon presented by the scotch poetical school of the fifteenth century. that school, as is well known, was a direct offshoot from, or following of the school of chaucer, though in dunbar at least it succeeded in producing work almost, if not quite, original in form. in the same way, drummond and alexander, while able to the full to experience directly the foreign, and especially italian influences which had been so strong on the elizabethans, were still in the main followers of the elizabethans themselves, and formed, as it were, a scottish moon to the english sun of poetry. there is little or nothing that is distinctively national about them, though in their following of the english model they show talent at least equal to all but the best of the school they followed. but this fact, joined to those above noted, helps, no doubt, to give an air of want of spontaneity to their verse--an air as of the literary exercise. there are other writers who might indifferently come in this chapter or in that on caroline poetry, for the reign of james was as much overlapped in this respect by his son's as by elizabeth's, and there are others who need but slight notice, besides yet others--a great multitude--who can receive no notice at all. the doggerel of taylor, the water-poet (not a bad prose writer), received both patronage and attention, which seem to have annoyed his betters, and he has been resuscitated even in our own times. francis beaumont, the coadjutor of fletcher, has left independent poetical work which, on the whole, confirms the general theory that the chief execution of the joint plays must have been his partner's, but which (as in the _letter to ben jonson_ and the fine stoicism of _the honest man's fortune_) contains some very good things. his brother, sir john beaumont, who died not so young as francis, but at the comparatively early age of forty-four, was the author of a historical poem on _bosworth field_, as well as of minor pieces of higher merit, including some remarkable critical observations on english verse. two famous poems, which everyone knows by heart, the "you meaner beauties of the night" of sir henry wotton and the "tell me no more how fair she is" of bishop henry king, are merely perfect examples of a style of verse which was largely if not often quite so perfectly practised by lesser or less known men, as well as by greater ones.[ ] [ ] the most interesting collection and selection of verse of this class and time is undoubtedly dr. hannah's well-known and charming but rather oddly entitled _poems of raleigh, wotton, and other courtly poets_ in the aldine series. i say oddly entitled, because though raleigh and wotton were certainly courtiers, it would be hard to make the name good of some of the minor contributors. there is, moreover, a class of verse which has been referred to incidentally before, and which may very likely be referred to incidentally again, but which is too abundant, too characteristic, and too charming not to merit a place, if no very large one, to itself. i refer to the delightful songs which are scattered all over the plays of the period, from greene to shirley. as far as shakespere is concerned, these songs are well enough known, and mr. palgrave's _treasury_, with mr. bullen's and bell's _songs from the dramatists_, have given an inferior currency, but still a currency, to the best of the remainder. the earlier we have spoken of. but the songs of greene and his fellows, though charming, cannot compare with those of the more properly jacobean poets. to name only the best of each, ben jonson gives us the exquisite "queen and huntress," which is perhaps the best-known piece of his whole work; the pleasant "if i freely may discover," and best of all--unsurpassed indeed in any language for rolling majesty of rhythm and romantic charm of tone--"drink to me only with thine eyes." again the songs in beaumont and fletcher stand very high, perhaps highest of all next to shakespere's in respect of the "woodnote wild." if the snatch of only half articulate poetry of the "lay a garland on my hearse," of _the maid's tragedy_, is really fletcher's, he has here equalled shakespere himself. we may add to it the fantastic and charming "beauty clear and fair," of _the elder brother_, the comic swing of "let the bells ring," and "the fit's upon me now;" all the songs without exception in _the faithful shepherdess_, which is much less a drama than a miscellany of the most delightful poetry; the lively war-song in _the mad lover_, to which dryden owed not a little; the catch, "drink to-day and drown all sorrow;" the strange song of the dead host in _the lover's progress_; the exquisite "weep no more," of _the queen of corinth_; the spirited "let the mill go round," of _the maid in the mill_; the "lovers rejoice," of _cupid's revenge_; the "roses, their sharp spines being gone," which is one of the most shakesperean things of _the two noble kinsmen_; the famous "hence, all you vain-delights," of _the nice valour_, which milton expanded into _il penseroso_, and the laughing song of the same play. this long catalogue only contains a part of the singularly beautiful song work of the great pair of dramatists, and as an example we may give one of the least known from _the captain_:-- "tell me, dearest, what is love? 'tis a lightning from above; 'tis an arrow, 'tis a fire, 'tis a boy they call desire. 'tis a grave, gapes to have those poor fools that long to prove. "tell me more, are women true? yes, some are, and some as you. some are willing, some are strange since you men first taught to change. and till troth be in both, all shall love to love anew. "tell me more yet, can they grieve? yes, and sicken sore, but live, and be wise, and delay when you men are as wise as they. then i see, faith will be never till they both believe." the dirge of _vittoria corombona_ and the preparation for death of _the duchess of malfi_ are webster's sole but sufficient contributions to the list. the witch songs of middleton's _witch_, and the gipsy, or rather tramp, songs of _more dissemblers besides women_ and _the spanish gipsy_, have very high merit. the songs of _patient grissell_, which are pretty certainly dekker's, have been noticed already. the otherwise worthless play of _the thracian wonder_, attributed to webster and rowley, contains an unusual number of good songs. heywood and massinger were not great at songs, and the superiority of those in _the sun's darling_ over the songs in ford's other plays, seems to point to the authorship of dekker. finally, james shirley has the song gift of his greater predecessors. every one knows "the glories of our blood and state," but this is by no means his only good song; it worthily closes the list of the kind--a kind which, when brought together and perused separately, exhibits, perhaps, as well as anything else of equal compass, the extraordinary abundance of poetical spirit in the age. for songs like these are not to be hammered out by the most diligent ingenuity, not to be spun by the light of the most assiduously fed lamp. the wind of such inspiration blows where, and only where, it listeth. chapter ix milton, taylor, clarendon, browne, hobbes during the second and third quarters of the seventeenth century, or (to take literary rather than chronological dates) between the death of bacon and the publication of _absalom and achitophel_, there existed in england a quintet of men of letters, of such extraordinary power and individuality, that it may be doubted whether any other period of our own literature can show a group equal to them; while it is certain that no other literature, except, perhaps, in the age of pericles, can match them. they were all, except hobbes (who belonged by birth, though not by date and character of writing, to an earlier generation than the rest), born, and they all died, within a very few years of each other. all were prose writers of the very highest merit; and though only one was a poet, yet he had poetry enough to spare for all the five. of the others, clarendon, in some of the greatest characteristics of the historian, has been equalled by no englishman, and surpassed by few foreigners. jeremy taylor has been called the most eloquent of men; and if this is a bold saying, it is scarcely too bold. hobbes stands with bacon and berkeley at the head of english-speaking philosophers, and is, if not in general grasp, in range of ideas, or in literary polish, yet in acuteness of thought and originality of expression, perhaps the superior of both his companions. the excellence of browne is indeed more purely literary and intensely artistic first of all--a matter of expression rather than of substance,--while he is perhaps more flawed than any of them by the fashionable vices of his time. yet, as an artist, or rather architect, of words in the composite and florid style, it is vain to look anywhere for his superior. john milton--the greatest, no doubt, of the five, if only because of his mastery of either harmony--was born in london on th december , was educated at cambridge, studied at home with unusual intensity and control of his own time and bent; travelled to italy, returned, and engaged in the somewhat unexpected task of school-keeping; was stimulated, by the outbreak of the disturbances between king and parliament, to take part with extraordinary bitterness in the strife of pamphlets on the republican and anti-prelatical side, defended the execution of the king in his capacity of latin secretary to the government (to which he had been appointed in ); was struck with blindness, lay hid at the restoration for some time in order to escape the royalist vengeance (which does not seem very seriously to have threatened him), composed and published in the great poem of _paradise lost_, followed it with that of _paradise regained_, did not a little other work in prose and poetry, and died on th november . he had been thrice married, and his first wife had left him within a month of her marriage, thereby occasioning the singular series of pamphlets on divorce, the theories of which, had she not returned, he had, it is said, intended to put into practice on his own responsibility. the general abstinence from all but the barest biographical outline which the scale of this book imposes is perhaps nowhere a greater gain than in the case of milton. his personal character was, owing to political motives, long treated with excessive rigour. the reaction to liberal politics early in the nineteenth century substituted for this rigour a somewhat excessive admiration, and even now the balance is hardly restored, as may be seen from the fact that a late biographer of his stigmatises his first wife, the unfortunate mary powell, as "a dull and common girl," without a tittle of evidence except the bare fact of her difference with her husband, and some innuendoes (indirect in themselves, and clearly tainted as testimony) in milton's own divorce tracts. on the whole, milton's character was not an amiable one, nor even wholly estimable. it is probable that he never in the course of his whole life did anything that he considered wrong; but unfortunately, examples are not far to seek of the facility with which desire can be made to confound itself with deliberate approval. that he was an exacting, if not a tyrannical husband and father, that he held in the most peremptory and exaggerated fashion the doctrine of the superiority of man to woman, that his egotism in a man who had actually accomplished less would be half ludicrous and half disgusting, that his faculty of appreciation beyond his own immediate tastes and interests was small, that his intolerance surpassed that of an inquisitor, and that his controversial habits and manners outdid the license even of that period of controversial abuse,--these are propositions which i cannot conceive to be disputed by any competent critic aware of the facts. if they have ever been denied, it is merely from the amiable but uncritical point of view which blinks all a man's personal defects in consideration of his literary genius. that we cannot afford to do here, especially as milton's personal defects had no small influence on his literary character. but having honestly set down his faults, let us now turn to the pleasanter side of the subject without fear of having to revert, except cursorily, to the uglier. the same prejudice and partisanship, however, which have coloured the estimate of milton's personal character have a little injured the literary estimate of him. it is agreed on all hands that johnson's acute but unjust criticism was directed as much by political and religious prejudice as by the operation of narrow and mistaken rules of prosody and poetry; and all these causes worked together to produce that extraordinary verdict on _lycidas_, which has been thought unintelligible. but it would be idle to contend that there is not nearly as much bias on the other side in the most glowing of his modern panegyrists--macaulay and landor. it is, no doubt, in regard to a champion so formidable, both as ally and as enemy, difficult to write without fear or favour, but it must be attempted. milton's periods of literary production were three. in each of them he produced work of the highest literary merit, but at the same time singularly different in kind. in the first, covering the first thirty years of his life, he wrote no prose worth speaking of, but after juvenile efforts, and besides much latin poetry of merit, produced the exquisite poems of _l'allegro_ and _il penseroso_, the _hymn on the nativity_, the incomparable _lycidas_, the _comus_ (which i have the audacity to think his greatest work, if scale and merit are considered), and the delicious fragments of the _arcades_. then his style abruptly changed, and for another twenty years he devoted himself chiefly to polemical pamphlets, relieved only by a few sonnets, whose strong originality and intensely personal savour are uniform, while their poetical merit varies greatly. the third period of fifteen years saw the composition of the great epics of _paradise lost_ and _paradise regained_, and of the tragedy of _samson agonistes_, together with at least the completion of a good deal of prose, including a curious _history of england_, wherein milton expatiates with a singular gusto over details which he must have known, and indeed allows that he knew, to be fabulous. the production of each of these periods may be advantageously dealt with separately and in order. milton's latin compositions both in prose and verse lie rather outside of our scope, though they afford a very interesting subject. it is perhaps sufficient to say that critics of such different times, tempers, and attitudes towards their subject as johnson and the late rector of lincoln,--critics who agree in nothing except literary competence,--are practically at one as to the remarkable excellence of milton's latin verse at its best. it is little read now, but it is a pity that any one who can read latin should allow himself to be ignorant of at least the beautiful _epitaphium damonis_ on the poet's friend, charles diodati. the dates of the few but exquisite poems of the first period are known with some but not complete exactness. milton was not an extremely precocious poet, and such early exercises as he has preserved deserve the description of being rather meritorious than remarkable. but in , his year of discretion, he struck his own note first and firmly with the hymn on the "nativity." two years later the beautiful sonnet on his three-and-twentieth year followed. _l'allegro_ and _il penseroso_ date not before, but probably not much after, ; _comus_ dating from , and _lycidas_ from . all these were written either in the later years at cambridge, or in the period of independent study at horton in buckinghamshire--chiefly in the latter. almost every line and word of these poems has been commented on and fought over, and i cannot undertake to summarise the criticism of others. among the greater memorabilia of the subject is that wonderful johnsonism, the description of _lycidas_ as "harsh, the rhymes uncertain, and the numbers unpleasing;" among the minor, the fact that critics have gravely quarrelled among themselves over the epithet "monumental" applied to the oak in _il penseroso_, when spenser's "builder oak" (milton was a passionate student of spenser) would have given them the key at once, even if the same phrase had not occurred, as i believe it does, in chaucer, also a favourite of milton's. we have only space here for first-hand criticism. this body of work, then, is marked by two qualities: an extraordinary degree of poetic merit, and a still more extraordinary originality of poetic kind. although milton is always milton, it would be difficult to find in another writer five poems, or (taking the _allegro_ and its companion together) four, so different from each other and yet of such high merit. and it would be still more difficult to find poems so independent in their excellence. neither the influence of jonson nor the influence of donne--the two poetical influences in the air at the time, and the latter especially strong at cambridge--produced even the faintest effect on milton. we know from his own words, and should have known even if he had not mentioned it, that shakespere and spenser were his favourite studies in english; yet, save in mere scattered phrases none of these poems owes anything to either. he has teachers but no models; masters, but only in the way of learning how to do, not what to do. the "certain vital marks," of which he somewhat arrogantly speaks, are indeed there. i do not myself see them least in the poem on the "nativity," which has been the least general favourite. it shows youth in a certain inequality, in a slight overdose of ornament, and especially in a very inartistic conclusion. but nowhere even in milton does the mastery of harmonies appear better than in the exquisite rhythmical arrangement of the piece, in the almost unearthly beauty of the exordium, and in the famous stanzas beginning "the oracles are dumb." it must be remembered that at this time english lyric was in a very rudimentary and ill-organised condition. the exquisite snatches in the dramatists had been snatches merely; spenser and his followers had chiefly confined themselves to elaborate stanzas of full length lines, and elsewhere the octo-syllabic couplet, or the quatrain, or the dangerous "eights and sixes," had been chiefly affected. the sestines and canzons and madrigals of the sonneteers, for all the beauty of their occasional flashes, have nothing like the gracious and sustained majesty of the "nativity" piece. for technical perfection in lyric metre, that is not so much to be sung as said, this ode has no precedent rival. as for _l'allegro_ and _il penseroso_, who shall praise them fitly? they are among the few things about which there is no difference of opinion, which are as delightful to childhood as to criticism, to youth as to age. to dwell on their technical excellences (the chief of which is the unerring precision with which the catalectic and acatalectic lines are arranged and interchanged) has a certain air of impertinence about it. even a critical king alfonso el sabio could hardly think it possible that milton might have taken a hint here, although some persons have, it seems, been disturbed because skylarks do not come to the window, just as others are troubled because the flowers in _lycidas_ do not grow at the same time, and because they think they could see stars through the "star-proof" trees of the _arcades_. the fragments of the masque just mentioned consist only of three songs and an address in rhymed couplets. of the songs, those ending-- such a rural queen, all arcadia hath not seen, are equal to anything that milton has done; the first song and the address, especially the latter, do not fall far below them. but it is in _comus_ that, if i have any skill of criticism, milton's poetical power is at its greatest height. those who judge poetry on the ground of bulk, or of originality of theme, or of anything else extra-poetical,--much more those (the greater number) who simply vary transmitted ideas,--may be scandalised at this assertion, but that will hardly matter much. and indeed the indebtedness of _comus_ in point of subject (it is probably limited to the odyssey, which is public property, and to george peele's _old wives' tale_, which gave little but a few hints of story) is scarcely greater than that of _paradise lost_; while the form of the drama, a kind nearly as venerable and majestic as that of the epic, is completely filled. and in _comus_ there is none of the stiffness, none of the _longueurs_, none of the almost ludicrous want of humour, which mar the larger poem. humour indeed was what milton always lacked; had he had it, shakespere himself might hardly have been greater. the plan is not really more artificial than that of the epic; though in the latter case it is masked to us by the scale, by the grandeur of the personages, and by the familiarity of the images to all men who have been brought up on the bible. the versification, as even johnson saw, is the versification of _paradise lost_, and to my fancy at any rate it has a spring, a variety, a sweep and rush of genius, which are but rarely present later. as for its beauty in parts, _quis vituperavit_? it is impossible to single out passages, for the whole is golden. the entering address of comus, the song "sweet echo," the descriptive speech of the spirit, and the magnificent eulogy of the "sun-clad power of chastity," would be the most beautiful things where all is beautiful, if the unapproachable "sabrina fair" did not come later, and were not sustained before and after, for nearly two hundred lines of pure nectar. if poetry could be taught by the reading of it, then indeed the critic's advice to a poet might be limited to this: "give your days and nights to the reading of _comus_." the sole excuses for johnson's amazing verdict on _lycidas_ are that it is not quite so uniformly good, and that in his strictures on its "rhyme" and "numbers" he was evidently speaking from the point of view at which the regular couplet is regarded as the _ne plus ultra_ of poetry. there are indeed blotches in it. the speech of peter, magnificently as it is introduced, and strangely as it has captivated some critics, who seem to think that anything attacking the church of england must be poetry, is out of place, and in itself is obscure, pedantic, and grotesque. there is some over-classicism, and the scale of the piece does not admit the display of quite such sustained and varied power as in _comus_. but what there is, is so exquisite that hardly can we find fault with mr. pattison's hyperbole when he called _lycidas_ the "high-water mark of english poetry." high-water mark even in the physical world is a variable limit. shakespere constantly, and some other poets here and there in short passages go beyond milton. but in the same space we shall nowhere find anything that can outgo the passage beginning "alas what boots it," down to "head of thine," and the whole conclusion from "return alpheus." for melody of versification, for richness of images, for curious felicity of expression, these cannot be surpassed. "but o the heavy change"--to use an irresistible quotation, the more irresistible that the change is foreshadowed in _lycidas_ itself--from the golden poetry of these early days to the prose of the pamphlets. it is not that milton's literary faculty is less conspicuous here, or less interesting. there is no english prose before him, none save taylor's and browne's in his time, and absolutely none after him that can compare with the finest passages of these singular productions. the often quoted personal descriptions of his aims in life, his early literary studies, his views of poetry and so forth, are almost equal in the "other harmony of prose" to _comus_ and _lycidas_. the deservedly famous _areopagitica_ is full of the most splendid concerted pieces of prose-music, and hardly anywhere from the _tractate of reformation touching church discipline_ to the _history of britain_, which he revised just before his death, is it possible to read a page without coming across phrases, passages, and even whole paragraphs, which are instinct with the most splendid life. but the difference between milton's poetry and his prose is, that in verse he is constantly under the restraint (sometimes, in his later work especially, too much under the restraint) of the sense of style; while in his prose he seems to be wholly emancipated from it. even in his finest passages he never seems to know or to care how a period is going to end. he piles clause on clause, links conjunction to conjunction, regardless of breath, or sense, or the most ordinary laws of grammar. the second sentence of his first prose work contains about four hundred words, and is broken in the course of them like a wounded snake. in his very highest flights he will suddenly drop to grotesque and bathos; and there is no more difficult task (_haud inexpertus loquor_) than the selection from milton of any passage of length which shall not contain faults of which a modern schoolboy or gutter-journalist would be ashamed. nor is the matter made much better by the consideration that it is not so much ignorance as temper which is the cause of this deformity. lest it be thought that i speak harshly, let me quote from the late mr. mark pattison, a strong sympathiser with milton's politics, in complete agreement if not with his religious views, yet with his attitude towards dominant ecclesiasticism, and almost an idolater of him from the purely literary point of view. in "_eikonoclastes_," milton's reply to _eikon basilike_, mr. pattison says, and i do not care to attempt any improvement on the words, "milton is worse than tedious: his reply is in a tone of rude railing and insolent swagger which would have been always unbecoming, but which at this moment was grossly indecent." elsewhere (and again i have nothing to add) mr. pattison describes milton's prose pamphlets as "a plunge into the depths of vulgar scurrility and libel below the level of average gentility and education." but the rector of lincoln has not touched, or has touched very lightly, on the fault above noted, the profound lack of humour that these pamphlets display. others have been as scurrilous, as libellous, as unfair; others have prostituted literary genius to the composition of paid lampoons; but some at least of them have been saved by the all-saving sense of humour. as any one who remembers the dreadful passage about the guns in _paradise lost_ must know, the book of humour was to milton a sealed book. he has flashes of wit, though not many; his indignation of itself sometimes makes him really sarcastic. but humorous he is never. destitute of this, the one saving grace of polemical literature, he plunged at the age of thirty-three into pamphlet writing. with a few exceptions his production in this kind may be thrown into four classes,--the _areopagitica_ and the _letter to hartlib_ (much the best of the whole) standing outside. the first class attacks prelatical government, and by degrees glides, under the guise of apologetics for the famous _smectymnuus_, into a fierce and indecent controversy with bishop hall, containing some of the worst examples of the author's deplorable inability to be jocular. then comes the divorce series, which, with all its varied learning, is chiefly comic, owing to milton's unfortunate blindness to the fact that he was trying to make a public question out of private grievances of the particular kind which most of all demand silence. next rank the pieces composing the apologia of regicide, the _eikonoclastes_, the controversy with salmasius (written in latin), and the postscript thereto, devoted to the obscure morus. and lastly come the pamphlets in which, with singular want of understanding of the course of events, milton tried to argue monk and the weary nation out of the purpose to shake off the heavy yoke of so-called liberty. the _history of britain_, the very agreeable fragment on the _history of muscovy_, the late _treatise against popery_, in which the author holds out a kind of olive branch to the church of england, in the very act of proclaiming his arianism, and the two little masterpieces already referred to, are independent of any such classification. yet even in them sometimes, as always in the others, _furor arma ministrat_; and supplies them as badly as if he were supplying by contract. nevertheless both milton's faults and his merits as a prose writer are of the most remarkable and interesting character. the former consist chiefly in the reckless haste with which he constructs (or rather altogether neglects the construction of) his periods and sentences, in an occasional confusion of those rules of latin syntax which are only applicable to a fully inflected language with the rules necessary in a language so destitute of inflections as english, and in a lavish and sometimes both needless and tasteless adaptation of latin words. all these were faults of the time, but it is true that they are faults which milton, like his contemporaries taylor and browne, aggravated almost wilfully. of the three milton, owing no doubt to the fury which animated him, is by far the most faulty and uncritical. taylor is the least remarkable of the three for classicisms either of syntax or vocabulary; and browne's excesses in this respect are deliberate. milton's are the effect of blind passion. yet the passages which diversify and relieve his prose works are far more beautiful in their kind than anything to be found elsewhere in english prose. though he never trespasses into purely poetical rhythm, the solemn music of his own best verse is paralleled in these; and the rugged and grandiose vocabulary (it is particularly characteristic of milton that he mixes the extremest vernacular with the most exquisite and scholarly phrasing) is fused and moulded with an altogether extraordinary power. nor can we notice less the abundance of striking phrase, now quaint, now grand, now forcible, which in short clauses and "jewels five words long" occurs constantly, even in the passages least artistically finished as wholes. there is no english prose author whose prose is so constantly racy with such a distinct and varied savour as milton's. it is hardly possible to open him anywhere after the fashion of the _sortes virgilianæ_ without lighting on a line or a couple of lines, which for the special purpose it is impossible to improve. and it might be contended with some plausibility that this abundance of jewels, or purple patches, brings into rather unfair prominence the slips of grammar and taste, the inequalities of thought, the deplorable attempts to be funny, the rude outbursts of bargee invective, which also occur so numerously. one other peculiarity, or rather one result of these peculiarities, remains to be noticed; and that is that milton's prose is essentially inimitable. it would be difficult even to caricature or to parody it; and to imitate it as his verse, at least his later verse, has been so often imitated, is simply impossible. the third and, in popular estimation, the most important period of milton's production was again poetical. the characteristics of the poetry of the three great works which illustrate it are admittedly uniform, though in _samson agonistes_ they exhibit themselves in a harder, drier, more ossified form than in the two great epics. this relation is only a repetition of the relation between _paradise lost_ and _paradise regained_ themselves on the one hand, and the poems of twenty years earlier, especially _comus_ and _lycidas_, on the other. the wonderful miltonic style, so artificial and yet such a triumph of art, is evident even so early as the ode on the "nativity," and it merely developed its own characteristics up to the _samson_ of forty years later. that it is a real style and not merely a trick, like so many others, is best shown by the fact that it is very hard, if not impossible, to analyse it finally into elements. the common opinion charges milton with latinising heavily; and so he does. but we open _paradise lost_ at random, and we find a dozen lines, and not the least beautiful (the third day of creation), without a word in them that is not perfectly simple english, or if of latin origin, naturalised long before milton's time, while the syntax is also quite vernacular. again it is commonly thought that the habits of antithesis and parallelism, of omission of articles, of reversing the position of adjectives and adverbs, are specially miltonic. certainly milton often indulges in them; yet in the same way the most random dipping will find passages (and any number of them) where no one of these habits is particularly or eminently present, and yet which every one would recognise as miltonic. as far as it is possible to put the finger on one peculiarity which explains part of the secret of milton's pre-eminence, i should myself select his unapproached care and felicity in building what may be called the verse-paragraph. the dangers of blank verse (milton's preference for which over rhyme was only one of his numerous will-worships) are many; but the two greatest lie in easily understood directions. with the sense generally or frequently ending as the line ends (as may be seen in the early dramatists and in many bad poets since), it becomes intolerably stiff and monotonous. with the process of _enjambement_ or overlapping, promiscuously and unskilfully indulged (the commonest fault during the last two centuries), it is apt to degenerate into a kind of metrical and barely metrical prose, distinguished from prose proper by less variety of cadence, and by an occasional awkward sacrifice of sense and natural arrangement to the restrictions which the writer accepts, but by which he knows not how to profit. milton has avoided both these dangers by adhering to what i have ventured to call the verse-paragraph--that is to say, by arranging the divisions of his sense in divisions of verse, which, albeit identical and not different in their verse integers, are constructed with as much internal concerted variety as the stanzas or strophes of a so-called pindaric ode. of the apparently uniform and monotonous blank verse he has made an instrument of almost protean variety by availing himself of the infinite permutations of cadence, syllabic sound, variety of feet, and adjustment of sense to verse. the result is that he has, it may almost be said, made for himself out of simple blank verse all the conveniences of the line, the couplet, and the stanza, punctuating and dividing by cadence, not rhyme. no device that is possible within his limits--even to that most dangerous one of the pause after the first syllable of a line which has "enjambed" from the previous one--is strange to him, or sparingly used by him, or used without success. and it is only necessary to contrast his verse with the blank verse of the next century, especially in its two chief examples, thomson and young,--great verse-smiths both of them,--to observe his superiority in art. these two, especially thomson, try the verse-paragraph system, but they do it ostentatiously and clumsily. thomson's trick of ending such paragraphs with such lines as "and thule bellows through her utmost isles," often repeated with only verbal substitutions, is apt to make the reader think with a smile of the breath of relief which a man draws after a serious effort. "thank heaven that paragraph's done!" the poet seems to be saying. nothing of the kind is ever to be found in milton. it is only on examination that the completeness of these divisions is perceived. they are linked one to another with the same incomparably artful concealment of art which links their several and internal clauses. and thus it is that milton is able to carry his readers through (taking both poems together) sixteen books of epic, without much narrative interest, with foregone conclusions, with long passages which are merely versifications of well-known themes, and with others which the most favourable critics admit to be, if not exactly dull, yet certainly not lively. something the same may be said of _samson_, though here a decided stiffening and mannerising of the verse is to some extent compensated by the pathetic and human interest of the story. it is to be observed, however, that milton has here abused the redundant syllable (the chief purely poetical mistake of which he has been guilty in any part of his work, and which is partly noticeable in _comus_), and that his choric odes are but dry sticks in comparison with _lycidas_. it may be thought strange that i should say little or nothing of the subject of these immortal poems. but, in the first place, those critics of poetry who tell us that "all depends on the subject" seem to forget that, according to this singular dictum, there is no difference between poetry and prose--between an epic and a blue-book. i prefer--having been brought up at the feet of logic--to stick to the genus and differentia of poetry, and not to its accidents. moreover, the matter of _paradise lost_ and its sequel is so universally known that it becomes unnecessary, and has been so much discussed that it seems superfluous, to rediscuss it. the inquiries into milton's indebtedness to forerunners strike me as among the idlest inquiries of the kind--which is saying a great deal. italians, frenchmen, dutchmen, englishmen even, had doubtless treated the creation and the fall, adam and satan, before him. perhaps he read them; perhaps he borrowed from them. what then? does any one believe that andreini or vondel, sylvester or du bartas, could have written, or did in any measurable degree contribute to the writing of _paradise lost_? if he does he must be left to his opinion. reference may perhaps be made to some remarks in chapter iv. on the comparative position of milton in english poetry with the only two writers who can be compared to him, if bulk and majesty of work be taken into consideration, and not merely occasional bursts of poetry. of his own poetical powers i trust that i shall not be considered a niggard admirer, because, both in the character of its subject (if we are to consider subjects at all) and in its employment of rhyme, that greatest mechanical aid of the poet, _the faërie queene_ seems to me greater, or because milton's own earlier work seems to me to rank higher than _paradise lost_. the general opinion is, of course, different; and one critic of no mean repute, christopher north, has argued that _paradise lost_ is the only "great poem" in existence. that question need not be argued here. it is sufficient to say that milton is undoubtedly one of the few great poets in the history of the world, and that if he falls short of homer, dante, and shakespere, it is chiefly because he expresses less of that humanity, both universal and quintessential, which they, and especially the last, put into verse. narrowness is his fault. but the intense individuality which often accompanies narrowness is his great virtue--a virtue which no poet, which no writer either in verse or prose, has ever had in greater measure than he, and which hardly any has been able to express with more varied and exquisite harmony. jeremy taylor, the ornament and glory of the english pulpit, was born at cambridge in . he was the son of a barber, but was well educated, and was able to enter caius college as a sizar at thirteen. he spent seven years there, and took both degrees and orders at an unusually early age. apparently, however, no solid endowment was offered him in his own university, and he owed such preferment as he had (it was never very great) to a chance opportunity of preaching at st. paul's and a recommendation to laud. that prelate--to whom all the infinite malignity of political and sectarian detraction has not been able to deny the title of an encourager, as few men have encouraged them, of learning and piety--took taylor under his protection, made him his chaplain, and procured him incorporation at oxford, a fellowship at all souls, and finally the rectory of uppingham. to this taylor was appointed in , and next year he married a lady who bore him several sons, but died young. taylor early joined the king at oxford, and is supposed to have followed his fortunes in the field; it is certain that his rectory, lying in a puritan district, was very soon sequestrated, though not by any form of law. what took him into wales and caused him to marry his second wife, joanna brydges (an heiress on a small scale, and said to have been a natural daughter of charles i.), is not known. but he sojourned in the principality during the greater part of the commonwealth period, and was much patronised by the earl of carbery, who, while resident at golden grove, made him his chaplain. he also made the acquaintance of other persons of interest, the chief of whom were, in london (which he visited not always of his own choice, for he was more than once imprisoned), john evelyn, and in wales, mrs. katherine philips, "the matchless orinda," to whom he dedicated one of the most interesting of his minor works, the _measure and offices of friendship_. not long before the restoration he was offered, and strongly pressed to accept, the post of lecturer at lisburn, in ireland. he does not seem to have taken at all kindly to the notion, but was over-persuaded, and crossed the channel. it was perhaps owing to this false step that, when the restoration arrived, the preferment which he had in so many ways merited only came to him in the tents of kedar. he was made bishop of down and connor, held that see for seven years, and died (after much wrestling with ulster presbyterians and some domestic misfortune) of fever in . his work is voluminous and always interesting; but only a small part of it concerns us directly here, as exhibiting him at his best and most peculiar in the management of english prose. he wrote, it should be said, a few verses by no means destitute of merit, but they are so few, in comparison to the bulk of his work, that they may be neglected. taylor's strong point was not accuracy of statement or logical precision. his longest work, the _ductor dubitantium_, an elaborate manual of casuistry, is constantly marred by the author's inability to fix on a single point, and to keep his argumentation close to that. in another, the _unum necessarium_, or discourse on repentance, his looseness of statement and want of care in driving several horses at once, involved him in a charge of pelagianism, or something like it, which he wrote much to disprove, but which has so far lasted as to justify modern theologians in regarding his ideas on this and other theological points as, to say the least, confused. all over his work inexact quotation from memory, illicit argumentation, and an abiding inconsistency, mar the intellectual value, affecting not least his famous _liberty of prophesying_, or plea for toleration against the new presbyterian uniformity,--the conformity of which treatise with modern ideas has perhaps made some persons slow to recognise its faults. these shortcomings, however, are not more constant in taylor's work than his genuine piety, his fervent charity, his freedom from personal arrogance and pretentiousness, and his ardent love for souls; while neither shortcomings nor virtues of this kind concern us here so much as the extraordinary rhetorical merits which distinguish all his work more or less, and which are chiefly noticeable in his sermons, especially the golden grove course, and the funeral sermon on lady carbery, in his _contemplations of the state of man_, and in parts of his _life of christ_, and of the universally popular and admirable tractates on _holy living_ and _holy dying_. jeremy taylor's style is emphatically and before all things florid and ornate. it is not so elaborately quaint as browne's; it is not so stiffly splendid as milton's; it is distinguished from both by a much less admixture of latinisms; but it is impossible to call it either verbally chastened or syntactically correct. coleridge--an authority always to be differed with cautiously and under protest--holds indeed a different opinion. he will have it that browne was the corruptor, though a corruptor of the greatest genius, in point of vocabulary, and that, as far as syntax is concerned, in jeremy taylor the sentences are often extremely long, and yet are generally so perspicuous in consequence of their logical structure that they require no reperusal to be understood. and he will have the same to be true not only of hooker (which may pass), but of milton, in reference to whom admirers not less strong than coleridge hold that he sometimes forgets the period altogether. it must be remembered that coleridge in these remarks was fighting the battle of the recoverers of our great seventeenth century writers against the devotees of "correctness," and that in the very same context he makes the unpardonable assertion that gibbon's manner is "the worst of all," and that tacitus "writes in falsetto as compared to tully." this is to "fight a prize" in the old phrase, not to judge from the catholic and universal standpoint of impartial criticism; and in order to reduce coleridge's assertions to that standard we must abate nearly as much from his praise of taylor as from his abuse of gibbon--an abuse, by the way, which is strangely contrasted with praise of "junius." it is not true that, except by great complaisance of the reader, jeremy taylor's long sentences are at once understandable. they may, of course, and generally can be understood _kata to semaino menon_, as a telegram with half the words left out may at the other end of the scale be understood. but they constantly withstand even a generous parser, even one who is to the fullest extent ready to allow for idiom and individuality. they abuse in particular the conjunction to a most enormous extent--coupling by its means propositions which have no logical connection, which start entirely different trains of thought, and which are only united because carelessness and fashion combined made it unnecessary for the writer to take the little extra trouble necessary for their separation. taylor will, in the very middle of his finest passages, and with hardly so much as a comma's break, change _oratio obliqua_ to _oratio recta_, interrupt the sequence of tenses, make his verbs agree with the nearest noun, irrespective of the connection, and in short, though he was, while in wales, a schoolmaster for some time, and author of a grammatical treatise, will break priscian's head with the calmest unconcern. it is quite true that these faults mainly occur in his more rhetorical passages, in his exercises rather of spoken than of written prose. but that, as any critic who is not an advocate must see, is no palliation. the real palliation is that the time had not yet aroused itself to the consciousness of the fact that letting english grammar at one moment go to the winds altogether, and at the next subjecting it to the most inappropriate rules and licenses of latin, was not the way to secure the establishment of an accomplished and generally useful english prose. no stranger instance of prejudice can be given than that coleridge, on the point of asking, and justly, from dryden "a stricter grammar," should exalt to the skies a writer compared to whom dryden is grammatically impeccable. but a recognition of the fact that taylor distinctly belongs to the antinomians of english prose, or at least to those guiltless heathens who lived before the laws of it had been asserted, can not in any competent critic dull the sense of the wonderful beauty of his style. it has been said that this beauty is entirely of the florid and ornate order, lending itself in this way easily enough to the witty and well-worded, though unjust and ungenerous censure which south pronounced on it after the author's death. it may or may not be that the phrases there censured, "the fringes of the north star," and "the dew of angels' wings," and "thus have i seen a cloud rolling in its airy mansion," are not of that "apostolic plainness" that a christian minister's speech should have. but they and their likes are extremely beautiful--save that in literature no less than in theology south has justly perstringed taylor's constant and most unworthy affectation of introducing a simile by "so i have seen." in the next age the phrase was tediously abused, and in the age after, and ever since, it became and has remained mere burlesque; but it was never good; and in the two fine specimen passages which follow it is a distinct blot:-- _the prayers of anger and of lust._ "prayer is the peace of our spirit, the stillness of our thoughts, the evenness of recollection, the seat of meditation, the rest of our cares, and the calm of our tempest. prayer is the issue of a quiet mind, of untroubled thoughts; it is the daughter of charity and the sister of meekness; and he that prays to god with an angry--that is a troubled and discomposed--spirit, is like him that retires into a battle to meditate and sets up his closet in the outquarters of an army, and chooses a frontier garrison to be wise in. anger is a perfect alienation of the mind from prayer, and therefore is contrary to that attention which presents our prayers in a right line to god. for so have i seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, soaring upwards and singing as he rises and hopes to get to heaven and climb above the clouds; but the poor bird was beaten back with the loud sighings of an eastern wind and his motion made irregular and inconstant, descending more at every breath of the tempest than it could recover by the vibration and frequent weighing of his wings; till the little creature was forced to sit down and pant and stay till the storm was over; and then it made a prosperous flight and did rise and sing as if it had learned music and motion from an angel as he passed sometimes through the air about his ministries here below. so is the prayer of a good man: when his affairs have required business, and his business was matter of discipline, and his discipline was to pass upon a sinning person, or had a design of charity, his duty met with infirmities of a man and anger was its instrument, and the instrument became stronger than the prime agent and raised a tempest and overruled the man; and then his prayer was broken and his thoughts troubled. * * * * * "for so an impure vapour--begotten of the slime of the earth by the fevers and adulterous heats of an intemperate summer sun, striving by the ladder of a mountain to climb to heaven and rolling into various figures by an uneasy, unfixed revolution, and stopped at the middle region of the air, being thrown from his pride and attempt of passing towards the seat of the stars--turns into an unwholesome flame and, like the breath of hell, is confined into a prison of darkness and a cloud, till it breaks into diseases, plagues and mildews, stinks and blastings. so is the prayer of an unchaste person. it strives to climb the battlements of heaven, but because it is a flame of sulphur salt and bitumen, and was kindled in the dishonourable regions below, derived from hell and contrary to god, it cannot pass forth to the element of love; but ends in barrenness and murmurs, fantastic expectations and trifling imaginative confidences; and they at last end in sorrows and despair." indeed, like all very florid writers, taylor is liable to eclipses of taste; yet both the wording of his flights and the occasion of them (they are to be found _passim_ in the _sermons_) are almost wholly admirable. it is always a great and universal idea--never a mere conceit--that fires him. the shortness and dangers of life, the weakness of children, the fragility of women's beauty and men's strength, the change of the seasons, the vicissitudes of empires, the impossibility of satisfying desire, the disgust which follows satiety--these are, if any one chooses, commonplace enough; yet it is the observation of all who have carefully studied literature, and the experience of all who have observed their own thoughts, that it is always in relation to these commonplaces that the most beautiful expressions and the noblest sentiments arise. the uncommon thought is too likely if not too certain to be an uncommon conceit, and if not worthless, yet of inferior worth. among prose writers taylor is unequalled for his touches of this universal material, for the genius with which he makes the common uncommon. for instance, he has the supreme faculty of always making the verbal and the intellectual presentation of the thought alike beautiful, of appealing to the ear and the mind at the same time, of never depriving the apple of gold of its picture of silver. yet for all this the charge of over-elaboration which may justly be brought against browne very rarely hits taylor. he seldom or never has the appearance which ornate writers of all times, and of his own more especially, so often have, of going back on a thought or a phrase to try to better it--of being stimulated by actual or fancied applause to cap the climax. his most beautiful passages come quite suddenly and naturally as the subject requires and as the thought strikes light in his mind. nor are they ever, as milton's so often are, marred by a descent as rapid as their rise. he is never below a certain decent level; he may return to earth from heaven, but he goes no lower, and reaches even his lower level by a quiet and equable sinking. as has been fully allowed, he has grave defects, the defects of his time. but from some of these he was conspicuously free, and on the whole no one in english prose (unless it be his successor here) has so much command of the enchanter's wand as jeremy taylor. sir thomas browne was born in the heart of london in , his father (of whom little is known except one or two anecdotes corresponding with the character of the son) having been a merchant of some property, and claiming descent from a good family in cheshire. this father died when he was quite young, and browne is said to have been cheated by his guardians; but he was evidently at all times of his life in easy circumstances, and seems to have had no complaint to make of his stepfather, sir thomas dutton. this stepfather may at least possibly have been the hero of the duel with sir hatton cheeke, which mr. carlyle has made famous. with him browne visited ireland, having previously been brought up at winchester and at broadgates hall, which became, during his own residence, pembroke college, at oxford. later he made the usual grand tour. then he took medical degrees; practised it is said, though on no very precise evidence, both in oxfordshire and yorkshire; settled, why is not known, at norwich; married in dorothy mileham, a lady of good family in his adopted county; was a steady royalist through the troubles; acquired a great name for medical and scientific knowledge, though he was not a fellow of the royal society; was knighted by charles ii. in , and died in . his first literary appearance had been made forty years earlier in a way very common in french literary history, but so uncommon in english as to have drawn from johnson a rather unwontedly illiberal sneer. at a time unknown, but by his own account before his thirtieth year (therefore before ), browne had written the _religio medici_. it was, according to the habit of the time, copied and handed about in ms. (there exist now five ms. copies showing remarkable differences with each other and the printed copies), and in it got into print. a copy was sent by lord dorset to the famous sir kenelm digby, then under confinement for his opinions, and the husband of venetia wrote certain not very forcible and not wholly complimentary remarks which, as browne was informed, were at once put to press. a correspondence ensued, and browne published an authorised copy, in which perhaps a little "economy" might be noticed. the book made an extraordinary impression, and was widely translated and commented on in foreign languages, though its vogue was purely due to its intrinsic merits, and not at all to the circumstances which enabled milton (rather arrogantly and not with absolute truth) to boast that "europe rang from side to side" with his defence of the execution of charles i. four years later, in , browne published his largest and in every sense most popular book, the _pseudodoxia epidemica_ or _enquiry into vulgar errors_. twelve more years passed before the greatest, from a literary point of view, of his works, the _hydriotaphia_ or _urn-burial_,--a magnificent descant on the vanity of human life, based on the discovery of certain cinerary urns in norfolk,--appeared, in company with the quaint _garden of cyrus_, a half-learned, half-fanciful discussion of the mysteries of the quincunx and the number five. nor did he publish anything more himself; but two collections of posthumous works were issued after his death, the most important item of which is the _christian morals_, and the total has been swelled since by extracts from his mss., which at the death of his grandson and namesake in were sold by auction. most fortunately they were nearly all bought by sir hans sloane, and are to this day in the british museum. browne's good luck in this respect was completed by the devotion of his editor, simon wilkin, a norwich bookseller of gentle blood and good education, who produced ( ) after twelve years' labour of love what southey has justly called the best edited book in the english language. not to mention other editions, the _religio medici_, which exhibits, owing to its history, an unusual variation of text, has been, together with the _christian morals_, separately edited with great minuteness by dr. greenhill. nor is it unimportant to notice that johnson, during his period of literary hack-work, also edited sir thomas browne, and wrote what wilkin's good taste has permitted to be still the standard text of his life. the work of this country doctor is, for personal savour, for strangeness, and for delight, one of the most notable things in english literature. it is not of extraordinary voluminousness, for though swollen in wilkin's edition by abundant editorial matter, it fills but three of the well-known volumes of bohn's series, and, printed by itself, it might not much exceed two ordinary library octavos; but in character and interest it yields to the work of no other english prose writer. it may be divided, from our point of view, into two unequal parts, the smaller of which is in truth of the greater interest. the _vulgar errors_, those of the smaller tracts which deal with subjects of natural history (as most of them do), many of the commonplace book entries, the greater part of the _garden of cyrus_, and most of the _letters_, are mainly distinguished by an interest of matter constantly increased, it is true, by the display of the author's racy personality, and diversified here and there by passages also displaying his style to the full, but in general character not differing from the works of other curious writers in the delightful period which passed between the childish credulity of mediæval and classical physics and the arid analysis of the modern "scientist." sir thomas browne was of a certain natural scepticism of temperament (a scepticism which, as displayed in relation to other matters in the _religio medici_, very unjustly brought upon him the reproach of religious unorthodoxy); he was a trained and indefatigable observer of facts, and he was by no means prepared to receive authority as final in any extra-religious matters. but he had a thoroughly literary, not to say poetical idiosyncrasy; he was both by nature and education disposed to seek for something more than that physical explanation which, as the greatest of all anti-supernatural philosophers has observed, merely pushes ignorance a little farther back; and he was possessed of an extraordinary fertility of imagination which made comment, analogy, and amplification both easy and delightful to him. he was, therefore, much more disposed--except in the face of absolutely conclusive evidence--to rationalise than to deny a vulgar error, to bring explanations and saving clauses to its aid, than to cut it adrift utterly. in this part of his work his distinguishing graces and peculiarities of style appear but sparingly and not eminently. in the other division, consisting of the _religio medici_, the _urn-burial_, the _christian morals_, and the _letter to a friend_, his strictly literary peculiarities, as being less hampered by the exposition of matter, have freer scope; and it must be recollected that these literary peculiarities, independently of their own interest, have been a main influence in determining the style of two of the most remarkable writers of english prose in the two centuries immediately succeeding browne. it has been said that johnson edited him somewhat early; and all the best authorities are in accord that the johnsonian latinisms, differently managed as they are, are in all probability due more to the following--if only to the unconscious following--of browne than to anything else. the second instance is more indubitable still and more happy. it detracts nothing from the unique charm of "elia," and it will be most clearly recognised by those who know "elia" best, that lamb constantly borrows from browne, that the mould and shape of his most characteristic phrases is frequently suggested directly by sir thomas, and that though there seldom can have been a follower who put more of his own in his following, it may be pronounced with confidence, "no browne, no lamb," at least in the forms in which we know the author of "elia" best, and in which all those who know him best, though they may love him always, love him most. yet browne is not a very easy author to "sample." a few splendid sustained passages, like the famous one in the _urn-burial_, are universally known, but he is best in flashes. the following, from the _christian morals_, is characteristic enough:-- "punish not thyself with pleasure; glut not thy sense with palative delights; nor revenge the contempt of temperance by the penalty of satiety. were there an age of delight or any pleasure durable, who would not honour volupia? but the race of delight is short, and pleasures have mutable faces. the pleasures of one age are not pleasures in another, and their lives fall short of our own. even in our sensual days the strength of delight is in its seldomness or rarity, and sting in its satiety; mediocrity is its life, and immoderacy its confusion. the luxurious emperors of old inconsiderately satiated themselves with the dainties of sea and land till, wearied through all varieties, their refections became a study with them, and they were fain to feed by invention: novices in true epicurism! which by mediocrity, paucity, quick and healthful appetite, makes delights smartly acceptable; whereby epicurus himself found jupiter's brain in a piece of cytheridian cheese, and the tongues of nightingales in a dish of onions. hereby healthful and temperate poverty hath the start of nauseating luxury; unto whose clear and naked appetite every meal is a feast, and in one single dish the first course of metellus; who are cheaply hungry, and never lose their hunger, or advantage of a craving appetite, because obvious food contents it; while nero, half famish'd, could not feed upon a piece of bread, and, lingering after his snowed water, hardly got down an ordinary cup of _calda_. by such circumscriptions of pleasure the contemned philosophers reserved unto themselves the secret of delight, which the helluos of those days lost in their exorbitances. in vain we study delight; it is at the command of every sober mind, and in every sense born with us; but nature, who teacheth us the rule of pleasure, instructeth also in the bounds thereof and where its line expireth. and therefore temperate minds, not pressing their pleasures until the sting appeareth, enjoy their contentations contentedly and without regret, and so escape the folly of excess, to be pleased unto displacency." * * * * * "bring candid eyes unto the perusal of men's works, and let not zoilism or detraction blast well-intended labours. he that endureth no faults in men's writings must only read his own, wherein for the most part all appeareth white. quotation mistakes, inadvertency, expedition and human lapses, may make not only moles but warts in learned authors, who notwithstanding, being judged by the capital matter, admit not of disparagement. i should unwillingly affirm that cicero was but slightly versed in homer, because in his work _de gloria_ he ascribed those verses unto ajax which were delivered by hector. what if plautus, in the account of hercules, mistaketh nativity for conception? who would have mean thoughts of apollinaris sidonius, who seems to mistake the river tigris for euphrates; and, though a good historian and learned bishop of auvergne, had the misfortune to be out in the story of david, making mention of him when the ark was sent back by the philistines upon a cart, which was before his time? though i have no great opinion of machiavel's learning, yet i shall not presently say that he was but a novice in roman history, because he was mistaken in placing commodus after the emperor severus. capital truths are to be narrowly eyed, collateral lapses and circumstantial deliveries not to be too strictly sifted. and if the substantial subject be well forged out, we need not examine the sparks which irregularly fly from it." coleridge, as we have seen, charges browne with corrupting the style of the great age. the charge is not just in regard to either of the two great faults which are urged against the style, strictly speaking; while it is hardly just in reference to a minor charge which is brought against what is not quite style, namely, the selection and treatment of the thought. the two charges first referred to are latinising of vocabulary and disorderly syntax of sentence. in regard to the first, browne latinises somewhat more than jeremy taylor, hardly at all more than milton, though he does not, like milton, contrast and relieve his latinisms by indulgence in vernacular terms of the most idiomatic kind; and he is conspicuously free from the great fault both of milton and of taylor--the clumsy conglomeration of clauses which turns a sentence into a paragraph, and makes a badly ordered paragraph of it after all. browne's sentences, especially those of the books regularly prepared for the press by him, are by no means long and are usually very perspicuous, being separable in some cases into shorter sentences by a mere mechanical repunctuation which, if tried on taylor or milton, would make nonsense. to say that they are sometimes longer than they should be, and often awkwardly co-ordinated, is merely to say that he wrote when he wrote; but he by no means sins beyond his fellows. in regard to latinisms his case is not so good. he constantly uses such words as "clarity" for "clearness," "ferity" for "fierceness" or "wildness," when nothing is gained by the exotic form. dr. greenhill's useful glossary to the _religio_ and the _morals_ exhibits in tabular form not merely such terms as "abbreviatures," "æquilibriously," "bivious," "convincible," "exantlation," and hundreds of others with which there is no need to fill the page, but also a number only less considerable of those far more objectionable usages which take a word generally understood in one sense (as, for instance, "equable," "gratitudes," and many others), and by twisting or translation of its classical equivalents and etymons give it some quite new sense in english. it is true that in some cases the usual sense was not then firmly established, but browne can hardly be acquitted of wilfully preferring the obscurer. yet this hybrid and bizarre vocabulary is so admirably married to the substance of the writing that no one of taste can find fault with it. for browne (to come to the third point mentioned above), though he never descends or diverges--whichever word may be preferred--to the extravagant and occasionally puerile conceits which even such writers as fuller and glanville cannot resist, has a quaintness at least equal to theirs. in no great writer is the unforeseen so constantly happening. everyone who has written on him has quoted the famous termination of the _garden of cyrus_, where he determines that it is time to go to bed, because "to keep our eyes open longer were but to act our antipodes. the huntsmen are up in america, and they are already past their first sleep in persia." a fancy so whimsical as this, and yet so admirable in its whimsies, requires a style in accordance; and the very sentence quoted, though one of the plainest of browne's, and showing clearly that he does not always abuse latinising, would hardly be what it is without the word "antipodes." so again in the _christian morals_, "be not stoically mistaken in the quality of sins, nor commutatively iniquitous in the valuation of transgressions." no expression so terse and yet so striking could dispense with the classicism and the catachresis of "stoically." and so it is everywhere with browne. his manner is exactly proportioned to his matter; his exotic and unfamiliar vocabulary to the strangeness and novelty of his thoughts. he can never be really popular; but for the meditative reading of instructed persons he is perhaps the most delightful of english prosemen. there are probably few english writers in regard to whom the judgment of critics, usually ranked as competent, has varied more than in regard to edward hyde, earl of clarendon. to some extent this is easily intelligible to any one who, with some equipment, reads any considerable quantity of his work; but it would be idle to pretend that the great stumbling-block of all criticism--the attention to matter rather than to form--has had nothing to do with it. clarendon, at first not a very zealous royalist, was the only man of decided literary genius who, with contemporary knowledge, wrote the history of the great debate between king and commonwealth. the effect of his history in deciding the question on the royalist side was felt in england for more than a century; and since popular judgment has somewhat veered round to the other side, its chief exponents have found it necessary either to say as little as possible about clarendon or to depreciate him. his interesting political history cannot be detailed here. of a good cheshire family, but not originally wealthy, he was educated as a lawyer, was early adopted into the "tribe of ben," and was among the first to take advantage of the opening which the disputes between king and parliament gave to men of his birth, education, and gifts. at first he was a moderate opponent of the king's attempts to dispense with parliament; but the growing evidence that the house of commons was seeking to increase its own constitutional power at the expense of the prerogative, and especially the anti-church tendencies of the parliamentary leaders, converted him at first into a moderate and then into a strong royalist. one of the chief of the king's constitutional advisers, he was after the restoration the most distinguished by far of those cavaliers who had parliamentary and constitutional experience; and with the title and office of chancellor, he exercised a practical premiership during the first seven years of the restoration. but ill-fortune, and it must be confessed some unwisdom, marked his government. he has been often and truly said to have been a statesman of elizabeth, born three-quarters of a century too late. he was thought by the public to be arbitrary, a courtier, and even to some extent corrupt. he seemed to the king to be a tiresome formalist and censor, who was only scrupulous in resisting the royal will. so he was impeached; and, being compelled to quit the kingdom, spent the last seven years of his life in france. his great works, begun during his first exile and completed during his second, are the _history of the rebellion_ and his own _life_, the former being by much the more important though the latter (divided into a "life" and a "continuation," the last of which starts from the restoration) contains much interesting and important biographical and historical matter. the text of these works was conveyed by his heirs to the university of oxford, and long remained an exception to the general rule of the terminableness of copyright. clarendon is a very striking example of the hackneyed remark, that in some cases at any rate men's merits are their own and their faults those of their time. his literary merits are, looked at by themselves, of nearly the highest kind. he is certainly the best english writer (and may challenge any foreigner without much fear of the result) in the great, difficult, and now almost lost art of character-(or, as it was called in his time, portrait-) drawing--that is to say, sketching in words the physical, moral, and mental, but especially the moral and mental, peculiarities of a given person. not a few of these characters of his are among the well-known "beauties" justified in selection by the endorsement of half a dozen generations. they are all full of life; and even where it may be thought that prejudice has had something to do with the picture, still the subject lives, and is not a mere bundle of contradictory or even of superficially compatible characteristics. secondly, clarendon is at his best an incomparable narrator. many of his battles, though related with apparent coolness, and without the slightest attempt to be picturesque, may rank as works of art with his portraits, just as the portraits and battle pieces of a great painter may rank together. the sober vivid touches, the little bits of what the french call _reportage_ or mere reproduction of the actual words and deeds of the personages, the elaborate and carefully-concealed art of the composition, all deserve the highest praise. here, for instance, is a fair average passage, showing clarendon's masterly skill in summary narration and his equally masterly, though, as some hold, rather unscrupulous faculty of insinuating depreciation:-- "since there will be often occasion to mention this gentleman, sir richard granvil, in the ensuing discourse, and because many men believed that he was hardly dealt with in the next year, where all the proceedings will be set down at large, it will not be unfit in this place to say somewhat of him, and of the manner and merit of his entering into the king's service some months before the time we are now upon. he was of a very ancient and worthy family in cornwall which had in several ages produced men of great courage, and very signal in their fidelity to and service of the crown; and was himself younger brother (though in his nature or humour not of kin to him) to the brave sir basil granvil who so courageously lost his life at the battle of lansdowne. being a younger brother and a very young man, he went into the low countries to learn the profession of a soldier; to which he had devoted himself under the greatest general of that age, prince maurice, and in the regiment of my lord vere, who was general of all the english. in that service he was looked upon as a man of courage and a diligent officer, in the quality of a captain, to which he attained after four years' service. about this time, in the end of the reign of king james, the war broke out between england and spain; and in the expedition to cadiz this gentleman served as a major to a regiment of foot, and continued in the same command in the war that shortly after followed against france; and at the isle of rhé insinuated himself into the very good graces of the duke of buckingham, who was the general in that mission; and after the unfortunate retreat from thence was made colonel of a regiment with general approbation and as an officer that well deserved it. "his credit increased every day with the duke: who, out of the generosity of his nature, as a most generous person he was, resolved to raise his fortune; towards the beginning of which, by his countenance and solicitation, he prevailed with a rich widow to marry him, who had been a lady of extraordinary beauty, which she had not yet outlived; and though she had no great dower by her husband, a younger brother of the earl of suffolk, yet she inherited a fair fortune of her own near plymouth, and was besides very rich in a personal estate, and was looked upon as the richest marriage of the west. this lady, by the duke's credit, sir richard granvil (for he was now made a knight and baronet) obtained, and was thereby possessed of a plentiful estate upon the borders of his own country, and where his own family had great credit and authority. the war being now at an end and he deprived of his great patron, [he] had nothing to depend upon but the fortune of his wife: which, though ample enough to have supported the expense a person of his quality ought to have made, was not large enough to satisfy his vanity and ambition, nor so great as he upon common reports had possessed himself by her. by being not enough pleased with her fortune he grew displeased with his wife, who, being a woman of a haughty and imperious nature and of a wit superior to his, quickly resented the disrespect she received from him and in no respect studied to make herself easy to him. after some years spent together in those domestic unsociable contestations, in which he possessed himself of all her estate as the sole master of it, without allowing her out of her own any competency for herself, and indulged to himself all those licenses in her own house which to women are most grievous, she found means to withdraw herself from him; and was with all kindness received into that family in which she had before been married and was always very much respected." to superficial observers, or observers who have convinced themselves that high lights and bright colourings are of the essence of the art of the prose writer, clarendon may seem tame and jejune. he is in reality just the contrary. his wood is tough enough and close-grained enough, but there is plenty of sap coursing through it. in yet a third respect, which is less closely connected with the purely formal aspect of style, clarendon stands, if not pre-eminent, very high among historians. this is his union of acute penetration and vigorous grasp in the treatment of complicated events. it has been hinted that he seems to have somewhat lost grasp, if not penetration, after the restoration. but at the time of his earlier participation in public affairs, and of his composition of the greater part of his historical writings, he was in the very vigour and prime of life; and though it may be that he was "a janus of one face," and looked rather backward than forward, even then he was profoundly acquainted with the facts of english history, with the character of his countrymen, and with the relations of events as they happened. it may even be contended by those who care for might-have-beens, that but for the headlong revolt against puritanism, which inspired the majority of the nation with a kind of carnival madness for many years after , and the strange deficiency of statesmen of even moderately respectable character on both sides (except clarendon himself, and the fairly upright though time-serving temple, there is hardly a respectable man to be found on any side of politics for forty years), clarendon's post-restoration policy itself would not have been the failure that it was. but it is certain that on the events of his own middle age he looked with the keenest discernment, and with the widest comprehension. against these great merits must be set a treble portion of the great defect which, as we have said, vitiates all the english prose work of his time, the unconscious or wilful ignoring of the very fundamental principles of sentence-and paragraph-architecture. his mere syntax, in the most restricted sense of that word, is not very bad; he seldom indulges out of mere _incuria_ in false concords or blunders over a relative. but he is the most offending soul alive at any time in english literature in one grave point. no one has put together, or, to adopt a more expressive phrase, heaped together such enormous paragraphs; no one has linked clause on clause, parenthesis on parenthesis, epexegesis on exegesis, in such a bewildering concatenation of inextricable entanglement. sometimes, of course, the difficulty is more apparent than real, and by simply substituting full stops and capitals for his colons and conjunctions, one may, to some extent, simplify the chaos. but it is seldom that this is really effective: it never produces really well balanced sentences and really well constructed paragraphs; and there are constant instances in which it is not applicable at all. it is not that the jostling and confused relatives are as a rule grammatically wrong, like the common blunder of putting an "and which" where there is no previous "which" expressed or implied. they, simply, put as they are, bewilder and muddle the reader because the writer has not taken the trouble to break up his sentence into two or three. this is, of course, a very gross abuse, and except when the talents above noticed either fuse his style into something better, or by the interest they excite divert the attention of the reader, it constantly makes clarendon anything but agreeable reading, and produces an impression of dryness and prolixity with which he is not quite justly chargeable. the plain truth is that, as has been said often before, and may have to be said more than once again, the sense of proportion and order in prose composition was not born. the famous example--the awful example--of oliver cromwell's speeches shows the worst-known instance of this; but the best writers of cromwell's own generation--far better educated than he, professed men of letters after a fashion, and without the excuse of impromptu, or of the scurry of unnoted, speech--sometimes came not far behind him. against one great writer of the time, however, no such charge can be justly brought. although much attention has recently been given to the philosophical opinions of hobbes, since the unjust prejudice against his religious and political ideas wore away, and since the complete edition of his writings published at last in by sir william molesworth made him accessible, the extraordinary merits of his style have on the whole had rather less than justice done to them. he was in many ways a very singular person. born at malmesbury in the year of the armada, he was educated at oxford, and early in the seventeenth century was appointed tutor to the eldest son of lord hardwick, afterwards earl of devonshire. for full seventy years he was on and off in the service of the cavendish family; but sometimes acted as tutor to others, and both in that capacity and for other reasons lived long abroad. in his earlier manhood he was much in the society of bacon, jonson, and the literary folk of the english capital; and later he was equally familiar with the society (rather scientific than literary) of paris. in he was appointed mathematical tutor to the prince of wales; but his mathematics were not his most fortunate acquirement, and they involved him in long and acrimonious disputes with wallis and others--disputes, it may be said, where hobbes was quite wrong. the publication of his philosophical treatises, and especially of the _leviathan_, brought him into very bad odour, not merely on political grounds (which, so long as the commonwealth lasted, would not have been surprising), but for religious reasons; and during the last years of his life, and for long afterwards, "hobbist" was, certainly with very little warrant from his writings, used as a kind of polite equivalent for atheist. he was pensioned after the restoration, and the protection of the king and the earl of devonshire kept him scatheless, if ever there was any real danger. hobbes, however, was a timid and very much self-centred person, always fancying that plots were being laid against him. he died at the great age of ninety-two. this long life was wholly taken up with study, but did not produce a very large amount of original composition. it is true that his collected works fill sixteen volumes; but they are loosely printed, and much space is occupied with diagrams, indices, and such like things, while a very large proportion of the matter appears twice over, in latin and in english. in the latter case hobbes usually wrote first in latin, and was not always his own translator; but it would appear that he generally revised the work, though he neither succeeded in obliterating nor perhaps attempted to obliterate the marks of the original vehicle. his earliest publication was a singularly vigorous, if not always scholastically exact, translation of thucydides into english, which appeared in . thirteen years later he published in paris the _de cive_, which was shortly followed by the treatise on _human nature_ and the _de corpore politico_. the latter of these was to a great extent worked up in the famous _leviathan_, or the _matter, power, and form of a commonwealth_, which appeared in . the important _de corpore_, which corresponds to the _leviathan_ on the philosophical side, appeared in latin in , in english next year. besides minor works, hobbes employed his old age on a translation of homer into verse, and on a sketch of the civil wars called _behemoth_. his verse is a mere curiosity, though a considerable curiosity. the chief of it (the translation of homer written in the quatrain, which his friend davenant's _gondibert_ had made popular) is completely lacking in poetical quality, of which, perhaps, no man ever had less than hobbes; and it is written on a bad model. but it has so much of the nervous bull-dog strength which, in literature if not in life, was hobbes's main characteristic, that it is sometimes both a truer and a better representative of the original than some very mellifluous and elegant renderings. it is as a prose writer, however, that hobbes made, and that he will keep, his fame. with his principles in the various branches of philosophy we have little or nothing to do. in choosing them he manifested, no doubt, something of the same defiance of authority, and the same self-willed preference for his own not too well-educated opinion, which brought him to grief in his encounter with wallis. but when he had once left his starting points, his sureness of reasoning, his extreme perspicacity, and the unerring clearness and certainty with which he kept before him, and expressed exactly what he meant, made him at once one of the greatest thinkers and one of the greatest writers of england. hobbes never "pays himself with words," never evades a difficulty by becoming obscure, never meanders on in the graceful allusive fashion of many philosophers,--a fashion for which the prevalent faults of style were singularly convenient in his time. he has no ornament, he does not seem to aim at anything more than the simplest and most straightforward presentation of his views. but this very aim, assisted by his practice in writing the terse and clear, if not very elegant, latin which was the universal language of the literary europe of his time, suffices to preserve him from most of the current sins. moreover, it is fair to remember that, though the last to die, he was the first to be born of the authors mentioned in this chapter, and that he may be supposed, late as he wrote, to have formed his style before the period of jacobean and caroline luxuriance. almost any one of hobbes's books would suffice to illustrate his style; but the short and interesting treatise on _human nature_, perhaps, shows it at its best. the author's exceptional clearness may be assisted by his lavish use of italics; but it is not necessary to read far in order to see that it is in reality quite independent of any clumsy mechanical device. the crabbed but sharply outlined style, the terse phrasing, the independence of all after-thoughts and tackings-on, manifest themselves at once to any careful observer. here for instance is a passage, perhaps his finest, on love, followed by a political extract from another work:-- "of love, by which is to be understood the joy man taketh in the fruition of any present good, hath been spoken already in the first section, chapter seven, under which is contained the love men bear to one another or pleasure they take in one another's company: and by which nature men are said to be sociable. but there is another kind of love which the greeks call erôs, and is that which we mean when we say that a man is in love: forasmuch as this passion cannot be without diversity of sex, it cannot be denied but that it participateth of that indefinite love mentioned in the former section. but there is a great difference betwixt the desire of a man indefinite and the same desire limited _ad hunc_: and this is that love which is the great theme of poets: but, notwithstanding their praises, it must be defined by the word need: for it is a conception a man hath of his need of that one person desired. the cause of this passion is not always nor for the most part beauty, or other quality in the beloved, unless there be withal hope in the person that loveth: which may be gathered from this, that in great difference of persons the greater have often fallen in love with the meaner, but not contrary. and from hence it is that for the most part they have much better fortune in love whose hopes are built on something in their person than those that trust to their expressions and service; and they that care less than they that care more: which not perceiving, many men cast away their services as one arrow after another, till, in the end, together with their hopes, they lose their wits." * * * * * "there are some who therefore imagine monarchy to be more grievous than democracy, because there is less liberty in that than in this. if by liberty they mean an exemption from that subjection which is due to the laws, that is, the commands of the people; neither in democracy nor in any other state of government whatsoever is there any such kind of liberty. if they suppose liberty to consist in this, that there be few laws, few prohibitions, and those too such that, except they were forbidden, there could be no peace; then i deny that there is more liberty in democracy than in monarchy; for the one as truly consisteth with such a liberty as the other. for although the word liberty may in large and ample letters be written over the gates of any city whatsoever, yet it is not meant the subjects' but the city's liberty; neither can that word with better right be inscribed on a city which is governed by the people than that which is ruled by a monarch. but when private men or subjects demand liberty under the name of liberty, they ask not for liberty but domination: which yet for want of understanding they little consider. for if every man would grant the same liberty to another which he desires for himself, as is commanded by the law of nature, that same natural state would return again in which all men may by right do all things; which if they knew they would abhor, as being worse than all kinds of civil subjection whatsoever. but if any man desire to have his single freedom, the rest being bound, what does he else demand but to have the dominion?" it may be observed that hobbes's sentences are by no means very short as far as actual length goes. he has some on a scale which in strictness is perhaps hardly justifiable. but what may generally be asserted of them is that the author for the most part is true to that great rule, of logic and of style alike, which ordains that a single sentence shall be, as far as possible, the verbal presentation of a single thought, and not the agglomeration and sweeping together of a whole string and tissue of thoughts. it is noticeable, too, that hobbes is very sparing of the adjective--the great resource and delight of flowery and discursive writers. sometimes, as in the famous comparison of human life to a race (where, by the way, a slight tendency to conceit manifests itself, and makes him rather force some of his metaphors), his conciseness assumes a distinctly epigrammatic form; and it is constantly visible also in his more consecutive writings. in the well-known passage on laughter as "a passion of sudden glory" the writer may be charged with allowing his fancy too free play; though i, for my part, am inclined to consider the explanation the most satisfactory yet given of a difficult phenomenon. but the point is the distinctness with which hobbes puts this novel and, at first sight, improbable idea, the apt turns and illustrations (standing at the same time far from the excess of illustration and analogy, by which many writers of his time would have spun it out into a chapter if not into a treatise), the succinct, forcible, economical adjustment of the fewest words to the clearest exposition of thought. perhaps these things strike the more as they are the more unlike the work in juxtaposition with which one finds them; nor can it be maintained that hobbes's style is suitable for all purposes. admirable for argument and exposition, it is apt to become bald in narration, and its abundance of clearness, when translated to less purely intellectual subjects, may even expose it to the charge of being thin. such a note as that struck in the love passage above given is rare, and sets one wondering whether the dry-as-dust philosopher of malmesbury, the man who seems to have had hardly any human frailties except vanity and timidity, had himself felt the bitterness of counting on expressions and services, the madness of throwing away one effort after another to gain the favour of the beloved. but it is very seldom that any such suggestion is provoked by remarks of hobbes's. his light is almost always dry; and in one sense, though not in another, a little malignant. yet nowhere is there to be found a style more absolutely suited, not merely to the author's intentions but to his performances--a form more exactly married to matter. nor anywhere is there to be found a writer who is more independent of others. he may have owed something to his friend jonson, in whose _timber_ there are resemblances to hobbes; but he certainly owed nothing, and in all probability lent much, to the drydens, and tillotsons, and temples, who in the last twenty years of his own life reformed english prose. chapter x caroline poetry there are few periods of poetical development in english literary history which display, in a comparatively narrow compass, such well-marked and pervading individuality as the period of caroline poetry, beginning, it may be, a little before the accession of charles i., but terminating as a producing period almost before the real accession of his son. the poets of this period, in which but not of which milton is, are numerous and remarkable, and at the head of them all stands robert herrick. very little is really known about herrick's history. that he was of a family which, distinguished above the common, but not exactly reaching nobility, had the credit of producing, besides himself, the indomitable warden heyrick of the collegiate church of manchester in his own times, and the mother of swift in the times immediately succeeding his, is certain. that he was born in london in , that he went to cambridge, that he had a rather stingy guardian, that he associated to some extent with the tribe of ben in the literary london of the second decade of the century, is also certain. at last and rather late he was appointed to a living at dean prior in devonshire, on the confines of the south hams and dartmoor. he did not like it, being of that class of persons who cannot be happy out of a great town. after the civil war he was deprived, and his successor had not the decency (the late dr. grosart, constant to his own party, made a very unsuccessful attempt to defend the delinquent) to pay him the shabby pittance which the intruders were supposed to furnish to the rightful owners of benefices. at the restoration he too was restored, and survived it fifteen years, dying in ; but his whole literary fame rests on work published a quarter of a century before his death, and pretty certainly in great part written many years earlier. the poems which then appeared were divided, in the published form, into two classes: they may be divided, for purposes of poetical criticism, into three. the _hesperides_ (they are dated , and the _noble numbers_ or sacred poems ; but both appeared together) consist in the first place of occasional poems, sometimes amatory, sometimes not; in the second, of personal epigrams. of this second class no human being who has any faculty of criticism can say any good. they are supposed by tradition to have been composed on parishioners: they may be hoped by charity (which has in this case the support of literary criticism) to be merely literary exercises--bad imitations of martial, through ben jonson. they are nastier than the nastiest work of swift; they are stupider than the stupidest attempts of davies of hereford; they are farther from the author's best than the worst parts of young's _odes_ are from the best part of the _night thoughts_. it is impossible without producing specimens (which god forbid that any one who has a respect for herrick, for literature, and for decency, should do) to show how bad they are. let it only be said that if the worst epigram of martial were stripped of martial's wit, sense, and literary form, it would be a kind of example of herrick in this vein. in his two other veins, but for certain tricks of speech, it is almost impossible to recognise him for the same man. the secular vigour of the _hesperides_, the spiritual vigour of the _noble numbers_, has rarely been equalled and never surpassed by any other writer. i cannot agree with mr. gosse that herrick is in any sense "a pagan." they had in his day shaken off the merely ascetic temper of the middle ages, and had not taken upon them the mere materialism of the _aufklärung_, or the remorseful and satiated attitude of the late eighteenth and nineteenth century. i believe that the warmest of the julia poems and the immortal "litany" were written with the same integrity of feeling. here was a man who was grateful to the upper powers for the joys of life, or who was sorrowful and repentant towards the upper powers when he felt that he had exceeded in enjoying those joys, but who had no doubt of his gods, and no shame in approaching them. the last--the absolutely last if we take his death-date--of those poets who have relished this life heartily, while heartily believing in another, was robert herrick. there is not the slightest reason to suppose that the _hesperides_ were wholly _péchés de jeunesse_ and the _noble numbers_ wholly pious palinodes. both simply express, and express in a most vivid and distinct manner, the alternate or rather varying moods of a man of strong sensibilities, religious as well as sensual. of the religious poems the already-mentioned "litany," while much the most familiar, is also far the best. there is nothing in english verse to equal it as an expression of religious fear; while there is also nothing in english verse to equal the "thanksgiving," also well known, as an expression of religious trust. the crystalline simplicity of herrick's style deprives his religious poems of that fatal cut-and-dried appearance, that vain repetition of certain phrases and thoughts, which mars the work of sacred poets generally, and which has led to an unjustly strong censure being laid on them by critics, so different from each other as dr. johnson and mr. matthew arnold. as the alleged paganism of some of herrick's sacred poems exists only in the imagination of readers, so the alleged insincerity is equally hypothetical, and can only be supported by the argument (notoriously false to history and to human nature) that a man who could write the looser _hesperides_ could not sincerely write the _noble numbers_. every student of the lives of other men--every student of his own heart--knows, or should know, that this is an utter mistake. undoubtedly, however, herrick's most beautiful work is to be found in the profane division, despite the admixture of the above-mentioned epigrams, the dull foulness of which soils the most delightful pages to such an extent that, if it were ever allowable to take liberties with an author's disposition of his own work, it would be allowable and desirable to pick these ugly weeds out of the garden and stow them away in a rubbish heap of appendix all to themselves. some of the best pieces of the _hesperides_ are even better known than the two well-known _noble numbers_ above quoted. the "night piece to julia," the "daffodils," the splendid "to anthea," ("bid me to live"), "the mad maid's song" (worthy of the greatest of the generation before herrick), the verses to ben jonson, those to electra ("i dare not ask a kiss"), the wonderful "burial piece to perilla," the "grace for a child," the "corinna maying" (the chief of a large division of herrick's poems which celebrate rustic festivals, superstitions, and folklore generally), the epitaph on prudence baldwin, and many others, are justly included in nearly all selections of english poetry, and many of them are known by heart to every one who knows any poetry at all. one or two of the least well known of them may perhaps be welcome again:-- "good morrow to the day so fair, good morning, sir, to you; good morrow to mine own torn hair bedabbled with the dew. "good morning to this primrose too, good morrow to each maid; that will with flowers the tomb bestrew wherein my love is laid. "ah, woe is me, woe, woe is me, alack and well-a-day! for pity, sir, find out that bee that bore my love away. "i'll seek him in your bonnet brave, i'll seek him in your eyes; nay, now i think, they've made his grave i' th' bed of strawberries. "i'll seek him there: i know ere this the cold, cold earth doth shake him; but i will go, or send a kiss by you, sir, to awake him. "pray hurt him not; though he be dead he knows well who do love him, and who with green turfs rear his head, and who do rudely move him. "he's soft and tender, pray take heed, with bands of cowslips bind him, and bring him home; but 'tis decreed that i shall never find him." * * * * * "i dare not ask a kiss; i dare not beg a smile; lest having that or this, i might grow proud the while. "no, no--the utmost share of my desire shall be only to kiss that air that lately kissèd thee." * * * * * "here, a little child, i stand heaving up my either hand: cold as paddocks though they be here i lift them up to thee, for a benison to fall on our meat and on us all. amen." but herrick's charm is everywhere--except in the epigrams. it is very rare to find one of the hundreds of little poems which form his book destitute of the peculiar touch of phrasing, the eternising influence of style, which characterises the poetry of this particular period so remarkably. the subject may be the merest trifle, the thought a hackneyed or insignificant one. but the amber to enshrine the fly is always there in larger or smaller, in clearer or more clouded, shape. there has often been a certain contempt (connected no doubt with certain general critical errors as they seem to me, with which i shall deal at the end of this chapter) flavouring critical notices of herrick. i do not think that any one who judges poetry as poetry, who keeps its several kinds apart and does not demand epic graces in lyric, dramatic substance in an anthologia, could ever feel or hint such a contempt. whatever herrick may have been as a man (of which we know very little, and for which we need care less), he was a most exquisite and complete poet in his own way, neither was that way one to be lightly spoken of. indissolubly connected with herrick in age, in character, and in the singularly unjust criticism which has at various times been bestowed on him, is thomas carew. his birth-date has been very differently given as and (that now preferred) ; but he died nearly forty years before the author of the _hesperides_, and nearly ten before the _hesperides_ themselves were published, while his own poems were never collected till after his own death. he was of a gloucestershire branch of the famous devonshire family of carew, cary, or cruwys, was of merton college, oxford, and the temple, travelled, followed the court, was a disciple of ben jonson, and a member of the learned and accomplished society of clarendon's earlier days, obtained a place in the household of charles i., is said by his friend hyde to have turned to devotion after a somewhat libertine life, and died in , before the evil days of triumphant puritanism, _felix opportunitate mortis_. he wrote little, and the scantiness of his production, together with the supposed pains it cost him, is ridiculed in suckling's doggerel "sessions of the poets." but this reproach (which carew shares with gray, and with not a few others of the most admirable names in literature), unjust as it is, is less unjust than the general tone of criticism on carew since. the _locus classicus_ of depreciation both in regard to him and to herrick is to be found, as might be expected, in one of the greatest, and one of the most wilfully capricious and untrustworthy of english critics, in hazlitt. i am sorry to say that there can be little hesitation in setting down the extraordinary misjudgment of the passage in question (it occurs in the sixth lecture on elizabethan literature), in part, at least, to the fact that herrick, carew, and crashaw, who are summarily damned in it, were royalists. if there were any doubt about the matter, it would be settled by the encomium bestowed in the very same passage on marvell, who is, no doubt, as hazlitt says, a true poet, but who as a poet is but seldom at the highest height of the authors of "the litany," "the rapture," and "the flaming heart." hazlitt, then, while on his way to tell us that herrick's two best pieces are some trivial anacreontics about cupid and the bees--things hackneyed through a dozen literatures, and with no recommendation but a borrowed prettiness--while about, i say, to deny herrick the spirit of love or wine, and in the same breath with the dismissal of crashaw as a "hectic enthusiast," informs us that carew was "an elegant court trifler," and describes his style as a "frequent mixture of the superficial and commonplace, with far-fetched and improbable conceits." what carew really is, and what he may be peremptorily declared to be in opposition even to such a critic as hazlitt, is something quite different. he is one of the most perfect masters of lyrical form in english poetry. he possesses a command of the overlapped heroic couplet, which for sweep and rush of rhythm cannot be surpassed anywhere. he has, perhaps in a greater degree than any poet of that time of conceits, the knack of modulating the extravagances of fancy by the control of reason, so that he never falls into the unbelievableness of donne, or crashaw, or cleveland. he had a delicacy, when he chose to be delicate, which is quintessential, and a vigour which is thoroughly manly. best of all, perhaps, he had the intelligence and the self-restraint to make all his poems wholes, and not mere congeries of verses. there is always, both in the scheme of his meaning and the scheme of his metre, a definite plan of rise and fall, a concerted effect. that these great merits were accompanied by not inconsiderable defects is true. carew lacks the dewy freshness, the unstudied grace of herrick. he is even more frankly and uncontrolledly sensual, and has paid the usual and inevitable penalty that his best poem, _the rapture_, is, for the most part, unquotable, while another, if he carried out its principles in this present year of grace, would run him the risk of imprisonment with hard labour. his largest attempt--the masque called _coelum britannicum_--is heavy. his smaller poems, beautiful as they are, suffer somewhat from want of variety of subject. there is just so much truth in suckling's impertinence that the reader of carew sometimes catches himself repeating the lines of carew's master, "still to be neat, still to be drest," not indeed in full agreement with them, but not in exact disagreement. one misses the "wild civility" of herrick. this acknowledgment, i trust, will save me from any charge of overvaluing carew. a man might, however, be easily tempted to overvalue him, who observes his beauties, and who sees how, preserving the force, the poetic spell, of the time, he was yet able, without in the least descending to the correctness of waller and his followers, to introduce into his work something also preserving it from the weaknesses and inequalities which deface that of almost all his contemporaries, and which, as we shall see, make much of the dramatic and poetical work of - a chaos of slipshod deformity to any one who has the sense of poetical form. it is an unwearying delight to read and re-read the second of his poems, the "persuasions to love," addressed to a certain a. l. that the sentiment is common enough matters little; the commonest things in poetry are always the best. but the delicate interchange of the catalectic and acatalectic dimeter, the wonderful plays and changes of cadence, the opening, as it were, of fresh stops at the beginning of each new paragraph of the verse, so that the music acquires a new colour, the felicity of the several phrases, the cunning heightening of the passion as the poet comes to "oh! love me then, and now begin it," and the dying fall of the close, make up to me, at least, most charming pastime. it is not the same kind of pleasure, no doubt, as that given by such an outburst as crashaw's, to be mentioned presently, or by such pieces as the great soliloquies of shakespere. any one may say, if he likes to use words which are question-begging, when not strictly meaningless, that it is not such a "high" kind. but it is a kind, and in that kind perfect. carew's best pieces, besides _the rapture_, are the beautiful "ask me no more," the first stanza of which is the weakest; the fine couplet poem, "the cruel mistress," whose closing distich-- "of such a goddess no times leave record, that burned the temple where she was adored"-- dryden conveyed with the wise and unblushing boldness which great poets use; the "deposition from love," written in one of those combinations of eights and sixes, the melodious charm of which seems to have died with the seventeenth century; the song, "he that loves a rosy cheek," which, by the unusual morality of its sentiments, has perhaps secured a fame not quite due to its poetical merits; the epitaph on lady mary villers; the song "would you know what's soft?" the song to his inconstant mistress: "when thou, poor excommunicate from all the joys of love, shalt see the full reward, and glorious fate which my strong faith shall purchase me, then curse thine own inconstancy. "a fairer hand than thine shall cure that heart which thy false oaths did wound; and to my soul, a soul more pure than thine, shall by love's hand be bound, and both with equal glory crown'd. "then shalt thou weep, entreat, complain to love, as i did once to thee; when all thy tears shall be as vain as mine were then, for thou shalt be damn'd for thy false apostacy."-- the pleasant pictures of the country houses of wrest and saxham; the charming conceit of "red and white roses": "read in these roses the sad story of my hard fate and your own glory: in the white you may discover the paleness of a fainting lover; in the red, the flames still feeding on my heart with fresh wounds bleeding. the white will tell you how i languish, and the red express my anguish: the white my innocence displaying the red my martyrdom betraying. the frowns that on your brow resided have those roses thus divided; oh! let your smiles but clear the weather and then they both shall grow together."-- and lastly, though it would be easy to extend this already long list of selections from a by no means extensive collection of poems, the grand elegy on donne. by this last the reproach of vain and amatorious trifling which has been so often levelled at carew is at once thrown back and blunted. no poem shows so great an influence on the masculine panegyrics with which dryden was to enrich the english of the next generation, and few are fuller of noteworthy phrases. the splendid epitaph which closes it-- "here lies a king that ruled as he thought fit the universal monarchy of wit"-- is only the best passage, not the only good one, and it may be matched with a fine and just description of english, ushered by a touch of acute criticism. "thou shalt yield no precedence, but of time, and the blind fate of language, whose tuned chime more charms the outward sense: yet thou mayst claim from so great disadvantage greater fame. since to the awe of thine imperious wit our troublesome language bends, made only fit with her tough thick-ribbed hoops to gird about thy giant fancy, which had proved too stout for their soft melting phrases." and it is the man who could write like this that hazlitt calls an "elegant court trifler!" the third of this great trio of poets, and with them the most remarkable of our whole group, was richard crashaw. he completes carew and herrick both in his qualities and (if a kind of bull may be permitted) in his defects, after a fashion almost unexampled elsewhere and supremely interesting. hardly any one of the three could have appeared at any other time, and not one but is distinguished from the others in the most marked way. herrick, despite his sometimes rather obtrusive learning, is emphatically the natural man. he does not show much sign of the influence of good society, his merits as well as his faults have a singular unpersonal and, if i may so say, _terræfilian_ connotation. carew is a gentleman before all; but a rather profane gentleman. crashaw is religious everywhere. again, herrick and carew, despite their strong savour of the fashion of the time, are eminently critics as well as poets. carew has not let one piece critically unworthy of him pass his censorship: herrick (if we exclude the filthy and foolish epigrams into which he was led by corrupt following of ben) has been equally careful. these two bards may have trouble with the _censor morum_,--the _censor literarum_ they can brave with perfect confidence. it is otherwise with crashaw. that he never, as far as can be seen, edited the bulk of his work for press at all matters little or nothing. but there is not in his work the slightest sign of the exercise of any critical faculty before, during, or after production. his masterpiece, one of the most astonishing things in english or any other literature, comes without warning at the end of _the flaming heart_. for page after page the poet has been poorly playing on some trifling conceits suggested by the picture of saint theresa and a seraph. first he thinks the painter ought to have changed the attributes; then he doubts whether a lesser change will not do; and always he treats his subject in a vein of grovelling and grotesque conceit which the boy dryden in the stage of his elegy on lord hastings would have disdained. and then in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, without warning of any sort, the metre changes, the poet's inspiration catches fire, and there rushes up into the heaven of poetry this marvellous rocket of song:-- "live in these conquering leaves: live all the same; and walk through all tongues one triumphant flame; live here, great heart; and love, and die, and kill; and bleed, and wound, and yield, and conquer still. let this immortal life where'er it comes walk in a crowd of loves and martyrdoms. let mystic deaths wait on't; and wise souls be the love-slain witnesses of this life of thee. o sweet incendiary! show here thy art, upon this carcase of a hard cold heart; let all thy scatter'd shafts of light, that play among the leaves of thy large books of day, combin'd against this breast at once break in, and take away from me myself and sin; this gracious robbery shall thy bounty be and my best fortunes such fair spoils of me. o thou undaunted daughter of desires! by all thy pow'r of lights and fires; by all the eagle in thee, all the dove; by all thy lives and deaths of love; by thy large draughts of intellectual day; and by thy thirsts of love more large than they; by all thy brim-fill'd bowls of fierce desire; by thy last morning's draught of liquid fire; by the full kingdom of that final kiss that seized thy parting soul, and seal'd thee his; by all the heavens thou hast in him, (fair sister of the seraphim) by all of him we have in thee; leave nothing of myself in me. let me so read thy life, that i unto all life of mine may die." the contrast is perhaps unique as regards the dead colourlessness of the beginning, and the splendid colour of the end. but contrasts like it occur all over crashaw's work. he was a much younger man than either of the poets with whom we have leashed him, and his birth year used to be put at , though dr. grosart has made it probable that it was three years earlier. his father was a stern anglican clergyman of extremely protestant leanings, his mother died when crashaw was young, but his stepmother appears to have been most unnovercal. crashaw was educated at charterhouse, and then went to cambridge, where in he became a fellow of peterhouse, and came in for the full tide of high church feeling, to which (under the mixed influence of laud's policy, of the ascetic practices of the ferrars of gidding, and of a great architectural development afterwards defaced if not destroyed by puritan brutality) cambridge was even more exposed than oxford. the outbreak of the civil war may or may not have found crashaw at cambridge; he was at any rate deprived of his fellowship for not taking the covenant in , and driven into exile. already inclined doctrinally and in matters of practice to the older communion, and despairing of the resurrection of the church of england after her sufferings at the hands of the parliament, crashaw joined the church of rome, and journeyed to its metropolis. he was attached to the suit of cardinal pallotta, but is said to have been shocked by italian manners. the cardinal procured him a canonry at loretto, and this he hastened to take up, but died in with suspicions of poison, which are not impossibly, but at the same time by no means necessarily true. his poems had already appeared under the double title of _steps to the temple_ (sacred), and _delights of the muses_ (profane), but not under his own editorship, or it would seem with his own choice of title. several other editions followed,--one later than his death, with curious illustrations said to be, in part at least, of his own design. manuscript sources, as in the case of some other poets of the time, have considerably enlarged the collection since. but a great part of it consists of epigrams (in the wide sense, and almost wholly sacred) in the classical tongues, which were sometimes translated by crashaw himself. these are not always correct in style or prosody, but are often interesting. the famous line in reference to the miracle of cana, "vidit et erubuit nympha pudica deum," is assigned to crashaw as a boy at cambridge; of his later faculty in the same way the elaborate and, in its way, beautiful poem entitled _bulla_ (the bubble) is the most remarkable. our chief subject, however, is the english poems proper, sacred and profane. in almost all of these there is noticeable an extraordinary inequality, the same in kind, if not in degree, as that on which we have commented in the case of _the flaming heart_. crashaw is never quite so great as there; but he is often quite as small. his exasperating lack of self-criticism has sometimes led selectors to make a cento out of his poems--notably in the case of the exceedingly pretty "wishes to his unknown mistress," beginning, "whoe'er she be, that not impossible she, that shall command my heart and me"--a poem, let it be added, which excuses this dubious process much less than most, inasmuch as nothing in it is positively bad, though it is rather too long. here is the opening, preceded by a piece from another poem, "a hymn to saint theresa":-- "those rare works, where thou shalt leave writ love's noble history, with wit taught thee by none but him, while here they feed our souls, shall clothe thine there each heavenly word by whose hid flame our hard hearts shall strike fire, the same shall flourish on thy brows and be both fire to us and flame to thee: whose light shall live bright, in thy face by glory, in our hearts by grace. "thou shalt look round about, and see thousands of crown'd souls throng to be themselves thy crown, sons of thy vows: the virgin births with which thy spouse made fruitful thy fair soul; go now and with them all about thee, bow to him, 'put on' (he'll say) 'put on, my rosy love, that thy rich zone, sparkling with the sacred flames, of thousand souls whose happy names heaven heaps upon thy score, thy bright life brought them first to kiss the light that kindled them to stars.' and so thou with the lamb thy lord shall go, and whereso'er he sets his white steps, walk with him those ways of light. which who in death would live to see must learn in life to die like thee." * * * * * "whoe'er she be, that not impossible she, that shall command my heart and me; "where'er she lie, lock'd up from mortal eye, in shady leaves of destiny; "till that ripe birth of studied fate stand forth, and teach her fair steps to our earth: "till that divine idea take a shrine of crystal flesh, through which to shine: "meet you her, my wishes bespeak her to my blisses, and be ye call'd, my absent kisses." the first hymn to saint theresa, to which _the flaming heart_ is a kind of appendix, was written when crashaw was still an anglican (for which he did not fail, later, to make a characteristic and very pretty, though quite unnecessary, apology). it has no passage quite up to the invocation--epiphonema, to give it the technical term--of the later poem. but it is, on the contrary, good almost throughout, and is, for uniform exaltation, far the best of crashaw's poems. yet such uniform exaltation must be seldom sought in him. it is in his little bursts, such as that in the stanza beginning, "o mother turtle dove," that his charm consists. often, as in verse after verse of _the weeper_, it has an unearthly delicacy and witchery which only blake, in a few snatches, has ever equalled; while at other times the poet seems to invent, in the most casual and unthinking fashion, new metrical effects and new jewelries of diction which the greatest lyric poets since--coleridge, shelley, lord tennyson, mr. swinburne--have rather deliberately imitated than spontaneously recovered. yet to all this charm there is no small drawback. the very maddest and most methodless of the "metaphysicals" cannot touch crashaw in his tasteless use of conceits. when he, in _the weeper_ just above referred to, calls the tears of magdalene "wat'ry brothers," and "simpering sons of those fair eyes," and when, in the most intolerable of all the poet's excesses, the same eyes are called "two waking baths, two weeping motions, portable and compendious oceans," which follow our lord about the hills of galilee, it is almost difficult to know whether to feel most contempt or indignation for a man who could so write. it is fair to say that there are various readings and omissions in the different editions which affect both these passages. yet the offence is that crashaw should ever have written them at all. amends, however, are sure to be made before the reader has read much farther. crashaw's longest poems--a version of marini's _sospetto d'herode_, and one of the rather overpraised "lover and nightingale" story of strada--are not his best; the metre in which both are written, though the poet manages it well, lacks the extraordinary charm of his lyric measures. it does not appear that the "not impossible she" ever made her appearance, and probably for a full half of his short life crashaw burnt only with religious fire. but no englishman has expressed that fire as he has, and none in his expression of any sentiment, sacred and profane, has dropped such notes of ethereal music. at his best he is far above singing, at his worst he is below a very childish prattle. but even then he is never coarse, never offensive, not very often actually dull; and everywhere he makes amends by flowers of the divinest poetry. mr. pope, who borrowed not a little from him, thought, indeed, that you could find nothing of "the real part of poetry" (correct construction and so forth) in crashaw; and mr. hayley gently rebukes cowley (after observing that if pope borrowed from crashaw, it was "as the sun borrows from the earth") for his "glowing panegyrick." now, if the real part of poetry is anywhere in hayley, or quintessentially in pope, it certainly is not in crashaw. the group or school (for it is not easy to decide on either word, and objections might be taken to each) at the head of which herrick, carew, and crashaw must be placed, and which included herbert and his band of sacred singers, included also not a few minor groups, sufficiently different from each other, but all marked off sharply from the innovating and classical school of waller and his followers, which it is not proposed to treat in this volume. all, without exception, show the influence in different ways of ben jonson and of donne. but each has its own peculiarity. we find these peculiarities, together with anticipations of post-reformation characteristics, mixed very curiously in the miscellanies of the time. these are interesting enough, and may be studied with advantage, if not also with pleasure, in the principal of them, _wit's recreations_ ( ). this, with certain kindred works (_wit restored_, and the very unsavoury _musarum deliciæ_ of sir john mennis and dr. smith), has been more than once republished. in these curious collections, to mention only one instance, numerous pieces of herrick's appeared with considerable variants from the text of the _hesperides_; and in their pages things old and new, charming pastoral poems, _vers de société_ of very unequal merit, ballads, satires, epigrams, and a large quantity of mere scatology and doggerel, are heaped together pell-mell. songs from the dramatists, especially fletcher, make their appearance, sometimes with slight variants, and there are forms of the drinking song in _gammer gurton's needle_ long after, and of sir john suckling's "ballad on a wedding," apparently somewhat before, their respective publication in their proper places. here is the joke about the wife and the almanack which reckless tradition has told of dryden; printed when lady elizabeth howard was in the nursery, and dryden was not yet at westminster. here we learn how, probably about the second or third decade of the century, the favourite authors of learned ladies were "wither, draiton, and balzack" (guez de balzac of the _letters_), a very singular trio; and how some at least loved the "easy ambling" of heywood's prose, but thought that he "grovelled on the stage," which it must be confessed he not uncommonly did. _wit restored_ contains the charming "phillida flouts me," with other real "delights." even milton makes his appearance in these collections, which continued to be popular for more than a century, and acquired at intervals fresh vogue from the great names of dryden and pope. neglecting or returning from these, we may class the minor caroline poets under the following heads. there are belated elizabethans like habington, sacred poets of the school of herbert, translators like stanley, sherburne, and quarles, philosophico-theological poets like joseph beaumont and more, and poets of society, such as lovelace and suckling, whose class degenerated into a class of boon companion song-writers, such as alexander brome, and, at the extremity of our present period, charles cotton, in whose verse (as for the matter of that in the famous muses of lovelace and suckling themselves) the rapidly degenerating prosody of the time is sometimes painfully evident. this is also apparent (though it is compensated by much exquisite poetry, and on the strictly lyric side rarely offends) in the work of randolph, corbet, cartwright, chamberlayne of the _pharonnida_, sidney godolphin, shakerley marmion, cleveland, benlowes, kynaston, john hall, the enigmatic chalkhill, patrick carey, bishop king. these about exhaust the list of poets who must be characterised here, though it could be extended. cowley, marvell, and waller fall outside our limits. george herbert, the one popular name, if we except lovelace and suckling, of the last paragraph, was born at montgomery castle in , of the great house now represented in the english peerage by the holders of the titles of pembroke, carnarvon, and powis. george was the younger brother of the equally well-known lord herbert of cherbury; and after being for some years public orator at cambridge, turned, it is said, on some despite or disappointment, from secular to sacred business, accepted the living of bemerton, and, after holding it for a short time, died in . walton's _life_ was hardly needed to fix herbert in the popular mind, for his famous volume of sacred poems, _the temple_, would have done so, and has done so far more firmly. it was not his only book by any means; he had displayed much wit as quite a boy in counter-lampooning andrew melville's ponderous and impudent _anti-tami-cami-categoria_, an attack on the english universities; and afterwards he wrote freely in greek, latin, and english, both in prose and verse. nothing, however, but _the temple_ has held popular estimation, and that has held it firmly, being as much helped by the tractarian as by the romantic movement. it may be confessed without shame and without innuendo that herbert has been on the whole a greater favourite with readers than with critics, and the reason is obvious. he is not prodigal of the finest strokes of poetry. to take only his own contemporaries, and undoubtedly pupils, his gentle moralising and devotion are tame and cold beside the burning glow of crashaw, commonplace and popular beside the intellectual subtlety and, now and then, the inspired touch of vaughan. but he never drops into the flatness and the extravagance of both these writers, and his beauties, assuredly not mean in themselves, and very constantly present, are both in kind and in arrangement admirably suited to the average comprehension. he is quaint and conceited; but his quaintnesses and conceits are never beyond the reach of any tolerably intelligent understanding. he is devout, but his devotion does not transgress into the more fantastic regions of piety. he is a mystic, but of the more exoteric school of mysticism. he expresses common needs, common thoughts, the everyday emotions of the christian, just sublimated sufficiently to make them attractive. the fashion and his own taste gave him a pleasing quaintness, which his good sense kept from being ever obscure or offensive or extravagant. the famous "sweet day so cool, so calm, so bright," and many short passages which are known to every one, express herbert perfectly. the thought is obvious, usual, in no sense far fetched. the morality is plain and simple. the expression, with a sufficient touch of the daintiness of the time, has nothing that is extraordinarily or ravishingly felicitous whether in phrasing or versing. he is, in short, a poet whom all must respect; whom those that are in sympathy with his vein of thought cannot but revere; who did england an inestimable service, by giving to the highest and purest thoughts that familiar and abiding poetic garb which contributes so much to fix any thoughts in the mind, and of which, to tell the truth, poetry has been much more prodigal to other departments of thought by no means so well deserving. but it is impossible to call him a great poet even in his own difficult class. the early latin hymn writers are there to show what a great religious poet must be like. crashaw, if his genius had been less irregular and jaculative, might have been such. herbert is not, and could not have been. with him it is an almost invariable custom to class vaughan the "silurist," and a common one to unite george sandys, the traveller, translator of ovid, and paraphrast of the psalms and other parts of the bible. sandys, an older man than herbert by fifteen, and than vaughan by more than forty years, published rather late, so that he came as a sacred poet after herbert, and not long before vaughan. he was son of the archbishop of york, and brother of that edwin sandys who was a pupil of hooker, and who is said to have been present on the melancholy occasion when the judicious one was "called to rock the cradle." he is interesting for a singular and early mastery of the couplet, which the following extract will show:-- "o thou, who all things hast of nothing made, whose hand the radiant firmament displayed, with such an undiscerned swiftness hurled about the steadfast centre of the world; against whose rapid course the restless sun, and wandering flames in varied motions run. which heat, light, life infuse; time, night, and day distinguish; in our human bodies sway: that hung'st the solid earth in fleeting air veined with clear springs which ambient seas repair. in clouds the mountains wrap their hoary heads; luxurious valleys clothed with flowery meads; her trees yield fruit and shade; with liberal breasts all creatures she, their common mother, feasts." henry vaughan was born in , published _poems_ in (for some of which he afterwards expressed a not wholly necessary repentance), _olor iscanus_ (from isca silurum) in , and _silex scintillans_, his best-known book, in and . he also published verses much later, and did not die till , being the latest lived of any man who has a claim to appear in this book, but his aftergrowths were not happy. to say that vaughan is a poet of one poem would not be true. but the universally known "they are all gone into the world of light" is so very much better than anything else that he has done that it would be hardly fair to quote anything else, unless we could quote a great deal. like herbert, and in pretty obvious imitation of him, he set himself to bend the prevailing fancy for quips and quaintnesses into sacred uses, to see that the devil should not have all the best conceits. but he is not so uniformly successful, though he has greater depth and greater originality of thought. lovelace and suckling are inextricably connected together, not merely by their style of poetry, but by their advocacy of the same cause, their date, and their melancholy end. both (suckling in , lovelace nine years later) were born to large fortunes, both spent them, at least partially, in the king's cause, and both died miserably,--suckling, in , by his own hand, his mind, according to a legend, unhinged by the tortures of the inquisition; lovelace, two years before the restoration, a needy though not an exiled cavalier, in london purlieus. both have written songs of quite marvellous and unparalleled exquisiteness, and both have left doggerel which would disgrace a schoolboy. both, it may be suspected, held the doctrine which suckling openly champions, that a gentleman should not take too much trouble about his verses. the result, however, was in lovelace's case more disastrous than in suckling's. it is not quite true that lovelace left nothing worth reading but the two immortal songs, "to lucasta on going to the wars" and "to althea from prison;" and it is only fair to say that the corrupt condition of his text is evidently due, at least in part, to incompetent printing and the absence of revision. "the grasshopper" is almost worthy of the two better-known pieces, and there are others not far below it. but on the whole any one who knows those two (and who does not?) may neglect lovelace with safety. suckling, even putting his dramatic work aside, is not to be thus treated. true, he is often careless in the bad sense as well as in the good, though the doggerel of the "sessions" and some other pieces is probably intentional. but in his own vein, that of coxcombry that is not quite cynical, and is quite intelligent, he is marvellously happy. the famous song in _aglaura_, the allegro to lovelace's penseroso, "why so pale and wan, fond lover?" is scarcely better than "'tis now since i sat down before that foolish fort a heart," or "out upon it! i have loved three whole days together." nor in more serious veins is the author to be slighted, as in "the dance;" while as for the "ballad on a wedding," the best parts of this are by common consent incomparable. side by side by these are to be found, as in lovelace, pieces that will not even scan, and, as _not_ in lovelace (who is not seldom loose but never nasty), pieces of a dull and disgusting obscenity. but we do not go to suckling for these; we go to him for his easy grace, his agreeable impudence, his scandalous mock-disloyalty (for it is only mock-disloyalty after all) to the "lord of terrible aspect," whom all his elder contemporaries worshipped so piously. suckling's inconstancy and lovelace's constancy may or may not be equally poetical,--there is some reason for thinking that the lover of althea was actually driven to something like despair by the loss of his mistress. but that matters to us very little. the songs remain, and remain yet unsurpassed, as the most perfect celebrations, in one case of chivalrous devotion, in the other of the coxcomb side of gallantry, that literature contains or is likely ever to contain. the songwriting faculty of the english, which had broken out some half century before, and had produced so many masterpieces, was near its death, or at least near the trance from which burns and blake revived it more than a century later, which even dryden's superhuman faculty of verse could only galvanise. but at the last it threw off by the mouths of men, who otherwise seem to have had very ordinary poetical powers, this little group of triumphs in song, to which have to be added the raptures--equally strange and sweet, equally unmatched of their kind, but nobler and more masculine--of the "great marquis," the few and wonderful lines of montrose. to quote "my dear and only love, i pray," or "great, good, and just, could i but rate," would be almost as much an insult to the reader as to quote the above-mentioned little masterpieces of the two less heroic english cavaliers. quarles, more, and joseph beaumont form, as it were, a kind of appendix to the poetry of herbert and vaughan--an appendix very much less distinguished by poetical power, but very interesting as displaying the character of the time and the fashion (strange enough to us moderns) in which almost every interest of that time found its natural way into verse. the enormous popularity of francis quarles's _emblems_ and _enchiridion_ accounts to some extent for the very unjust ridicule which has been lavished on him by men of letters of his own and later times. but the silly antithesis of pope, a writer who, great as he was, was almost as ignorant of literary history as his model, boileau, ought to prejudice no one, and it is strictly true that quarles's enormous volume hides, to some extent, his merits. born in at romford, of a gentle though not very distinguished family, which enters into that curious literary genealogy of swift, dryden, and herrick, he was educated at cambridge, became cup-bearer to the ill-fated and romantically renowned "goody palsgrave," held the post which middleton and jonson had held, of chronologer to the city of london, followed the king to oxford to his loss, having previously had losses in ireland, and died early in , leaving his memory to be defended in a rather affecting document by his widow, ursula. quarles was a kind of journalist to whom the vehicle of verse came more easily than the vehicle of prose, and the dangers of that state of things are well known. a mere list of his work (the _enchiridion_ is in prose, and a good thing too) would far exceed any space that can be given to him here. all quarles's work is journey-work, but it is only fair to note the frequent wealth of fancy, the occasional felicity of expression, which illustrate this wilderness. more and beaumont were not, like quarles, poetical miscellanists and periodical writers; but they seem to have shared with him the delusion that poetry is an instrument of all work. henry more, a man well connected and who might have risen, but who preferred to pass the greater part of a long and studious life as a fellow of christ's college, cambridge, is best known as a member of the theological school, indifferently called the cambridge platonists and the cambridge latitudinarians. his chief work in verse is a great philosophical poem, entitled the _song of the soul_, with such engaging sub-titles as _psychozoia_, _psychathanasia_, _antipsychopannychia_, and _antimonopsychia_. i shall not, i hope, be suspected of being ignorant of greek, or disinclined to metaphysics, if i say that the _song of the soul_ appears to me a venerable mistake. a philosophical controversy carried on in this fashion-- "but contradiction, can that have place in any soul? plato affirms ideas; but aristotle, with his pugnacious race, as idle figments stiffly them denies," seems to me to be a signal instance of the wrong thing in the wrong place. it is quite true that more has, as southey says, "lines and passages of sublime beauty." a man of his time, actuated by its noble thought, trained as we know more to have been in the severest school of spenser, and thus habituated to the heavenly harmonies of that perfect poet, could hardly fail to produce such. but his muse is a chaotic not a cosmic one. something the same may be said of joseph beaumont, a friend of crashaw, and like him ejected from peterhouse, son-in-law of bishop wren, and, later, head of jesus college. beaumont, a strong cavalier and an orthodox churchman, was a kind of adversary of more's, whose length and quaintness he has exceeded, while he has almost rivalled his learning in _psyche_ or _love's mystery_, a religious poem of huge dimensions, first published in and later in . beaumont, as both fragments of this vast thing and his minor poems show, had fancy, taste, and almost genius on opportunity; but the prevailing mistake of his school, the idea that poetry is a fit vehicle for merely prosaic expression, is painfully apparent in him. first, for various reasons, among the nondescripts of the caroline school, deserves to be mentioned william habington, a roman catholic gentleman of good upper middle-class station, whose father was himself a man of letters, and had some trouble in the gunpowder plot. he was born at hindlip hall, near worcester, in the year of the plot itself, courted and married lucy herbert, daughter of his neighbour, lord powis, and published her charms and virtues in the collection called _castara_, first issued in . habington also wrote a tragic comedy, _the queen of aragon_, and some other work, but died in middle life. it is upon _castara_ that his fame rests. to tell the truth it is, though, as had been said, an estimable, yet a rather irritating work. that habington was a true lover every line of it shows; that he had a strong infusion of the abundant poetical inspiration then abroad is shown by line after line, though hardly by poem after poem, among its pieces. his series of poems on the death of his friend talbot is full of beauty. his religion is sincere, fervent, and often finely expressed; though he never rose to herbert's pure devotion, or to crashaw's flaming poetry. one of the later _castara_ poems may be given:-- "we saw and woo'd each other's eyes, my soul contracted then with thine, and both burnt in one sacrifice, by which our marriage grew divine. "let wilder youths, whose soul is sense, profane the temple of delight, and purchase endless penitence, with the stolen pleasure of one night. "time's ever ours, while we despise the sensual idol of our clay, for though the sun do set and rise, we joy one everlasting day. "whose light no jealous clouds obscure, while each of us shine innocent, the troubled stream is still impure; with virtue flies away content. "and though opinions often err, we'll court the modest smile of fame, for sin's black danger circles her, who hath infection in her name. "thus when to one dark silent room death shall our loving coffins thrust: fame will build columns on our tomb, and add a perfume to our dust." but _castara_ is a real instance of what some foreign critics very unjustly charge on english literature as a whole--a foolish and almost canting prudery. the poet dins the chastity of his mistress into his readers' heads until the readers in self-defence are driven to say, "sir, did any one doubt it?" he protests the freedom of his own passion from any admixture of fleshly influence, till half a suspicion of hypocrisy and more than half a feeling of contempt force themselves on the hearer. a relentless critic might connect these unpleasant features with the uncharitable and more than orthodox bigotry of his religious poems. yet habington, besides contributing much agreeable verse to the literature of the period, is invaluable as showing the counterside to milton, the catholic puritanism which is no doubt inherent in the english nature, and which, had it not been for the reformation, would probably have transformed catholicism in a very strange fashion. there is no puritanism of any kind in a group--it would hardly be fair to call them a school--of "heroic" poets to whom very little attention has been paid in histories of literature hitherto, but who lead up not merely to davenant's _gondibert_ and cowley's _davideis_, but to _paradise lost_ itself. the "heroic" poem was a kind generated partly by the precepts of the italian criticism, including tasso, partly by the practice of tasso himself, and endeavouring to combine something of the unity of epic with something and more of the variety of romance. it may be represented here by the work of chalkhill, chamberlayne, marmion, and kynaston. john chalkhill, the author of _thealma and clearchus_, was, with his work, introduced to the public in by izaak walton, who styles him "an acquaintant and friend of edmund spenser." if so, he must have been one of the first of english poets to adopt the very loose enjambed decasyllabic couplet in which his work, like that of marmion and still more chamberlayne, is written. his poem is unfinished, and the construction and working-up of the story are looser even than the metre; but it contains a great deal of charming description and some very poetical phrase. much the same may be said of the _cupid and psyche_ ( ) of the dramatist shakerley marmion (_v. inf._), which follows the original of apuleius with alternate closeness and liberty, but is always best when it is most original. the _leoline and sydanis_ ( ) of sir francis kynaston is not in couplets but in rhyme royal--a metre of which the author was so fond that he even translated the _troilus and cressida_ of chaucer into latin, retaining the seven-line stanza and its rhymes. kynaston, who was a member of both universities and at one time proctor at cambridge, was a man interested in various kinds of learning, and even started an academy or _museum minervæ_ of his own. in _leoline and sydanis_ he sometimes comes near to the mock heroic, but in his lyrics called _cynthiades_ he comes nearer still to the best caroline cry. one or two of his pieces have found their way into anthologies, but until the present writer reprinted his works[ ] he was almost unknown. [ ] in _minor caroline poets_, vols. i. and ii. (oxford, - ). an important addition to the religious verse of the time was made by mr. dobell with the _poems_ (london, ) of thomas traherne, a follower of herbert, with some strange anticipations of blake. the most important by far, however, of this group is william chamberlayne, a physician of shaftesbury, who, before or during the civil war, began and afterwards finished (publishing it in ) the very long heroic romance of _pharonnida_, a story of the most involved and confused character but with episodes of great vividness and even sustained power: a piece of versification straining the liberties of _enjambement_ in line and want of connection in syntax to the utmost; but a very mine of poetical expression and imagery. jewels are to be picked up on every page by those who will take the trouble to do so, and who are not offended by the extraordinary nonchalance of the composition. the _theophila_ of edward benlowes ( ?- ) was printed in with elaborate and numerous engravings by hollar, which have made it rare, and usually imperfect when met with. benlowes was a cambridge man (of st. john's college) by education, but lived latterly and died at oxford, having been reduced from wealth to poverty by the liberality which made his friends anagrammatise his name into "benevolus." his work was abused as an awful example of the extravagant style by butler (_character of a small poet_), and by warburton in the next century; but it was never reprinted till the date of the collection just noted. it is a really curious book, displaying the extraordinary _diffusion_ of poetical spirit still existing, but in a hectic and decadent condition. benlowes--a cleveland with more poetry and less cleverness, or a very much weaker crashaw--uses a monorhymed triplet made up of a heroic, an octosyllable, and an alexandrine which is as wilfully odd as the rest of him. randolph, the youngest and not the least gifted of the tribe of ben, died before he was thirty, after writing some noteworthy plays, and a certain number of minor poems, which, as it has been well observed, rather show that he might have done anything, than that he did actually do something. corbet was bishop first of oxford and then of norwich, and died in . corbet's work is of that peculiar class which is usually, though not always, due to "university wits," and which only appeals to people with a considerable appreciation of humour, and a large stock of general information. it is always occasional in character, and rarely succeeds so well as when the treatment is one of distinct _persiflage_. thus the elegy on donne is infinitely inferior to carew's, and the mortuary epitaph on arabella stuart is, for such a subject and from the pen of a man of great talent, extraordinarily feeble. the burlesque epistle to lord mordaunt on his journey to the north is great fun, and the "journey into france," though, to borrow one of its own jokes, rather "strong," is as good. the "exhortation to mr. john hammond," a ferocious satire on the puritans, distinguishes itself from almost all precedent work of the kind by the force and directness of its attack, which almost anticipates dryden. and corbet had both pathetic and imaginative touches on occasion, as here:-- "what i shall leave thee none can tell, but all shall say i wish thee well, i wish thee, vin, before all wealth, both bodily and ghostly health; nor too much wealth, nor wit, come to thee, so much of either may undo thee. i wish thee learning, not for show, enough for to instruct and know; not such as gentlemen require to prate at table, or at fire. i wish thee all thy mother's graces, thy father's fortunes, and his places. i wish thee friends, and one at court, not to build on, but support to keep thee, not in doing many oppressions, but from suffering any. i wish thee peace in all thy ways, nor lazy nor contentious days; and when thy soul and body part as innocent as now those art." cartwright, a short-lived man but a hard student, shows best in his dramas. in his occasional poems, strongly influenced by donne, he is best at panegyric, worst at burlesque and epigram. in "on a gentlewoman's silk hood" and some other pieces he may challenge comparison with the most futile of the metaphysicals; but no one who has read his noble elegy on sir bevil grenvil, unequal as it is, will think lightly of cartwright. sir edward sherburne was chiefly a translator in the fashionable style. his original poems were those of a very inferior carew (he even copies the name celia), but they are often pretty. alexander brome, of whom very little is known, and who must not be confounded with the dramatist, was a lawyer and a cavalier song-writer, who too frequently wrote mere doggerel; but on the other hand, he sometimes did not, and when he escaped the evil influence, as in the stanzas "come, come, let us drink," "the trooper," and not a few others, he has the right anacreontic vein. as for charles cotton, his "virgil travesty" is deader than scarron's, and deserves to be so. the famous lines which lamb has made known to every one in the essay on "new year's day" are the best thing he did. but there are many excellent things scattered about his work, despite a strong taint of the mere coarseness and nastiness which have been spoken of. and though he was also much tainted with the hopeless indifference to prosody which distinguished all these belated cavaliers, it is noteworthy that he was one of the few englishmen for centuries to adopt the strict french forms and write rondeaux and the like. on the whole his poetical power has been a little undervalued, while he was also dexterous in prose. thomas stanley has been classed above as a translator because he would probably have liked to have his scholarship thus brought into prominence. it was, both in ancient and modern tongues, very considerable. his _history of philosophy_ was a classic for a very long time; and his edition of Æschylus had the honour of revision within the nineteenth century by porson and by butler. it is not certain that bentley did not borrow from him; and his versions of anacreon, of various other greek lyrists, of the later latins, and of modern writers in spanish and italian are most remarkable. but he was also an original poet in the best caroline style of lyric; and his combination of family (for he was of the great stanley stock), learning, and genius gave him a high position with men of letters of his day. sidney godolphin, who died very young fighting for the king in hopton's army, had no time to do much; but he has been magnificently celebrated by no less authorities than clarendon and hobbes, and fragments of his work, which has only recently been collected, have long been known. none of it, except a commendatory poem or two, was printed in his own time, and very little later; while the mss. are not in very accomplished form, and show few or no signs of revision by the author. some, however, of godolphin's lyrics are of great beauty, and a couplet translation of the _fourth Æneid_ has as much firmness as sandys or waller. another precocious poet whose life also was cut short, though less heroically, and on the other side of politics, was john hall, a cambridge man, who at barely twenty ( - ) issued a volume of poems and another, _horæ vacivæ_, of prose essays, translated longinus, did hack-work on the cromwellian side, and died, it is said, of loose and lazy living. hall's poems are of mixed kinds--sacred and profane, serious and comic--and the best of them, such as "the call" and "the lure," have a slender but most attractive vein of fantastic charm. patrick carey, again, a royalist and brother of the famous lord falkland, brought up as a roman catholic but afterwards a convert to the church of england, left manuscript pieces, human and divine, which were printed by sir walter scott in , and are extremely pleasant; while bishop king, though not often at the height of his well-known "tell me no more how fair she is," never falls below a level much above the average. the satirist john cleveland, whose poems were extremely popular and exist in numerous editions (much blended with other men's work and hard to disentangle), was made a sort of "metaphysical helot" by a reference in dryden's _essay of dramatic poesy_ and quotations in johnson's _life of cowley_. he partly deserves this, though he has real originality of thought and phrase; but much of his work is political or occasional, and he does not often rise to the quintessential exquisiteness of some of those who have been mentioned. a few examples of this class may be given:-- "through a low dark vale, where shade-affecting walks did grow eternal strangers to the sun, did lie the narrow path frequented only by the forest tyrants when they bore their prey from open dangers of discovering day. passed through this desert valley, they were now climbing an easy hill, whose every bough maintained a feathered chorister to sing soft panegyrics, and the rude winds bring into a murmuring slumber; whilst the calm morn on each leaf did hang the liquid balm with an intent, before the next sun's birth to drop it in those wounds which the cleft earth received from's last day's beams. the hill's ascent wound up by action, in a large extent of leafy plains, shows them the canopy beneath whose shadow their large way did lie." chamberlayne, _pharonnida_, iv. . - . it will be observed that of these eighteen lines all but _four_ are overrun; and the resemblance to the couplet of keats's _endymion_ should not be missed. "april is past, then do not shed, and do not waste in vain, upon thy mother's earthy bed thy tears of silver rain. "thou canst not hope that the cold earth by wat'ring will bring forth a flower like thee, or will give birth to one of the like worth. "'tis true the rain fall'n from the sky or from the clouded air, doth make the earth to fructify, ann makes the heaven more fair. "with thy dear face it is not so, which, if once overcast, if thou rain down thy showers of woe, they, like the sirens, blast. "therefore, when sorrow shall becloud thy fair serenest day, weep not: thy sighs shall be allow'd to chase the storm away. "consider that the teeming vine, if cut by chance [it] weep, doth bear no grapes to make the wine, but feels eternal sleep." kynaston. "be conquer'd by such charms; there shall not always such enticements fall. what know we whether that rich spring of light will staunch his streams of golden beams ere the approach of night? "how know we whether't shall not be the last to either thee or me? he can at will his ancient brightness gain, but thou and i when we shall die shall still in dust remain." john hall. this group of poets seems to demand a little general criticism. they stand more by themselves than almost any other group in english literary history, marked off in most cases with equal sharpness from predecessors, followers, and contemporaries. the best of them, herrick and carew, with crashaw as a great thirdsman, called themselves "sons" of ben jonson, and so in a way they were; but they were even more sons of donne. that great writer's burning passion, his strange and labyrinthine conceits, the union in him of spiritual and sensual fire, influenced the idiosyncrasies of each as hardly any other writer's influence has done in other times; while his technical shortcomings had unquestionably a fatal effect on the weaker members of the school. but there is also noticeable in them a separate and hardly definable influence which circumscribes their class even more distinctly. they were, as i take it, the last set of poets anywhere in europe to exhibit, in that most fertile department of poetry which seeks its inspiration in the love of man for woman, the frank expression of physical affection united with the spirit of chivalry, tempered by the consciousness of the fading of all natural delights, and foreshadowed by that intellectual introspection which has since developed itself in such great measure--some think out of all measure--in poetry. in the best of them there is no cynicism at all. herrick and carew are only sorry that the amatory fashion of this world passeth; they do not in the least undervalue it while it lasts, or sneer at it when it is gone. there is, at least to my thinking, little coarseness in them (i must perpetually except herrick's epigrams), though there is, according to modern standards, a great deal of very plain speaking. they have as much frank enjoyment of physical pleasures as any classic or any mediævalist; but they have what no classic except catullus and perhaps sappho had,--the fine rapture, the passing but transforming madness which brings merely physical passion _sub specie æternitatis_; and they have in addition a faint preliminary touch of that analytic and self-questioning spirit which refines even further upon the chivalric rapture and the classical-renaissance mysticism of the shadow of death, but which since their time has eaten up the simpler and franker moods of passion itself. with them, as a necessary consequence, the physical is (to anticipate a famous word of which more presently) always blended with the metaphysical. it is curious that, as one result of the change of manner, this should have even been made a reproach to them--that the ecstasy of their ecstasies should apparently have become not an excuse but an additional crime. yet if any grave and precise person will read carew's _rapture_, the most audacious, and of course wilfully audacious expression of the style, and then turn to the archangel's colloquy with adam in _paradise lost_, i should like to ask him on which side, according to his honour and conscience, the coarseness lies. i have myself no hesitation in saying that it lies with the husband of mary powell and the author of _tetrachordon_, not with the lover of celia and the author of the lines to "a. l." there are other matters to be considered in the determination of the critical fortunes of the caroline school. those fortunes have been rather odd. confounded at first in the general oblivion which the restoration threw on all works of "the last age," and which deepened as the school of dryden passed into the school of pope, the writers of the donne-cowley tradition were first exhumed for the purposes of _post-mortem_ examination by and in the remarkable "life" of johnson, devoted to the last member of the class. it is at this time of day alike useless to defend the metaphysical poets against much that johnson said, and to defend johnson against the charge of confusion, inadequacy, and haste in his generalisations. the term metaphysical, originating with dryden, and used by johnson with a slight difference, may be easily miscomprehended by any one who chooses to forget its legitimate application both etymologically and by usage to that which comes, as it were, behind or after nature. still johnson undoubtedly confounded in one common condemnation writers who have very little in common, and (which was worse) criticised a peculiarity of expression as if it had been a deliberate substitution of alloy for gold. the best phrases of the metaphysical poets more than justify themselves to any one who looks at poetry with a more catholic appreciation than johnson's training and associations enabled him to apply; and even the worst are but mistaken attempts to follow out a very sound principle, that of "making the common as though it were not common." towards the end of the eighteenth century some of these poets, especially herrick, were revived with taste and success by headley and other men of letters. but it so happened that the three great critics of the later romantic revival, hazlitt, lamb, and coleridge, were all strongly attracted to the bolder and more irregular graces of the great dramatic poets, to the not less quaint but less "mignardised" quaintnesses of prose writers like burton, browne, and taylor, or to the massive splendours of the elizabethan poets proper. the poetry of the caroline age was, therefore, a little slurred, and this mishap of falling between two schools has constantly recurred to it. some critics even who have done its separate authors justice, have subsequently indulged in palinodes, have talked about decadence and alexandrianism and what not. the majority have simply let the cavalier poets (as they are sometimes termed by a mere historical coincidence) be something more than the victims of the schools that preceded and followed them. the lovers of the school of good sense which waller founded regard the poets of this chapter as extravagant concettists; the lovers of the elizabethan school proper regard them as effeminate triflers. one of milton's gorgeous but constantly illogical phrases about the poets of his day may perhaps have created a prejudice against these poets. but milton was a politician as well as a poet, a fanatic as well as a man of letters of seldom equalled, and never, save in two or three cases, surpassed powers. he was also a man of a more morose and unamiable private character than any other great poet the world has known except racine. the easy _bonhomie_ of the caroline muse repelled his austerity; its careless good-breeding shocked his middle-class and puritan philistinism; its laxity revolted his principles of morality. not improbably the vein of sympathy which discovers itself in the exquisite verse of the _comus_, of the _allegro_ and _penseroso_, of _lycidas_ itself, infuriated him (as such veins of sympathy when they are rudely checked and turned from their course will often do) with those who indulged instead of checking it. but because _lycidas_ is magnificent, and _il penseroso_ charming poetry, we are not to think meanly of "fair daffodils," or "ask me no more," of "going to the wars," or "tell me no more how fair she is." let us clear our minds of this cant, and once more admit, as the student of literature always has to remind himself, that a sapphire and diamond ring is not less beautiful because it is not a marble palace, or a bank of wild flowers in a wood because it is not a garden after the fashion of lenôtre. in the division of english poetry which we have been reviewing, there are to be found some of the most exquisite examples of the gem and flower order of beauty that can be found in all literature. when herrick bids perilla "wind me in that very sheet which wrapt thy smooth limbs when thou didst implore the gods' protection but the night before: follow me weeping to my turf, and there let fall a primrose and with it a tear; then lastly, let some weekly strewings be devoted to the memory of me. _then shall my ghost not walk about; but keep_ _still in the cool and silent shades of sleep;_" or when he writes that astonishing verse, so unlike his usual style-- "in this world, _the isle of dreams_, while we sit by sorrow's streams, tears and terrors are our themes;" when carew, in one of those miraculous closing bursts, carefully led up to, of which he has almost the secret, cries "_oh, love me then, and now begin it,_ _let us not lose this present minute;_ _for time and age will work that wrack_ _which time nor age shall ne'er call back;_" when even the sober blood in habington's decent veins spurts in this splendid sally-- "so, 'mid the ice of the far northern sea, a star about the arctic circle may than ours yield clearer light; _yet that but shall_ _serve at the frozen pilot's funeral_:" when crashaw writes as if caught by the very fire of which he speaks,--the fire of the flaming heart of saint theresa; when lovelace, most careless and unliterary of all men, breaks out as if by simple instinct into those perfect verses which hardly even burns and shelley have equalled since,--it is impossible for any one who feels for poetry at all not to feel more than appreciation, not to feel sheer enthusiasm. putting aside the very greatest poets of all, i hardly know any group of poetical workers who so often cause this enthusiasm as our present group, with their wonderful felicity of language; with their command of those lyrical measures which seem so easy and are so difficult; with their almost unparalleled blend of a sensuousness that does not make the intellect sluggish and of the loftiest spirituality. when we examine what is said against them, a great deal of it is found to be based on that most treacherous of all foundations, a hard-driven metaphor. because they come at the end of a long and fertile period of literature, because a colder and harder kind of poetry followed them, they are said to be "decadence," "autumn," "over-ripe fruit," "sunset," and so forth. these pretty analogies have done much harm in literary history. of the muse it is most strictly and soberly true that "bocca bacciata non perde ventura, anzi rinuova come fa la luna." if there is any meaning about the phrases of decadence, autumn, and the like, it is derived from the idea of approaching death and cessation. there is no death, no cessation, in literature; and the sadness and decay of certain periods is mere fiction. an autumn day would not be sad if the average human being did not (very properly) take from it a warning of the shortness of his own life. but literature is not short-lived. there was no sign of poetry dying when shelley lived two thousand five hundred years after sappho, when shakespere lived as long after homer. periods like the periods of the greek anthology or of our caroline poetry are not periods of decay, but simply periods of difference. there are no periods of decay in literature so long as anything good is produced; and when nothing good is produced, it is only a sign that the field is taking a healthy turn of fallow. in this time much that was good, with a quite wonderful and charming goodness, was produced. what is more, it was a goodness which had its own distinct characteristics, some of which i have endeavoured to point out, and which the true lover of poetry would be as unwilling to lose as to lose the other goodnesses of all the great periods, and of all but the greatest names in those periods. for the unapproachables, for the first three, for homer, for shakespere, for dante, i would myself (though i should be very sorry) give up all the poets we have been reviewing. i should not like to have to choose between herrick and milton's earlier poems; between the caroline poets, major and minor, as just reviewed on the one hand, and _the faërie queene_ on the other. but i certainly would give _paradise regained_ for some score of poems of the writers just named; and for them altogether i would give all but a few passages (i would not give those) of _paradise lost_. and, as i have endeavoured (perhaps to my readers' satiety) to point out, this comparative estimate is after all a radically unsound one. we are not called upon to weigh this kind of poetry against that kind; we are only incidentally, and in an uninvidious manner, called upon to weigh this poet against that even of the same kind. the whole question is, whether each is good in his own kind, and whether the kind is a worthy and delightful one. and in regard of most of the poets just surveyed, both these questions can be answered with an unhesitating affirmative. if we had not these poets, one particular savour, one particular form, of the poetical rapture would be lacking to the poetical expert; just as if what herrick himself calls "the brave burgundian wine" were not, no amount of claret and champagne could replace it. for passionate sense of the good things of earth, and at the same time for mystical feeling of their insecurity, for exquisite style without the frigidity and the over-correctness which the more deliberate stylists frequently display, for a blending of nature and art that seems as if it must have been as simply instinctive in all as it certainly was in some, the poets of the tribe of ben, of the tribe of donne, who illustrated the period before puritanism and republicanism combined had changed england from merriment to sadness, stand alone in letters. we have had as good since, but never the same--never any such blending of classical frankness, of mediæval simplicity and chivalry, of modern reflection and thought.[ ] [ ] since this book first appeared, some persons whose judgment i respect have expressed to me surprise and regret that i have not given a higher and larger place to henry vaughan. a higher i cannot give, because i think him, despite the extreme beauty of his thought and (more rarely) of his expression, a most imperfect poet; nor a larger, because that would involve a critical arguing out of the matter, which would be unsuitable to the plan and scale of this book. had he oftener written as he wrote in the famous poem referred to in the text, or as in the magnificent opening of "the world"-- "i saw eternity the other night, _like a great ring of pure and endless light_, all calm as it was bright," there would be much more to say of him. but he is not master of the expression suitable to his noble and precious thought except in the briefest bursts--bursts compared to which even crashaw's are sustained and methodical. his admirers claim for "the retreat" the germ of wordsworth's great ode, but if any one will compare the two he will hardly complain that vaughan has too little space here. chapter xi the fourth dramatic period two great names remain to be noticed in the elizabethan drama (though neither produced a play till after elizabeth was dead), some interesting playwrights of third or fourth-rate importance have to be added to them, and in a postscript we shall have to gather up the minor or anonymous work, some of it of very high excellence, of the second division of our whole subject, including plays of the second, third, and fourth periods. but with this fourth period we enter into what may really be called by comparison (remembering always what has been said in the last chapter) a period of decadence, and at its latter end it becomes very decadent indeed. only in ford perhaps, of our named and individual authors in this chapter, and in him very rarely, occur the flashes of sheer poetry which, as we have seen in each of the three earlier chapters on the drama, lighten the work of the elizabethan and jacobean dramatists proper with extraordinary and lavish brilliance. not even in ford are to be found the whole and perfect studies of creative character which, even leaving shakespere out of the question, are to be found earlier in plays and playwrights of all kinds and strengths, from _the maid's tragedy_ and _vittoria corombona_, to _the merry devil of edmonton_ and _a cure for a cuckold_. the tragedies have ben jonson's labour without his force, the comedies his coarseness and lack of inspiriting life without his keen observation and incisive touch. as the taste indeed turned more and more from tragedy to comedy, we get attempts on the part of playwrights to win it back by a return to the bloody and monstrous conceptions of an earlier time, treated, however, without the redeeming features of that time, though with a little more coherence and art. massinger's _unnatural combat_, and ford's _'tis pity she's a whore_, among great plays, are examples of this: the numerous minor examples are hardly worth mentioning. but the most curious symptom of all was the gradual and, as it were, imperceptible loss of the secret of blank verse itself, which had been the instrument of the great triumphs of the stage from marlowe to dekker. something of this loss of grasp may have been noticed in the looseness of fletcher and the over-stiffness of jonson: it is perceptible distinctly even in ford and massinger. but as the restoration, or rather the silencing of the theatres by the commonwealth approaches, it becomes more and more evident until we reach the chaotic and hideous jumble of downright prose and verse that is neither prose nor verse, noticeable even in the early plays of dryden, and chargeable no doubt with the twenty years' return of the english drama to the comparative barbarism of the couplet. this apparent loss of ear and rhythm-sense has been commented on already in reference to lovelace, suckling (himself a dramatist), and others of the minor caroline poets; but it is far more noticeable in drama, and resulted in the production, by some of the playwrights of the transition period under charles i. and charles ii., of some of the most amorphous botches in the way of style that disfigure english literature. with the earliest and best work of philip massinger, however, we are at any rate chronologically still at a distance from the lamentable close of a great period. he was born in , being the son of arthur massinger, a "servant" (pretty certainly in the gentle sense of service) to the pembroke family. in he was entered at st. alban's hall in oxford: he is supposed to have left the university about , and may have begun writing plays soon. but the first definite notice of his occupation or indeed of his life that we have is his participation (about ) with daborne and field in a begging letter to the well-known manager henslowe for an advance of five pounds on "the new play," nor was anything of his printed or positively known to be acted till , the date of _the virgin martyr_. from that time onwards he appears frequently as an author, though many of his plays were not printed till after his death in . but nothing is known of his life. he was buried on th march in st. saviour's, southwark, being designated as a "stranger,"--that is to say, not a parishioner. thirty-seven plays in all, or thirty-eight if we add mr. bullen's conjectural discovery, _sir john barneveldt_, are attributed to massinger; but of these many have perished, massinger having somehow been specially obnoxious to the ravages of warburton's cook. eighteen survive; twelve of which were printed during the author's life. massinger was thus an industrious and voluminous author, one of many points which make professor minto's comparison of him to gray a little surprising. he was, both at first and later, much given to collaboration,--indeed, there is a theory, not without colour from contemporary rumour, that he had nearly if not quite as much to do as beaumont with fletcher's great work. but oddly enough the plays which he is known to have written alone do not, as in other cases, supply a very sure test of what is his share in those which he wrote conjointly. _the old law_, a singular play founded on a similar conception to that in the late mr. anthony trollope's _fixed period_, is attributed also to rowley and dekker, and has sometimes been thought to be so early that massinger, except as a mere boy, could have had no hand in it. the contradictions of critics over _the virgin martyr_ (by massinger and dekker) have been complete; some peremptorily handing over all the fine scenes to one, and some declaring that these very scenes could only be written by the other. it is pretty certain that the argumentative theological part is massinger's; for he had a strong liking for such things, while the passages between dorothea and her servant angelo are at once more delicate than most of his work, and more regular and even than dekker's. no companion is, however, assigned to him in _the unnatural combat_, which is probably a pretty early and certainly a characteristic example of his style. his demerits appear in the exaggerated and crude devilry of the wicked hero, old malefort (who cheats his friend, makes away with his wife, kills his son in single combat, and conceives an incestuous passion for his daughter), in the jerky alternation and improbable conduct of the plot, and in the merely extraneous connection of the farcical scenes. his merits appear in the stately versification and ethical interest of the debate which precedes the unnatural duel, and in the spirited and well-told apologue (for it is almost that) of the needy soldier, belgarde, who is bidden not to appear at the governor's table in his shabby clothes, and makes his appearance in full armour. the debate between father and son may be given:-- _malef. sen._ "now we are alone, sir; and thou hast liberty to unload the burthen which thou groan'st under. speak thy griefs. _malef. jun._ i shall, sir; but in a perplex'd form and method, which you only can interpret: would you had not a guilty knowledge in your bosom, of the language which you force me to deliver so i were nothing! as you are my father i bend my knee, and, uncompell'd profess my life, and all that's mine, to be your gift; and that in a son's duty i stand bound to lay this head beneath your feet and run all desperate hazards for your ease and safety: but this confest on my part, i rise up, and not as with a father (all respect, love, fear, and reverence cast off) but as a wicked man i thus expostulate with you. why have you done that which i dare not speak, and in the action changed the humble shape of my obedience, to rebellious rage and insolent pride? and with shut eyes constrain'd me, i must not see, nor, if i saw it, shun it. in my wrongs nature suffers, and looks backward, and mankind trembles to see me pursue what beasts would fly from. for when i advance this sword as i must do, against your head, piety will weep, and filial duty mourn, to see their altars which you built up in me in a moment razed and ruined. that you could (from my grieved soul i wish it) but produce to qualify, not excuse your deed of horror, one seeming reason that i might fix here and move no farther! _malef. sen._ have i so far lost a father's power, that i must give account of my actions to my son? or must i plead as a fearful prisoner at the bar, while he that owes his being to me sits a judge to censure that which only by myself ought to be question'd? mountains sooner fall beneath their valleys and the lofty pine pay homage to the bramble, or what else is preposterous in nature, ere my tongue in one short syllable yield satisfaction to any doubt of thine; nay, though it were a certainty disdaining argument! since though my deeds wore hell's black lining, to thee they should appear triumphal robes, set off with glorious honour, thou being bound, to see with my eyes, and to hold that reason that takes or birth or fashion from my will. _malef. jun._ this sword divides that slavish knot. _malef. sen._ it cannot: it cannot, wretch, and if thou but remember from whom thou had'st this spirit, thou dar'st not hope it. who trained thee up in arms but i? who taught thee men were men only when they durst look down with scorn on death and danger, and contemn'd all opposition till plumed victory had made her constant stand upon their helmets? under my shield thou hast fought as securely as the young eaglet covered with the wings of her fierce dam, learns how and where to prey. all that is manly in thee i call mine; but what is weak and womanish, thine own. and what i gave, since thou art proud, ungrateful, presuming to contend with him to whom submission is due, i will take from thee. look therefore for extremities and expect not i will correct thee as a son, but kill thee as a serpent swollen with poison; who surviving a little longer with infectious breath, would render all things near him like itself contagious. nay, now my anger's up, ten thousand virgins kneeling at my feet, and with one general cry howling for mercy, shall not redeem thee. _malef. jun._ thou incensed power awhile forbear thy thunder! let me have no aid in my revenge, if from the grave my mother---- _malef. sen._ thou shalt never name her more." [_they fight._ _the duke of milan_ is sometimes considered massinger's masterpiece; and here again there are numerous fine scenes and noble _tirades_. but the irrationality of the _donneé_ (sforza the duke charges his favourite not to let the duchess survive his own death, and the abuse of the authority thus given leads to horrible injustice and the death of both duchess and duke) mars the whole. the predilection of the author for sudden turns and twists of situation, his neglect to make his plots and characters acceptable and conceivable as wholes, appear indeed everywhere, even in what i have no doubt in calling his real masterpiece by far, the fine tragi-comedy of _a new way to pay old debts_. the revengeful trick by which a satellite of the great extortioner, sir giles overreach, brings about his employer's discomfiture, regardless of his own ruin, is very like the denouement of the brass and quilp part of the _old curiosity shop_, may have suggested it (for _a new way to pay old debts_ lasted as an acting play well into dickens's time), and, like it, is a little improbable. but the play is an admirable one, and overreach (who, as is well known, was supposed to be a kind of study of his half namesake, mompesson, the notorious monopolist) is by far the best single character that massinger ever drew. he again came close to true comedy in _the city madam_, another of the best known of his plays, where the trick adopted at once to expose the villainy of the apparently reformed spendthrift luke, and to abate the ruinous extravagance of lady frugal and her daughters, is perhaps not beyond the limits of at least dramatic verisimilitude, and gives occasion to some capital scenes. _the bondman_, _the renegado_, the curious _parliament of love_, which, like others of massinger's plays, is in an almost Æschylean state of text-corruptness, _the great duke of florence_, _the maid of honour_ (one of the very doubtful evidences of massinger's supposed conversion to roman catholicism), _the picture_ (containing excellent passages, but for improbability and topsy-turviness of incident ranking with _the duke of milan_), _the emperor of the east_, _the guardian_, _a very woman_, _the bashful lover_, are all plays on which, if there were space, it would be interesting to comment; and they all display their author's strangely mixed merits and defects. _the roman actor_ and _the fatal dowry_ must have a little more attention. the first is, i think, massinger's best tragic effort; and the scene where domitian murders paris, with his tyrannical explanation of the deed, shows a greater conception of tragic poetry--a little cold and stately, a little racinish or at least cornelian rather than shakesperian, but still passionate and worthy of the tragic stage--than anything that massinger has done. _the fatal dowry_, written in concert with field and unceremoniously pillaged by rowe in his once famous _fair penitent_, is a purely romantic tragedy, injured by the unattractive character of the light-of-love beaumelle before her repentance (massinger never could draw a woman), and by not a few of the author's favourite improbabilities and glaring or rather startling non-sequiturs of action, but full also of fine passages, especially of the quasi-forensic kind in which massinger so much delights. to sum up, it may seem inconsistent that, after allowing so many faults in massinger, i should protest against the rather low estimate of him which critics from lamb downwards have generally given. yet i do so protest. it is true that he has not the highest flashes either of verbal poetry or of dramatic character-drawing; and though hartley coleridge's dictum that he had no humour has been exclaimed against, it is only verbally wrong. it is also true that in him perhaps for the first time we perceive, what is sure to appear towards the close of a period, a distinct touch of _literary_ borrowing--evidence of knowledge and following of his forerunners. yet he had a high, a varied, and a fertile imagination. he had, and was the last to have, an extensive and versatile command of blank verse, never perhaps reaching the most perfect mastery of marlowe or of shakespere, but singularly free from monotony, and often both harmonious and dignified. he could deal, and deal well, with a large range of subjects; and if he never ascends to the height of a de flores or a bellafront, he never descends to the depths in which both middleton and dekker too often complacently wallow. unless we are to count by mere flashes, he must, i think, rank after shakespere, fletcher, and jonson among his fellows; and this i say, honestly avowing that i have nothing like the enthusiasm for him that i have for webster, or for dekker, or for middleton. we may no doubt allow too much for bulk of work, for sustained excellence at a certain level, and for general competence as against momentary excellence. but we may also allow far too little; and this has perhaps been the general tendency of later criticism in regard to massinger. it is unfortunate that he never succeeded in making as perfect a single expression of his tragic ability as he did of his comic, for the former was, i incline to think, the higher of the two. but many of his plays are lost, and many of those which remain come near to such excellence. it is by no means impossible that massinger may have lost incomparably by the misdeeds of the constantly execrated, but never to be execrated enough, minion of that careless herald. as in the case of clarendon, almost absolutely contradictory opinions have been delivered, by critics of great authority, about john ford. in one of the most famous outbursts of his generous and enthusiastic estimate of the elizabethan period, lamb has pronounced ford to be of the first order of poets. mr swinburne, while bringing not a few limitations to this tremendous eulogy, has on the whole supported it in one of the most brilliant of his prose essays; and critics as a rule have bowed to lamb's verdict. on the other hand, hazlitt (who is "gey ill to differ with" when there are, as here, no extra-literary considerations to reckon) has traversed that verdict in one of the most damaging utterances of commonsense, yet not commonplace, criticism anywhere to be found, asking bluntly and pointedly whether the exceptionableness of the subject is not what constitutes the merit of ford's greatest play, pronouncing the famous last scene of _the broken heart_ extravagant, and fixing on "a certain perversity of spirit" in ford generally. it is pretty clear that hartley coleridge (who might be paralleled in our own day as a critic, who seldom went wrong except through ignorance, though he had a sublime indifference as to the ignorance that sometimes led him wrong) was of no different opinion. it is not easy to settle such a quarrel. but i had the good fortune to read ford before i had read anything except hartley coleridge's rather enigmatic verdict about him, and in the many years that have passed since i have read him often again. the resulting opinion may not be exceptionally valuable, but it has at least stood the test of frequent re-reading of the original, and of reading of the main authorities among the commentators. john ford, like fletcher and beaumont, but unlike almost all others of his class, was a person not compelled by need to write tragedies,--comedies of any comic merit he could never have written, were they his neck verse at hairibee. his father was a man of good family and position at ilsington in devon. his mother was of the well-known west-country house of the pophams. he was born(?) two years before the armada, and three years after massinger. he has no university record, but was a member of the middle temple, and takes at least some pains to assure us that he never wrote for money. nevertheless, for the best part of thirty years he was a playwright, and he is frequently found collaborating with dekker, the neediest if nearly the most gifted gutter-playwright of the time. once he worked with webster in a play (_the murder of the son upon the mother_) which must have given the fullest possible opportunity to the appetite of both for horrors. once he, rowley, and dekker combined to produce the strange masterpiece (for a masterpiece it is in its own undisciplined way) of the _witch of edmonton_, where the obvious signs of a play hastily cobbled up to meet a popular demand do not obscure the talents of the cobblers. it must be confessed that there is much less of ford than of rowley and dekker in the piece, except perhaps its comparative regularity and the quite unreasonable and unintelligible bloodiness of the murder of susan. in _the sun's darling_, due to ford and dekker, the numerous and charming lyrics are pretty certainly dekker's; though we could pronounce on this point with more confidence if we had the two lost plays, _the fairy knight_ and _the bristowe merchant_, in which the same collaborators are known to have been engaged. _the fancies_, _chaste and noble_, and _the lady's trial_ which we have, and which are known to be ford's only, are but third-rate work by common consent, and _love's sacrifice_ has excited still stronger opinions of condemnation from persons favourable to ford. this leaves us practically four plays upon which to base our estimate--_'tis pity she's a whore_, _the lover's melancholy_, _the broken heart_, and _perkin warbeck_. the last-named i shall take the liberty of dismissing summarily with the same borrowed description as webster's _appius and virginia_. hartley coleridge, perhaps willing to make up if he could for a general distaste for ford, volunteered the strange judgment that it is the best specimen of the historic drama to be found out of shakespere; and hazlitt says nothing savage about it. i shall say nothing more, savage or otherwise. _the lover's melancholy_ has been to almost all its critics a kind of lute-case for the very pretty version of strada's fancy about the nightingale, which crashaw did better; otherwise it is naught. we are, therefore, left with _'tis pity she's a whore_ and _the broken heart_. for myself, in respect to the first, after repeated readings and very careful weighings of what has been said, i come back to my first opinion--to wit, that the annabella and giovanni scenes, with all their perversity, all their availing themselves of what hazlitt, with his unerring instinct, called "unfair attractions," are among the very best things of their kind. of what may be thought unfair in them i shall speak a little later: but allowing for this, the sheer effects of passion--the "all for love and the world well lost," the shutting out, not instinctively or stupidly, but deliberately, and with full knowledge, of all other considerations except the dictates of desire--have never been so rendered in english except in _romeo and juliet_ and _antony and cleopatra_. the comparison of course brings out ford's weakness, not merely in execution, but in design; not merely in accomplishment, but in the choice of means for accomplishment. shakespere had no need of the _haut goût_ of incest, of the unnatural horrors of the heart on the dagger. but ford had; and he in a way (i do not say fully) justified his use of these means. _the broken heart_ stands far lower. i own that i am with hazlitt, not lamb, on the question of the admired death scene of calantha. in the first place, it is certainly borrowed from marston's _malcontent_; in the second, it is wholly unnatural; in the third, the great and crowning point of it is not, as lamb seemed to think, calantha's sentimental inconsistency, but the consistent and noble death of orgilus. there ford was at home, and long as it is it must be given:-- _cal._ "bloody relator of thy stains in blood, for that thou hast reported him, whose fortunes and life by thee are both at once snatch'd from him, with honourable mention, make thy choice of what death likes thee best, there's all our bounty. but to excuse delays, let me, dear cousin, intreat you and these lords see execution instant before you part. _near._ your will commands us. _org._ one suit, just queen, my last: vouchsafe your clemency that by no common hand i be divided from this my humble frailty. _cal._ to their wisdoms who are to be spectators of thine end i make the reference: those that are dead are dead; had they not now died, of necessity they must have paid the debt they owed to nature, one time or other. use dispatch, my lords; we'll suddenly prepare our coronation. [_exeunt_ cal., phil., _and_ chris. _arm._ 'tis strange, these tragedies should never touch on her female pity. _bass._ she has a masculine spirit, and wherefore should i pule, and, like a girl, put finger in the eye? let's be all toughness without distinction betwixt sex and sex. _near._ now, orgilus, thy choice? _org._ to bleed to death. _arm._ the executioner? _org._ myself, no surgeon; i am well skilled in letting blood. bind fast this arm, that so the pipes may from their conduits convey a full stream; here's a skilful instrument: [_shows his dagger._ only i am a beggar to some charity to speed me in this execution by lending the other prick to the other arm when this is bubbling life out. _bass._ i am for you, it most concerns my art, my care, my credit, quick, fillet both his arms. _org._ gramercy, friendship! such courtesies are real which flow cheerfully without an expectation of requital. reach me a staff in this hand. if a proneness [_they give him a staff._ or custom in my nature, from my cradle had been inclined to fierce and eager bloodshed, a coward guilt hid in a coward quaking, would have betray'd me to ignoble flight and vagabond pursuit of dreadful safety: but look upon my steadiness and scorn not the sickness of my fortune; which since bassanes was husband to penthea, had lain bed-rid. we trifle time in words: thus i show cunning in opening of a vein too full, too lively. [_pierces the vein with his dagger._ _arm._ desperate courage! _near._ honourable infamy! _hem._ i tremble at the sight. _gron._ would i were loose! _bass._ it sparkles like a lusty wine new broach'd; the vessel must be sound from which it issues. grasp hard this other stick--i'll be as nimble-- but prithee look not pale--have at ye! stretch out thine arm with vigour and unshaken virtue. [_opens the vein._ good! oh i envy not a rival, fitted to conquer in extremities: this pastime appears majestical; some high-tuned poem hereafter shall deliver to posterity the writer's glory, and his subjects triumph. how is't man?--droop not yet. _org._ i feel no palsies, on a pair-royal do i wait in death: my sovereign as his liegeman; on my mistress as a devoted servant; and on ithocles as if no brave, yet no unworthy enemy: nor did i use an engine to entrap his life out of a slavish fear to combat youth, strength, or cunning; but for that i durst not engage the goodness of a cause on fortune by which his name might have outfaced my vengeance. oh, tecnicus, inspired with phoebus' fire! i call to mind thy augury, 'twas perfect; _revenge proves its own executioner._ when feeble man is lending to his mother the dust he was first framed in, thus he totters. _bass._ life's fountain is dried up. _org._ so falls the standard of my prerogative in being a creature, a mist hangs o'er mine eyes, the sun's bright splendour is clouded in an everlasting shadow. welcome, thou ice that sit'st about my heart, no heat can ever thaw thee. [_dies._ the perverse absurdity of a man like orgilus letting penthea die by the most horrible of deaths must be set aside: his vengeance (the primary absurdity granted), is exactly and wholly in character. but if anything could be decisive against ford being "of the first order of poets," even of dramatic poets, it would be the total lack of interest in the characters of calantha and ithocles. fate-disappointed love seems (no doubt from something in his own history) to have had a singular attraction for lamb; and the glorification, or, as it were, apotheosis of it in calantha must have appealed to him in one of those curious and illegitimate ways which every critic knows. but the mere introduction of bassanes would show that ford is not of the first order of poets. he is a purely contemptible character, neither sublimed by passion of jealousy, nor kept whole by salt of comic exposition; a mischievous poisonous idiot who ought to have had his brains knocked out, and whose brains would assuredly have been knocked out, by any orgilus of real life. he is absolutely unequal to the place of central personage, and causer of the harms, of a romantic tragedy such as _the broken heart_. i have said "by any orgilus of real life," but ford has little to do with real life; and it is in this fact that the insufficiency of his claim to rank among the first order of poets lies. he was, it is evident, a man of the greatest talent, even of great genius, who, coming at the end of a long literary movement, exemplified the defects of its decadence. i could compare him, if there was here any space for such a comparison, to baudelaire or flaubert with some profit; except that he never had baudelaire's perfect sense of art, and that he does not seem, like flaubert, to have laid in, before melancholy marked him for her own, a sufficient stock of living types to save him from the charge of being a mere study-student. there is no frédéric, no m. homais, in his repertory. even giovanni--even orgilus, his two masterpieces, are, if not exactly things of shreds and patches, at any rate artificial persons, young men who have known more of books than of life, and who persevere in their eccentric courses with almost more than a half knowledge that they are eccentric. annabella is incomplete, though there is nothing, except her love, unnatural in her. the strokes which draw her are separate imaginations of a learned draughtsman, not fresh transcripts from the living model. penthea and calantha are wholly artificial; a live penthea would never have thought of such a fantastic martyrdom, unless she had been insane or suffering from green-sickness, and a live calantha would have behaved in a perfectly different fashion, or if she had behaved in the same, would have been quit for her temporary aberration. we see (or at least i think i see) in ford exactly the signs which are so familiar to us in our own day, and which repeat themselves regularly at the end of all periods of distinct literary creativeness--the signs of _excentricité voulue_. the author imagines that "all is said" in the ordinary way, and that he must go to the ends of the earth to fetch something extraordinary. if he is strong enough, as ford was, he fetches it, and it _is_ something extraordinary, and we owe him, with all his extravagance, respect and honour for his labour. but we can never put him on the level of the men who, keeping within ordinary limits, achieve masterpieces there. ford--an elizabethan in the strict sense for nearly twenty years--did not suffer from the decay which, as noted above, set in in regard to versification and language among the men of his own later day. he has not the natural trick of verse and phrase which stamps his greatest contemporaries unmistakably, and even such lesser ones as his collaborator, dekker, with a hardly mistakable mark; but his verse is nervous, well proportioned, well delivered, and at its best a noble medium. he was by general consent utterly incapable of humour, and his low-comedy scenes are among the most loathsome in the english theatre. his lyrics are not equal to shakespere's or fletcher's, dekker's or shirley's, but they are better than massinger's. although he frequently condescended to the fletcherian license of the redundant syllable, he never seems to have dropped (as fletcher did sometimes, or at least allowed his collaborators to drop) floundering into the serbonian bog of stuff that is neither verse nor prose. he showed indeed (and mr. swinburne, with his usual insight, has noticed it, though perhaps he has laid rather too much stress on it) a tendency towards a severe rule-and-line form both of tragic scheme and of tragic versification, which may be taken to correspond in a certain fashion (though mr. swinburne does not notice this) to the "correctness" in ordinary poetry of waller and his followers. yet he shows no sign of wishing to discard either the admixture of comedy with tragedy (save in _the broken heart_, which is perhaps a crucial instance), or blank verse, or the freedom of the english stage in regard to the unities. in short, ford was a person distinctly deficient in initiative and planning genius, but endowed with a great executive faculty. he wanted guidance in all the greater lines of his art, and he had it not; the result being that he produced unwholesome and undecided work, only saved by the unmistakable presence of poetical faculty. i do not think that webster could ever have done anything better than he did: i think that if ford had been born twenty years earlier he might have been second to shakespere, and at any rate the equal of ben jonson and of fletcher. but the flagging genius of the time made its imprint on his own genius, which was of the second order, not the first. the honour of being last in the great succession of elizabethan dramatists is usually assigned to james shirley.[ ] though last, shirley is only in part least, and his plays deserve more reading than has usually fallen to their lot. not only in the general character of his plays--a character hardly definable, but recognisable at once by the reader--but by the occurrence of such things as the famous song, "the glories of our blood and state," and not a few speeches and tirades, shirley has a right to his place; as he most unquestionably has also by date. he was born in london in , was educated at merchant tailors' school, and was a member of both universities, belonging to st. john's college at oxford, and to catherine hall at cambridge. like other dramatists he vacillated in religion, with such sincerity as to give up a living to which, having been ordained, he had been presented. he was a schoolmaster for a time, began to write plays about the date of the accession of charles i., continued to do so till the closing of the theatres, then returned to schoolmastering, and survived the restoration nearly seven years, being buried at st. giles's in . he appears to have visited ireland, and at least one monument of his visit remains in the eccentric play of _st. patrick for ireland_. he is usually credited with thirty-nine plays, to which it is understood that others, now in ms., have to be added, while he may also have had a hand in some that are printed but not attributed to him. shirley was neither a very great nor a very strong man; and without originals to follow, it is probable that he would have done nothing. but with fletcher and jonson before him he was able to strike out a certain line of half-humorous, half-romantic drama, and to follow it with curious equality through his long list of plays, hardly one of which is very much better than any other, hardly one of which falls below a very respectable standard. he has few or no single scenes or passages of such high and sustained excellence as to be specially quotable; and there is throughout him an indefinable flavour as of study of his elders and betters, an appearance as of a highly competent and gifted pupil in a school, not as of a master and leader in a movement. the palm is perhaps generally and rightly assigned to _the lady of pleasure_, , a play bearing some faint resemblances to massinger's _city madam_, and fletcher's _noble gentleman_ (shirley is known to have finished one or two plays of fletcher's), and in its turn the original, or at least the forerunner of a long line of late seventeenth and eighteenth century plays on the extravagance and haughtiness and caprice of fine ladies. shirley indeed was much acted after the restoration, and exhibits, though on the better side, the transition of the older into the newer school very well. of his tragedies _the traitor_ has the general suffrage, and perhaps justly. one of shirley's most characteristic habits was that not of exactly adapting an old play, but of writing a new one on similar lines accommodated to the taste of his own day. he constantly did this with fletcher, and once in _the cardinal_ he was rash enough to endeavour to improve upon webster. his excuse may have been that he was evidently in close contact with the last survivors of the great school, for besides his work with or on fletcher, he collaborated with chapman in the tragedy of _chabot_ and the comedy of _the ball_--the latter said to be one of the earliest _loci_ for the use of the word in the sense of an entertainment. his versification profited by this personal or literary familiarity. it is occasionally lax, and sins especially by the redundant syllable or syllables, and by the ugly break between auxiliary verbs and their complements, prepositions and their nouns, and so forth. but it never falls into the mere shapelessness which was so common with his immediate and younger contemporaries. although, as has been said, long passages of high sustained poetry are not easily producible from him, two short extracts from _the traitor_ will show his style favourably, but not too favourably. amidea, the heroine, declares her intention-- [ ] there was a contemporary, henry shirley, who was also a playwright. his only extant play, _the martyred soldier_, a piece of little merit, has been reprinted by mr. bullen. "to have my name stand in the ivory register of virgins, when i am dead. before one factious thought should lurk within me to betray my fame to such a blot, my hands shall mutiny and boldly with a poniard teach my heart to weep out a repentance." and this of her brother florio's is better still-- "let me look upon my sister now: still she retains her beauty, death has been kind to leave her all this sweetness thus in a morning have i oft saluted my sister in her chamber: sat upon her bed and talked of many harmless passages. _but now 'tis night, and a long night with her:_ _i shall ne'er see these curtains drawn again_ _until we meet in heaven._" here the touch, a little weakened it may be, but still the touch of the great age, is perceptible, especially in the last lines, where the metaphor of the "curtains," common enough in itself for eyelids, derives freshness and appositeness from the previous mention of the bed. but shirley is not often at this high tragic level. his supposed first play, _love tricks_, though it appeared nearly forty years before the restoration, has a curious touch of post-restoration comedy in its lively, extravagant, easy farce. sometimes, as in _the witty fair one_, he fell in with the growing habit of writing a play mainly in prose, but dropping into verse here and there, though he was quite as ready to write, as in _the wedding_, a play in verse with a little prose. once he dramatised the _arcadia_ bodily and by name. at another time he would match a downright interlude like the _contention for honour and riches_ with a thinly-veiled morality like _honoria and mammon_. he was a proficient at masques. _the grateful servant_, _the royal master_, _the duke's mistress_, _the doubtful heir_, _the constant maid_, _the humorous courtier_, are plays whose very titles speak them, though the first is much the best. _the changes_ or _love in a maze_ was slightly borrowed from by dryden in _the maiden queen_, and _hyde park_, a very lively piece, set a fashion of direct comedy of manners which was largely followed, while _the brothers_ and _the gamester_ are other good examples of different styles. generally shirley seems to have been a man of amiable character, and the worst thing on record about him is his very ungenerous gibing dedication of _the bird in a cage_ to prynne, then in prison, for his well-known attack on the stage, a piece of retaliation which, if the enemy had not been "down," would have been fair enough. perhaps shirley's comedy deserves as a whole to be better spoken of than his tragedy. it is a later variety of the same kind of comedy which we noted as written so largely by middleton,--a comedy of mingled manners, intrigue, and humours, improved a good deal in coherence and in stage management, but destitute of the greater and more romantic touches which emerge from the chaos of the earlier style. nearly all the writers whom i shall now proceed to mention practised this comedy, some better, some worse; but no one with quite such success as shirley at his best, and no one with anything like his industry, versatility, and generally high level of accomplishment. it should perhaps be said that the above-mentioned song, the one piece of shirley's generally known, is not from one of his more characteristic pieces, but from _the contention of ajax and ulysses_, a work of quite the author's latest days. thomas randolph, the most gifted (according to general estimate rather than to specific performance) of the tribe of ben, was a much younger man than shirley, though he died more than thirty years earlier. randolph was born near daventry in , his father being a gentleman, and lord zouch's steward. he was educated at westminster, and at trinity college, cambridge, of which he became a fellow, and he was also incorporated at oxford. his life is supposed to have been merry, and was certainly short, for he died, of what disease is not known, in his thirtieth year. he left, however, no inconsiderable literary results; and if his dramas are not quite so relatively good as his poems (there is certainly none of them which is in its own kind the equal of the fine answer to ben jonson's threat to leave the stage and the ode to anthony stafford), still they are interesting and show a strong intellect and great literary facility. the two earliest, _aristippus_ and _the conceited pedlar_, the first a slight dramatic sketch, the second a monologue, are eminent examples of the class of university, not to say of undergraduate, wit; but far stronger and fuller of promise than most specimens of that class. _the jealous lovers_, a play with classical nomenclature, and at first seeming to aim at the terentian model, drifts off into something like the jonsonian humour-comedy, of which it gives some good studies, but hardly a complete example. much better are _the muses' looking-glass_ and _amyntas_, in which randolph's academic schemes and names do not hide his vivid and fertile imagination. _the muses' looking-glass_, a play vindicating the claim of the drama in general to the title, is a kind of morality, but a morality carried off with infinite spirit, which excuses the frigid nature of the abstractions presented in it, and not seldom rises to the height of real comedy. the scene between colax and dyscolus, the professional flatterer and the professional snarler, is really excellent: and others equally good might be picked out. of the two i am inclined to think that this play shows more natural genius in the writer for its style, than the pretty pastoral of _amyntas_, which has sometimes been preferred to it. the same penchant for comedy appears in _down with knavery_, a very free and lively adaptation of the _plutus_ of aristophanes. there is no doubt that randolph's work gives the impression of considerable power. at the same time it is fair to remember that the author's life was one very conducive to precocity, inasmuch as he underwent at once the three stimulating influences of an elaborate literary education, of endowed leisure to devote himself to what literary occupations he pleased, and of the emulation caused by literary society. jonson's friendship seems to have acted as a forcing-house on the literary faculties of his friends, and it is quite as possible that, if randolph had lived, he would have become a steady-going soaker or a diligent but not originally productive scholar, as that he would have produced anything of high substantive and permanent value. it is true that many great writers had not at his age done such good work; but then it must be remembered that they had also produced little or nothing in point of bulk. it may be plausibly argued that, good as what randolph's first thirty years gave is, it ought to have been better still if it was ever going to be of the best. hut these excursions into possibilities are not very profitable, and the chief excuse for indulging in them is that randolph's critics and editors have generally done the same, and have as a rule perhaps pursued the indulgence in a rather too enthusiastic and sanguine spirit. what is not disputable at all is the example given by randolph of the powerful influence of ben on his "tribe." very little is known of another of that tribe, richard brome. he was once servant to ben jonson, who, though in his own old age he was himself an unsuccessful, and brome a very successful, dramatist, seems always to have regarded him with favour, and not to have been influenced by the rather illiberal attempts of randolph and others to stir up bad blood between them. brome deserved this favour, and spoke nobly of his old master even after ben's death. he himself was certainly dead in , when some of his plays were first collected by his namesake (but it would seem not relation), alexander brome. the modern reprint of his dramas takes the liberty, singular in the collection to which it belongs, of not attempting any kind of critical or biographical introduction, and no book of reference that i know is much more fertile, the latest authority--the _dictionary of national biography_, in which brome is dealt with by the very competent hand of the master of peterhouse--having little enough to tell. brome's work, however, speaks for itself and pretty distinctly to all who care to read it. it consists, as printed (for there were others now lost or uncollected), of fifteen plays, all comedies, all bearing a strong family likeness, and all belonging to the class of comedy just referred to--that is to say, a cross between the style of jonson and that of fletcher. of the greater number of these, even if there were space here, there would be very little to say beyond this general description. not one of them is rubbish; not one of them is very good; but all are readable, or would be if they had received the trouble spent on much far inferior work, of a little editing to put the mechanical part of their presentation, such as the division of scenes, stage directions, etc., in a uniform and intelligible condition. their names (_a mad couple well matched_, _the sparagus garden_, _the city wit_, and so forth) tell a good deal about their most common form; while in _the lovesick court_, and one or two others, the half-courtly, half-romantic comedy of fletcher takes the place of urban humours. one or two, such as _the queen and concubine_, attempt a statelier and tragi-comic style, but this was not brome's forte. sometimes, as in _the antipodes_, there is an attempt at satire and comedy with a purpose. there are, however, two plays which stand out distinctly above the rest, and which are the only plays of brome's known to any but diligent students of this class of literature. these are _the northern lass_ and _a jovial crew_. the first differs from its fellows only as being of the same class, but better; and the dialect of the _ingénue_ constance seems to have been thought interesting and pathetic. _the jovial crew_, with its lively pictures of gipsy life, is, though it may have been partly suggested by fletcher's _beggar's bush_, a very pleasant and fresh comedy. it seems to have been one of its author's last works, and he speaks of himself in it as "old." our two next figures are of somewhat minor importance. sir aston cokain or cockaine, of a good derbyshire family, was born in , and after a long life died just before the accession of james ii. he seems (and indeed positively asserts himself) to have been intimate with most of the men of letters of charles i.'s reign; and it has been unkindly suggested that posterity would have been much more indebted to him if he had given us the biographical particulars, which in most cases are so much wanted concerning them, instead of wasting his time on translated and original verse of very little value, and on dramatic composition of still less. as it is, we owe to him the knowledge of the not unimportant fact that massinger was a collaborator of fletcher. his own plays are distinctly of the lower class, though not quite valueless. _the obstinate lady_ is an echo of fletcher and massinger; _trappolin creduto principe_, an adaptation of an italian farce, is a good deal better, and is said, with various stage alterations, to have held the boards till within the present century under the title of _a duke and no duke_, or _the duke and the devil_. it is in fact a not unskilful working up of some well-tried theatrical motives, but has no great literary merit. the tragedy of _ovid_, a regular literary tragedy in careful if not very powerful blank verse, is cokain's most ambitious effort. like his other work it is clearly an "echo" in character. a more interesting and characteristic example of the "decadence" is henry glapthorne. when the enthusiasm excited by lamb's specimens, hazlitt's, and coleridge's lectures for the elizabethan drama, was fresh, and everybody was hunting for new examples of the style, glapthorne had the doubtful luck to be made the subject of a very laudatory article in the _retrospective review_, and two of his plays were reprinted. he was not left in this honourable but comparatively safe seclusion, and many years later, in , all his plays and poems as known were issued by themselves in mr. pearson's valuable series of reprints. since then glapthorne has become something of a butt; and mr. bullen, in conjecturally attributing to him a new play, _the lady mother_, takes occasion to speak rather unkindly of him. as usual it is a case of _ni cet excès d'honneur ni cette indignité_. personally, glapthorne has some of the interest that attaches to the unknown. between and , or for the brief space of four years, it is clear that he was a busy man of letters. he published five plays (six if we admit _the lady mother_), which had some vogue, and survived as an acted poet into the restoration period; he produced a small but not despicable collection of poems of his own; he edited those of his friend thomas beedome; he was himself a friend of cotton and of lovelace. but of his antecedents and of the life that followed this short period of literary activity we know absolutely nothing. the guess that he was at st. paul's school is a mere guess; and in the utter and total absence of the least scrap of biographical information about him, his editor has thought it worth while to print in full some not unamusing but perfectly irrelevant documents concerning the peccadillos of a certain _george_ glapthorne of whittlesea, who was certainly a contemporary and perhaps a relation. henry glapthorne as a writer is certainly not great, but he is as certainly not contemptible. his tragedy of _albertus wallenstein_ is not merely interesting as showing a reversion to the practice, almost dropped in his time (perhaps owing to censorship difficulties), of handling contemporary historical subjects, but contains passages of considerable poetical merit. his _argalus and parthenia_, a dramatisation of part of the _arcadia_, caught the taste of his day, and, like the _wallenstein_, is poetical if not dramatic. the two comedies, _the hollander_ and _wit in a constable_, are of the school which has been so frequently described, and not of its strongest, but at the same time not of its weakest specimens. _love's privilege_, sometimes held his best play, is a rather flabby tragi-comedy of the fletcher-shirley school. in short, glapthorne, without being positively good, is good enough to have made it surprising that he is not better, if the explanation did not present itself pretty clearly. though evidently not an old man at the time of writing (he has been guessed, probably enough, to have been a contemporary of milton, and perhaps a little older or a little younger), his work has the clear defects of age. it is garrulous and given to self-repetition (so much so that one of mr. bullen's reasons for attributing _the lady mother_ to glapthorne is the occurrence in it of passages almost literally repeated in his known work); it testifies to a relish of, and a habituation to, the great school, coupled with powers insufficient to emulate the work of the great school itself; it is exactly in flavour and character the last _not_ sprightly runnings of a generous liquor. there is nowhere in it the same absolute flatness that occurs in the lesser men of the restoration school, like the howards and boyle; the ancient gust is still too strong for that. it does not show the vulgarity which even davenant (who as a dramatist was ten years glapthorne's senior) too often displays. but we feel in reading it that the good wine has gone, that we have come to that which is worse. i have mentioned davenant; and though he is often classed with, and to some extent belongs to the post-reformation school, he is ours for other purposes than that of mere mention. his shakespere travesties (in one of which he was assisted by a greater than he), and even the operas and "entertainments" with which he not only evaded the prohibition of stage plays under the commonwealth, but helped to produce a remarkable change in the english drama, do not concern us. but it must be remembered that davenant's earlier, most dramatic, and most original playmaking was done at a time far within our limits. when the tragedy of _albovine_ (alboin) was produced, the restoration was more than thirty years distant, and jonson, chapman, dekker, and marston--men in the strictest sense of the elizabethan school--were still living, and, in the case of all but marston, writing. _the cruel brother_, which, though printed after, was licensed before, dates three years earlier; and between this time and the closing of the theatres davenant had ten plays acted and printed coincidently with the best work of massinger, shirley, and ford. nor, though his fame is far below theirs, is the actual merit of these pieces (the two above mentioned, _the wits_, _news from plymouth_, _the fair favourite_, _the unfortunate lovers_, etc.), so much inferior as the fame. the chief point in which davenant fails is in the failing grasp of verse above noted. this is curious and so characteristic that it is worth while to give an example of it, which shall be a fair average specimen and not of the worst:-- "o noble maid, what expiation can make fit this young and cruel soldier for society of man that hath defiled the genius of triumphant glorious war with such a rape upon thy liberty! or what less hard than marble of the parian rock can'st thou believe my heart, that nurst and bred him my disciple in the camp, and yet could teach his valour no more tenderness than injured scytheans use when they are wroth to a revenge? but he hath mourned for it: and now evandra thou art strongly pitiful, that dost so long conceal an anger that would kill us both." _love and honour_, . here we have the very poetical counterpart of the last of jaques' ages, the big manly voice of the great dramatists sinking into a childish treble that stutters and drivels over the very alphabet of the poetical tongue. in such a language as this poetry became impossible, and it is still a matter for wonder by what trick of elocution actors can have made it tolerable on the stage. yet it was certainly tolerated. and not only so, but, when the theatre came to be open again, the discontent with blank verse, which partly at least drove dryden and others into rhyme, never seems to have noticed the fact that the blank verse to which it objected was execrably bad. when dryden returned to the more natural medium, he wrote it not indeed with the old many-voiced charm of the best elizabethans, but with admirable eloquence and finish. yet he himself in his earliest plays staggered and slipped about with the rest, and i do not remember in his voluminous critical remarks anything going to show that he was consciously aware of the slovenliness into which his master davenant and others had allowed themselves and their followers to drop. one more example and we shall have finished at once with those dramatists of our time whose work has been collected, and with the chief names of the decadence. sir john suckling, who, in mr. swinburne's happy phrase-- "stumbled from above and reeled in slippery roads of alien art," is represented in the english theatre by four plays, _aglaura_, _brennoralt_, _the sad one_, and the comedy of _the goblins_. of the tragedies some one, i forget who, has said truly that their names are the best thing about them. suckling had a fancy for romantic names, rather suggesting sometimes the minerva press of a later time, but still pretty. his serious plays, however, have all the faults, metrical and other, which have been noticed in davenant, and in speaking of his own non-dramatic verse; and they possess as well serious faults as dramas--a combination of extravagance and dullness, a lack of playwright's grasp, an absence in short of the root of the matter. how far in other directions besides mere versification he and his fellows had slipped from the right way, may be perhaps most pleasantly and quite fully discovered from the perusal, which is not very difficult, of his tragi-comedy or extravaganza, _the goblins_. there are several good points about this play--an abundance of not altogether stagey noble sentiment, an agreeable presentment of fresh and gallant youths, still smacking rather of fletcher's madcap but heart-sound gallants, and not anticipating the heartless crudity of the cubs of the restoration, a loveable feminine character, and so forth. but hardly a clever boy at school ever devised anything so extravagantly puerile as the plot, which turns on a set of banished men playing at hell and devils in caverns close to a populous city, and brings into the action a series of the most absurd escapes, duels, chance-meetings, hidings, findings, and all manner of other devices for spinning out an unnatural story. many who know nothing more of suckling's plays know that _aglaura_ enjoys the eccentric possession of two fifth acts, so that it can be made a tragedy or a tragi-comedy at pleasure. _the sad one_, which is unfinished, is much better. the tragedy of _brennoralt_ has some pathos, some pretty scenes, and some charming songs; but here again we meet with the most inconceivably bad verse, as here--a passage all the more striking because of its attempt, wilful or unconscious, to echo shakespere:-- "sleep is as nice as woman; the more i court it, the more it flies me. thy elder brother will be kinder yet, unsent-for death will come. to-morrow! well, what can to-morrow do? 'twill cure the sense of honour lost; i and my discontents shall rest together, what hurt is there in this? but death against the will is but a slovenly kind of potion; and though prescribed by heaven, it goes against men's stomachs. so does it at fourscore too, when the soul's mewed up in narrow darkness: neither sees nor hears. pish! 'tis mere fondness in our nature. a certain clownish cowardice that still would stay at home and dares not venture into foreign countries, though better than its own. ha! what countries? for we receive descriptions of th' other world from our divines as blind men take relations of this from us: my thoughts lead me into the dark, and there they'll leave me. i'll no more on it. within!" such were the last notes of the concert which opened with the music, if not at once of _hamlet_ and _othello_, at any rate of _tamburlaine_ and _faustus_. to complete this sketch of the more famous and fortunate dramatists who have attained to separate presentation, we must give some account of lesser men and of those wholly anonymous works which are still to be found only in collections such as dodsley's, or in single publications. as the years pass, the list of independently published authors increases. mr. bullen, who issued the works of thomas nabbes and of davenport, has promised those of w. rowley. nabbes, a member of the tribe of ben, and a man of easy talent, was successful in comedy only, though he also attempted tragedy. _microcosmus_ ( ), his best-known work, is half-masque, half-morality, and has considerable merit in a difficult kind. _the bride_, _covent garden_, _tottenham court_, range with the already characterised work of brome, but somewhat lower. davenport's range was wider, and the interesting history of _king john and matilda_, as well as the lively comedy of _the city nightcap_, together with other work, deserved, and have now received, collection. william rowley was of a higher stamp. his best work is probably to be found in the plays wherein, as mentioned more than once, he collaborated with middleton, with massinger, with webster, with fletcher, with dekker, and in short with most of the best men of his time. it would appear that he was chiefly resorted to for comic underplots, in which he brought in a good deal of horseplay, and a power of reporting the low-life humours of the london of his day more accurate than refined, together with not a little stock-stage wit, such as raillery of welsh and irish dialect. but in the plays which are attributed to him alone, such as _a new wonder_, _a woman never vexed_, and _a match at midnight_, he shows not merely this same _vis comica_ and rough and ready faculty of hitting off dramatic situations, but an occasional touch of true pathos, and a faculty of knitting the whole action well together. he has often been confused with a half namesake, samuel rowley, of whom very little is known, but who in his chronicle play _when you see me you know me_, and his romantic drama of _the noble spanish soldier_, has distinctly outstripped the ordinary dramatists of the time. yet another collected dramatist, who has long had a home in dodsley, and who figures rather curiously in a later collection of "dramatists of the restoration," though his dramatic fame was obtained many years before, was shakerley marmion, author of the pretty poem of _cupid and psyche_, and a "son" of ben jonson. marmion's three plays, of which the best known is _the antiquary_, are fair but not excessively favourable samples of the favourite play of the time, a rather broad humour-comedy, which sometimes conjoined itself with, and sometimes stood aloof from, either a romantic and tragi-comical story or a downright tragedy. among the single plays comparatively few are of the latter kind. _the miseries of enforced marriage_, a domestic tragi-comedy, connects itself with the wholly tragical _yorkshire tragedy_, and is a kind of introduction to it. these domestic tragedies (of which another is _a warning to fair women_) were very popular at the time, and large numbers now lost seem to have been produced by the dramatisation of notable crimes, past and present. their class is very curiously mixed up with the remarkable and, in one sense or another, very interesting class of the dramas attributed, and in general estimation falsely attributed, to shakespere. according to the fullest list these pseudo-shakesperian plays number seventeen. they are _fair em_, _the merry devil of edmonton_, _edward iii._, _the birth of merlin_, _the troublesome reign of king john_, _a warning to fair women_, _the arraignment of paris_, _arden of feversham_, _mucedorus_, _george a green the pinner of wakefield_, _the two noble kinsmen_, _the london prodigal_, _thomas lord cromwell_, _sir john oldcastle_, _the puritan or the widow of watling street_, _the yorkshire tragedy_, and _locrine_. four of these, _edward iii._, _the merry devil of edmonton_, _arden of feversham_, and _the two noble kinsmen_, are in whole or parts very far superior to the rest. of that rest _the yorkshire tragedy_, a violent and bloodthirsty little piece showing the frantic cruelty of the ruined gambler, calverley, to his wife and children, is perhaps the most powerful, though it is not in the least shakesperian. but the four have claims, not indeed of a strong, but of a puzzling kind. in _edward iii._ and _the two noble kinsmen_ there are no signs of shakespere either in plot, character-drawing, or general tone. but, on the contrary, there are in both certain scenes where the versification and dialogue are so astonishingly shakesperian that it is almost impossible to account for the writing of them by any one else than shakespere. by far the larger majority of critics declare for the part authorship of shakespere in _the two noble kinsmen_; i avow myself simply puzzled. on the other hand, i am nearly sure that he did not write any part of _edward iii._, and i should take it to be a case of a kind not unknown in literature, where some writer of great but not very original faculty was strongly affected by the shakesperian influence, and wrote this play while under it, but afterwards, either by death or diversion to non-literary employments, left no other monument of himself that can be traced or compared with it. the difficulty with _arden of feversham_ and _the merry devil_ is different. we shall presently speak of the latter, which, good as it is, has nothing specially shakesperian about it, except a great superiority in sanity, compactness, pleasant human sentiment, and graceful verse, to the ordinary anonymous or named work of the time. but _arden of feversham_ is a very different piece of work. it is a domestic tragedy of a peculiarly atrocious kind, alice arden, the wife, being led by her passion for a base paramour, mosbie, to plot, and at last carry out, the murder of her husband. here it is not that the versification has much resemblance to shakespere's, or that single speeches smack of him, but that the dramatic grasp of character both in principals and in secondary characters has a distinct touch of his almost unmistakable hand. yet both in the selection and in the treatment of the subject the play definitely transgresses those principles which have been said to exhibit themselves so uniformly and so strongly in the whole great body of his undoubted plays. there is a perversity and a dash of sordidness which are both wholly un-shakesperian. the only possible hypothesis on which it could be admitted as shakespere's would be that of an early experiment thrown off while he was seeking his way in a direction where he found no thoroughfare. but the play is a remarkable one, and deserves the handsome and exact reproduction which mr. bullen has given it. _the second maiden's tragedy_, licensed , but earlier in type, is one of the gloomy pity-and-terror pieces which were so much affected in the earlier part of the period, but which seem to have given way later in the public taste to comedy. it is black enough to have been attributed to tourneur. _the queen of aragon_, by habington, though in a different key, has something of the starchness rather than strength which characterises _castara_. a much higher level is reached in the fine anonymous tragedy of _nero_, where at least one character, that of petronius, is of great excellence, and where the verse, if a little declamatory, is of a very high order of declamation. the strange piece, first published by mr. bullen, and called by him _the distracted emperor_, a tragedy based partly on the legend of charlemagne and fastrada, again gives us a specimen of horror-mongering. _the return from parnassus_ (see note, p. ), famous for its personal touches and its contribution to shakespere literature, is interesting first for the judgments of contemporary writers, of which the shakespere passages are only the chief; secondly, for its evidence of the jealousy between the universities and the players, who after, in earlier times, coming chiefly on the university wits for their supplies, had latterly taken to provide for themselves; and thirdly, for its flashes of light on university and especially undergraduate life. the comedy of _wily beguiled_ has also a strong university touch, the scholar being made triumphant in it; and _lingua_, sometimes attributed to anthony brewer, is a return, though a lively one, to the system of personification and allegory. _the dumb knight_, of or partly by lewis machin, belongs to the half-romantic, half-farcical class; but in _the merry devil of edmonton_, the authorship of which is quite unknown, though shakespere, drayton, and other great names have been put forward, a really delightful example of romantic comedy, strictly english in subject, and combining pathos with wit, appears. _the merry devil_ probably stands highest among all the anonymous plays of the period on the lighter side, as _arden of feversham_ does on the darker. second to it as a comedy comes porter's _two angry women of abingdon_ ( ), with less grace and fancy but almost equal lightness, and a singularly exact picture of manners. with _ram alley_, attributed to the irishman lodowick barry, we come back to a much lower level, that of the bustling comedy, of which something has been said generally in connection with middleton. to the same class belong haughton's pleasant _englishmen for my money_, a good patriot play, where certain foreigners, despite the father's favour, are ousted from the courtship of three fair sisters; _woman is a weathercock_, and _amends for ladies_ (invective and palinode), by nathaniel field (first one of the little eyasses who competed with regular actors, and then himself an actor and playwright); green's "_tu quoque_" or _the city gallant_, attributed to the actor cook, and deriving its odd first title from a well-known comedian of the time, and the catchword which he had to utter in the play itself; _the hog hath lost his pearl_, a play on the name of a usurer whose daughter is married against his will, by taylor; _the heir_ and _the old couple_, by thomas may, more famous still for his latin versification; the rather overpraised _ordinary_ of cartwright, ben jonson's most praised son; _the city match_ by dr. jasper mayne. all these figure in the last, and most of them have figured in the earlier editions of dodsley, with a few others hardly worth separate notice. mr. bullen's delightful volumes of _old plays_ add the capital play of _dick of devonshire_ (see _ante_), the strange _two tragedies in one_ of robert yarington, three lively comedies deriving their names from originals of one kind or another, _captain underwit_, _sir giles goosecap_, and _dr. dodipoll_, with one or two more. one single play remains to be mentioned, both because of its intrinsic merit, and because of the controversy which has arisen respecting the question of priority between it and ben jonson's _alchemist_. this is _albumazar_, attributed to one thomas tomkis, and in all probability a university play of about the middle of james's reign. there is nothing in it equal to the splendid bursts of sir epicure mammon, or the all but first-rate comedy of face, dol, and subtle, and of abel drugger; but gifford, in particular, does injustice to it, and it is on the whole a very fair specimen of the work of the time. nothing indeed is more astonishing than the average goodness of that work, even when all allowances are made; and unjust as such a mere enumeration as these last paragraphs have given must be, it would be still more unjust to pass over in silence work so varied and so full of talent.[ ] [ ] a note may best serve for the plays of thomas goff ( - ), acted at his own college, christ church, but not published till after his death. the three most noteworthy, _the raging turk_, _the courageous turk_, and the _tragedy of orestes_, were republished together in , and a comedy, _the careless shepherdess_, appeared in the same year. the tragedies, and especially _the raging turk_, have been a byword for extravagant frigidity, though, as they have never been printed in modern times, and as the originals are rare, they have not been widely known at first hand. a perusal justifies the worst that has been said of them: though goff wrote early enough to escape the caroline dry-rot in dramatic versification. his lines are stiff, but they usually scan. chapter xii minor caroline prose the greatest, beyond all doubt, of the minor writers of the caroline period in prose is robert burton. less deliberately quaint than fuller, he is never, as fuller sometimes is, puerile, and the greater concentration of his thoughts and studies has produced what fuller never quite produced, a masterpiece. at the same time it must be confessed that burton's more leisurely life assisted to a great extent in the production of his work. the english collegiate system would have been almost sufficiently justified if it had produced nothing but _the anatomy of melancholy_; though there is something ironical, no doubt, in the fact that this ideal fruit of a studious and endowed leisure was the work of one who, being a beneficed clergyman, ought not in strictness to have been a resident member of a college. yet, elsewhere than in oxford or cambridge the book could hardly have grown, and it is as unique as the institutions which produced it. the author of the _anatomy_ was the son of ralph burton of lindley in leicestershire, where he was born on the th of february . he was educated at sutton coldfield school, and thence went to brasenose college, oxford. he became a student of christchurch--the equivalent of a fellow--in , and seems to have passed the whole of the rest of his life there, though he took orders and enjoyed together or successively the living of st. thomas in oxford, the vicarage of walsby in lincolnshire, and the rectory of segrave in leicestershire, at both of which latter places he seems to have kept the minimum of residence, though tradition gives him the character of a good churchman, and though there is certainly nothing inconsistent with that character in the _anatomy_. the picture of him which anthony à wood gives at a short second hand is very favourable; and the attempts to harmonise his "horrid disorder of melancholy" with his "very merry, facete, and juvenile company," arise evidently from almost ludicrous misunderstanding of what melancholy means and is. as absurd, though more serious, is the traditionary libel obviously founded on the words in his epitaph (_cui vitam et mortem dedit melancholia_), that having cast his nativity, he, in order not to be out as to the time of his death, committed suicide. as he was sixty-three (one of the very commonest periods of death) at the time, the want of reason of the suggestion equals its want of charity. the offspring in english of burton's sixty-three years of humorous study of men and books is _the anatomy of melancholy_, first printed in , and enlarged afterwards by the author. a critical edition of the _anatomy_, giving these enlargements exactly with other editorial matter, is very much wanted; but even in the rather inedited condition in which the book, old and new, is usually found, it is wholly acceptable. its literary history is rather curious. eight editions of it appeared in half a century from the date of the first, and then, with other books of its time, it dropped out of notice except by the learned. early in the present century it was revived and reprinted with certain modernisations, and four or five editions succeeded each other at no long interval. the copies thus circulated seem to have satisfied the demand for many years, and have been followed without much alteration in some later issues. the book itself has been very variously judged. fuller, in one of his least worthy moments, called it "a book of philology." anthony wood, hitting on a notion which has often been borrowed since, held that it is a convenient commonplace book of classical quotations, which, with all respect to anthony's memory (whom i am more especially bound to honour as a merton man), is a gross and philistine error. johnson, as was to be expected, appreciated it thoroughly. ferriar in his _illustrations of sterne_ pointed out the enormous indebtedness of tristram shandy to democritus junior. charles lamb, eloquently praising the "fantastic great old man," exhibited perhaps more perversity than sense in denouncing the modern reprints which, after all, are not like some modern reprints (notably one of burton's contemporary, felltham, to be noticed shortly), in any real sense garbled. since that time burton has to some extent fallen back to the base uses of a quarry for half-educated journalists; nevertheless, all fit readers of english literature have loved him. the book is a sufficiently strange one at first sight; and it is perhaps no great wonder that uncritical readers should have been bewildered by the bristling quotations from utterly forgotten authorities which, with full and careful reference for the most part, stud its pages, by its elaborate but apparently futile marshalling in "partitions" and "members," in "sections" and "subsections," and by the measureless license of digression which the author allows himself. it opens with a long epistle, filling some hundred pages in the modern editions, from democritus junior, as the author calls himself, to the reader--an epistle which gives a true foretaste of the character and style of the text, though, unlike that text, it is not scholastically divided. the division begins with the text itself, and even the laziest reader will find the synopses of burton's "partitions" a curious study. it is impossible to be, at least in appearance, more methodical, and all the typographical resources of brackets (sub-bracketed even to the seventh or eighth involution) and of reference letters are exhausted in order to draw up a conspectus of the causes, symptoms, nature, effects, and cure of melancholy. this method is not exactly the method of madness, though it is quite possible for a reader to attach more (as also less) importance to it than it deserves. it seems probable on the whole that the author, with the scholastic habits of his time, did actually draw out a programme for the treatment of his subject in some form not very different from these wonderful synopses, and did actually endeavour to keep to it, or at any rate to work on its lines within the general compass of the scheme. but on each several head (and reducing them to their lowest terms the heads are legion) he allowed himself the very widest freedom of digression, not merely in extracting and applying the fruits of his notebook, but in developing his own thoughts,--a mine hardly less rich if less extensive than the treasures of the bodleian library which are said to have been put at his disposal. the consequence is, that the book is one quite impossible to describe in brief space. the melancholy of which the author treats, and of which, no doubt, he was in some sort the victim, is very far from being the mere byronic or wertherian disease which became so familiar some hundred years ago. on the other hand, burton being a practical, and, on the whole, very healthy englishman, it came something short of "the melencolia that transcends all wit," the incurable pessimism and quiet despair which have been thought to be figured or prefigured in durer's famous print. yet it approaches, and that not distantly, to this latter. it is the vanity of vanities of a man who has gone, in thought at least, over the whole round of human pleasures and interests, and who, if he has not exactly found all to be vanity, has found each to be accompanied by some _amari aliquid_. it is at the same time the frankly expressed hypochondria of a man whose bodily health was not quite so robust as his mental constitution. it is the satiety of learning of a man who, nevertheless, knows that learning, or at least literature, is the only cure for his disease. in mere style there is perhaps nothing very strongly characteristic in burton, though there is much that is noteworthy in the way in which he adapts his style to the peculiar character of his book. like rabelais, he has but rarely occasion to break through his fantastic habit of stringing others' pearls on a mere string of his own, and to set seriously to the composition of a paragraph of wholly original prose. but when he does, the effect is remarkable, and shows that it was owing to no poverty or awkwardness that he chose to be so much of a borrower. in his usual style, where a mere framework of original may enclose a score or more quotations, translated or not (the modern habit of translating burton's quotations spoils, among other things, the zest of his own quaint habit of adding, as it were, in the same breath, a kind of summary or paraphrase in english of what he has said in latin or greek), he was not superior to his time in the loose construction of sentences; but the wonder is that his fashion of writing did not make him even inferior to it. one of his peculiar tricks--the only one, perhaps, which he uses to the extent of a mannerism--is the suppression of the conjunctions "or" and "and," which gives a very quaint air to his strings of synonyms. but an example will do more here than much analysis:-- "and why then should baseness of birth be objected to any man? who thinks worse of tully for being _arpinas_, an upstart? or agathocles, that sicilian king, for being a potter's son? iphicrates and marius were meanly born. what wise man thinks better of any person for his nobility? as he[ ] said in machiavel, _omnes codem patre nati_, adam's sons, conceived all and born in sin, etc. _we are by nature all as one, all alike, if you see us naked; let us wear theirs, and they our clothes, and what's the difference?_ to speak truth, as bale did of p. schalichius, _i more esteem thy worth, learning, honesty, than the nobility; honour thee more that thou art a writer, a doctor of divinity, than earl of the hunnes, baron of skradine, or hast title to such and such provinces, etc. thou art more fortunate and great_ (so jovius writes to cosmus medices, then duke of florence) _for thy virtues than for thy lovely wife and happy children, friends, fortunes, or great duchy of tuscany_. so i account thee, and who doth not so indeed? abdalonymus was a gardener, and yet by alexander for his virtues made king of syria. how much better is it to be born of mean parentage and to excel in worth, to be morally noble, which is preferred before that natural nobility by divines, philosophers, and politicians, to be learned, honest, discreet, well qualified to be fit for any manner of employment in country and commonwealth, war and peace, than to be _degeneres neoptolemi_ as so many brave nobles are, only wise because rich, otherwise idiots, illiterate, unfit for any manner of service? udalricus, earl of cilia, upbraided john huniades with the baseness of his birth; but he replied, _in te ciliensis comitatus turpiter exstinguitur, in me gloriose bistricensis exoritur_; thine earldom is consumed with riot; mine begins with honour and renown. thou hast had so many noble ancestors; what is that to thee? _vix ea nostra voco_; when thou art a disard[ ] thyself, _quid prodest pontice longo stemmate censeri_? etc. i conclude, hast thou a sound body and a good soul, good bringing up? art thou virtuous, honest, learned, well qualified, religious? are thy conditions good? thou art a true nobleman, perfectly noble though born of thersites, _dummodo tu sis aeacidæ similis non natus sed factus_, noble kat' exochên, _for neither sword, nor fire, nor water, nor sickness, nor outward violence, nor the devil himself can take thy good parts from thee_. be not ashamed of thy birth then; thou art a gentleman all the world over, and shalt be honoured, whenas he, strip him of his fine clothes, dispossess him of his wealth, is a funge[ ] (which polynices in his banishment found true by experience, gentry was not esteemed), like a piece of coin in another country, that no man will take, and shall be contemned. once more, though thou be a barbarian born at tontonteac, a villain, a slave, a saldanian negro, or a rude virginian in dasamonquepeuc,[ ] he a french monsieur, a spanish don, a seignior of italy, i care not how descended, of what family, of what order--baron, count, prince--if thou be well qualified and he not but a degenerate neoptolemus, i tell thee in a word thou art a man and he is a beast." [ ] burton, with others of the time, constantly wrote "he" as the equivalent of the classical demonstratives. modern, but not better, use prefers "the man," or something similar. [ ] a "dizzard" = a blockhead. said to be connected with "dizzy." [ ] fungus, mushroom. [ ] saldania is saldanha bay. as for tontonteac and dasamonquepeuc, i shall imitate the manly frankness of the boy in _henry v._, and say, "i do not know what is the french for fer, and ferret, and firk." such, in his outward aspects, is burton; but of him, even more than of most writers, it may be said that a brick of the house is no sample. only by reading him in the proper sense, and that with diligence, can his great learning, his singular wit and fancy, and the general view of life and of things belonging to life, which informs and converts to a whole his learning, his wit, and his fancy alike, be properly conceived. for reading either continuous or desultory, either grave or gay, at all times of life and in all moods of temper, there are few authors who stand the test of practice so well as the author of _the anatomy of melancholy_. probably, however, among those who can taste old authors, there will always be a friendly but irreconcilable difference as to the merits of fuller and burton, when compared together. there never can be any among such as to the merits of fuller, considered in himself. like burton, he was a clerk in orders; but his literary practice, though more copious than that of the author of _the anatomy_, divorced him less from the discharge of his professional duties. he was born, like dryden, but twenty-two years earlier, in , at aldwinkle in northamptonshire, and in a parsonage there, but of the other parish (for there are two close together). he was educated at cambridge, and, being made prebendary of salisbury, and vicar of broadwindsor, almost as soon as he could take orders, seemed to be in a fair way of preferment. he worked as a parish priest up to , the year of the beginning of troubles, and the year of his first important book, _the holy war_. but he was a staunch royalist, though by no means a bigot, and he did not, like other men of his time, see his way to play mr. facing-both-ways. for a time he was a preacher in london, then he followed the camp as chaplain to the victorious army of hopton, in the west, then for a time again he was stationary at exeter, and after the ruin of the royal cause he returned to london, where, though he did not recover his benefices, he was leniently treated, and even, in , obtained license to preach. nevertheless, the restoration would probably have brought him promotion, but he lived not long enough to receive it, dying on the th of august . he was an extremely industrious writer, publishing, besides the work already mentioned, and not a few minor pieces (_the holy and profane state_, _thoughts and contemplations in good, worse, and better times_, _a pisgah-sight of palestine_), an extensive _church history of britain_, and, after his death, what is perhaps his masterpiece, _the worthies of england_, an extraordinary miscellany, quartering the ground by counties, filling, in the compactest edition, two mighty quartos, and containing perhaps the greatest account of miscellaneous fact to be found anywhere out of an encyclopedia, conveyed in a style the quaintest and most lively to be found anywhere out of the choicest essayists of the language. a man of genius who adored fuller, and who owes to him more than to any one else except sir thomas browne, has done, in small compass, a service to his memory which is not easily to be paralleled. lamb's specimens from fuller, most of which are only two or three lines long, and none a pageful, for once contradict the axiom quoted above as to a brick and a house. so perfectly has the genius of selector and author coincided, that not having myself gone through the verification of them, i should hardly be surprised to find that lamb had used his faculty of invention. yet this would not matter, for they are perfectly fullerian. although fuller has justly been praised for his method, and although he never seems to have suffered his fancy to run away with him to the extent of forgetting or wilfully misrepresenting a fact, the conceits, which are the chief characteristic of his style, are comparatively independent of the subject. coleridge has asserted that "wit was the stuff and substance of his intellect," an assertion which (with all the respect due to coleridge) would have been better phrased in some such way as this,--that nearly the whole force of his intellect concentrated itself upon the witty presentation of things. he is illimitably figurative, and though his figures seldom or never fail to carry illumination of the subject with them, their peculiar character is sufficiently indicated by the fact that they can almost always be separated from the subject and from the context in which they occur without any damage to their own felicity. to a thoroughly serious person, to a person like lord chesterfield (who was indeed very serious in his own way, and abhorred proverbial philosophy), or to one who cannot away with the introduction of a quip in connection with a solemn subject, and who thinks that indulgence in a gibe is a clear proof that the writer has no solid argument to produce, fuller must be nothing but a puzzle or a disgust. that a pious and earnest divine should, even in that day of quaintness, compare the gradual familiarisation of christians with the sacraments of the church to the habit of children first taking care of, and then neglecting a pair of new boots, or should describe a brother clerk as "pronouncing the word _damn_ with such an emphasis as left a dismal echo in his auditors' ears a good while longer," seems, no doubt, to some excellent people, unpardonable, and almost incomprehensible. yet no one has ever impeached the sincerity of fuller's convictions, and the blamelessness of his life. that a grave historian should intersperse the innumerable trivialities of the _worthies_ may be only less shocking. but he was an eminent proof of his own axiom, "that an ounce of mirth, with the same degree of grace, will serve god farther than a pound of sadness." fuller is perhaps the only writer who, voluminous as he is, will not disappoint the most superficial inquirer for proofs of the accuracy of the character usually given to him. nobody perhaps but himself, in trying to make the best of the egyptian bondage of the commonwealth, would have discovered that the church, being unrepresented by any of the four hundred and odd members of cromwell's parliament, was better off than when she had archbishops, bishops, and a convocation all to herself, urging, "what civil christian would not plead for a dumb man," and so enlisting all the four hundred and odd enemies as friends and representatives. but it is impossible to enter fully on the subject of fuller's quips. what may fairly be said of them is, that while constantly fantastic, and sometimes almost childish, they are never really silly; that they are never, or hardly ever in bad taste; and that, quaint and far fetched as they are, there is almost always some application or suggestion which saves them from being mere intellectual somersaults. the famous one of the "images of god cut in ebony," is sufficient of itself to serve as a text. there is in it all the good side of the emancipation propaganda with an entire freedom from the extravagance, the vulgarity, the injustice, the bad taste which marked that propaganda a century and more afterwards, when taken up by persons very different from fuller. perhaps it may be well to give an extract of some length from him:-- "a lady big with child was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, and in the dungeon was delivered of a son, who continued with her till a boy of some bigness. it happened at one time he heard his mother (for see neither of them could, as to decern in so dark a place) bemoan her condition. "why, mother (said the child) do you complain, seeing you want nothing you can wish, having clothes, meat, and drink sufficient? alas! child (returned the mother), i lack liberty, converse with christians, the light of the sun, and many things more, which thou, being prison-born, neither art nor can be sensible of in thy condition. "the _post-nati_, understand thereby such striplings born in england since the death of monarchy therein, conceive this land, their mother, to be in a good estate. for one fruitful harvest followeth another, commodities are sold at reasonable rates, abundance of brave clothes are worn in the city, though not by such persons whose birth doth best become, but whose purses can best bestow them. "but their mother, england, doth justly bemoan the sad difference betwixt her present and former condition; when she enjoyed full and free trade without payment of taxes, save so small they seemed rather an acknowledgment of their allegiance than a burden to their estate; when she had the court of a king, the house of lords, yea, and the lord's house, decently kept, constantly frequented, without falsehood in doctrine, or faction in discipline. god of his goodness restore unto us so much of these things as may consist with his glory and our good." * * * * * "i saw a servant maid, at the command of her mistress, make, kindle, and blow a fire. which done, she was posted away about other business, whilst her mistress enjoyed the benefit of the fire. yet i observed that this servant, whilst industriously employed in the kindling thereof, got a more general, kindly, and continuing heat than her mistress herself. her heat was only by her, and not in her, staying with her no longer than she stayed by the chimney; whilst the warmth of the maid was inlaid, and equally diffused through the whole body. "an estate suddenly gotten is not so lasting to the owner thereof as what is duly got by industry. the substance of the diligent, saith solomon, prov. xii. , is precious. he cannot be counted poor that hath so many pearls, precious brown bread, precious small beer, precious plain clothes, etc. a comfortable consideration in this our age, wherein many hands have learned their lesson of labour, who were neither born nor bred with it." the best judges have admitted that, in contradistinction to this perpetual quipping, which is, as far as it goes, of his time, the general style of fuller is on the whole rather more modern than the styles of his contemporaries. it does not seem that this is due to deliberate intention of shortening and proportioning his prose; for he is as careless as any one of the whole century about exact grammatical sequence, and seems to have had no objection on any critical grounds to the long disjointed sentence which was the curse of the time. but his own ruling passion insensibly disposed him to a certain brevity. he liked to express his figurative conceits pointedly and antithetically; and point and antithesis are the two things most incompatible with clauses jointed _ad infinitum_ in clarendon's manner, with labyrinths of "whos" and "whiches" such as too frequently content milton and taylor. poles asunder from hobbes, not merely in his ultimate conclusions but in the general quality of his mind, he perhaps comes nearest to the author of the treatise on _human nature_ in clear, sensible, unambiguous presentation of the thing that he means to say; and this, joined to his fecundity in illustration of every kind, greatly helps the readableness of his books. no work of his as a working out of an original conception can compete with _the anatomy of melancholy_; but he is as superior in minor method to burton as he is inferior in general grasp. the remainder of the minor carolines must be dismissed rapidly. a not unimportant position among the prose writers of this time is occupied by edward herbert, lord herbert of cherbury, the elder brother of george herbert the poet. he was born in , and finished his life ingloriously, and indeed discreditably, during the troubles of the civil war, on the th of august . his earlier career is elaborately if not exactly truthfully recorded in his _autobiography_, and its details have been carefully supplemented by his latest editor, mr. lee. his literary activity was various and considerable. his greatest work--a treatise which has been rashly called the foundation of english deism, but which rather expresses the vague and not wholly unorthodox doubt expressed earlier by montaigne, and by contemporaries of herbert's own, such as la mothe le vayer--was written in latin, and has never been translated into english. he was an english verse writer of some merit, though inferior to his brother. his ambitious and academic _history of henry viii._ is a regular and not unsuccessful effort in english prose, prompted no doubt by the thoroughgoing courtiership which ranks with his vanity and want of stability on the most unfavourable aspect of herbert's character. but posterity has agreed to take him as an english writer chiefly on the strength of the autobiography, which remained in manuscript for a century and more, and was published by horace walpole, rather against the will of lord powis, its possessor and its author's representative. it is difficult to say that lord powis was wrong, especially considering that herbert never published these memoirs, and seems to have written them as much as anything else for his own private satisfaction. it may be doubted whether there is any more astounding monument of coxcombry in literature. herbert is sometimes cited as a model of a modern knight-errant, of an amadis born too late. certainly, according to his own account, all women loved and all men feared him; but for the former fact we have nothing but his own authority, and in regard to the latter we have counter evidence which renders it exceedingly doubtful. he was, according to his own account, a desperate duellist. but even by this account his duels had a curious habit of being interrupted, in the immortal phrase of mr. winkle, by "several police constables;" while in regard to actual war the exploits of his youth seem not to have been great, and those of his age were wholly discreditable, inasmuch as being by profession an ardent royalist, he took the first opportunity to make, without striking a blow, a profitable composition with the parliament. nevertheless, despite the drawbacks of subject-matter, the autobiography is a very interesting piece of english prose. the narrative style, for all its coxcombry and its insistence on petty details, has a singular vivacity; the constructions, though sometimes incorrect ("the edict was so severe as they who transgressed were to lose their heads"), are never merely slovenly; and the writer displays an art, very uncommon in his time, in the alternation of short and long sentences and the general adjustment of the paragraph. here and there, too, there are passages of more elevated style which give reason for regretting that the _de veritate_ was not written in english. it is very much to be feared that the chief reason for its being written in latin was a desire on the author's part to escape awkward consequences by an appearance of catering for philosophers and the learned only. it must be admitted that neither of the two great free-thinking royalists, hobbes and herbert, is a wholly pleasant character; but it may be at least said for the commoner (it cannot be said for the peer) that he was constant to his principles, and that if somewhat careful of his skin, he never seems to have been tempted to barter his conscience for it as herbert did. hardly any other writer among the minor caroline prosaists is important enough to justify a substantive notice in a work which has already reached and almost exceeded the limits accorded to it. the excellent style of cowley's _essays_, which is almost more modern than the work of dryden and tillotson, falls in great part actually beyond the limits of our time; and by character, if not by date, cowley is left for special treatment in the following volume. he sometimes relapses into what may be called the general qualities with their accompanying defects of elizabethan prose--a contempt of proportion, clearness, and order; a reckless readiness to say everything that is in the writer's mind, without considering whether it is appropriate or not; a confusion of english and classical grammar, and occasionally a very scant attention even to rules which the classical grammars indicate yet more sternly than the vernacular. but as a rule he is distinguished for exactly the opposite of all these things. much less modern than cowley, but still of a chaster and less fanciful style than most of his contemporaries, is the famous protestant apologist, chillingworth--a man whose orderly mind and freedom from anything like enthusiasm reflected themselves in the easy balance of his style. sanderson, pearson, baxter, the two former luminaries of the church, the latter one of the chief literary lights of nonconformity, belong more or less to the period, as does bishop hall. baxter is the most colloquial, the most fanciful, and the latest, of the three grouped together; the other two are nearer to the plainness of chillingworth than to the ornateness of jeremy taylor. few english prose writers again are better known than izaak walton, though it might be difficult to prove that in matter of pure literature he stands very high. the engaging character of his subjects, and the still more engaging display of his own temper and mode of thought which he makes in almost every sentence, both of his _complete angler_ and of his hardly less known _lives_, account for the survival and constant popularity of books which are neither above nor below the better work of their time in literary form. walton was born in and died ninety years later. his early manhood was spent in london as a "linen-draper," but in friendly conversation with the best clerical and literary society. in he retired from london to avoid the bustle of the civil war, and the _complete angler_ appeared in . another writer contemporary with walton, though less long-lived, james howell, has been the subject of very varying judgments; his appeal being very much of the same kind as walton's, but addressed to a different and narrower class of persons. he was born in (?) of a fair welsh family, was educated at jesus college, oxford, was employed more than once on confidential business errands on the continent, entered parliament, was made clerk of the council, was imprisoned for years in the fleet during the civil war, received at the restoration the post of historiographer, and died in . he wrote all manner of things, but has chiefly survived as the author of a large collection of familiar letters, which have been great favourites with some excellent judges. they have something of the agreeable garrulousness of walton. but howell was not only much more of a gossip than izaak; he was also a good deal of a coxcomb, while walton was destitute of even a trace of coxcombry. in one, however, as in the other, the attraction of matter completely outdoes the purely literary attraction. the reader is glad to hear at first hand what men thought of raleigh's execution; how ben jonson behaved in his cups; how foreign parts looked to a genuine english traveller early in the seventeenth century, and so forth. moreover, the book was long a very popular one, and an unusual number of anecdotes and scraps passed from it into the general literary stock of english writers. but howell's manner of telling his stories is not extraordinarily attractive, and has something self-conscious and artificial about it which detracts from its interest. the _characters_ of overbury were followed and, no doubt, imitated by john earle, afterwards bishop of salisbury, and a man of some importance. earle, who was a fellow of merton, called his sketches _microcosmography_. nothing in them approaches the celebrated if perhaps not quite genuine milkmaid of overbury; but they give evidence of a good deal of direct observation often expressed in a style that is pointed, such as the description of a bowling green as a place fitted for "the expense of time, money, and oaths." the church historian and miscellanist heylin belongs also to the now fast multiplying class of professional writers who dealt with almost any subject as it might seem likely to hit the taste of the public. the bold and fantastic speculations of bishop wilkins and sir kenelm digby, and the _oceana_ or ideal republic (last of a long line) of james harrington (not to be confounded with the earlier sir john harington, translator of ariosto), deserve some notice. the famous _eikon basilike_ (the authorship of which has perhaps of late years been too confidently ascribed to dr. gauden independently, rather than to the king, edited by gauden) has considerable literary merit. last of all has to be mentioned a curious book, which made some noise at its appearance, and which, though not much read now, has had two seasons of genuine popularity, and is still highly thought of by a few good judges. this is the _resolves_ of owen feltham or felltham. not much is known of the author except that he was of a respectable family in east anglia, a family which seems to have been especially seated in the neighbourhood of lowestoft. besides the _resolves_ he wrote some verse, of which the most notable piece is a reply to ben jonson's famous ode to himself ("come leave the loathed stage")--a reply which even such a sworn partisan as gifford admits to be at least just if not very kind. felltham seems also to have engaged in controversy with another johnson, a jesuit, on theological subjects. but save for the _resolves_ he would be totally forgotten. the estimate of their value will differ very much, as the liking for not very original discussion of ethical subjects and sound if not very subtle judgment on them overpowers or not in the reader a distaste for style that has no particular distinction, and ideas which, though often wholesome, are seldom other than obvious. wordsworth's well-known description of one of his own poems, as being "a chain of extremely valuable thoughts," applies no doubt to the _resolves_, which, except in elegance, rather resemble the better-known of cicero's philosophical works. moreover, though possessing no great elegance, they are not inelegant; though it is difficult to forget how differently bacon and browne treated not dissimilar subjects at much the same time. so popular were they that besides the first edition (which is undated, but must have appeared in or before , the date of the second), eleven others were called for up to . but it was not for a hundred years that they were again printed, and then the well-meaning but misguided zeal of their resuscitator led him not merely to modernise their spelling, etc. (a venial sin, if, which i am not inclined very positively to lay down, it is a sin at all), but to "improve" their style, sense, and sentiment by omission, alteration, and other tamperings with the text, so as to give the reader not what mr. felltham wrote early in the seventeenth century, but what mr. cummings thought he ought to have written early in the nineteenth. this chapter might easily be enlarged, and indeed, as dryden says, shame must invade the breast of every writer of literary history on a small scale who is fairly acquainted with his subject, when he thinks how many worthy men--men much worthier than he can himself ever pretend to be--he has perforce omitted. any critic inclined to find fault may ask me where is the ever-memorable john hales? where is tom coryat, that most egregious odcombian? and barnabee of the unforgotten, though scandalous, itinerary? where is sir thomas urquhart, quaintest of cavaliers, and not least admirable of translators, who not only rendered rabelais in a style worthy of him, who not only wrote in sober seriousness pamphlets with titles, which master francis could hardly have bettered in jest, but who composed a pedigree of the urquhart family _nominatim_ up to noah and adam, and then improvised chimney pieces in cromarty castle, commemorating the prehistoric ancestors whom he had excogitated? where are the great bishops from andrewes and cosin onwards, and the lesser theologians who wrangled, and the latitudinarians who meditated, and the historians with whitelocke at their head, and the countless writers of countless classes of books who multiplied steadily as time went on? it can only be answered that they are not, and that almost in the nature of things they cannot be here. it is not that they are not intrinsically interesting; it is not merely that, being less intrinsically interesting than some of their forerunners or contemporaries, they must give way when room is limited. it is that even if their individual performance were better than that of earlier men, even if there were room and verge enough for them, they would less concern the literary historian. for to him in all cases the later examples of a style are less important than the earlier, merely because they are late, because they have had forerunners whom, consciously or unconsciously, they have (except in the case of a great genius here and there) imitated, and because as a necessary consequence they fall into the _numerus_--into the gross as they would themselves have said--who must be represented only by choice examples and not enumerated or criticised in detail. conclusion a conclusion, like a preface, is perhaps to some extent an old-fashioned thing; and it is sometimes held that a writer does better not to sum up at all, but to leave the facts which he has accumulated to make their own way into the intelligence of his readers. i am not able to accept this view of the matter. in dealing with such a subject as that which has been handled in the foregoing pages, it is at least as necessary that the writer should have something of _ensemble_ in his mind as that he should look carefully into facts and dates and names. and he can give no such satisfactory evidence of his having possessed this _ensemble_, as a short summary of what, in his idea, the whole period looks like when taken at a bird's-eye view. for he has (or ought to have) given the details already; and his summary, without in the least compelling readers to accept it, must give them at least some means of judging whether he has been wandering over a plain trackless to him, or has been pursuing with confidence a well-planned and well-laid road. at the time at which our period begins (and which, though psychological epochs rarely coincide exactly with chronological, is sufficiently coincident with the accession of elizabeth), it cannot be said with any precision that there was an english _literature_ at all. there were eminent english writers, though perhaps one only to whom the first rank could even by the utmost complaisance be opened or allowed. but there was no literature, in the sense of a system of treating all subjects in the vernacular, according to methods more or less decidedly arranged and accepted by a considerable tradition of skilled craftsmen. something of the kind had partially existed in the case of the chaucerian poetic; but it was an altogether isolated something. efforts, though hardly conscious ones, had been made in the domain of prose by romancers, such as the practically unknown thomas mallory, by sacred orators like latimer, by historians like more, by a few struggling miscellaneous writers. men like ascham, cheke, wilson, and others had, perhaps with a little touch of patronage, recommended the regular cultivation of the english tongue; and immediately before the actual accession of elizabeth the publication of tottel's _miscellany_ had shown by its collection of the best poetical work of the preceding half century the extraordinary effect which a judicious xenomania (if i may, without scaring the purists of language, borrow that useful word from the late karl hillebrand) may produce on english. it is to the exceptional fertilising power of such influences on our stock that we owe all the marvellous accomplishments of the english tongue, which in this respect--itself at the head of the teutonic tongues by an almost unapproachable distance--stands distinguished with its teutonic sisters generally from the groups of languages with which it is most likely to be contrasted. its literary power is originally less conspicuous than that of the celtic and of the latin stocks; the lack, notorious to this day, of one single original english folk-song of really great beauty is a rough and general fact which is perfectly borne out by all other facts. but the exquisite folk-literature of the celts is absolutely unable either by itself or with the help of foreign admixture to arrive at complete literary perfection. and the profound sense of form which characterises the latins is apparently accompanied by such a deficiency of originality, that when any foreign model is accepted it receives hardly any colour from the native genius, and remains a cultivated exotic. the less promising soil of anglo-saxon idiom waited for the foreign influences, ancient and modern, of the renaissance to act upon it, and then it produced a crop which has dwarfed all the produce of the modern world, and has nearly, if not quite, equalled in perfection, while it has much exceeded in bulk and length of flowering time, the produce of greece. the rush of foreign influences on the england of elizabeth's time, stimulated alike by the printing press, by religious movements, by the revival of ancient learning, and by the habits of travel and commerce, has not been equalled in force and volume by anything else in history. but the different influences of different languages and countries worked with very different force. to the easier and more generally known of the classical tongues must be assigned by far the largest place. this was only natural at a time when to the inherited and not yet decayed use of colloquial and familiar latin as the vehicle of business, of literature, and of almost everything that required the committal of written words to paper, was added the scholarly study of its classical period from the strictly humanist point of view. if we could assign marks in the competition, latin would have to receive nearly as many as all its rivals put together; but greek would certainly not be second, though it affected, especially in the channel of the platonic dialogues, many of the highest and most gifted souls. in the latter part of the present period there were probably scholars in england who, whether their merely philological attainments might or might not pass muster now, were far better read in the actual literature of the greek classics than the very philologists who now disdain them. not a few of the chief matters in greek literature--the epical grandeur of homer, the tragic principles of the three poets, and so forth--made themselves, at first or second hand, deeply felt. but on the whole greek did not occupy the second place. that place was occupied by italian. it was italy which had touched the spring that let loose the poetry of surrey and wyatt; italy was the chief resort of travelled englishmen in the susceptible time of youth; italy provided in petrarch (dante was much less read) and boccaccio, in ariosto and tasso, an inexhaustible supply of models, both in prose and verse. spain was only less influential because spanish literature was in a much less finished condition than italian, and perhaps also because political causes made the following of spaniards seem almost unpatriotic. yet the very same causes made the spanish language itself familiar to far more englishmen than are familiar with it now, though the direct filiation of euphuism on spanish originals is no doubt erroneous, and though the english and spanish dramas evolved themselves in lines rather parallel than connected. france and germany were much (indeed infinitely) less influential, and the fact is from some points of view rather curious. both were much nearer to england than spain or italy; there was much more frequent communication with both; there was at no time really serious hostility with either; and the genius of both languages was, the one from one side, the other from the other, closely connected with that of english. yet in the great productions of our great period, the influence of germany is only perceptible in some burlesque matter, such as _eulenspiegel_ and _grobianus_, in the furnishing of a certain amount of supernatural subject-matter like the faust legend, and in details less important still. french influence is little greater; a few allusions of "e. k." to marot and ronsard; a few translations and imitations by spenser, watson, and others; the curious sonnets of _zepheria_; a slight echo of rabelais here and there; some adapted songs to music; and a translated play or two on the senecan model.[ ] [ ] some, like my friend mr. lee, would demur to this, especially as regards the sonnet. but desportes, the chief creditor alleged, was himself an infinite borrower from the italians. soothern, an early but worthless sonneteer, _c._ , did certainly imitate the french. but france had already exercised a mighty influence upon england; and germany had very little influence to exercise for centuries. putting aside all pre-chaucerian influence which may be detected, the outside guiding force of literary english literature (which was almost exclusively poetry) had been french from the end of the fourteenth century to the last survivals of the scoto-chaucerian school in hawes, skelton, and lindsay. true, france had now something else to give; though it must be remembered that her great school coincided with rather than preceded the great school of england, that the _défense et illustration de la langue française_ was but a few years anterior to tottel's _miscellany_, and that, except marot and rabelais (neither of whom was neglected, though neither exercised much formal influence), the earlier french writers of the sixteenth century had nothing to teach england. on the other hand, germany was utterly unable to supply anything in the way of instruction in literary form; and it was instruction in literary form which was needed to set the beanstalk of english literature growing even unto the heavens. despite the immense advantage which the english adoption of german innovations in religion gave the country of luther, that country's backwardness made imitation impossible. luther himself had not elaborated anything like a german style; he had simply cleared the vernacular of some of its grossest stumbling-blocks and started a good plain fashion of sentence. that was not what england wanted or was likely to want, but a far higher literary instruction, which germany could not give her and (for the matter of that) has never been in a position to give her. the models which she sought had to be sought elsewhere, in athens, in old rome, in modern tuscany. but it would probably be unwise not to make allowance for a less commonplace and more "metaphysical" explanation. it was precisely because french and german had certain affinities with english, while italian and spanish, not to mention the classical tongues, were strange and exotic, that the influence of the latter group was preferred. the craving for something not familiar, for something new and strange, is well known enough in the individual; and nations are, after all, only aggregates of individuals. it was exactly because the models of the south were so utterly divided from the isolated briton in style and character that he took so kindly to them, and that their study inspired him so well. there were not, indeed, wanting signs of what mischief might have been done if english sense had been less robust and the english genius of a less stubborn idiosyncrasy. euphuism, the occasional practice of the senecan drama, the preposterous and almost incredible experiments in classical metre of men not merely like drant and harvey, but like sidney and spenser, were sufficiently striking symptoms of the ferment which was going on in the literary constitution of the country. but they were only harmless heat-rashes, not malignant distempers, and the spirit of england won through them, with no loss of general health, probably with the result of the healthy excretion of many peccant humours which might have been mischievous if driven in. even the strongest of all the foreign forces, the just admiration of the masterpieces of classical antiquity, was not in any way hurtful; and it is curious enough that it is only in what may be called the autumn and, comparatively speaking, the decadence of the period that anything that can be called pedantry is observed. it is in milton and browne, not in shakespere and hooker, that there is an appearance of undue domination and "obsession" by the classics. the subdivisions of the period in which these purely literary influences worked in combination with those of the domestic and foreign policy of england (on which it is unnecessary here to dilate), can be drawn with tolerable precision. they are both better marked and more important in verse than in prose. for it cannot be too often asserted that the age, in the wide sense, was, despite many notable achievements in the _sermo pedestris_, not an age of prose but an age of poetry. the first period extends (taking literary dates) from the publication of tottel's _miscellany_ to that of _the shepherd's calendar_. it is not distinguished by much production of positive value. in poetry proper the writers pursue and exercise themselves upon the track of surrey, wyatt, and the other authors whom grimoald, or some other, collected; acquiring, no doubt, a certain facility in the adjustment to iambic and other measures of the altered pronunciation since chaucer's time; practising new combinations in stanza, but inclining too much to the doggerel alexandrines and fourteeners (more doggerel still when chance or design divided them into eights and sixes); repeating, without much variation, images and phrases directly borrowed from foreign models; and displaying, on the whole, a singular lack of inspiration which half excuses the mistaken attempt of the younger of them, and of their immediate successors, to arrive at the desired poetical medium by the use of classical metres. among men actually living and writing at this time lord buckhurst alone displays a real poetical faculty. nor is the case much better in respect of drama, though here the restless variety of tentative displays even more clearly the vigorous life which underlay incomplete performance, and which promised better things shortly. the attempt of _gorboduc_ and a few other plays to naturalise the artificial tragedy, though a failure, was one of those failures which, in the great literary "rule of false," help the way to success; the example of _ralph roister doister_ and _gammer gurton's needle_ could not fail to stimulate the production of genuine native farce which might any day become _la bonne comédie_. and even the continued composition of moralities showed signs of the growing desire for life and individuality of character. moreover, the intense and increasing liking for the theatre in all classes of society, despite the discouragement of the authorities, the miserable reward offered to actors and playwrights, and the discredit which rested on the vocations of both, was certain in the ordinary course of things to improve the supply. the third division of literature made slower progress under less powerful stimulants. no emulation, like that which tempted the individual graduate or templar to rival surrey in addressing his mistress's eyebrow, or sackville in stately rhyming on english history, acted on the writers of prose. no public demand, like that which produced the few known and the hundred forgotten playwrights of the first half of elizabeth's reign, served as a hotbed. but it is the great secret of prose that it can dispense with such stimulants. everybody who wished to make his thoughts known began, with the help of the printing press, to make them known; and the informal use of the vernacular, by dint of this unconscious practice and of the growing scholarship both of writers and readers, tended insensibly to make itself less of a mere written conversation and more of a finished prose style. preaching in english, the prose pamphlet, and translations into the vernacular were, no doubt, the three great schoolmasters in the disciplining of english prose. but by degrees all classes of subjects were treated in the natural manner, and so the various subdivisions of prose style--oratorical, narrative, expository, and the rest--slowly evolved and separated themselves, though hardly, even at the close of the time, had they attained the condition of finish. the year may be fixed on with almost mathematical accuracy as the date at which the great generation of elizabethan writers first showed its hand with lyly's _euphues_ in prose and spenser's _shepherd's calendar_ in verse. drama was a little, but not more than a little, later in showing the same signs of rejuvenescence; and from that time forward till the end of the century not a year passed without the appearance of some memorable work or writer; while the total production of the twenty years exceeds in originality and force, if not always in artistic perfection of form, the production of any similar period in the world's history. the group of university wits, following the example of lyly (who, however, in drama hardly belongs to the most original school), started the dramas of history, of romance, of domestic life; and, by fashioning through their leader marlowe the tragic decasyllable, put into the hands of the still greater group who succeeded them an instrument, the power of which it is impossible to exaggerate. before the close of the century they had themselves all ceased their stormy careers; but shakespere was in the full swing of his activity; ben jonson had achieved the freshest and perhaps capital fruit of his study of humours; dekker, webster, middleton, chapman, and a crowd of lesser writers had followed in his steps. in poetry proper the magnificent success of _the faërie queen_ had in one sense no second; but it was surrounded with a crowd of productions hardly inferior in their own way, the chief being the result of the great and remarkable sonnet outburst of the last decade of the century. the doggerel of the earlier years had almost entirely disappeared, and in its place appeared the perfect concerted music of the stanzas (from the sonnet and the spenserian downwards), the infinite variety of the decasyllable, and the exquisite lyric snatches of song in the dramatists, pamphleteers, and music-book writers. following the general law already indicated, the formal advance in prose was less, but an enormous stride was made in the direction of applying it to its various uses. the theologians, with hooker at their head, produced almost the first examples of the measured and dignified treatment of argument and exposition. bacon (towards the latter end it is true) produced the earliest specimens of his singular mixture of gravity and fancy, pregnant thought and quaint expression. history in the proper sense was hardly written, but a score of chroniclers, some not deficient in narrative power, paved the way for future historians. in imaginative and miscellaneous literature the fantastic extravagances of lyly seemed as though they might have an evil effect. in reality they only spurred ingenious souls on to effort in refining prose, and in one particular direction they had a most unlooked for result. the imitation in little by greene, lodge, and others, of their long-winded graces, helped to popularise the pamphlet, and the popularisation of the pamphlet led the way to periodical writing--an introduction perhaps of doubtful value in itself, but certainly a matter of no small importance in the history of literature. and so by degrees professional men of letters arose--men of letters, professional in a sense, which had not existed since the days of the travelling jongleurs of the early middle ages. these men, by working for the actors in drama, or by working for the publishers in the prose and verse pamphlet (for the latter form still held its ground), earned a subsistence which would seem sometimes to have been not a mere pittance, and which at any rate, when folly and vice did not dissipate it, kept them alive. much nonsense no doubt has been talked about the fourth estate; but such as it is, for good or for bad, it practically came into existence in these prolific years. the third period, that of vigorous manhood, may be said to coincide roughly with the reign of james i., though if literary rather than political dates be preferred, it might be made to begin with the death of spenser in , and to end with the damnation of ben jonson's _new inn_ just thirty years later. in the whole of this period till the very last there is no other sign of decadence than the gradual dropping off in the course of nature of the great men of the preceding stage, not a few of whom, however, survived into the next, while the places of those who fell were taken in some cases by others hardly below the greatest, such as beaumont and fletcher. many of the very greatest works of what is generally known as the elizabethan era--the later dramas of shakespere, almost the whole work of ben jonson, the later poems of drayton, daniel, and chapman, the plays of webster and middleton, and the prose of raleigh, the best work of bacon, the poetry of browne and wither--date from this time, while the astonishingly various and excellent work of the two great dramatists above mentioned is wholly comprised within it. and not only is there no sign of weakening, but there is hardly a sign of change. a slight, though only a slight, depression of the imaginative and moral tone may be noticed or fancied in those who, like fletcher, are wholly of the period, and a certain improvement in general technical execution testifies to longer practice. but webster might as well have written years earlier (hardly so well years later) than he actually did; and especially in the case of numerous anonymous or single works, the date of which, or at least of their composition, is obscure, it is very difficult from internal evidence of style and sentiment to assign them to one date rather than to another, to the last part of the strictly elizabethan or the first part of the strictly jacobean period. were it not for the occasional imitation of models, the occasional reference to dated facts, it would be not so much difficult as impossible. if there seems to be less audacity of experiment, less of the fire of youth, less of the unrestrainable restlessness of genius eager to burst its way, that, as has been already remarked of another difference, may not improbably be mainly due to fancy, and to the knowledge that the later efforts actually were later as to anything else. in prose more particularly there is no change whatever. few new experiments in style were tried, unless the _characters_ of overbury and earle may be called such. the miscellaneous pamphlets of the time were written in much the same fashion, and in some cases by the same men, as when, forty years before jonson summoned himself to "quit the loathed stage," nash had alternately laughed at gabriel harvey, and savagely lashed the martinists. the graver writers certainly had not improved upon, and had not greatly changed the style in which hooker broke his lance with travers, or descanted on the sanctity of law. the humour-comedy of jonson, the romantic _drame_ of fletcher, with the marmoreally-finished minor poems of ben, were the nearest approaches of any product of the time to novelty of general style, and all three were destined to be constantly imitated, though only in the last case with much real success, during the rest of our present period. yet the post-restoration comedy is almost as much due to jonson and fletcher as to foreign models, and the influence of both, after long failing to produce anything of merit, was not imperceptible even in congreve and vanbrugh. of the fourth period, which practically covers the reign of charles i. and the interregnum of the commonwealth, no one can say that it shows no signs of decadence, when the meaning of that word is calculated according to the cautions given above in noticing its poets. yet the decadence is not at all of the kind which announces a long literary dead season, but only of that which shows that the old order is changing to a new. nor if regard be merely had to the great names which adorn the time, may it seem proper to use the word decadence at all. to this period belong not only milton, but taylor, browne, clarendon, hobbes (four of the greatest names in english prose), the strange union of learning in matter and quaintness in form which characterises fuller and burton, the great dramatic work of massinger and ford. to it also belongs the exquisite if sometimes artificial school of poetry which grew up under the joint inspiration of the great personal influence and important printed work of ben jonson on the one hand, and the subtler but even more penetrating stimulant of the unpublished poetry of donne on the other--a school which has produced lyrical work not surpassed by that of any other school or time, and which, in some specially poetical characteristics, may claim to stand alone. if then, we speak of decadence, it is necessary to describe with some precision what is meant, and to do so is not difficult, for the signs of it are evident, not merely in the rank and file of writers (though they are naturally most prominent here), but to some extent in the great illustrations of the period themselves. in even the very best work of the time there is a want of the peculiar freshness and spontaneity, as of spring water from the rock, which characterises earlier work. the art is constantly admirable, but it is almost obtrusively art--a proposition which is universally true even of the greatest name of the time, of milton, and which applies equally to taylor and to browne, to massinger and to ford, sometimes even to herrick (extraordinary as is the grace which he manages to impart), and almost always to carew. the lamp is seldom far off, though its odour may be the reverse of disagreeable. but in the work which is not quite so excellent, other symptoms appear which are as decisive and less tolerable. in the poetry of the time there appear, side by side with much exquisite melody and much priceless thought, the strangest blotches, already more than once noticed, of doggerel, of conceits pushed to the verge of nonsense and over the verge of grotesque, of bad rhyme and bad rhythm which are evidently not the result of mere haste and creative enthusiasm but of absolutely defective ear, of a waning sense of harmony. in the drama things are much worse. only the two dramatists already mentioned, with the doubtful addition of shirley, display anything like great or original talent. a few clever playwrights do their journey-work with creditable craftsmanship. but even this characteristic is wanting in the majority. the plots relapse into a chaos almost as great as that of the drama of fifty years earlier, but with none of its excuse of inexperience and of redeeming purple patches. the characters are at once uninteresting and unpleasant; the measure hobbles and staggers; the dialogue varies between passages of dull declamation and passages of almost duller repartee. perhaps, though the prose names of the time are greater than those of its dramatists, or, excluding milton's, of its poets, the signs of something wrong are clearest in prose. it would be difficult to find in any good prose writer between and shameless anomalies of arrangement, the clumsy distortions of grammar, which the very greatest caroline writers permit themselves in the intervals, and sometimes in the very course of their splendid eloquence; while, as for lesser men, the famous incoherences of cromwell's speeches are hardly more than a caricature of the custom of the day. something has yet to be said as to the general characteristics of this time--characteristics which, scarcely discernible in the first period, yet even there to be traced in such work as that of surrey and sackville, emerge into full prominence in the next, continue with hardly any loss in the third, and are discernible even in the "decadence" of the fourth. even yet they are not universally recognised, and it appears to be sometimes thought that because critics speak with enthusiasm of periods in which, save at rare intervals, and as it were by accident, they are not discernible at all, such critics are insensible to them where they occur. never was there a grosser mistake. it is said that m. taine, in private conversation, once said to a literary novice who rashly asked him whether he liked this or that, "monsieur, en littérature j'aime tout." it was a noble and correct sentiment, though it might be a little difficult for the particular critic who formulated it to make good his claim to it as a motto. the ideal critic undoubtedly does like everything in literature, provided that it is good of its kind. he likes the unsophisticated tentatives of the earliest minstrel poetry, and the cultivated perfection of form of racine and pope; he likes the massive vigour of the french and english sixteenth centuries, and the alembicated exquisiteness of catullus and carew; he does not dislike webster because he is not dryden, or young because he is not spenser; he does not quarrel with sophocles because he is not Æschylus, or with hugo because he is not heine. but at the same time it is impossible for him not to recognise that there are certain periods where inspiration and accomplishment meet in a fashion which may be sought for in vain at others. these are the great periods of literature, and there are perhaps only five of them, with five others which may be said to be almost level. the five first are the great age of greek literature from Æschylus to plato, the great ages of english and french literature in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the whole range of italian literature from dante to ariosto, and the second great age of english from the _lyrical ballads_ to the death of coleridge. it is the super-eminent glory of english that it counts twice in the reckoning. the five seconds are the augustan age of latin, the short but brilliant period of spanish literary development, the romantic era in france, the age of goethe in germany, including heine's earlier and best work, and (with difficulty, and by allowance chiefly of swift and dryden) the half century from the appearance of _absalom and achitophel_ to the appearance of _gulliver_ and _the dunciad_ in england. out of these there are great men but no great periods, and the first class is distinguished from the second, not so much by the fact that almost all the greatest literary names of the world are found in it, as because it is evident to a careful reader that there was more of the general spirit of poetry and of literature diffused in human brains at these times than at any other. it has been said more than once that english elizabethan literature may, and not merely in virtue of shakespere, claim the first place even among the first class. the full justification of this assertion could only be given by actually going through the whole range of the literature, book in hand. the foregoing pages have given it as it were in _précis_, rather than in any fuller fashion. and it has been thought better to devote some of the space permitted to extract as the only possible substitute for this continual book-in-hand exemplification. many subjects which might properly form the subject of excursus in a larger history have been perforce omitted, the object being to give, not a series of interesting essays on detached points, but a conspectus of the actual literary progress and accomplishment of the century, from to . such essays exist already in great numbers, though some no doubt are yet to write. the extraordinary influence of plato, or at least of a more or less indistinctly understood platonism, on many of the finer minds of the earlier and middle period, is a very interesting point, and it has been plausibly connected with the fact that giordano bruno was for some years a resident in england, and was acquainted with the greville-sidney circle at the very time that that circle was almost the cradle of the new english literature. the stimulus given not merely by the popular fancy for rough dramatic entertainments, but by the taste of courts and rich nobles for masques--a taste which favoured the composition of such exquisite literature as ben jonson's and milton's masterpieces--is another side subject of the same kind. i do not know that, much as has been written on the reformation, the direct influence of the form which the reformation took in england on the growth of english literature has ever been estimated and summarised fully and yet briefly, so as to show the contrast between the distinctly anti-literary character of most of the foreign protestant and the english puritan movement on the one side, and the literary tendencies of anglicanism on the other. the origins of euphuism and of that later form of preciousness which is sometimes called gongorism and sometimes marinism have been much discussed, but the last word has certainly not been said on them. for these things, however (which are merely quoted as examples of a very numerous class), there could be found no place here without excluding other things more centrally necessary to the unfolding of the history. and therefore i may leave what i have written with a short final indication of what seems to me the distinguishing mark of elizabethan literature. that mark is not merely the presence of individual works of the greatest excellence, but the diffusion throughout the whole work of the time of a _vivida vis_, of flashes of beauty in prose and verse, which hardly any other period can show. let us open one of the songbooks of the time, dowland's _second book of airs_, published in the central year of our period, , and reprinted by mr arber. here almost at random we hit upon this snatch-- "come ye heavy states of night, do my father's spirit right; soundings baleful let me borrow, burthening my song with sorrow: come sorrow, come! her eyes that sings by thee, are turnèd into springs. "come you virgins of the night that in dirges sad delight, quire my anthems; i do borrow gold nor pearl, but sounds of sorrow. come sorrow, come! her eyes that sings by thee, are turnèd into springs." it does not matter who wrote that--the point is its occurrence in an ordinary collection of songs to music neither better nor worse than many others. when we read such verses as this, or as the still more charming address to love given on page , there is evident at once the _non so che_ which distinguishes this period. there is a famous story of a good-natured conversation between scott and moore in the latter days of sir walter, in which the two poets agreed that verse which would have made a fortune in their young days appeared constantly in magazines without being much regarded in their age. no sensible person will mistake the meaning of the apparent praise. it meant that thirty years of remarkable original production and of much study of models had made possible and common a standard of formal merit which was very rare at an earlier time. now this standard of formal merit undoubtedly did not generally exist in the days of elizabeth. but what did generally exist was the "wind blowing where it listeth," the presence and the influence of which are least likely to be mistaken or denied by those who are most strenuous in insisting on the importance and the necessity of formal excellence itself. i once undertook for several years the criticism of minor poetry for a literary journal, which gave more room than most to such things, and during the time i think i must have read through or looked over probably not much less than a thousand, certainly not less than five or six hundred volumes. i am speaking with seriousness when i say that nothing like the note of the merely casual pieces quoted or referred to above was to be detected in more than at the outside two or three of these volumes, and that where it seemed to sound faintly some second volume of the same author's almost always came to smother it soon after. there was plenty of quite respectable poetic learning: next to nothing of the poetic spirit. now in the period dealt with in this volume that spirit is everywhere, and so are its sisters, the spirits of drama and of prose. they may appear in full concentration and lustre, as in _hamlet_ or _the faërie queene_; or in fitful and intermittent flashes, as in scores and hundreds of sonneteers, pamphleteers, playwrights, madrigalists, preachers. but they are always not far off. in reading other literatures a man may lose little by obeying the advice of those who tell him only to read the best things: in reading elizabethan literature by obeying he can only disobey that advice, for the best things are everywhere.[ ] [ ] in the twenty years which have passed since this book was first published, monographs on most of the points indicated on p. have appeared, both in england and america. index i.--bibliographical single plays, poems, etc., not mentioned in this index will be found in the collections referred to under the headings arber, bullen, farmer, grosart, hazlitt, park, simpson. alexander, sir william. _see_ stirling. arber, e., english garner, vols. i.-viii., birmingham and london, - . _also_ new editions in redistributed volumes by lee, collins, and others. ascham, roger, toxophilus. ed. arber, london, . the schoolmaster. ed. arber, london, . works. ed. giles, vols., london, . bacon, francis, works of. vols. folio, london, . barnabee's journal. by r. braithwaite. ed. haslewood and hazlitt, london, . barnes, barnabe, parthenophil and parthenophe. in grosart's occasional issues, vol. i. the devil's charter. ed. m'kerrow, louvain. barnfield, richard, poems. ed. arber, birmingham, . basse, william, poems of. ed. bond, london, . beaumont, francis, poems of. in chalmers's british poets, vol. vi. beaumont, sir john, poems of. in chalmers's british poets, vol. vi. beaumont, joseph, poems of. ed. grosart, vols. privately printed, . beaumont and fletcher, dramatic works of. vols., london, . vols., ed. darley, london, . vols., ed. dyce, london, . two new editions in progress now ( )--one ed. bullen, london, the other ed. waller, cambridge. benlowes, edward, theophila. in minor caroline poets, vol. i., oxford, . bible. the holy bible, authorised version, oxford, . revised version, oxford, . breton, nicholas, works of. ed. grosart, vols. privately printed, . brome, alexander, poems of. in chalmers's poets, vol. vi. brome, richard, plays of. vols., london, . brooke, fulke greville, lord, works of. ed. grosart, vols. privately printed, . browne, sir thomas, works of. ed. wilkin, vols., london, . religio medici. ed. greenhill, london, . browne, william, poems of. in chalmers's british poets, vol. vi. _also_ vols. ed. hazlitt, london, . _also_ ed. goodwin, vols., london, . bullen, a. h., old plays, vols., london, - . ditto, new series, vols, i. ii. iii., london, - . lyrics from elizabethan song-books, vols., - . ditto, romances, . ditto, dramatists, . _speculum amantis_, . davison's poetical rhapsody, vols., . england's helicon. london, . arden of feversham. london, . burton, robert, the anatomy of melancholy. vols., london, . carey, patrick. in minor caroline poets, vol. ii., oxford, . carew, thomas, poems of. edinburgh, . _also_ in chalmers's poets, vol. v. _also_ ed. hazlitt, london, . cartwright, william, poems of. in chalmers's poets, vol. vi. chalkhill, john, thealma and clearchus. in minor caroline poets, vol. ii. chalmers, a., british poets, vols., london, . chamberlayne, william, pharonnida. in minor caroline poets, vol. i. chapman, george, works of. vols., london, . churchyard, t. no complete edition. some things reprinted by collier and in heliconia. clarendon, edward hyde, earl of. works, vol., oxford, . cleveland, john. contemporary edd. numerous but puzzling and untrustworthy. a recent one by j. m. berdan, new york, n.d. cokain, sir aston, plays of. edinburgh, . constable, henry, diana. in arber's english garner, vol. ii. corbet, bishop, poems of. in chalmers's poets, vol. v. cotton, charles, poems of. in chalmers's poets, vol. vi. crashaw, richard, poems of. ed. grosart, vols. privately printed, . _also_ in chalmers's british poets, vol. vi. _also_ ed. waller, cambridge, . daniel, samuel, delia. in arber's english garner, vol. iii. _also_ works of. in chalmers's british poets, vol. iii. _also_ works of. ed. grosart, vols. privately printed, - . davenant, sir william, dramatic works of. vols., edinburgh, - . poems of. chalmers's british poets, vol. iv. davies, sir john, poems of. in chalmers's british poets, vol. v. davies, john, of hereford, works. ed. grosart, vols. privately printed, . day, john, works of. ed. bullen. privately printed, . dekker, thomas, dramatic works of. vols., london, . prose works of. vols. ed. grosart. privately printed, - . donne, john, poems of. ed. grosart, vols. privately printed, . _also_ ed. chambers, vols., london, . drayton, michael, idea. in arber's english garner, vol. vi. works of. in chalmers's british poets, vol. iv. drummond, william, poems of. in chalmers's british poets, vol. v. _also_ published for the maitland club. edinburgh, . dyer, sir edward, poems of. in hannah's courtly poets. early english dramatists. ed. farmer, vols. i.-ix., london, - . eden, richard, the first three english books on america. ed. arber, birmingham, . elizabethan critical essays. ed. g. smith, vols., oxford, . elizabethan sonnets. ed. lee, vols., london, . felltham, owen, resolves. london, (but _see_ p. ). fletcher, giles, licia. in grosart's occasional issues, vol, ii. fletcher, giles, the younger, poems of. in chalmers's british poets, vol. vi. fletcher, phineas, poems of. in chalmers's british poets, vol. vi. ford, john, works of. ed. hartley coleridge, london, . fuller, thomas, worthies of england. ed. nichols, vols. to, london, . thoughts in good times. london, . holy and profane state. london, . church history. london, . gascoigne, george, works of. ed. hazlitt, london, . _also_ in chalmers's british poets, vol. ii. gifford, humphrey, a posy of gillyflowers. in grosart's occasional issues, vol. i. glapthorne, henry, works of. vols., london, . godolphin, sidney, poems of. in minor caroline poets, vol. ii. goff, thomas, plays. london, . googe, barnabe, eclogues, epitaphs, and sonnets. ed. arber, london, . greene, robert, dramatic works of. ed. dyce, london, . _also_ ed. collins, vols., oxford, . _also_ complete works of. ed. grosart, vols. privately printed, - . griffin, bartholomew, fidessa. in grosart's occasional issues, vol. ii. grosart, a. b., fuller worthies library. chertsey worthies library. occasional issues. privately printed, v.d. guilpin, edward, skialetheia. in grosart's occasional issues, vol. vi. habington, william, castara. ed. arber, london, . _also_ in chalmers's poets, vol. vi. hakluyt, richard, the voyages, etc., of the english nation: edinburgh. _also_ a later edition, glasgow. hales, john, works of. vols., glasgow, . hall, john, poems of. in minor caroline poets, vol. ii. hall, joseph, virgidemiarum, etc. in grosart's occasional issues, vol. ix. _also_ in chalmers's poets, vol. v. hannah, dr., poems of raleigh, wotton, and other courtly poets. aldine series, london, . harvey, gabriel, works. ed. grosart, vols. privately printed, - . hazlitt, w. c., dodsley's old plays, vols., london, - . shakespere's library. vols., london, . herbert, edward, lord herbert of cherbury, autobiography. ed. lee, london, . herbert, george, poems of. ed. grosart, london, . herrick, robert, poems of. ed. grosart, vols., london, . _also_ ed. pollard, vols., london, ; and ed. saintsbury, vols., london, . heywood, thomas, dramatic works of. vols., london, . pleasant dialogues, etc. ed. bang, louvain, . hobbes, thomas, works. ed. molesworth, vols., london, - . hooker, richard, ecclesiastical polity. vols., oxford, . howell, james, familiar letters. the eleventh edition, london, . howell, thomas, the arbour of amity. in grosart's occasional issues, vol. viii. j. c., alcilia. in grosart's occasional issues, vol. viii. _also_ in arber's english garner, vol. iv. jonson, ben, works of. ed. cunningham, vols., london, n.d. knolles, richard, history of the turks. third edition, london, . kyd, thomas, cornelia. in hazlitt's dodsley, vol. v. jeronimo, (?) in do. vol. iv. the spanish tragedy, in do. vol. v. works. ed. boas, oxford, . kynaston, sir francis, poems of. in minor caroline poets, vol, ii. lodge, thomas, euphues' golden legacy in shakespere's library, vol. ii., london, . lovelace, richard, poems of. ed. hazlitt, london, . lyly, john, euphues. ed. arber, london, . dramatic works. ed. fairholt, vols., london, . complete works. ed. bond, vols., oxford, . lynch, diella. in grosart's occasional issues, vol. iv. marlowe, christopher, works of. ed. dyce, london, . _also_ ed. bullen, vols., london, . marmion, shakerley, plays of. edinburgh, . cupid and psyche. in minor caroline poets, vol. ii. marprelate, martin, tracts by and against. _see_ text. the epistle. ed. petheram. _also_ ed. arber, the english scholars' library. diotrephes, by n. udall. ed. arber. demonstration of discipline, by n. udall. ed. arber. an admonition to the people of england, by t. c. ed. petheram. _also_ ed. arber. hay any work for cooper. ed. petheram. pap with a hatchet. ed. petheram. an almond for a parrot. ed. petheram. a counter-cuff to martin junior, etc., in works of nash. ed. grosart. plain percival, the peacemaker of england. ed. petheram. marston, john, works of. ed. halliwell, vols., london, . _also_ ed. bullen, vols., london, . poems of. in grosart's occasional issues, vol. xi. massinger, philip. ed. hartley coleridge, london, . middleton, thomas, dramatic works of. ed. bullen, vols., london, . milton, john, poems of. in chalmers's british poets, vol. vii. prose works of. vols., philadelphia, . ed. masson, vols., london, . minor caroline poets, vols. i. and ii., oxford, - . mirror for magistrates, the. ed. hazlewood, vols., london, . miscellanies, seven poetical. ed. collier, london, . some in heliconia. more, henry, poems of. ed. grosart. privately printed, . mulcaster, richard, positions. ed. quick, london, . nabbes, thomas, works of. in bullen's old plays, new series, vols. i. and ii. nash, thomas, works of. ed. grosart, vols. privately printed, - . ed. m'kerrow, vols., london, . park, t., heliconia. vols., london, . peele, george, works of. ed. dyce, london, . percy, w., coelia, in grosart's occasional issues, vol. iv. puttenham, george, the art of english poesy. ed. arber, london, . _also_ in g. smith, elizabethan critical essays. quarles, francis. ed. grosart, vols. privately printed, - . raleigh, sir walter, history of the world. vols., london, . poems of. in hannah's courtly poets. randolph, thomas, works of. ed. hazlitt. vols., london, . return from parnassus, the. edited by w. macray, oxford, . rowlands, samuel, works of. ed. gosse, vols., glasgow, (hunterian club). sackville, thomas, lord buckhurst, works of. ed. sackville-west, london, . sandys, george, [sacred] poetical works of. ed. hooper, vols., london, . shakespere, william, works of. globe edition, london, . doubtful plays. ed. warnke and proescholdt, halle. _also_ ed. hazlitt, london, n.d. sherburne, sir edward, poems of. in chalmers's poets, vol. vi. shirley, james, plays of. ed. gifford and dyce, vols., london, . sidney, philip, poetical works. ed. grosart, vols., london, . an apology for poetry. ed. arber, london, . arcadia. ed. sommer, london, . simpson. r., the school of shakespere, vols., london, . smith, t., chloris. in grosart's occasional issues, vol. iv. southwell, robert, poems. ed. grosart. printed for private circulation. spenser, edmund. ed. todd, london, . _also_ ed. morris and hales, london, . _also_ ed. grosart, vols. i.-ix. privately printed, - . stanley, t., poems. partly reprinted, london, . stanyhurst, richard, the first four books of the Æneid. ed. arber, london, . still, john, gammer gurton's needle. in hazlitt's dodsley, vol. iii. stirling, william alexander, earl of, poems of. in chalmers's british poets, vol. v. suckling, sir john, works of. ed. hazlitt, vols., london, . surrey, earl of. _see_ tottel's miscellany. _also_ in chalmers's british poets, vol. ii. sylvester, joshua, works of. ed. grosart, vols. privately printed, . taylor, jeremy, works of. vols., london, . tottel's miscellany. ed. arber, london, . tourneur, cyril, works of. ed. collins, vols., london, . traherne, thomas, poems. ed. dobell, london, . turberville, george, poems of. in chalmers's british poets, vol. ii. tusser, thomas. ed. mavor, london, . _also_ by english dialect society, . udall, n., ralph roister doister. in hazlitt's dodsley, vol. iii. vaughan, henry. ed. grosart. privately printed. vols., - . _also_ silex scintillans. facsimile of st edition. ed. clare, london, . _also_ vols., ed. chambers, london, . walton, izaak, the complete angler. london, . lives. london, . warner, william, albion's england. in chalmers's british poets, vol. iv. watson, thomas, poems. ed. arber, london, . webbe, william, a discourse of english poetry. ed. arber, london, . _also_ in g. smith, elizabethan critical essays. webster, john, works of. ed. dyce, london, . wither, george, hymns and songs of the church. ed. farr, london, . hallelujah. ed. farr, london, . philarete, in arber's english garner, vol. iv. fidelia, in arber's english garner, vol. vi. poems generally in spenser society's issues. wotton, sir henry, poems of. in hannah's courtly poets. wyatt, sir thomas. _see_ tottel's miscellany. ii.--general _albumazar_, . alexander, sir william. see stirling. andrewes, bishop lancelot ( - ), . _arden of feversham_, . ascham, roger ( - ), - . bacon, francis, lord ( - ), - . _barnabee's journal_, . barnes, barnabe ( ?- ), , . barnfield, richard ( - ), his poems, , . basse, william (d. ?), . baxter, richard ( - ), . beaumont, francis ( - ), his poems, . _see_ also beaumont and fletcher. beaumont, sir john ( - ), his poems, . beaumont, joseph ( - ), . beaumont and fletcher, - . benlowes, edward ( ?- ), . bible, the english, authorised and revised versions, - . breton, nicholas ( ?- ?), his verse, ; his prose pamphlets, - . brome, richard ( ?- ?), , . brooke, fulke greville, lord ( - ), - . browne, sir thomas ( - ), - ; his life, , ; his works and style, - . browne, william ( - ?), his life and poems, - . bruno, giordano, his influence, , . burton, robert ( - ), - . _cambyses_, , , _note_. campion, thomas ( ?- ), , _sq._, , _note_. carew, thomas ( ?- ), - . carey, patrick ( ?- ?), . caroline poetry, a discussion of the merits and defects of, - . cartwright, william ( - ), his poems, ; his plays, . chalkhill, john ( ?- ?), . chamberlayne, william ( - ), . chapman, george ( ?- ), his life, poems, and translations, - . chillingworth, william ( - ), . churchyard, thomas ( ?- ), - , , _note_. clarendon, edward hyde, earl of ( - ), his life, works, and style, - . cleveland, john ( - ), . cokain, sir aston ( - ), , . constable, henry ( - ), . corbet, bishop ( - ), his poems, - . coryat, thomas ( ?- ), . cosin, bishop ( - ), . cotton, charles ( - ), his poems, , . cowley's prose, . crashaw, richard ( ?- ), his life and poems, - . critics, elizabethan, - . daniel, samuel ( - ), his sonnets, , ; his other poems, - ; his prose, - . davenant, sir william ( - ), , . davenport, robert ( ?- ?), . davies, john, of hereford ( ?- ), - . davies, sir john ( - ), his life and poems, - . day, john ( ?- ?), his plays, - . "decadence," , , - . dekker, thomas ( ?- ?), his plays and songs, - ; his pamphlets, - . _distracted emperor, the_, . donne, john ( - ), his satires and other poems, - . drama, elizabethan, general characteristics, - . dramatic periods, division of, , . drayton, michael ( - ), his sonnets, , ; his other poems, - . drummond, william, of hawthornden ( - ), - . earle, bishop ( ?- ), . _ecclesiastical polity_, the, _sq._ eden, richard ( ?- ), his geographical work, . _edward iii._, . edwards, richard ( ?- ), dramatist and miscellanist, , , . _eikon basilike_, . _euphues_ and euphuism, - . _fair em_, , . felltham, owen ( ?- ?), , . field, nathaniel ( - ), his plays, . fitz-geoffrey, charles ( - ), his poem on drake, . fletcher, giles, the elder ( - ), . fletcher, giles and phineas, poems of, - . fletcher, john ( - ). _see_ beaumont and fletcher. ford, john ( ?- ?), his plays, - . fuller, thomas ( - ), - . _gammer gurton's needle_, - . gascoigne, george ( ?- ), - . gifford, humphrey ( ?- ?), his _posy of gillyflowers_, . gilpin or guilpin, edward ( ?- ?), his _skialetheia_, . glapthorne, henry ( ?- ?), , . godolphin, sidney ( - ), . goff, thomas ( - ), , _note_. googe, barnabe ( ?- ), - . gosson, stephen ( - ), . greene, robert ( - ), life and plays, - ; prose, - . griffin, bartholomew ( ?- ?), his _fidessa_, . grimald or grimoald, nicholas ( ?- ?), - . grove, matthew ( ?- ?), his poems, . habington, william ( - ), his _castara_, - ; his _queen of aragon_, . hakluyt, richard ( ?- ), his voyages, - . hales, john ( - ), . hall, john ( - ), . hall, joseph ( ?- ), his satires, - . herbert, george ( - ), - . herbert, lord, of cherbury ( - ), - . heroic poem, the, . herrick, robert ( - ), his life and poems, - . heywood, thomas ( ?- ?), his life and works, - . historical poems, . hobbes, thomas ( - ), his life, works, and style, - . hooker. richard ( ?- ), - ; his life, ; his prose style, - . howell, james ( ?- ), , . howell, thomas ( ?- ?), his poems, . j. c., his _alcilia_, . _jeronimo_, and _the spanish tragedy_, , . jonson, ben ( - ), his life, poems, and plays, - ; his prose, . kyd, thomas ( ?- ?), , , , _note_. kynaston, sir francis ( - ), , . lodge, thomas ( ?- ), his plays, ; his poems, - ; his satires, ; his prose pamphlets, - . lovelace, richard ( - ), his poems, - . lyly, john ( ?- ?), - , - ; his life, ; _euphues_ and euphuism, - ; his plays, - . lynch, richard ( ?- ?), his _diella_, . manuscript, habit of keeping poems in, . markham, gervase ( ?- ), his poem on _the revenge_, . marlowe, christopher ( - ), his life and plays, - . marmion, shakerley ( - ), his poems and plays, , . marston, john ( ?- ), his life and satires, - ; his plays, - . martin marprelate, sketch of the controversy and account of the principal tracts, - . massinger, philip ( - ), his plays, - . _merry devil of edmonton, the_, . metre, classical, the fancy for, and its reasons, , . metre, english, must be scanned by classical rules, . middleton, thomas ( ?- ), his life and works, - . milton, john ( - ), - ; his life and character, , ; divisions of his work, ; his early poems, - ; his prose, - ; his later poems, - . _mirror for magistrates, the_, - . _miscellany_, tottel's, - ; a starting-point, ; its authorship and composition, ; wyatt's and surrey's contributions to it, - ; grimald and minor authors, - ; metrical and material characteristics, , . miscellanies, the early elizabethan, subsequent to tottel's, - . miscellanies, caroline and later, . _miseries of enforced marriage, the_, . more, henry ( - ), his _song of the soul_, , . nabbes, thomas ( ?- ?), his plays, . nash, thomas ( - ), his plays, ; his prose works, - . _nero_, . north's plutarch, . oxford, edward, earl of ( - ), his poems, - . pearson, bishop ( - ), . peele, george ( ?- ), his life and plays, - . percy, william ( - ), his _coelia_, . _pharonnida_, . plays, early nondescript, . poetry, - . prose, the beginnings of modern english, - . prosody, weakness of the early elizabethans in, . pseudo-shakesperian plays, , . puttenham, george ( ?- ), . quarles, francis ( - ), , . raleigh, sir walter ( ?- ), his verse, - ; his prose, - . _ralph roister doister_, , . randolph, thomas ( - ), his poems, ; his plays, - . _return from parnassus, the_, , . rowlands, samuel ( ?- ?), , . rowley, samuel ( ?- ?), . rowley, william ( ?- ?), his plays, . sackville, thomas, lord buckhurst ( - ), his life and works, - ; the _induction_ and _complaint of buckingham_, - ; _gorboduc_, - . sanderson, bishop ( - ), . sandys, george ( - ), . satirists, the elizabethan, - . _second maiden's tragedy, the_, . senecan drama, the, - . shakespere, william ( - ), - ; his life, ; his works and their reputation, , ; their divisions, , ( - ); the early poems, ; the sonnets, - ; the plays, - ; the "doubtful" plays, - . sherburne, sir edward ( - ), his poems, . shirley, henry ( ?- ), , _note_. shirley, james ( - ), his plays, - . sidney, sir philip ( - ), his prose, - ; his prose style, ; his verse, - . smith, william ( ?- ?), his _chloris_, . songs, miscellaneous, from the dramatists and madrigal writers, - , - . sonneteers, the elizabethan, . southwell, robert ( ?- ), his poems, . spenser, edmund ( ?- ), - ; his life, - ; _the shepherd's calendar_, ; the minor poems, ; _the faërie queene_, - ; the spenserian stanza, ; spenser's language, ; his comparative rank in english poetry, - . stanley, thomas ( - ), , . stanyhurst, richard ( - ), - . still, john ( - ), his _gammer gurton's needle_, - . stirling, sir william alexander, earl of ( ?- ), - . suckling, sir john ( - ), his poems, - ; his plays, - . surrey, lord henry howard, earl of ( ?- ), - . sylvester, joshua ( - ), his du bartas, etc., - . taylor, jeremy ( - ), - ; his life, , ; his works and style, - . _theophila_, . _tottel's miscellany_. see _miscellany_. tourneur, cyril ( ?- ?), his poems, - ; his plays, , . traherne, thomas ( ?- ), , _note_. translators, the early elizabethan, , . turberville, george ( ?- ), - . _two angry women, the_, . _two noble kinsmen, the_, . udall, nicholas ( - ), his _ralph roister doister_, , . university wits, the, - . urquhart, sir thomas ( - ), . vaughan, henry ( - ), - , , _note_. version, the authorised, - . walton, izaak ( - ), . warner, william ( - ), - . watson, thomas ( ?- ), - . webbe, william ( ?- ?), . webster, john ( ?- ?), his life and works, - . willoughby's _avisa_, , . wither, george ( - ), life and poems, - . _wit's recreations_, . wyatt, sir thomas ( ?- ), - . _yorkshire tragedy, the_, . _zepheria_, . the end _printed by_ r. & r. clark, limited, _edinburgh_. produced from images generously made available by the internet archive.) the camelot series. edited by ernest rhys. elizabethan england. elizabethan england: from "a description of england," by william harrison (in "holinshed's chronicles"). edited by lothrop withington, with introduction by f. j. furnivall, ll.d. london: walter scott, warwick lane, paternoster row. contents. page chapter i. of degrees of people in the commonwealth of england chapter ii. of cities and towns in england chapter iii. of gardens and orchards chapter iv. of fairs and markets chapter v. of the laws of england since her first inhabitation chapter vi. of the ancient and present estate of the church of england chapter vii. of the food and diet of the english chapter viii. of our apparel and attire chapter ix. of the manner of building and furniture of our houses chapter x. of provision made for the poor chapter xi. of the air and soil and commodities of this island chapter xii. of sundry minerals and metals chapter xiii. of cattle kept for profit chapter xiv. of wild and tame fowls chapter xv. of savage beasts and vermin chapter xvi. of our english dogs and their qualities chapter xvii. of fish usually taken upon our coasts chapter xviii. of quarries of stone for building chapter xix. of woods and marshes chapter xx. of parks and warrens chapter xxi. of palaces belonging to the prince chapter xxii. of armour and munition chapter xxiii. of the navy of england chapter xxiv. of sundry kinds of punishment appointed for offenders chapter xxv. of universities appendix-- a.--holinshed's dedication b.--an elizabethan survey of england c.--somebody's quarrel with harrison d.--harrison's chronology "forewords."[ ] i am unwilling to send out this _harrison_, the friend of some twenty years' standing, without a few words of introduction to those readers who don't know it. the book is full of interest, not only to every shakspere student, but to every reader of english history, every man who has the least care for his forefathers' lives. though it does contain sheets of padding now and then, yet the writer's racy phrases are continually turning up, and giving flavour to his descriptions, while he sets before us the very england of shakspere's day. from its parliament and universities, to its beggars and its rogues; from its castles to its huts, its horses to its hens; from how the state was managd, to how mrs. wm. harrison (and no doubt mrs. william shakspere) brewd her beer; all is there. the book is a deliberately drawn picture of elizabethan england; and nothing could have kept it from being often reprinted and a thousand times more widely known than it is, except the long and dull historical and topographical book i.[ ]--_the description of britaine_--set before the interesting account in books ii. and iii., of the england under harrison's eyes in - . how harrison came to write his book[ ] was on this wise. reginald wolfe, the printer to queen elizabeth, meant to publish "a universall cosmographie of the whole world,[ ] and therewith also certaine particular histories of every knowne nation." for the historical part of the work, he engagd raphael holinshed, among other men; and when the work was nearly done, wolfe died, after twenty-five years' labour at his scheme. then the men who were to have borne the cost of printing the universall cosmographie were afraid to face the expense of the whole work, and resolvd to do only so much of it as related to england, scotland, and ireland.[ ] holinshed having the history of these countries in hand, application was made to harrison, who had long been compiling a chronologie[ ] of his own, to furnish the descriptions of britain and england. he was then household chaplain to the well-known sir william brooke, lord cobham (so praisd by francis thynne[ ]), and was staying in london, away from his rectory of radwinter in essex, and his library there. he had also travelld little himself, only into kent, to oxford and cambridge, etc., as he honestly tells lord cobham. still, mainly by the help of leland--"and hitherto leland, whose words i dare not alter"--as well as of "letters and pamphlets from sundrie places & shires of england," and "by conference with diuers folk,"[ ] and "by mine owne reading,"[ ] together with master sackford's charts or maps,"[ ] harrison--notwithstanding the failure of his correspondents[ ] and the loss of part of his material--"scambled up," what he depreciatingly calls "this foule frizeled treatise of mine," to "stand in lieu of a description of my countrie." but, he says, "howsoeuer it be done, & whatsoeuer i haue done, i haue had an especiall eye vnto the truth of things." and this merit, i think every reader will allow harrison. though he swallowd too easily some of the stories told in old chronicles,[ ] etc., though (in his nd ed. only) he put chertsey above, instead of below, staines, on the thames,[ ] etc., yet in all the interesting home-life part, he evidently gives both sides of the case, "speaks of it as it was; nothing extenuates, nor sets down aught in malice" (_oth._, v. ii. ). when he tells with pride, on the one hand, of the grand new buildings and the many chimnies put up in his day; on the other hand, he brings in the grumble: "and yet see the change, for when our houses were builded of willow, then had we oken men; but now that our houses are come to be made of oke, our men are not onlie become willow, but a great manie, through persian delicacie crept in among vs, altogither of straw, which is a sore alteration. "now haue we manie chimnies; and yet our tenderlings complaine of rheumes, catarhs, and poses. then had we none but reredosses; and our heads did neuer ake. for as the smoke in those daies was supposed to be a sufficient hardning for the timber of the house, so it was reputed a far better medicine to keepe the goodman and his familie from the quacke or pose, wherewith, as then, verie few were oft acquainted."[ ] --when he describes the beauty, virtue, learning, and housewifery, of queen elizabeth's maids of honour, he yet acknowledges that as the men "our common courtiers (for the most part) are the best lerned and indued with excellent gifts, so are manie of them the worst men, when they come abroad, that anie man shall either heare or read of." even the papist monks,[ ] whom--as a marrid protestant parson and vicar--he hates, he praises for their buildings. and when he does abuse or chaff heartily any absurdity, like englishmen's dress,--"except it were a dog in a doublet, you shall not see anie so disguised as are my countrie men of england,"--we may be sure it was deservd; shakspere does it too[ ] (_merchant_, i. ii. ; _much ado_, iii. ii. , etc.). harrison's book will inform and amuse the reader. besides writing the _descriptions of britaine and england_ for holinshed's _chronicle_, william harrison also translated for it, from scotch into english, archdeacon bellenden's version of hector boetius's latin description of scotland. this work took him only "three or foure daies" he says: "indeed, the trauell taken heerein is not great, bicause i tie not my translation vnto his [bellenden's] letter." harrison dedicated this translation--the _description of scotland_--to the maister sackford, or secford, whose "cards," charts, or maps, had been of such use to him in his account of the english rivers in his _description of britaine_. happily for us, william harrison was not one of those dignified prigs who are afraid of writing about themselves in their books. he tells us that he was born in london[ ]--"i will remember the fame of london my natiue citie."[ ] also that he was first at st. paul's school, and then at "westminster[ ] school (in which i was sometime an vnprofitable grammarian vnder the reuerend father, master nowell, now deane of paules)." and again of the deans of the see of london (or st. paul's), "i will deliuer in like sort the names of the deanes, vntill i come to the time of mine old master now liuing in this present yeare , who is none of the least ornaments[ ] that haue beene in that seat." he was at both universities.[ ] when speaking of cambridge and oxford, he says-- "in all other things there is so great equalitie betweene these two vniuersities, as no man can imagin how to set downe any greater; so that they seeme to be the bodie of one well ordered common wealth, onlie diuided by distance of place, and not in freendlie consent and orders. in speaking therefore of the one, i can not but describe the other; and in commendation of the first, i can not but extoll the latter; and so much the rather, for that they are both so deere vnto me, as that i can not readilie tell vnto whether of them i owe the most good will. would to god my knowledge were such, as that neither of them might haue cause to be ashamed of their pupill; or my power so great, that i might woorthilie requite them both for those manifold kindnesses that i haue receiued of them."[ ] he must have graduated at oxford first, for in he proceeded to the degree of bachelor of divinity at cambridge under a grace[ ] which calls him m.a. of oxford of seven years' standing.[ ] he was before this, household chaplain to sir wm. brooke, lord cobham, to whom he dedicated, as we have seen, his _description of england_, and who gave him the rectory of radwinter in essex,[ ] to which he was inducted on february , - , and which he held till his death. on january , - , he became a pluralist,[ ] and obtaind the vicarage of wimbish in essex,[ ] but resignd it in , his successor being appointed on the th of november in that year. between and he must have marrid marion isebrande, "daughter to william isebrande and ann his wife, sometyme of anderne, neere vnto guisnes in picardie, and whome" (he says in his will, referring no doubt to the sometime suppos'd unlawfulness of priests' marriages) "by the lawes of god i take and repute in all respectes for my true and lawfull wife." by her he left issue,[ ] one son edmund, and two daughters,--one, anne, unmarried, and another the wife of robert baker. he tells us how his wife and her maid brewd him gallons of beer for s., as he was "scarse a good malster" himself, and a poor man on £ a year (goldsmith's sum too). and no doubt his kindly "eve will be eve, tho' adam would saie naie," tho' said of widows, shewd that he understood the sex, was "to their faults a little blind, and to their virtues very kind"--or however the old saw runs. at radwinter he must have workt away at his _chronologie_, collected his roman coins, got savage with the rascally essex lawyers, attended to his garden: "for mine owne part, good reader, let me boast a little of my garden, which is but small, and the whole _area_ thereof little aboue foot of ground, and yet, such hath beene my good lucke in purchase of the varietie of simples, that notwithstanding my small abilitie, there are verie neere three hundred[ ] of one sort and other conteined therein, no one of them being common or vsuallie to bee had," kept his eyes open to everything going on round him, and lookt after his parishioners, when he wasn't writing his _description of england_ in london, or visiting at lord cobham's house in kent. on april , , william harrison was appointed canon of windsor, and was installd the day after. the dean has kindly sent me the following extract from the chapter book, st. george's chapel, windsor-- anni canonici. anni install. obitus. gulielmus harrison {to} aprilis, loco ryley, . theologiæ baccalaureus. obijt, et sepultus est . windsoriæ, et white successit.--rector fuit de radwinter,[ ] but says there is no grave-stone or other notice of where harrison was buried.[ ] (i can't get a line from the now rector of radwinter.) for the following abstract of harrison's will, i am indebted to colonel chester-- ( nevell.) "william harrison, clerk, parson of radwinter and prebendary of windsor--dated at radwinter july --to be buried at radwinter or windsor, as i may die at either place. my goods to be divided into equal parts 'of which one parte and an halfe shall remaine vnto marion harrison al_ia_s marion isebrande and the daughter of william isebrande sometyme of anderne, whome by the lawe of god, i take for my true and lawfull wife;'[ ] another part and a half equally to my son edmund and my daughter anne--my son in law robert baker and his wife i remember not in this my will, as i have already given them their portion; to the quire in windsor s.; to the poor of radwinter s.; to the poor children of the hospital at london s.; to the poor of st. thomas apostle in london s.; to each child of my son baker s.; to each child of my cousin morecroft, clerk s.--'i make & ordayne the sayed marion isebrande al_ia_s marion harrison, daughter to william isebrande and ann his wife, sometyme of anderne neere vnto guisnes in picardie, and whome by the lawes of god i take and repute in all respectes for my true and lawfull wife,' and my son edmund harrison, my executors.--witnesses, mr. wm. birde, esq., thos. smith, yeoman; lancelott ellis, vicar of wimbishe; & thos. hartlie the writer hereof." his will was proved on november , , by the said edmund harrison, son and executor named therein, the relict and executrix marion, being dead. letters of administration to the goods, etc., of marion harrison, late of new windsor, in the county of berks, were granted on december , , to her son edmund harrison. william harrison had opinions of his own about public and social matters in his day, and also had often racy ways of expressing those opinions. i'll extract some. he calls becket "the old cocke of canturburie;" notes how the conferences of clergy and laity stirrd the parsons "to applie their books ... which otherwise ... would giue themselues to hawking, hunting, tables, cards, dice, tipling at the alehouse, shooting of matches, and other like vanities;" he complains of the subsidies and taxes that the clergy are made to pay, "as if the church were now become the asse whereon euerie market man is to ride and cast his wallet;" also of "the couetousnesse of the patrones, of whom some doo bestow aduousons of benefices vpon their bakers, butlers, cookes, good archers, falconers, and horsekeepers," while others "doo scrape the wool from our clokes;" he notes how popish "images ... and monuments of idolatrie are remooued" from the churches, "onelie the stories in glasse windowes excepted," which are let stay for a while, from the scarcity and cost of white glass; he'd like to get rid of saints' days; he commends the decent apparel of the protestant parsons, as contrasted with that of the popish blind sir-johns, who went "either in diuerse colors like plaiers, or in garments of light hew, as yellow, red,[ ] greene, etc., with their shooes piked,[ ] ... so that to meet a priest in those daies was to behold a peacocke that spreadeth his taile when he danseth before the henne;" and then he denounces the cheating at elections for college fellowships, scholarships. harrison also tells us that he had for a time the "collection" (of mss., maps, etc.) of "william read,[ ] sometime fellow of merteine college in oxford, doctor of diuinitie, and the most profound astronomer that liued in his time." he has a cut at the popes' nephews--"for nephues might say in those daies: father, shall i call you vncle?"--says that he knew one of the norwich-diocese churches turnd "into a barne, whilest the people heare seruice further off vpon a greene: their bell also, when i heard a sermon there preached in the greene, hanged in an oke for want of a steeple. but now i vnderstand that the oke likewise is gone." after saying what england in old time paid the pope, he asks, "and therevpon tell me whether our iland was one of the best paire of bellowes or not, that blue the fire in his kitchen, wherewith to make his pot seeth, beside all other commodities." in describing the universities, harrison dwells again on the packing and bribing practist at elections for fellowships and scholarships, and how "poore mens children are commonlie shut out by the rich," whose sons "ruffle and roist it out, exceeding in apparell, and hanting riotous companie which draweth them from their bookes[ ] vnto an other trade." he also complains of the late-nam'd "idle fellowships" that are still a disgrace to our universities, tho' now their holders don't work for "eighteene or peraduenture twenty yeeres," "for after this time, & yeeres of age, the most part of students doo commonlie giue ouer their woonted diligence, & liue like drone bees on the fat of colleges, withholding better wits from the possession of their places, & yet dooing litle good in their own vocation & calling." and he repeats, in milder words, ascham's[ ] caution against sending young men to italy, for "an italianate englishman is a devil incarnate," as the italians themselves said.[ ] "and thus much at this time of our two vniuersities, in each of which i haue receiued such degree as they have vouchsafed, rather of their fauour than my desert, to yeeld and bestow vpon me." of his chapter on "degrees of the people of england" the most interesting parts to me are those on the evil of sending young englishmen to italy; the anticipation of the modern j. s. mill & coöperative doctrine of the evil of too many middlemen in trade (the argument will cover distributors as well as importers), and lawyers in business; the improvement in the condition of yeomen; the often complaind-of evil[ ] of "our great swarmes of idle seruing men;" and our husbandmen and artificers never being better tradesmen, tho' they sometimes scamp their work. harrison's chapter "of the food and diet of the english" is very interesting, with its accounts of the dinners of the nobility "whose cookes are, for the most part, musicall-headed frenchmen and strangers," and who eat "delicates wherein the sweette hand of the seafaring portingale is not wanting." then it notices the rage for venice glass among all classes--as falstaff says, a.d. , in _ hen. iv._, ii. i. , "glasses, glasses, is the only drinking." this is followd by capital accounts of the diet of the gentlemen and merchants, and the artificers; the bread[ ] and drink of all classes; and how mrs. wm. harrison brewd the family beer, "and hereof we make three hoggesheads of good beere, such (i meane) as is meet for poore men as i am, to liue withall, whose small maintenance (for what great thing is fortie pounds a yeare, _computatis computandis_, able to performe?) may indure no deeper cut;" with touches like _theologicum_ being the best wine of old, because "the merchant would haue thought that his soule should have gone streightwaie to the diuell, if he should haue serued them [the monks] with other than the best;" and this kindly opinion of working-men, for which one can't help liking the old parson[ ]:-- "to conclude, both the artificer and the husbandman are sufficientlie liberall, & verie freendlie at their tables; and when they meet, they are so merie without malice, and plaine without inward italian or french craft and subtiltie, that it would doo a man good to be in companie among them.... this is moreouer to be added in these meetings, that if they happen to stumble vpon a peece of venison, and a cup of wine or verie strong beere or ale ... they thinke their cheere so great, and themselues to haue fared so well, as the lord maior of london, with whome, when their bellies be full, they will not often sticke to make comparison, because that of a subject there is no publike officer of anie citie in europe, that may compare in port and countenance with him during the time of his office." chapter vii.[ ] is the amusing one on the "apparell and atire" of english folk already referrd to (p. xiii. above); and though it's not so bitter as stubbes's or crowley's, yet it's fun, with its "dog in a doublet," and its beard bit, if a man "be wesell becked [beakt], then much heare left on the cheekes will make the owner looke big like a bowdled hen, and so grim as a goose, if cornelis of chelmeresford saie true." in the chapter on the parliament the only personal bit is harrison's saying that he copies from sir thomas smith,[ ] "requiting him with the like borrowage as he hath vsed toward me in his discourse of the sundrie degrees of estates in the commonwealth of england." but in the next chapter, "of the laws of england," after a dull account of the trial by ordeal, etc., we get harrison breaking out again against the lawyers, their prosperity and rascality, and taking fees (as barristers often do still) and doing nothing for 'em, with a good bit about welshmen's love of law-suits. we also find a pleasant notice of john stow, the hard-working chronicler so shamefully neglected in his own age: "my freend _iohn stow_, whose studie is the onelie store house of antiquities in my time, and he worthie therefore to be had in reputation and honour." the chapter "of prouision made for the poore," notes the weekly collection made in every parish for the deserving poor, and gives harrison's opinion on the malthusians of his day:-- "some also doo grudge at the great increase of people in these daies, thinking a necessarie brood of cattell farre better than a superfluous augmentation of mankind. but i can liken such men best of all vnto the pope and the diuell, who practise the hinderance of the furniture of the number of the elect to their vttermost, to the end the authoritie of the one upon earth, the deferring of the locking vp of the other in euerlasting chaines, and the great gaines of the first, may continue and indure the longer. but if it should come to passe that any forren inuasion should be made, which the lord god forbid for his mercies sake!--then should these men find that a wall of men is farre better than stackes of corne and bags of monie, and complaine of the want when it is too late to seeke remedie." the sham beggars, he says, "are all theeues and caterpillers in the commonwealth, and by the word of god not permitted to eat." then he makes extracts from harman about the rogues, among whom, by statute, are "plaiers and minstrels," shakspere and his fellows, etc. in the chapter on the "punishments appointed for malefactors," our author notes that "our condemned persons doo go ... cheerfullie to their deths, for our nation is free, stout, hautie, prodigall of life and bloud;" that the punishment for "robbing by the high waie" (like sir john falstaff's), "cutting of purses," "stealing of deere by night" (like shakspere's, if he ever stole deer from sir thomas lucy, who had no park in his time), was death; and that the punishment for adultery and fornication was not sharp enough:-- "as in theft therfore, so in adulterie and whoredome, i would wish the parties trespassant, to be made bond or slaues vnto those that receiued the iniurie, to sell and giue where they listed, or to be condemned to the gallies: for that punishment would proue more bitter to them than halfe an houres hanging, or than standing in a sheet, though the weather be neuer so called." he also complains of the robberies by unthrift young gentlemen, and "seruing-men whose wages cannot suffice so much as to find them breeches;" and that selfish men, and even constables, in the country, won't leave their work to follow up thieves and take them to prison:[ ] this "i haue knowne by mine owne experience." the chapter, "of the manner of building and furniture of our houses," is perhaps the best, and the best-known, in the book. it describes how english houses were built, and notes these new things, . that rich men were beginning to use stoves for sweating baths; while, . all men were using glass for windows; . that timber-houses were giving way to brick and stone; and that though our workmen were excellent, their demands for high wages often causd strangers to be employd in building; . the increast richness of furniture, not only in rich men's houses, but in those of "the inferiour artificers and manie farmers," who "now garnish their cupbords with plate, their ioined beds with tapistrie and silke hangings, and their tables with carpets & fine naperie, whereby the wealth of our countrie ... dooth infinitelie appear;" [ .] "the multitude of chimnies latelie erected;" [ .] "the great (although not generall) amendment of lodging, for (said they) our fathers (yea, and we our selues also) haue lien full oft vpon straw pallets, on rough mats couered onelie with a sheet, vnder couerlets made of dagswain or hopharlots (i vse their owne termes), and a good round log vnder their heads in steed of a bolster or pillow.... pillowes (said they) were thought meet onelie for women in childbed. as for seruants, if they had anie sheet aboue them, it was well, for seldome had they anie vnder their bodies, to keepe them from the pricking straws that ran oft through the canuas of the pallet, and rased their hardened hides."... [ .] "the exchange of vessell, as of treene[ ] platters into pewter, and woodden spoones into siluer or tin. for so common were all sorts of treene stuffe in old time, that a man should hardlie find four peeces of pewter (of which one was peraduenture a salt) in a good farmers house, and yet for all this frugalitie (if it may so be iustly called) they were scarse able to liue and paie their rents at their daies without selling of a cow, or an horsse, or more, although they paid but foure pounds at the vttermost by the yeare." the farmer was very poor too; and yet now, though his £ rent is raised to £ , he can not only buy plate, and featherbeds, etc., but can purchase a renewal of his lease, years before the expiration of the old one; and the paying the money "shall neuer trouble him more than the haire of his beard, when the barber hath washed and shaued it from his chin." against these signs of prosperity, these fat kine, are , nay , lean kine, which eat up their plump brethren, "three things ... are growen to be verie grieuous vnto them, to wit, the inhansing of rents, latelie mentioned; the dailie oppression of copiholders, whose lords seeke to bring their poore tenants almost into plaine seruitude and miserie, dailie deuising new meanes, and seeking vp all the old, how to cut them shorter and shorter, doubling, trebling, and now & then seuen times increasing their fines; driuing them also for euerie trifle to loose and forfeit their tenures (by whome the greatest part of the realme dooth stand and is mainteined), to the end they may fleece them yet more, which is a lamentable hering. the third thing they talke of is vsurie, a trade brought in by the jewes, now perfectlie practised almost by euerie christain, and so commonlie, that he is accompted but for a foole that dooth lend his monie for nothing." interest has run up to per cent.; wherefore, "helpe i praie thee in lawfull maner to hang vp such as take _centum pro cento_, for they are no better worthie as i doo iudge in conscience." the th grievance is that gentlemen (!) have actually "themselves become grasiers, butchers, tanners, sheepmasters, woodmen, and _denique quod non_!" the chapter, "of cities and townes in england," is dull, but has a short account of the antiquities found in old verulam, and harrison's visit there in the summer of or ; and his groan over the decay of houses, their destruction by greedy land-owners, and the hard fare of poor men. he evidently would have put a limit to the land that one man might hold. in "of castles and holds," he wants the east coast fortified (p. ), notes the frequency of old camps "in the plaine fields of england," and says:-- "i need not to make anie long discourse of castles, sith it is not the nature of a good englishman to regard to be caged vp as in a coope, and hedged in with stone wals, but rather to meet with his enimie in the plaine field at handstrokes, where he may trauaise his ground, choose his plot, and vse the benefit of sunne shine, wind and weather, to his best aduantage & commoditie." in the next chapter he describes the queen's palaces, but prefers the henry viii. buildings to the elizabethan: "certes masonrie did neuer better flourish in england than in his time. and albeit that in these daies there be manie goodlie houses erected in the sundrie quarters of this iland; yet they are rather curious to the eie, like paper worke,[ ] than substantiall for continuance: whereas such as he did set vp, excell in both, and therefore may iustlie be preferred farre aboue all the rest." he then gives an interesting account of the virtues of the queen's maids of honour, the vices of the courtiers; the studies of the young ladies, and the medical powers of the old; all of them being able to cook admirably, and the carte or bill of fare of the dinner having been just introduced. lastly he notes the admirable order and absence of ill-doing in the queen's court. her "progresses" he approv'd of. he treats "of armour and munition;" but, says harrison, "what hath the longe blacke gowne to doo with glistering armour?" still, he echoes the universal lament of ascham, the statutes, etc., etc., over the decay of long-bow shooting in england:-- "certes the frenchmen and rutters deriding our new archerie in respect of their corslets, will not let in open skirmish, if anie leisure serue, to turne vp their tailes and crie: 'shoote english,' and all bicause our strong shooting is decaied and laid in bed. but if some of our englishmen now liued that serued king edward the third in his warres with france, the breech of such a varlet should haue beene nailed to his bum with one arrow, and an other fethered in his bowels, before he should haue turned about to see who shot the first." he then says that all the young fellows above eighteen or twenty wear a dagger; noblemen wear swords or rapiers too, while "desperate cutters" carry two daggers or two rapiers, "wherewith in euerie dronken fraie they are knowen to work much mischief." and as trampers carry long staves, the honest traveller is obliged to carry pistols, "to ride with a case of dags at his saddlebow, or with some pretie short snapper," while parsons have only a dagger or hanger, if they carry anything at all. the tapsters and ostlers at inns are in league with the highway robbers,[ ] who rob chiefly at christmas time, to get money to spend at dice and cards, till they "be trussed vp in a tiburne tippet." passing over the chapter on the "navy," queen elizabeth's delight in it, and the fast sailing of our ships, we come on a characteristic and interesting chapter "of faires and markets." this subject is within harrison's home-life, as a buyer; and it's on the buyer's side, which includes the poor man's, that he argues. magistrates don't see the proclamation price and goodness of bread kept to; bodgers are allowd to buy up corn and raise the price of it; to carry it home unsold, or to a distant market, if they want more money than the buyer likes to give; nay, they've leave to export it for the benefit of enemies and papists abroad, so as to make more profit. again, pestiferous purveyors buy up eggs, chickens, bacon, etc.; buttermen travel about and buy up butter at farmers' houses, and have raisd its price from d. to d. a gallon. these things are ill for the buyer and the poor man, and should not be allowd:-- "i wish that god would once open their eies that deale thus, to see their owne errours: for as yet some of them little care how manie poore men suffer extremitie, so that they may fill their purses, and carie awaie the gaine." good doctrine, no doubt; but "_nous avons changé tout cela_." however in one thing the modern political economist can agree with harrison:-- "i gather that the maintenance of a superfluous number of dealers in most trades, tillage alwaies excepted, is one of the greatest causes why the prices of things become excessiue." there's a comical bit about the names for ale, "huffecap, mad dog, angels' food," etc., and the way "our maltbugs lug at this liquor, euen as pigs should lie in a row, lugging at their dames teats, till they lie still againe, and be not able to wag ... and ... hale at hufcap, till they be red as cockes, & litle wiser than their combs." in his chapter "of parks and warrens," harrison tells us how coney warrens have increast, from the value of the creatures' black skins and the quick sale for young rabbits in london; and what a shocking thing it is that one lady has sold her husband's venison to the cooks, and another lady has ridden to market to see her butter sold! it's as bad as an earl feeling his own oxen to see whether they're ready for the butcher! he then gives us a refreshing bit of his mind on owners of parks who enclose commons: "and yet some owners, still desirous to inlarge those grounds, as either for the breed and feeding of cattell, doo not let dailie to take in more, not sparing the verie commons whervpon manie towneships now and then doo liue, affirming that we haue alreadie too great store of people in england; and that youth by marrieng too soone doo nothing profit the countrie, but fill it full of beggars, to the hurt and vtter vndooing (they saie) of the common wealth. "certes, if it be not one curse of the lord, to haue our countrie conuerted in such sort, from the furniture of mankind, into the walks and shrowds of wild beasts, i know not what is anie. how manie families also these great and small games (for so most keepers call them) haue eaten vp, and are likelie hereafter to deuoure, some men may coniecture, but manie more lament, sith there is no hope of restraint to be looked for in this behalfe, because the corruption is so generall." the chapter "of gardens and orchards" is interesting, not only as containing the bit quoted above on harrison's own garden, but for its note of how vegetables, roots, and salad herbs, that had gone out of use since henry iv.'s time, had in henry viii.'s and elizabeth's days come into daily consumption, so that men even eat dangerous fruits like mushrooms. also, hops and madder were grown again, and rare medicinable herbs. gardens were beautified, plants imported; orchards supplied with apricot, almond, peach, fig, and cornel trees; nay, capers, oranges, lemons, and wild olives. grafting was practist with great skill and success; even dishwater was utilis'd for plants. and as to roses, there was one in antwerp in that had leaves on one button or flower, and harrison could have had a slip of it for £ (£ now?) if he hadn't thought it "but a tickle hazard." the chapter "of woods and marshes" is interesting, from harrison's laments in it over the destruction of english woods, which he saw yearly disappearing around him,[ ] one man, as he says, having turnd sixty woods into one pair of breeches.[ ] and then, mov'd by the thought of what will become of england without its oaks, the unselfish old parson utters the four dearest wishes of his heart:-- "i would wish that i might liue no longer than to see foure things in this land reformed, that is: ( ) the want of discipline in the church: ( ) the couetous dealing of most of our merchants in the preferment of the commodities of other countries, and hinderance of their owne: ( ) the holding of faires and markets vpon the sundaie to be abolished, and referred to the wednesdaies: ( ) and that euerie man, in whatsoeuer part of the champaine soile enioieth fortie acres of land and vpwards, after that rate, either by free deed, copie hold, or fee farme, might plant one acre of wood, or sowe the same with oke mast, hasell, beech, and sufficient prouision be made that it may be cherished and kept. but i feare me that i should then liue too long, and so long, that i should either be wearie of the world, or the world of me; and yet they are not such things but they may easilie be brought to passe." this same chapter contains the capital bit about the oaken men and willow houses and their smoke-dried inhabiters, quoted above; and a strong protest against rascally tanners and wood-fellers who, for private gain, evade the laws; also some good advice about draining. in his chapter on "baths and hot wells," harrison says that he's tasted the water of king's newnham well, near coventry, and that it had "a tast much like to allume liquor, and yet nothing vnplesant nor vnsauorie in the drinking." from his description of bath it is clear that he had been there, unless he quotes an eye-witness's words as his own. his chapter, "of antiquities found," tells us of his own collection of roman coins which he intended to get engrav'd in his _chronologie_, though, he says, the cost of engraving, "as it hath doone hitherto, so the charges to be emploied vpon these brasen or copper images will hereafter put by the impression of that treatise: whereby it maie come to passe, that long trauell shall soone proue to be spent in vaine, and much cost come to verie small successe." his words seem to imply that he'd visited colchester (as no doubt he had) and york, in his search for coins. his account "of the coines of england," chapter xxv., ends his book ii., the first of his _description of england_. this section[ ] is longer than i meant it to be; and it doesn't bring out the religious side of harrison's character. but i hope it leaves the reader with a kindly impression of the straightforward racy radwinter parson and windsor canon. a business-like, god-fearing, truth-seeking, learned, kind-hearted, and humorous fellow, he seems to me; a good gardener, an antiquarian and numismatist, a true lover of his country, a hater of shams, lazy lubbers, and evil-doers; a man that one likes to shake hands with, across the rift of years that separates us. f. j. furnivall. st. george's square, primrose hill, london, n.w., _th july_, . editorial note. "how easy dost thou take all england up: from forth this morsel of dead royalty----" no book is more quoted and less read than _holinshed's chronicles_. since the original editions of and (the latter an expansion of the former), the work has been but once republished. early in this century a syndicate of the great london booksellers issued an expensive reprint, far more inaccessible to the general reader than are the folios of the time of elizabeth. even morsels of the work have never been attempted until the issue by the "new shakspere society," a dozen years ago, of dr. furnivall's careful condensed edition of harrison's introduction to _holinshed_. now harrison is the genius of the whole performance. _holinshed_ is a hodge-podge of many men's endeavours. remarkable as may be the portions contributed by other men, that of harrison can be said to be unique. william harrison is the only man who has ever given a detailed description of england and the english. he had the assistance doubtless of many special informants, directly and indirectly, some of which assistance overloads his ancient utterances with superfluous matter. his own views however are a running rill of delight. when it was only an amputation of interjected details, my task was easy; and dr. furnivall (to whom is due all credit of initiative in the publication of the work, and who has kindly accorded valuable suggestions during the rather anxious and difficult process) had already cut off the greater portion of dead issue and dead tissue. the work of disjointing and then rejointing harrison's own discourse is not so agreeable. even harrison's interlarding of his own book-learning in his own inimitable fashion is a rare frolic for the mirthful mind. badly as i may have finally wriggled through the task, seamy as may be the patchwork, the solace remains that no scrap of harrison's text lacks its own individual interest. not without reason may an extract from _holinshed_ be entitled a "morsel of dead royalty." _holinshed_ is one of the monarchs and monuments of literature. it filled the channels of thought, and moulded the character of history. harrison's contribution to _holinshed_ is not only the most important but the most perfect portion of the work, and it evidently derives its perfect character from being a labour of love, and not written to order. john harrison the printer doubtless got his country relative the parson to help out the heavy enterprise which tasked such an alliance of master-printers even to partially perfect. not that william harrison was a countryman by birth. he was a cockney of the cockneys, born right beneath bow bells themselves; but when you come to gather the threads of his connections, you seem indeed to "take all england up," jumping at once to the heart of westmoreland fells, and traversing every shire in england and wales for his cousinry. it was a stirring age, and great human upheavals made sudden shiftings and scatterings of kindred. it was this very factor which made such works as _holinshed_ possible. the complete _holinshed_ was issued one year before the armada year, two years before shakspere's first play was printed. harrison was old enough to have stood on tower hill and seen with infant eyes the author of _utopia_ (the "most perfect of englishmen," as harrison himself allows) lay down his life for truth. harrison's own life just spans that stormy period which settled the destiny of the english race, and left the race the masters of the earth. the part played in this mighty struggle by the printer boys of aldersgate is something beyond all exaggeration. they made and unmade men and measures, and uprooted empires as well as recorded their histories. above all else, these printers kept their own secrets; for life and death were in every utterance. they furnished of their own ranks the pioneers of daring brain and varied knowledge who led the english race far to east and far to west. we can well imagine that these aldersgate printers took delight in clubbing together to produce such a work as _holinshed_, giving the story of the england they loved so well. _holinshed_ was eminently a printer's book, produced out of the fulness of their hearts. harrison himself belonged to a family of printers. yet it is a remarkable fact that this present volume is the first attempt ever made to use any portion of _holinshed_ as a popular text-book, and to bring its text into familiar relations with modern eyes as regards orthography and typography. as to the diction, it would be impertinence to modify the work of such masters of our mother-tongue as william harrison. the writers of his day make rules for us, not we for them. their english is the only english which future ages will know, and their successors will be measured by their standard. in compiling this work, the end sought by me has been as much variety and as much elizabethan england as possible, throwing aside matter however instructive which was not especially allied to the days of elizabeth, making of most of harrison's second, some of his third, and a bit of his first book one concise story. harrison's description of england is in three books, the second and third of which were reprinted by dr. furnivall, along with extracts from the first. an account of these books and their relation to _holinshed_ will be found in the doctor's "forewords." using dr. furnivall's text, his excellent and generally exhaustive notes have been inserted. as for my own follies, sprinkled here and there, they are as occasional relief for frivolous readers from the classical height of harrison and the scholarly depth of the doctor. there was no particular sacrilege in rearranging harrison's fragments in a new and compact fashion; for he varied his two editions in evident indifference. it has had to be cut to measure, and the difficulty has been to make a new garment out of odd cuttings. suffice to say, well or ill jointed, the story here told plucks the heart out of the mystery of the cradle of the english race at the exact period of shakspere's youthful manhood. but this story no more than shakspere's own work is the exclusive property of the residents of one particular spot. england is not merely a matter of political arrangement. race after race have swept over the island home and left lasting impression upon the soil. england is not a matter of bounds and barriers; it is a human fabric like rome and greece, living in distant climes, an inheritance of all who speak the english tongue and inherit the boundless treasures of english thought, far surpassing the known accomplishment of any other people. by far the greater portion of these treasures of the mind were worked out in the england of harrison. it was the outcome of a young giant's strength. the full realisation of the earth's existence, the full grasp of man's true relation to the footstool beneath him, produced this startling activity of mind, and this sudden leap to perfection. such another epoch will never occur until we poor crawling mites on this rolling ball discover the socket it rolls in and once again feel ourselves masters of all knowledge and devoid of all doubts. l. w. harrison's preface. to the right honourable, and his singular good lord and master, sir william brooke, knight, lord warden of the cinque ports, and baron of cobham, all increase of the fear and knowledge of god, firm obedience towards his prince, infallible love to the commonwealth, and commendable renown here in this world, and in the world to come life everlasting. having had just occasion, right honourable, to remain in london during the time of trinity term last passed, and being earnestly required of divers my friends to set down some brief discourse of parcel of those things which i had observed in the reading of such manifold antiquities as i had perused towards the furniture of a chronology[ ] which i have yet in hand; i was at the first very loth to yield to their desires: first, for that i thought myself unable for want of skill and judgment so suddenly and with so hasty speed to take such a charge upon me; secondly, because the dealing therein might prove an hindrance and impeachment unto mine own treatise; and, finally, for that i had given over all earnest study of histories, as judging the time spent about the same to be an hindrance unto my more necessary dealings in that vocation and function whereunto i am called in the ministry. but, when they were so importunate with me that no reasonable excuse could serve to put by this travel, i condescended at the length unto their irksome suit, promising that i would spend such void time, as i had to spare, whilest i should be enforced to tarry in the city, upon some thing or other that should satisfy their request and stand in lieu of a description of my country. for their parts also, they assured me of such helps as they could purchase: and thus with hope of good, although no gay success, i went in hand withal, then almost as one leaning altogether unto memory, since my books and i were parted by forty miles in sunder. in this order also i spent a part of michaelmas and hilary terms insuing, being enforced thereto, i say, by other businesses which compelled me to keep in the city, and absent myself from my charge, though in the mean season i had some repair unto my poor library, but not so great as the dignity of the matter required, and yet far greater than the printer's haste would suffer. one help, and none of the smallest that i obtained herein, was by such commentaries as leland had some time collected of the state of britain, books utterly mangled, defaced with wet and weather, and finally imperfect through want of sundry volumes; secondly, i gat some knowledge of things by letters and pamphlets, from sundry places and shires of england, but so discordant now and then amongst themselves, especially in the names and courses of rivers and situation of towns, that i had oft greater trouble to reconcile them one with another than orderly to pen the whole discourse of such points as they contained; the third aid did grow by conference with divers, either at the table or secretly alone, wherein i marked in what things the talkers did agree, and wherein they impugned each other, choosing in the end the former, and rejecting the latter, as one desirous to set forth the truth absolutely, or such things indeed as were most likely to be true. the last comfort arose by mine own reading of such writers as have heretofore made mention of the condition of our country, in speaking whereof, if i should make account of the success and extraordinary coming by sundry treatises not supposed to be extant, i should but seem to pronounce more than may well be said with modesty, and say further of myself than this treatise can bear witness of. howbeit, i refer not this success wholly unto my purpose about this description, but rather give notice thereof to come to pass in the penning of my chronology, whose crumbs as it were fell out very well in the framing of this pamphlet. in the process therefore of this book, if your honour regard the substance of that which is here declared, i must needs confess that it is none of mine own; but, if your lordship have consideration of the barbarous composition shewed herein, that i may boldly claim and challenge for mine own, since there is no man of any so slender skill that will defraud me of that reproach which is due unto me for the mere negligence, disorder, and evil disposition of matter comprehended in the same. certes i protest before god and your honour that i never made any choice of style, or words, neither regarded to handle this treatise in such precise order and method as many other would have done, thinking it sufficient, truly and plainly to set forth such things as i minded to intreat of, rather than with vain affectation of eloquence to paint out a rotten sepulchre, a thing neither commendable in a writer nor profitable to the reader. how other affairs troubled me in the writing hereof, many know, and peradventure the slackness shewed herein can better testify; but, howsoever it be done, and whatsoever i have done, i have had an especial eye unto the truth of things, and, for the rest, i hope that this foul frizzled treatise of mine will prove a spur to others better learned, more skilful in chorography, and of greater judgment in choice of matter to handle the selfsame argument. as for faults escaped herein, as there are divers i must needs confess both in the penning and printing, so i have to crave pardon of your honour and of all the learned readers. for such was my shortness of time allowed in the writing, and so great the speed made in printing, that i could seldom with any deliberation peruse, or almost with any judgment deliberate exactly upon, such notes as were to be inserted. sometimes indeed their leisure gave me liberty, but that i applied in following my vocation; many times their expedition abridged my perusal; and by this latter it came to pass that most of this book was no sooner penned than printed, neither well conveyed, before it came to writing. but it is now too late to excuse the manner of doing.[ ] it is possible also that your honour will mislike hereof for that i have not by mine own travel and eyesight viewed such things as i do here intreat of. indeed i must needs confess that until now of late, except it were from the parish where i dwell unto your honour in kent, or out of london where i was born unto oxford and cambridge where i have been brought up, i never travelled forty miles forthright and at one journey in all my life; nevertheless in my report of these things i use their authorities who either have performed in their persons or left in writing upon sufficient ground (as i said before) whatsoever is wanting in mine. it may be in like sort that your honour will take offence at my rash and retchless behaviour used in the composition of this volume, and much more than that, being scrambled up after this manner, i dare presume to make tender of the protection thereof unto your lordship's hands. but, when i consider the singular affection that your honour doth bear to those that in anywise will travel to set forth such profitable things as lie hidden of their country without regard of fine and eloquent handling, and thereunto do weigh on my own behalf my bounden duty and grateful mind to such a one as hath so many and sundry ways benefited me that otherwise can make no recompense, i cannot but cut off all such occasion of doubt, and thereupon exhibit it, such as it is, and so penned as it is, unto your lordship's tuition, unto whom if it may seem in any wise acceptable i have my whole desire. and as i am the first that (notwithstanding the great repugnance to be seen among our writers) hath taken upon him so particularly to describe this isle of britain, so i hope the learned and godly will bear withal, and reform with charity where i do tread amiss. as for the curious, and such as can rather evil-favouredly espy than skilfully correct an error, and sooner carp at another man's doings than publish anything of their own (keeping themselves close with an obscure admiration of learning and knowledge among the common sort), i force not what they say hereof; for, whether it do please or displease them, all is one to me, since i refer my whole travel in the gratification of your honour, and such as are of experience to consider of my travel and the large scope of things purposed in this treatise, of whom my service in this behalf may be taken in good part: that i will repute for my full recompense and large guerdon of my labours. the almighty god preserve your lordship in continual health, wealth, and prosperity, with my good lady your wife, your honour's children (whom god hath indued with a singular towardness unto all virtue and learning) and the rest of your reformed family, unto whom i wish farder increase of his holy spirit, understanding of his word, augmentation of honour, and continuance of zeal to follow his commandments. your lordship's humble servant and household chaplain, w. h. elizabethan england. chapter i. of degrees of people in the commonwealth of england.[ ] [ , book iii., chapter ; , book ii., chapter .] we, in england, divide our people commonly into four sorts, as gentlemen, citizens or burgesses, yeomen, and artificers or labourers. of gentlemen the first and chief (next the king) be the prince, dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons; and these are called gentlemen of the greater sort, or (as our common usage of speech is) lords and noblemen: and next unto them be knights, esquires, and, last of all, they that are simply called gentlemen. so that in effect our gentlemen are divided into their conditions, whereof in this chapter i will make particular rehearsal. the title of prince doth peculiarly belong with us to the king's eldest son, who is called prince of wales, and is the heir-apparent to the crown; as in france the king's eldest son hath the title of dauphin, and is named peculiarly _monsieur_. so that the prince is so termed of the latin word _princeps_, since he is (as i may call him) the chief or principal next the king. the king's younger sons be but gentlemen by birth (till they have received creation or donation from their father of higher estate, as to be either viscounts, earls, or dukes) and called after their names, as lord henry, or lord edward, with the addition of the word grace, properly assigned to the king and prince, and now also by custom conveyed to dukes, archbishops, and (as some say) to marquesses and their wives.[ ] * * * * * unto this place i also refer our bishops, who are accounted honourable, called lords, and hold the same room in the parliament house with the barons, albeit for honour sake the right hand of the prince is given unto them, and whose countenances in time past were much more glorious than at this present it is, because those lusty prelates sought after earthly estimation and authority with far more diligence than after the lost sheep of christ, of which they had small regard, as men being otherwise occupied and void of leisure to attend upon the same. howbeit in these days their estate remaineth no less reverend than before, and the more virtuous they are that be of this calling the better are they esteemed with high and low. they retain also the ancient name ("lord") still, although it be not a little impugned by such as love either to hear of change of all things or can abide no superiors. for notwithstanding it be true that in respect of function the office of the eldership[ ] is equally distributed between the bishop and the minister, yet for civil government's sake the first have more authority given unto them by kings and princes, to the end that the rest may thereby be with more ease retained within a limited compass of uniformity than otherwise they would be if each one were suffered to walk in his own course. this also is more to be marvelled at, that very many call for an alteration of their estate, crying to have the word "lord" abolished, their civil authority taken from them, and the present condition of the church in other things reformed; whereas, to say truly, few of them do agree upon form of discipline and government of the church succeedent, wherein they resemble the capuans (of whom livy doth speak) in the slaughter of their senate. neither is it possible to frame a whole monarchy after the pattern of one town or city, or to stir up such an exquisite face of the church as we imagine or desire, sith our corruption is such that it will never yield to so great perfection; for that which is not able to be performed in a private house will be much less be brought to pass in a commonwealth and kingdom, before such a prince be found as xenophon describeth, or such an orator as tully hath devised.[ ] * * * * * dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons either be created of the prince or come to that honour by being the eldest sons or highest in succession to their parents. for the eldest son of a duke during his father's life is an earl, the eldest son of an earl is a baron, or sometimes a viscount, according as the creation is. the creation i call the original donation and condition of the honour given by the prince for good service done by the first ancestor, with some advancement, which, with the title of that honour, is always given to him and his heirs males only. the rest of the sons of the nobility by the rigour of the law be but esquires; yet in common speech all dukes' and marquesses' sons and earls' eldest sons be called lords, the which name commonly doth agree to none of lower degree than barons, yet by law and use these be not esteemed barons. the barony or degree of lords doth answer to the degree of senators of rome (as i said) and the title of nobility (as we used to call it in england) to the roman _patricii_. also in england no man is commonly created baron except he may dispend of yearly revenues a thousand pounds, or so much as may fully maintain and bear out his countenance and port. but viscounts, earls, marquesses, and dukes exceed them according to the proportion of their degree and honour. but though by chance he or his son have less, yet he keepeth this degree: but if the decay be excessive, and not able to maintain the honour (as _senatores romani_ were _amoti à senatu_), so sometimes they are not admitted to the upper house in the parliament, although they keep the name of "lord" still, which cannot be taken from them upon any such occasion.[ ] the most of these names have descended from the french invention, in whose histories we shall read of them eight hundred years past.[ ] * * * * * knights be not born, neither is any man a knight by succession, no, not the king or prince: but they are made either before the battle, to encourage them the more to adventure and try their manhood; or after the battle ended, as an advancement for their courage and prowess already shewed, and then are they called _milites_; or out of the wars for some great service done, or for the singular virtues which do appear in them, and then are they named _equites aurati_, as common custom intendeth. they are made either by the king himself, or by his commission and royal authority given for the same purpose, or by his lieutenant in the wars.[ ] * * * * * sometime diverse ancient gentlemen, burgesses, and lawyers are called unto knighthood by the prince, and nevertheless refuse to take that state upon them, for which they are of custom punished by a fine, that redoundeth unto his coffers, and (to say truth) is oftentimes more profitable unto him than otherwise their service should be, if they did yield unto knighthood. and this also is a cause wherefore there be many in england able to dispend a knight's living, which never come unto that countenance, and by their own consents. the number of the knights in rome was also uncertain: and so is it of knights likewise, with us, as at the pleasure of the prince. and whereas the _equites romani_ had _equum publicum_ of custom bestowed upon them, the knights of england have not so, but bear their own charges in that also, as in other kind of furniture, as armour meet for their defence and service. this nevertheless is certain, that whoso may dispend forty pounds by the year of free land, either at the coronation of the king, or marriage of his daughter, or time of his dubbing, may be informed unto the taking of that degree, or otherwise pay the revenues of his land for one year, which is only forty pounds by an old proportion, and so for a time be acquitted of that title.[ ] * * * * * at the coronation of a king or queen, there be other knights made with longer and more curious ceremonies, called "knights of the bath." but howsoever one be dubbed or made knight, his wife is by-and-by called "madam," or "lady," so well as the baron's wife: he himself having added to his name in common appellation this syllable "sir," which is the title whereby we call our knights in england. his wife also of courtesy so long as she liveth is called "my lady," although she happen to marry with a gentleman or man of mean calling, albeit that by the common law she hath no such prerogative. if her first husband also be of better birth than her second, though this latter likewise be a knight, yet in that she pretendeth a privilege to lose no honour through courtesy yielded to her sex, she will be named after the most honourable or worshipful of both, which is not seen elsewhere. the other order of knighthood in england, and the most honourable, is that of the garter, instituted by king edward the third, who, after he had gained many notable victories, taken king john of france, and king james of scotland (and kept them both prisoners in the tower of london at one time), expelled king henry of castille, the bastard, out of his realm, and restored don pedro unto it (by the help of the prince of wales and duke of aquitaine, his eldest son, called the black prince), he then invented this society of honour, and made a choice out of his own realm and dominions, and throughout all christendom of the best, most excellent, and renowned persons in all virtues and honour, and adorned them with that title to be knights of his order, giving them a garter garnished with gold and precious stones, to wear daily on the left leg only; also a kirtle, gown, cloak, chaperon, collar, and other solemn and magnificent apparel, both of stuff and fashion exquisite and heroical to wear at high feasts, and as to so high and princely an order appertaineth. * * * * * the order of the garter therefore was devised in the time of king edward the third, and (as some write) upon this occasion. the queen's majesty then living, being departed from his presence the next way toward her lodging, he following soon after happened to find her garter, which slacked by chance and so fell from her leg, unespied in the throng by such as attended upon her. his grooms and gentlemen also passed by it, as disdaining to stoop and take up such a trifle: but he, knowing the owner, commanded one of them to stay and reach it up to him. "why, and like your grace," saith a gentleman, "it is but some woman's garter that hath fallen from her as she followed the queen's majesty." "whatsoever it be," quoth the king, "take it up and give it me." so when he had received the garter, he said to such as stood about him: "you, my masters, do make small account of this blue garter here," and therewith held it out, "but, if god lend me life for a few months, i will make the proudest of you all to reverence the like." and even upon this slender occasion he gave himself to the devising of this order. certes, i have not read of anything that having had so simple a beginning hath grown in the end to so great honour and estimation.[ ] * * * * * there is yet another order of knights in england called knights bannerets, who are made in the field with the ceremony of cutting away the point of his pennant of arms, and making it as it were a banner, so that, being before but a bachelor knight, he is now of an higher degree, and allowed to display his arms in a banner, as barons do. howbeit these knights are never made but in the wars, the king's standard being unfolded.[ ] * * * * * moreover, as the king doth dub knights, and createth the barons and higher degrees, so gentlemen whose ancestors are not known to come in with william duke of normandy (for of the saxon races yet remaining we now make none accounted, much less of the british issue) do take their beginning in england, after this manner in our times. whosoever studieth the laws of the realm, whoso abideth in the university (giving his mind to his book), or professeth physic and the liberal sciences, or beside his service in the room of a captain in the wars, or good counsel given at home, whereby his commonwealth is benefited, can live without manual labour, and thereto is able and will bear the port, charge, and countenance of a gentleman, he shall for money have a coat and arms bestowed upon him by heralds (who in the charter of the same do of custom pretend antiquity and service, and many gay things), and thereunto, being made so good cheap, be called master (which is the title that men give to esquires and gentlemen), and reputed for a gentleman ever after, which is so much less to be disallowed of for that the prince doth lose nothing by it, the gentleman being so much subject to taxes and public payments as is the yeoman or husbandman, which he likewise doth bear the gladlier for the saving of his reputation. being called also to the wars (for with the government of the commonwealth he meddleth little), whatsoever it cost him, he will both array and arm himself accordingly, and shew the more manly courage, and all the tokens of the person which he representeth. no man hath hurt by it but himself, who peradventure will go in wider buskins than his legs will bear, or, as our proverb saith, "now and then bear a bigger sail than his boat is able to sustain." certes the making of new gentlemen bred great strife sometimes amongst the romans, i mean when those which were _novi homines_ were more allowed of for their virtues newly seen and shewed than the old smell of ancient race, lately defaced by the cowardice and evil life of their nephews and descendants, could make the other to be. but as envy hath no affinity with justice and equity, so it forceth not what language the malicious do give out, against such as are exalted for their wisdoms. this nevertheless is generally to be reprehended in all estates of gentility, and which in short time will turn to the great ruin of our country, and that is, the usual sending of noblemen's and mean gentlemen's sons into italy, from whence they bring home nothing but mere atheism, infidelity, vicious conversation, and ambitious and proud behaviour, whereby it cometh to pass that they return far worse men than they went out. a gentleman at this present is newly come out of italy, who went thither an earnest protestant; but coming home he could say after this manner: "faith and truth is to be kept where no loss or hindrance of a future purpose is sustained by holding of the same; and forgiveness only to be shewed when full revenge is made." another no less forward than he, at his return from thence, could add thus much: "he is a fool that maketh account of any religion, but more fool that will lose any part of his wealth or will come in trouble for constant leaning to any; but if he yield to lose his life for his possession, he is stark mad, and worthy to be taken for most fool of all the rest." this gay booty got these gentlemen by going into italy; and hereby a man may see what fruit is afterward to be looked for where such blossoms do appear. "i care not," saith a third, "what you talk to me of god, so as i may have the prince and the laws of the realm on my side." such men as this last are easily known; for they have learned in italy to go up and down also in england with pages at their heels finely apparelled, whose face and countenance shall be such as sheweth the master not to be blind in his choice. but lest i should offend too much, i pass over to say any more of these italianates and their demeanour, which, alas! is too open and manifest to the world, and yet not called into question. citizens and burgesses have next place to gentlemen, who be those that are free within the cities, and are of some likely substance to bear office in the same. but these citizens or burgesses are to serve the commonwealth in their cities and boroughs, or in corporate towns where they dwell, and in the common assembly of the realm wherein our laws are made (for in the counties they bear but little sway), which assembly is called the high court of parliament: the ancient cities appoint four and the borough two burgesses to have voices in it, and give their consent or dissent unto such things as pass, to stay there in the name of the city or borough for which they are appointed. in this place also are our merchants to be installed as amongst the citizens (although they often change estate with gentlemen, as gentlemen do with them, by a mutual conversion of the one into the other), whose number is so increased in these our days that their only maintenance is the cause of the exceeding prices of foreign wares, which otherwise, when every nation was permitted to bring in her own commodities, were far better, cheaper, and more plentifully to be had. of the want of our commodities here at home, by their great transportation of them into other countries, i speak not, sith the matter will easily betray itself. certes among the lacedæmonians it was found out that great numbers of merchants were nothing to the furtherance of the state of the commonwealth: wherefore it is to be wished that the huge heap of them were somewhat restrained, as also of our lawyers, so should the rest live more easily upon their own, and few honest chapmen be brought to decay by breaking of the bankrupt. i do not deny but that the navy of the land is in part maintained by their traffic, and so are the high prices of wares kept up, now they have gotten the only sale of things upon pretence of better furtherance of the commonwealth into their own hands: whereas in times past, when the strange bottoms were suffered to come in, we had sugar for fourpence the pound, that now at the writing of this treatise is well worth half-a-crown; raisins or currants for a penny that now are holden at sixpence, and sometimes at eightpence and tenpence the pound; nutmegs at twopence halfpenny the ounce, ginger at a penny an ounce, prunes at halfpenny farthing, great raisins three pounds for a penny, cinnamon at fourpence the ounce, cloves at twopence, and pepper at twelve and sixteen pence the pound. whereby we may see the sequel of things not always, but very seldom, to be such as is pretended in the beginning. the wares that they carry out of the realm are for the most part broad clothes and carsies[ ] of all colours, likewise cottons, friezes, rugs, tin, wool, our best beer, baize, bustian, mockadoes (tufted and plain), rash, lead, fells, etc.: which, being shipped at sundry ports of our coasts, are borne from thence into all quarters of the world, and there either exchanged for other wares or ready money, to the great gain and commodity of our merchants. and whereas in times past their chief trade was into spain, portugal, france, flanders, danske [denmark], norway, scotland, and ireland only, now in these days, as men not contented with these journeys, they have sought out the east and west indies, and made now and then suspicious voyages, not only unto the canaries and new spain, but likewise into cathay, muscovy, and tartaria, and the regions thereabout, from whence (as they say) they bring home great commodities. but alas! i see not by all their travel that the prices of things are any whit abated. certes this enormity (for so i do account of it) was sufficiently provided for (ann. edward iii.) by a noble statute made in that behalf, but upon what occasion the general execution thereof is stayed or not called on, in good sooth, i cannot tell. this only i know, that every function and several vocation striveth with other, which of them should have all the water of commodity run into her own cistern. yeomen are those which by our law are called _legales homines_, free men born english, and may dispend of their own free land in yearly revenue to the sum of forty shillings sterling, or six pounds as money goeth in our times. some are of the opinion, by cap. rich. ann. , that they are the same which the frenchmen call varlets, but, as that phrase is used in my time, it is very unlikely to be so. the truth is that the word is derived from the saxon term _zeoman_, or _geoman_,[ ] which signifieth (as i have read) a settled or staid man, such i mean as, being married and of some years, betaketh himself to stay in the place of his abode for the better maintenance of himself and his family, whereof the single sort have no regard, but are likely to be still fleeting now hither now thither, which argueth want of stability in determination and resolution of judgment, for the execution of things of any importance. this sort of people have a certain pre-eminence, and more estimation than labourers and the common sort of artificers, and these commonly live wealthily, keep good houses, and travel to get riches. they are also for the most part farmers to gentlemen (in old time called _pagani, et opponuntur militibus_, and therefore persius calleth himself _semipaganus_[ ]), or at the leastwise artificers, and with grazing, frequenting of markets, and keeping of servants (not idle servants, as the gentlemen do, but such as get both their own and part of their masters' living), do come to great wealth, insomuch that many of them are able and do buy the lands of unthrifty gentlemen, and often setting their sons to the schools, to the universities, and to the inns of the court, or, otherwise leaving them sufficient lands whereupon they may live without labour, do make them by those means to become gentlemen. these were they that in times past made all france afraid. and albeit they be not called "master," as gentlemen are, or "sir," as to knights appertaineth, but only "john" and "thomas," etc., yet have they been found to have done very good service. the kings of england in foughten battles were wont to remain among them (who were their footmen) as the french kings did amongst their horsemen, the prince thereby shewing where his chief strength did consist. the fourth and last sort of people in england are day-labourers, poor husbandmen, and some retailers (which have no free land), copyholders, and all artificers, as tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, brickmakers, masons, etc.[ ] as for slaves and bondmen, we have none; nay, such is the privilege of our country by the especial grace of god and bounty of our princes, that if any come hither from other realms, so soon as they set foot on land they become so free of condition as their masters, whereby all note of servile bondage is utterly removed from them, wherein we resemble (not the germans, who had slaves also, though such as in respect of the slaves of other countries might well be reputed free, but) the old indians and the taprobanes,[ ] who supposed it a great injury to nature to make or suffer them to be bond, whom she in her wonted course doth product and bring forth free. this fourth and last sort of people therefore have neither voice nor authority in the commonwealth, but are to be ruled and not to rule other: yet they are not altogether neglected, for in cities and corporate towns, for default of yeomen, they are fain to make up their inquests of such manner of people. and in villages they are commonly made churchwardens, sidesmen, aleconners, now and then constables, and many times enjoy the name of head boroughs. unto this sort also may our great swarms of idle serving-men be referred, of whom there runneth a proverb, "young serving-men, old beggars," because service is none heritage. these men are profitable to none; for, if their condition be well perused, they are enemies to their masters, to their friends, and to themselves: for by them oftentimes their masters are encouraged unto unlawful exactions of their tenants, their friends brought unto poverty by their rents enhanced, and they themselves brought to confusion by their own prodigality and errors, as men that, having not wherewith of their own to maintain their excesses, do search in highways, budgets, coffers, mails, and stables, which way to supply their wants. how divers of them also, coveting to bear an high sail, do insinuate themselves with young gentlemen and noblemen newly come to their lands, the case is too much apparent, whereby the good natures of the parties are not only a little impaired, but also their livelihoods and revenues so wasted and consumed that, if at all, yet not in many years, they shall be able to recover themselves. it were very good therefore that the superfluous heaps of them were in part diminished. and since necessity enforceth to have some, yet let wisdom moderate their numbers, so shall their masters be rid of unnecessary charge, and the commonwealth of many thieves. no nation cherisheth such store of them as we do here in england, in hope of which maintenance many give themselves to idleness that otherwise would be brought to labour, and live in order like subjects. of their whoredoms i will not speak anything at all, more than of their swearing; yet is it found that some of them do make the first a chief pillar of their building, consuming not only the goods but also the health and welfare of many honest gentlemen, citizens, wealthy yeomen, etc., by such unlawful dealings. but how far have i waded in this point, or how far may i sail in such a large sea? i will therefore now stay to speak any more of those kind of men. in returning therefore to my matter, this furthermore among other things i have to say of our husbandmen and artificers, that they were never so excellent in their trades as at this present. but as the workmanship of the latter sort was newer, more fine, and curious to the eye, so was it never less strong and substantial for continuance and benefit of the buyers. neither is there anything that hurteth the common sort of our artificers more than haste, and a barbarous or slavish desire to turn the penny, and, by ridding their work, to make speedy utterance of their wares: which enforceth them to bungle up and despatch many things they care not how so they be out of their hands, whereby the buyer is often sore defrauded, and findeth to his cost that haste maketh waste, according to the proverb. oh, how many trades and handicrafts are now in england whereof the commonwealth hath no need! how many needful commodities have we which are perfected with great cost, etc., and yet may with far more ease and less cost be provided from other countries if we could use the means! i will not speak of iron, glass, and such like, which spoil much wood, and yet are brought from other countries better cheap than we can make them here at home; i could exemplify also in many other. but to leave these things and proceed with our purpose, and herein (as occasion serveth) generally, by way of conclusion, to speak of the commonwealth of england, i find that it is governed and maintained by three sorts of persons-- . the prince, monarch, and head governor, which is called the king, or (if the crown fall to a woman) the queen: in whose name and by whose authority all things are administered. . the gentlemen, which be divided into two sorts, as the barony or estate of lords (which containeth barons and all above that degree), and also those that be no lords, as knights, esquires, and simple gentlemen, as i have noted already. out of these also are the great deputies and high presidents chosen, of which one serveth in ireland, as another did some time in calais, and the captain now at berwick, as one lord president doth govern in wales, and the other the north parts of this island, which later, with certain counsellors and judges, were erected by king henry the eighth. but, for so much as i have touched their conditions elsewhere, it shall be enough to have remembered them at this time. . the third and last sort is named the yeomanry, of whom and their sequel, the labourers and artificers, i have said somewhat even now. whereto i add that they may not be called _masters_ and _gentlemen_, but _goodmen_, as goodman smith, goodman coot, goodman cornell, goodman mascall, goodman cockswet, etc.: and in matters of law these and the like are called thus, _giles jewd, yeoman_; _edward mountford, yeoman_; _james cocke, yeoman_; _harry butcher, yeoman_, etc.; by which addition they are exempt from the vulgar and common sorts. cato calleth them "_aratores et optimos cives rei publicæ_," of whom also you may read more in the book of commonwealth which sir thomas smith some time penned of this land.[ ] chapter ii. of cities and towns in england. [ , book ii., chapter ; , book ii., chapter .] as in old time we read that there were eight-and-twenty flamines and archflamines in the south part of this isle, and so many great cities under their jurisdiction, so in these our days there is but one or two fewer, and each of them also under the ecclesiastical regiment of some one bishop or archbishop, who in spiritual cases have the charge and oversight of the same. so many cities therefore are there in england and wales as there be bishoprics and archbishoprics.[ ] for, notwithstanding that lichfield and coventry and bath and wells do seem to extend the aforesaid number unto nine-and-twenty, yet neither of these couples are to be accounted but as one entire city and see of the bishop, sith one bishopric can have relation but unto one see, and the said see be situate but in one place, after which the bishop doth take his name.[ ] * * * * * certes i would gladly set down, with the names and number of the cities, all the towns and villages in england and wales, with their true longitudes and latitudes, but as yet i cannot come by them in such order as i would; howbeit the tale of our cities is soon found by the bishoprics, sith every see hath such prerogative given unto it as to bear the name of a city and to use _regaleius_[ ] within her own limits. which privilege also is granted to sundry ancient towns in england, especially northward, where more plenty of them is to be found by a great deal than in the south. the names therefore of our cities are these: london, york, canterbury, winchester, carlisle, durham, ely, norwich, lincoln, worcester, gloucester, hereford, salisbury, exeter, bath, lichfield, bristol, rochester, chester, chichester, oxford, peterborough, llandaff, st. davids, bangor, st. asaph, whose particular plots and models, with their descriptions, shall ensue, if it may be brought to pass that the cutters can make despatch of them before this history be published.[ ] of towns and villages likewise thus much will i say, that there were greater store in old time (i mean within three or four hundred year passed) than at this present. and this i note out of divers records, charters, and donations (made in times past unto sundry religious houses, as glastonbury, abingdon, ramsey, ely, and such like), and whereof in these days i find not so much as the ruins. leland, in sundry places, complaineth likewise of the decay of parishes in great cities and towns, missing in some six or eight or twelve churches and more, of all which he giveth particular notice. for albeit that the saxons builded many towns and villages, and the normans well more at their first coming, yet since the first two hundred years after the latter conquest, they have gone so fast again to decay that the ancient number of them is very much abated. ranulph, the monk of chester, telleth of general survey made in the fourth, sixteenth, and nineteenth of the reign of william conqueror, surnamed the bastard, wherein it was found that (notwithstanding the danes had overthrown a great many) there were to the number of , towns, , parish churches, and , knights' fees, whereof the clergy held , . he addeth moreover that there were divers other builded since that time, within the space of a hundred years after the coming of the bastard, as it were in lieu or recompense of those that william rufus pulled down for the erection of his new forest. for by an old book which i have, and some time written as it seemeth by an under-sheriff of nottingham, i find even in the time of edward iv. , parish churches, and but , knights' fees, whereof the clergy held as before , , or at the least , ; for so small is the difference which he doth seem to use. howbeit, if the assertions of such as write in our time concerning this matter either are or ought to be of any credit in this behalf, you shall not find above , towns and villages, and in the whole, which is little more than a fourth part of the aforesaid number, if it be thoroughly scanned.[ ] * * * * * in time past in lincoln (as the same goeth) there have been two-and-fifty parish churches, and good record appeareth for eight-and-thirty; but now, if there be four-and-twenty, it is all. this inconvenience hath grown altogether to the church by appropriations made unto monasteries and religious houses--a terrible canker and enemy to religion. but to leave this lamentable discourse of so notable and grievous an inconvenience, growing as i said by encroaching and joining of house to house and laying land to land, whereby the inhabitants of many places of our country are devoured and eaten up, and their houses either altogether pulled down or suffered to decay little by little,[ ] although some time a poor man peradventure doth dwell in one of them, who, not being able to repair it, suffereth it to fall down--and thereto thinketh himself very friendly dealt withal, if he may have an acre of ground assigned unto him, wherein to keep a cow, or wherein to set cabbages, radishes, parsnips, carrots, melons, pompons,[ ] or such like stuff, by which he and his poor household liveth as by their principal food, sith they can do no better. and as for wheaten bread, they eat it when they can reach unto the price of it, contenting themselves in the meantime with bread made of oats or barley: a poor estate, god wot! howbeit, what care our great encroachers? but in divers places where rich men dwelled some time in good tenements, there be now no houses at all, but hop-yards, and sheds for poles, or peradventure gardens, as we may see in castle hedingham,[ ] and divers other places. but to proceed. it is so that, our soil being divided into champaign ground and woodland, the houses of the first lie uniformly builded in every town together, with streets and lanes; whereas in the woodland countries (except here and there in great market towns) they stand scattered abroad, each one dwelling in the midst of his own occupying. and as in many and most great market towns, there are commonly three hundred or four hundred families or mansions, and two thousand communicants (or peradventure more), so in the other, whether they be woodland or champaign, we find not often above forty, fifty, or three score households, and two or three hundred communicants, whereof the greatest part nevertheless are very poor folks, oftentimes without all manner of occupying, sith the ground of the parish is gotten up into a few men's hands, yea sometimes into the tenure of one or two or three, whereby the rest are compelled either to be hired servants unto the other or else to beg their bread in misery from door to door. there are some (saith leland) which are not so favourable, when they have gotten such lands, as to let the houses remain upon them to the use of the poor; but they will compound with the lord of the soil to pull them down for altogether, saying that "if they did let them stand, they should but toll beggars to the town, thereby to surcharge the rest of the parish, and lay more burden upon them." but alas! these pitiful men see not that they themselves hereby do lay the greatest log upon their neighbours' necks. for, sith the prince doth commonly loose nothing of his duties accustomable to be paid, the rest of the parishioners that remain must answer and bear them out: for they plead more charge other ways, saying: "i am charged already with a light horse; i am to answer in this sort, and after that matter." and it is not yet altogether out of knowledge that, where the king had seven pounds thirteen shillings at a task gathered of fifty wealthy householders of a parish in england, now, a gentleman having three parts of the town in his own hands, four households do bear all the aforesaid payment, or else leland is deceived in his _commentaries_, lib. , lately come to my hands,[ ] which thing he especially noted in his travel over this isle. a common plague and enormity, both in the heart of the land and likewise upon the coasts. certes a great number complain of the increase of poverty, laying the cause upon god, as though he were in fault for sending such increase of people, or want of wars that should consume them, affirming that the land was never so full, etc.; but few men do see the very root from whence it doth proceed. yet the romans found it out, when they flourished, and therefore prescribed limits to every man's tenure and occupying. homer commendeth achilles for overthrowing of five-and-twenty cities: but in mine opinion ganges is much better preferred by suidas for building of three score in india, where he did plant himself. i could (if need required) set down in this place the number of religious houses and monasteries, with the names of their founders, that have been in this island: but, sith it is a thing of small importance, i pass it over as impertinent to my purpose. yet herein i will commend sundry of the monastical votaries, especially monks, for that they were authors of many goodly borowes and endwares,[ ] near unto their dwellings, although otherwise they pretended to be men separated from the world. but alas! their covetous minds, one way in enlarging their revenues, and carnal intent another, appeared herein too, too much. for, being bold from time to time to visit their tenants, they wrought oft great wickedness, and made those endwares little better than brothel-houses, especially where nunneries were far off, or else no safe access unto them. but what do i spend my time in the rehearsal of these filthinesses? would to god the memory of them might perish with the malefactors! my purpose was also at the end of this chapter to have set down a table of the parish churches and market towns throughout all england and wales; but, sith i cannot perform the same as i would, i am forced to give over my purpose; yet by these few that ensue you shall easily see what order i would have used according to the shires, if i might have brought it to pass. shires. market towns. parishes. middlesex london within the walls and without surrey sussex kent cambridge bedford huntingdon rutland berkshire northampton buckingham oxford southampton dorset norfolk suffolk essex and these i had of a friend of mine, by whose travel and his master's excessive charges i doubt not but my countrymen ere long shall see all england set forth in several shires after the same manner that ortelius hath dealt with other countries of the main, to the great benefit of our nation and everlasting fame of the aforesaid parties.[ ] chapter iii. of gardens and orchards. [ , book ii., chapter .[ ]] after such time as calais was won from the french, and that our countrymen had learned to trade into divers countries (whereby they grew rich), they began to wax idle also, and thereupon not only left off their former painfulness and frugality, but in like sort gave themselves to live in excess and vanity, whereby many goodly commodities failed, and in short time were not to be had amongst us. such strangers also as dwelled here with us, perceiving our sluggishness, and espying that this idleness of ours might redound to their great profit, forthwith employed their endeavours to bring in the supply of such things as we lacked continually from foreign countries, which yet more augmented our idleness. for, having all things at reasonable prices (as we supposed) by such means from them, we thought it mere madness to spend either time or cost about the same here at home. and thus we became enemies to our own welfare, as men that in those days reposed our felicity in following the wars, wherewith we were often exercised both at home and other places. besides this, the natural desire that mankind hath to esteem of things far sought, because they be rare and costly, and the irksome contempt of things near hand, for that they are common and plentiful, hath borne no small sway also in this behalf amongst us. for hereby we have neglected our own good gifts of god, growing here at home, as vile and of no value, and had every trifle and toy in admiration that is brought hither from far countries, ascribing i wot not what great forces and solemn estimation unto them, until they also have waxen old, after which, they have been so little regarded, if not more despised, amongst us than our own. examples hereof i could set down many and in many things; but, sith my purpose is to deal at this time with gardens and orchards, it shall suffice that i touch them only, and show our inconstancy in the same, so far as shall seem and be convenient for my turn. i comprehend therefore under the word "garden" all such grounds as are wrought with the spade by man's hand, for so the case requireth. of wine i have written already elsewhere sufficiently,[ ] which commodity (as i have learned further since the penning of that book) hath been very plentiful in this island, not only in the time of the romans, but also since the conquest, as i have seen by record; yet at this present have we none at all (or else very little to speak of) growing in this island, which i impute not unto the soil, but the negligence of my countrymen. such herbs, fruits, and roots also as grow yearly out of the ground, of seed, have been very plentiful in this land, in the time of the first edward, and after his days; but in process of time they grew also to be neglected, so that from henry the fourth till the latter end of henry the seventh and beginning of henry the eighth, there was little or no use of them in england,[ ] but they remained either unknown or supposed as food more meet for hogs and savage beasts to feed upon than mankind. whereas in my time their use is not only resumed among the poor commons, i mean of melons, pompons, gourds, cucumbers, radishes, skirets,[ ] parsnips, carrots, cabbages, navews,[ ] turnips, and all kinds of salad herbs--but also fed upon as dainty dishes at the tables of delicate merchants, gentlemen, and the nobility, who make their provision yearly for new seeds out of strange countries, from whence they have them abundantly. neither do they now stay with such of these fruits as are wholesome in their kinds, but adventure further upon such as are very dangerous and hurtful, as the verangenes, mushrooms, etc., as if nature had ordained all for the belly, or that all things were to be eaten for whose mischievous operation the lord in some measure hath given and provided a remedy. hops in time past were plentiful in this land. afterwards also their maintenance did cease. and now, being revived, where are any better to be found? where any greater commodity to be raised by them? only poles are accounted to be their greatest charge. but, sith men have learned of late to sow ashen kexes in ashyards by themselves, that inconvenience in short time will be redressed. madder hath grown abundantly in this island, but of long time neglected, and now a little revived, and offereth itself to prove no small benefit unto our country, as many other things else, which are now fetched from us: as we before time, when we gave ourselves to idleness, were glad to have them other. if you look into our gardens annexed to our houses, how wonderfully is their beauty increased, not only with flowers, which columella calleth _terrena sydera_, saying, "_pingit et in varios terrestria sydera flores_," and variety of curious and costly workmanship, but also with rare and medicinable herbs[ ] sought up in the land within these forty years: so that, in comparison of this present, the ancient gardens were but dunghills and laistowes[ ] to such as did possess them. how art also helpeth nature in the daily colouring, doubling, and enlarging the proportion of our flowers, it is incredible to report: for so curious and cunning are our gardeners now in these days that they presume to do in manner what they list with nature, and moderate her course in things as if they were her superiors. it is a world also to see how many strange herbs, plants, and annual fruits are daily brought unto us from the indies, americans, taprobane, canary isles, and all parts of the world: the which, albeit that in respect of the constitutions of our bodies they do not grow for us (because that god hath bestowed sufficient commodities upon every country for her own necessity), yet, for delectation sake unto the eye and their odoriferous savours unto the nose, they are to be cherished, and god to be glorified also in them, because they are his good gifts, and created to do man help and service. there is not almost one nobleman, gentleman, or merchant that hath not great store of these flowers, which now also do begin to wax so well acquainted with our soils that we may almost account of them as parcel of our own commodities. they have no less regard in like sort to cherish medicinable herbs fetched out of other regions nearer hand, insomuch that i have seen in some one garden to the number of three hundred or four hundred of them, if not more, of the half of whose names within forty years past we had no manner of knowledge. but herein i find some cause of just complaint, for that we extol their uses so far that we fall into contempt of our own, which are in truth more beneficial and apt for us than such as grow elsewhere, sith (as i said before) every region hath abundantly within her own limits whatsoever is needful and most convenient for them that dwell therein. how do men extol the use of tobacco[ ] in my time, whereas in truth (whether the cause be in the repugnancy of our constitution unto the operation thereof, or that the ground doth alter her force, i cannot tell) it is not found of so great efficacy as they write. and beside this, our common germander or thistle benet is found and known to be so wholesome and of so great power in medicine as any other herb, if they be used accordingly. i could exemplify after the like manner in sundry other, as the _salsa parilla_, _mochoacan_, etc., but i forbear so to do, because i covet to be brief. and truly, the estimation and credit that we yield and give unto compound medicines made with foreign drugs is one great cause wherefore the full knowledge and use of our own simples hath been so long raked up in the embers. and as this may be verified so to be one sound conclusion, for, the greater number of simples that go unto any compound medicine, the greater confusion is found therein, because the qualities and operations of very few of the particulars are thoroughly known. and even so our continual desire of strange drugs, whereby the physician and apothecary only hath the benefit, is no small cause that the use of our simples here at home doth go to loss, and that we tread those herbs under our feet, whose forces if we knew, and could apply them to our necessities, we would honour and have in reverence as to their case behoveth. alas! what have we to do with such arabian and grecian stuff as is daily brought from those parties which lie in another clime? and therefore the bodies of such as dwell there are of another constitution than ours are here at home. certes they grow not for us, but for the arabians and grecians. and albeit that they may by skill be applied unto our benefit, yet to be more skilful in them than in our own is folly; and to use foreign wares, when our own may serve the turn, is more folly; but to despise our own, and magnify above measure the use of them that are sought and brought from far, is most folly of all: for it savoureth of ignorance, or at the leastwise of negligence, and therefore worthy of reproach. among the indians, who have the most present cures for every disease of their own nation, there is small regard of compound medicines, and less of foreign drugs, because they neither know them nor can use them, but work wonders even with their own simples. with them also the difference of the clime doth show her full effect. for, whereas they will heal one another in short time with application of one simple, etc., if a spaniard or englishman stand in need of their help, they are driven to have a longer space in their cures, and now and then also to use some addition of two or three simples at the most, whose forces unto them are thoroughly known, because their exercise is only in their own, as men that never sought or heard what virtue was in those that came from other countries. and even so did marcus cato, the learned roman, endeavour to deal in his cures of sundry diseases, wherein he not only used such simples as were to be had in his own country, but also examined and learned the forces of each of them, wherewith he dealt so diligently that in all his lifetime he could attain to the exact knowledge but of a few, and thereto wrote of those most learnedly, as would easily be seen if those his books were extant. for the space also of six hundred years the colewort only was a medicine in rome for all diseases, so that his virtues were thoroughly known in those parts. in pliny's time the like affection to foreign drugs did rage among the romans, whereby their own did grow in contempt. crying out therefore of this extreme folly, lib. , cap. , he speaketh after this manner-- "non placent remedia tam longè nascentia, non enim nobis gignuntur, immò ne illis quidem, alioquin non venderent; si placet etiam superstitionis gratia emantur, quoniam supplicamus, &c. salutem quidem sine his posse constare, vel ob id probabimus, ut tanto magis sui tandem pudeat." for my part, i doubt not if the use of outlandish drugs had not blinded our physicians of england in times past, but that the virtues of our simples here at home would have been far better known, and so well unto us as those of india are to the practitioners of those parts, and thereunto be found more profitable for us than the foreign either are or may be. this also will i add, that even those which are most common by reason of their plenty, and most vile because of their abundance, are not without some universal and special efficacy, if it were known, for our benefit: sith god in nature hath so disposed his creatures that the most needful are the most plentiful and serving for such general diseases as our constitution most commonly is affected withal. great thanks therefore be given unto the physicians of our age and country, who not only endeavour to search out the use of such simples as our soil doth yield and bring forth, but also to procure such as grow elsewhere, upon purpose so to acquaint them with our clime that they in time, through some alteration received from the nature of the earth, may likewise turn to our benefit and commodity and be used as our own. the chief workman (or, as i may call him, the founder of this device) is carolus clusius, the noble herbarist whose industry hath wonderfully stirred them up unto this good act. for albeit that matthiolus, rembert, lobell, and others have travelled very far in this behalf, yet none hath come near to clusius, much less gone further in the finding and true descriptions of such herbs as of late are brought to light. i doubt not but, if this man were in england but one seven years, he would reveal a number of herbs growing with us whereof neither our physicians nor apothecaries as yet have any knowledge. and even like thanks be given unto our nobility, gentlemen, and others, for their continual nutriture and cherishing of such homeborne and foreign simples in their gardens: for hereby they shall not only be had at hand and preserved, but also their forms made more familiar to be discerned and their forces better known than hitherto they have been. and even as it fareth with our gardens, so doth it with our orchards, which were never furnished with so good fruit nor with such variety as at this present. for, beside that we have most delicate apples, plums, pears, walnuts, filberts, etc., and those of sundry sorts, planted within forty years past, in comparison of which most of the old trees are nothing worth, so have we no less store of strange fruit, as apricots, almonds, peaches, figs, corn-trees[ ] in noblemen's orchards. i have seen capers, oranges, and lemons, and heard of wild olives growing here, beside other strange trees, brought from far, whose names i know not. so that england for these commodities was never better furnished, neither any nation under their clime more plentifully endued with these and other blessings from the most high god, who grant us grace withal to use the same to his honour and glory! and not as instruments and provocations unto further excess and vanity, wherewith his displeasure may be kindled, lest these his benefits do turn unto thorns and briers unto us for our annoyance and punishment, which he hath bestowed upon us for our consolation and comfort. we have in like sort such workmen as are not only excellent in grafting the natural fruits, but also in their artificial mixtures, whereby one tree bringeth forth sundry fruits, and one and the same fruit of divers colours and tastes, dallying as it were with nature and her course, as if her whole trade were perfectly known unto them: of hard fruits they will make tender, of sour sweet, of sweet yet more delicate, bereaving also some of their kernels, other of their cores, and finally enduing them with the savour of musk, amber, or sweet spices, at their pleasures. divers also have written at large of these several practices, and some of them how to convert the kernels of peaches into almonds, of small fruit to make far greater, and to remove or add superfluous or necessary moisture to the trees, with other things belonging to their preservation, and with no less diligence than our physicians do commonly show upon our own diseased bodies, which to me doth seem right strange. and even so do our gardeners with their herbs, whereby they are strengthened against noisome blasts, and preserved from putrefaction and hindrance: whereby some such as were annual are now made perpetual, being yearly taken up, and either reserved in the house, or, having the ross pulled from their roots, laid again into the earth, where they remain in safety. what choice they make also in their waters, and wherewith some of them do now and then keep them moist, it is a world to see, insomuch that the apothecaries' shops may seem to be needful also to our gardens and orchards, and that in sundry wise: nay, the kitchen itself is so far from being able to be missed among them that even the very dish-water is not without some use amongst our finest plants. whereby, and sundry other circumstances not here to be remembered, i am persuaded that, albeit the gardens of the hesperides were in times past so greatly accounted of, because of their delicacy, yet, if it were possible to have such an equal judge as by certain knowledge of both were able to pronounce upon them, i doubt not but he would give the prize unto the gardens of our days, and generally over all europe, in comparison of those times wherein the old exceeded. pliny and others speak of a rose that had three score leaves growing upon one button: but if i should tell of one which bare a triple number unto that proportion, i know i shall not be believed, and no great matter though i were not; howbeit such a one was to be seen in antwerp, , as i have heard, and i know who might have had a slip or stallon thereof, if he would have ventured ten pounds upon the growth of the same, which should have been but a tickle hazard, and therefore better undone, as i did always imagine. for mine own part, good reader, let me boast a little of my garden, which is but small, and the whole area thereof little above foot of ground, and yet, such hath been my good luck in purchase of the variety of simples, that, notwithstanding my small ability, there are very near three hundred of one sort and other contained therein, no one of them being common or usually to be had. if therefore my little plot, void of all cost in keeping, be so well furnished, what shall we think of those of hampton court, nonsuch, tibault's, cobham garden,[ ] and sundry others appertaining to divers citizens of london, whom i could particularly name; if i should not seem to offend them by such my demeanour and dealing. chapter iv. of fairs and markets. [ , book ii., chapter ; , book ii., chapter .] there are (as i take it) few great towns in england that have not their weekly markets, one or more granted from the prince, in which all manner of provision for household is to be bought and sold, for ease and benefit of the country round about. whereby, as it cometh to pass that no buyer shall make any great journey in the purveyance of his necessities, so no occupier shall have occasion to travel far off with his commodities, except it be to seek for the highest prices, which commonly are near unto great cities, where round and speediest utterance is always to be had. and, as these have been in times past erected for the benefit of the realm, so are they in many places too, too much abused: for the relief and ease of the buyer is not so much intended in them as the benefit of the seller. neither are the magistrates for the most part (as men loath to displease their neighbours for their one year's dignity) so careful in their offices as of right and duty they should be. for, in most of these markets, neither assizes of bread nor orders for goodness and sweetness of grain and other commodities that are brought thither to be sold are any whit looked unto, but each one suffered to sell or set up what and how himself listeth: and this is one evident cause of dearth and scarcity in time of great abundance. i could (if i would) exemplify in many, but i will touch no one particularly, sith it is rare to see in any country town (as i said) the assize of bread well kept according to the statute; and yet, if any country baker happen to come in among them on the market day with bread of better quantity, they find fault by-and-by with one thing or other in his stuff, whereby the honest poor man (whom the law of nations do commend, for that he endeavoureth to live by any lawful means) is driven away, and no more to come there, upon some round penalty, by virtue of their privileges. howbeit, though they are so nice in the proportion of their bread, yet, in lieu of the same, there is such heady ale and beer in most of them as for the mightiness thereof among such as seek it out is commonly called "huffcap," "the mad dog," "father whoreson," "angels' food," "dragon's milk," "go-by-the-wall," "stride wide," and "lift leg," etc. and this is more to be noted, that when one of late fell by god's providence into a troubled conscience, after he had considered well of his reachless life and dangerous estate, another, thinking belike to change his colour and not his mind, carried him straight away to the strongest ale, as to the next physician. it is incredible to say how our maltbugs lug at this liquor, even as pigs should lie in a row lugging at their dame's teats, till they lie still again and be not able to wag. neither did romulus and remus suck their she-wolf or shepherd's wife lupa with such eager and sharp devotion as these men hale at "huffcap," till they be red as cocks and little wiser than their combs. but how am i fallen from the market into the alehouse? in returning therefore unto my purpose, i find that in corn great abuse is daily suffered, to the great prejudice of the town and country, especially the poor artificer and householder, which tilleth no land, but, labouring all the week to buy a bushel or two of grain on the market day, can there have none for his money: because bodgers,[ ] loaders, and common carriers of corn do not only buy up all, but give above the price, to be served of great quantities. shall i go any further? well, i will say yet a little more, and somewhat by mine own experience. at michaelmas time poor men must make money of their grain, that they may pay their rents. so long then as the poor man hath to sell, rich men will bring out none, but rather buy up that which the poor bring, under pretence of seed corn or alteration of grain, although they bring none of their own, because one wheat often sown without change of seed will soon decay and be converted into darnel. for this cause therefore they must needs buy in the markets, though they be twenty miles off, and where they be not known, promising there, if they happen to be espied (which, god wot, is very seldom), to send so much to their next market, to be performed i wot not when. if this shift serve not (neither doth the fox use always one track for fear of a snare), they will compound with some one of the town where the market is holden, who for a pot of "huffcap" or "merry-go-down," will not let to buy it for them, and that in his own name. or else they wage one poor man or other to become a bodger, and thereto get him a licence upon some forged surmise, which being done, they will feed him with money to buy for them till he hath filled their lofts;[ ] and then, if he can do any good for himself, so it is; if not, they will give him somewhat for his pains at this time, and reserve him for another year. how many of the like providers stumble upon blind creeks at the sea coast, i wot not well; but that some have so done and yet do under other men's wings, the case is too, too plain. but who dare find fault with them, when they have once a licence? yes, though it be but to serve a mean gentleman's house with corn, who hath cast up all his tillage, because he boasteth how he can buy his grain in the market better cheap than he can sow his land, as the rich grazier often doth also upon the like device, because grazing requireth a smaller household and less attendance and charge. if any man come to buy a bushel or two for his expenses unto the market cross, answer is made: "forsooth, here was one even now that bade me money for it, and i hope he will have it." and to say the truth, these bodgers are fair chapmen; for there are no more words with them, but "_let me see it! what shall i give you? knit it up! i will have it--go carry it to such a chamber, and if you bring in twenty_ seme _more in the week-day to such an inn or sollar where i lay my corn, i will have it, and give you (____) pence or more in every bushel for six weeks' day of payment than another will_." thus the bodgers bear away all, so that the poor artificer and labourer cannot make his provision in the markets, sith they will hardly nowadays sell by the bushel, nor break their measure; and so much the rather for that the buyer will look (as they say) for so much over measure in the bushel as the bodger will do in a quarter. nay, the poor man cannot oft get any of the farmer at home, because he provideth altogether to serve the bodger, or hath an hope, grounded upon a greedy and insatiable desire of gain, that the sale will be better in the market, so that he must give twopence or a groat more in the bushel at his house than the last market craved, or else go without it, and sleep with a hungry belly. of the common carriage of corn over unto the parts beyond the seas i speak not; or at the leastwise, if i should, i could not touch it alone, but needs must join other provision withal, whereby not only our friends abroad, but also many of our adversaries and countrymen, the papists, are abundantly relieved (as the report goeth); but sith i see it not, i will not so trust mine ears as to write it for a truth. but to return to our markets again. by this time the poor occupier hath sold all his crop for need of money, being ready peradventure to buy again ere long. and now is the whole sale of corn in the great occupiers' hands, who hitherto have threshed little or none of their own, but bought up of other men as much as they could come by. henceforth also they begin to sell, not by the quarter or load at the first (for marring the market), but by the bushel or two, or a horseload at the most, thereby to be seen to keep the cross, either for a show, or to make men eager to buy, and so, as they may have it for money, not to regard what they pay. and thus corn waxeth dear; but it will be dearer the next market day. it is possible also that they mislike the price in the beginning for the whole year ensuing, as men supposing that corn will be little worth for this, and of better price the next year. for they have certain superstitious observations whereby they will give a guess at the sale of corn for the year following. and our countrymen do use commonly for barley, where i dwell, to judge after the price at baldock upon st. matthew's day; and for wheat, as it is sold in seed time. they take in like sort experiment by sight of the first flocks of cranes that flee southward in winter, the age of the moon in the beginning of january, and such other apish toys as by laying twelve corns upon the hot hearth for the twelve months, etc., whereby they shew themselves to be scant good christians; but what care they, so that they come by money? hereupon also will they thresh out three parts of the old corn, towards the latter end of the summer, when new cometh apace to hand, and cast the same in the fourth unthreshed, where it shall lie until the next spring, or peradventure till it must and putrify. certes it is not dainty to see musty corn in many of our great markets of england which these great occupiers bring forth when they can keep it no longer. but as they are enforced oftentimes upon this one occasion somewhat to abate the price, so a plague is not seldom engendered thereby among the poorer sort that of necessity must buy the same, whereby many thousands of all degrees are consumed, of whose deaths (in mine opinion) these farmers are not unguilty. but to proceed. if they lay not up their grain or wheat in this manner, they have yet another policy, whereby they will seem to have but small store left in their barns: for else they will gird their sheaves by the band, and stack it up anew in less room, to the end it may not only seem less in quantity, but also give place to the corn that is yet to come into the barn or growing in the field. if there happen to be such plenty in the market on any market day that they cannot sell at their own price, then will they set it up in some friend's house, against another on the third day, and not bring it forth till they like of the sale. if they sell any at home, beside harder measure, it shall be dearer to the poor man that buyeth it by twopence or a groat in a bushel than they may sell it in the market. but, as these things are worthy redress, so i wish that god would once open their eyes that deal thus to see their own errors: for as yet some of them little care how many poor men suffer extremity, so that they fill their purses and carry away the gain. it is a world also to see how most places of the realm are pestered with purveyors, who take up eggs, butter, cheese, pigs, capons, hens, chickens, hogs, bacon, etc., in one market under pretence of their commissions, and suffer their wives to sell the same in another, or to poulterers of london. if these chapmen be absent but two or three market days then we may perfectly see these wares to be more reasonably sold, and thereunto the crosses sufficiently furnished of all things. in like sort, since the number of buttermen have so much increased, and since they travel in such wise that they come to men's houses for their butter faster than they can make it, it is almost incredible to see how the price of butter is augmented:[ ] whereas when the owners were enforced to bring it to the market towns, and fewer of these butter buyers were stirring, our butter was scarcely worth eighteenpence the gallon that now is worth three shillings fourpence and perhaps five shillings. whereby also i gather that the maintenance of a superfluous number of dealers[ ] in most trades, tillage always excepted, is one of the greatest causes why the prices of things become excessive: for one of them do commonly use to outbid another. and whilst our country commodities are commonly bought and sold at our private houses, i never look to see this enormity redressed or the markets well furnished. i could say more, but this is even enough, and more peradventure than i shall be well thanked for: yet true it is, though some think it no trespass. this moreover is to be lamented, that one general measure is not in use throughout all england, but every market town hath in manner a several bushel; and the lesser it be, the more sellers it draweth to resort unto the same. such also is the covetousness of many clerks of the market, that in taking a view of measures they will always so provide that one and the same bushel shall be either too big or too little at their next coming, and yet not depart without a fee at the first, so that what by their mending at one time, and impairing the same at another, the country is greatly charged, and few just measures to be had in any steed. it is oft found likewise that divers unconscionable dealers have one measure to sell by and another to buy withal; the like is also in weights, and yet all sealed and bronded. wherefore it were very good that these two were reduced unto one standard, that is, one bushel, one pound, one quarter, one hundred, one tale, one number: so should things in time fall into better order and fewer causes of contention be moved in this land. of the complaint of such poor tenants as pay rent corn[ ] unto their landlords, i speak not, who are often dealt withal very hardly. for, beside that in measuring of ten quarters for the most part they lose one through the iniquity of the bushel (such is the greediness of the appointed receivers thereof), fault is found also with the goodness and cleanness of the grain. whereby some piece of money must needs pass unto their purses to stop their mouths withal, or else "my lord will not like of the corn," "thou art worthy to lose thy lease," etc. or, if it be cheaper in the market than the rate allowed for it is in their rents, then must they pay money and no corn, which is no small extremity. and thereby we may see how each one of us endeavoureth to fleece and eat up another. another thing there is in our markets worthy to be looked into, and that is the recarriage of grain from the same into lofts and cellars, of which before i gave some intimation; wherefore, if it were ordered that every seller should make his market by an hour, or else the bailey or clerk of the said market to make sale thereof, according to his discretion, without liberty to the farmers to set up their corn in houses and chambers, i am persuaded that the prices of our grain would soon be abated. again, if it were enacted that each one should keep his next market with his grain (and not to run six, eight, ten, fourteen, or twenty miles from home to sell his corn where he doth find the highest price, and thereby leaveth his neighbours unfurnished), i do not think but that our markets would be far better served than at this present they are. finally, if men's barns might be indifferently viewed immediately after harvest, and a note gathered by an estimate, and kept by some appointed and trusty person for that purpose, we should have much more plenty of corn in our town crosses than as yet is commonly seen: because each one hideth and hoardeth what he may, upon purpose either that it will be dearer, or that he shall have some privy vein by bodgers, who do accustomably so deal that the sea doth load away no small part thereof into other countries and our enemies, to the great hindrance of our commonwealth at home, and more likely yet to be, except some remedy be found. but what do i talk of these things, or desire the suppression of bodgers, being a minister? certes i may speak of them right well as feeling the harm in that i am a buyer, nevertheless i speak generally in each of them. to conclude therefore, in our markets all things are to be sold necessary for man's use; and there is our provision made commonly for all the week ensuing. therefore, as there are no great towns without one weekly market at least, so there are very few of them that have not one or two fairs or more within the compass of the year, assigned unto them by the prince. and albeit that some of them are not much better than louse fair,[ ] or the common kirkemesses[ ] beyond the sea, yet there are divers not inferior to the greatest marts in europe, as stourbridge fair near to cambridge, bristow fair, bartholomew fair at london, lynn mart, cold fair at newport pond for cattle, and divers other, all which, or at leastwise the greatest part of them (to the end i may with the more ease to the reader and less travel to myself fulfil my task in their recital), i have set down according to the names of the months wherein they are holden at the end of this book, where you shall find them at large as i borrowed the same from j. stow and the reports of others. chapter v. of the laws of england since her first inhabitation. [ , book iii., chapter ; , book ii., chapter .] that samothes (or dis) gave the first laws to the celts (whose kingdom he erected about the fifteenth of nimbrote), the testimony of berosus is proof sufficient. for he not only affirmeth him to publish the same in the fourth of ninus, but also addeth thereto how there lived none in his days of more excellent wisdom nor politic invention than he, whereof he was named samothes, as some other do affirm. what his laws were, it is now altogether unknown, as most things of this age, but that they were altered again at the coming of albion no man can absolutely deny, sith new lords use commonly to give new laws, and conquerors abolish such as were in use before them. the like also may be affirmed of our brute, notwithstanding that the certain knowledge, so well of the one as of the other, is perished, and nothing worthy memory left of all their doings. somewhat yet we have of mulmutius, who not only subdued such princes as reigned in this land, but also brought the realm to good order that long before had been torn with civil discord. but where his laws are to be found, and which they be from other men's, no man living in these days is able to determine. certes there was never prince in britain of whom his subjects conceived better hope in the beginning than of bladudus, and yet i read of none that made so ridiculous an end. in like sort there hath not reigned any monarch in this isle whose ways were more feared at the first than those of dunwallon (king henry the first excepted), and yet in the end he proved such a prince as after his death there was in manner no subject that did not lament his funeral. and this only for his policy in governance, severe administration of justice, and provident framing of his laws and constitutions for the government of his subjects. his people also, coveting to continue his name unto posterity, entitled those his ordinances according to their maker, calling them by the name of the "laws of mulmutius," which endured in execution among the britons so long as our _homelings_ had the dominion of this isle. afterwards, when the _comeling_ saxons had once obtained the superiority of the kingdom, the majesty of those laws fell for a time into such decay that although "_non penitus cecidit, tamen potuit cecidisse videri_," as leland saith; and the decrees themselves had utterly perished indeed at the very first brunt had they not been preserved in wales, where they remained amongst the relics of the britons, and not only until the coming of the normans, but even until the time of edward the first, who, obtaining the sovereignty of that portion, endeavoured very earnestly to extinguish those of mulmutius and to establish his own. but as the saxons at their first arrival did what they could to abolish the british laws, so in process of time they yielded a little to relent, and not so much to abhor and mislike of the laws of mulmutius as to receive and embrace the same, especially at such time as the said saxon princes entered into amity with the british nobility, and after that began to join in matrimony with the british ladies, as the british barons did with the saxon _frowes_, both by an especial statute and decree, whereof in another treatise i have made mention at large. hereof also it came to pass in the end that they were contented to make a choice and insert no small numbers of them into their own volumes, as may be gathered by those of athelbert the great, surnamed king of kent, inas and alfred, kings of the west saxons, and divers other yet extant to be seen. such also was the lateward estimation of them, that when any of the saxon princes went about to make new ordinances they caused those of mulmutius (which gildas sometime translated into latin) to be first expounded unto them; and in this perusal, if they found any there already framed that might serve their turn, they forthwith revived the same and annexed them to their own. but in this dealing the diligence of alfred is most of all to be commended, who not only chose out the best, but gathered together all such whatsoever the said mulmutius had made: and then, to the end they should lie no more in corners as forlorn books and unknown to the learned of his kingdom, he caused them to be turned into the saxon tongue, wherein they continued long after his decease. as for the normans, who for a season neither regarded the british nor cared for the saxon statutes, they also at the first utterly misliked of them, till at the last, when they had well weighed that one kind of regiment is not convenient for all peoples (and that no stranger, being in a foreign country newly brought under obedience, could make such equal ordinances as he might thereby govern his new commonwealth without some care and trouble), they fell in with such a desire to see by what rule the state of the land was governed in the time of the saxons that, having perused the same, they not only commended their manner of regiment, but also admitted a great part of their laws (now current under the name of "st. edward's laws," and used as principles and grounds), whereby they not only qualified the rigour of their own, and mitigated their almost intolerable burden of servitude which they had lately laid upon the shoulders of the english, but also left us a great number of the old mulmutian laws, whereof the most part are in use to this day, as i said, albeit that we know not certainly how to distinguish them from others that are in strength amongst us. after dunwallon, the next lawgiver was martia, whom leland surnameth _proba_, and after him john bale also, who in his _centuries_ doth justly confess himself to have been holpen by the said leland, as i myself do likewise for many things contained in this treatise. she was wife unto gutteline, king of the britons, and being made protectrix of the realm after her husband's decease in the nonage of her son, and seeing many things daily to grow up among her people worthy reformation, she devised sundry and those very politic laws for the governance of her kingdom, which her subjects, when she was dead and gone, did name the "martian statutes." who turned them into latin as yet i do not read, howbeit (as i said before of the laws of mulmutius) so the same alfred caused those of this excellently well-learned lady (whom divers commend also for her great knowledge in the greek tongue) to be turned into his own language, whereupon it came to pass that they were daily executed among his subjects, afterwards allowed of (among the rest) by the normans, and finally remain in use in these our days, notwithstanding that we cannot dissever them also very readily from the other. the seventh alteration of laws was practised by the saxons; for i overpass the use of the civil ordinances used in rome, finally brought hither by the romans, and yet in perfect notice among the civilians of our country, though never generally received by all the several regions of this island. certes there are great numbers of these latter, which yet remain in sound knowledge, and are to be read, being comprehended for the most part under the names of the martian and the saxon law. beside these also, i read of the dane law, so that the people of middle england were ruled by the first, the west saxons by the second, as essex, norfolk, suffolk, cambridgeshire, and part of hertfordshire were by the third, of all the rest the most unequal and intolerable. and as in these days whatsoever the prince in public assembly commanded upon the necessity of his subjects or his own voluntary authority was counted for law, so none of them had appointed any certain place whereunto his people might repair at fixed times for justice, but caused them to resort commonly to their palaces, where, in proper person, they would often determine their causes, and so make shortest work, or else commit the same to the hearing of other, and so despatch them away. neither had they any house appointed to assemble in for the making of their ordinances, as we have now at westminster. wherefore edmund gave laws at london and lincoln, ethelred at habam, alfred at woodstock and wannetting, athelstane in excester, crecklade, feversham, and thundersley, canutus at winchester, etc.: other in other places, whereof this may suffice.[ ] * * * * * hitherto also (as i think) sufficiently of such laws as were in use before the conquest. now it resteth that i should declare the order of those that have been made and received since the coming of the normans, referred to the eighth alteration or change of our manner of governance, and thereunto do produce threescore and four several courts. but for as much as i am no lawyer, and therefore have but little skill to proceed in the same accordingly, it shall suffice to set down some general discourses of such as are used in our days, and so much as i have gathered by report and common hearsay. we have therefore in england sundry laws, and first of all the civil, used in the chancery, admiralty, and divers other courts, in some of which the severe rigour of justice is often so mitigated by conscience that divers things are thereby made easy and tolerable which otherwise would appear to be mere injury and extremity. we have also a great part of the canon law daily practised among us, especially in cases of tithes, contracts of matrimony, and such like, as are usually to be seen in the consistories of our bishops and higher courts of the two archbishops, where the exercise of the same is very hotly followed. the third sort of laws that we have are our own, and those always so variable and subject to alteration and change that oft in one age divers judgments do pass upon one manner of case, whereby the saying of the poet-- "_tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis_," may very well be applied unto such as, being urged with these words, "_in such a year of the prince this opinion was taken for sound law_," do answer nothing else but that "_the judgment of our lawyers is now altered, so that they say far otherwise_." the regiment that we have therefore after our own ordinances dependeth upon three laws, to wit, statute law, common law, customary law and prescription, according to the triple manner of our trials and judgments, which is by parliament, verdict of twelve men at an assize, or wager of battle, of which the last is little used in our days, as no appeal doth hold in the first and last rehearsed. but to return to my purpose. the first is delivered unto us by parliament, which court (being for the most part holden at westminster, near london) is the highest of all other, and consisteth of three several sorts of people, that is to say, the nobility, clergy, and commons of this realm, and thereto is not summoned but upon urgent occasion when the prince doth see his time, and that by several writs, dated commonly full six weeks before it begin to be holden. such laws as are agreed upon in the higher house by the lords spiritual and temporal, and in the lower house by the commons and body of the realm (whereof the convocation of the clergy, holden in paul's, or, if occasion so require, in westminster church, is a member), there speaking by the mouth of the knights of the shire and burgesses, remain in the end to be confirmed by the prince, who commonly resorteth thither of custom upon the first and last days of this court, there to understand what is done and give his royal consent to such statutes as him liketh of. coming therefore thither into the higher house, and having taken his throne, the speaker of the parliament (for one is always appointed to between the houses, as an indifferent mouth for both) readeth openly the matters there determined by the said three estates, and then craveth the prince's consent and final confirmation of the same. the king, having heard the sum and principal points of each statute briefly recited unto him, answereth in french with great deliberation unto such as he liketh "il nous plaist," but to the rest, "il ne plaist," whereby the latter are made void and frustrate. that also which his majesty liketh of is hereby authorised, confirmed, and ever after holden for law, except it be repealed in any like assembly. the number of the commons assembled in the lower house beside the clergy consisteth of ninety knights. for each shire of england hath two gentlemen or knights of greatest wisdom and reputation, chosen out of the body of the same for that only purpose, saving that for wales one only is supposed sufficient in every county, whereby the number aforementioned is made up. there are likewise forty and six citizens, two hundred and eighty-nine burgesses, and fourteen barons, so that the whole assembly of the laity of the lower house consisteth of four hundred thirty and nine persons, if the just number be supplied. of the laws here made likewise some are penal and restrain the common law, and some again are found to enlarge the same. the one sort of these also are for the most part taken strictly according to the letter, the other more largely and beneficially after their intendment and meaning. the common law standeth upon sundry maxims or principles and years or terms, which do contain such cases as (by great study and solemn argument of the judges, sound practice confirmed by long experience, fetched even from the course of most ancient laws made far before the conquest, and thereto the deepest reach and foundations of reason) are ruled and adjudged for law. certes these cases are otherwise called _pleas_ or _action_, whereof there are two sorts, the one criminal and the other civil. the means and messengers also to determine those causes are our _writs_ or _briefs_, whereof there are some original and some judicial. the parties _plaintiff_ and _defendant_, when they appear, proceed (if the case do so require) by _plaint_ or _declaration_, _bar_ or _answer_, _replication_, _rejoinder_, and so by _rebut_, _surrebut_, to _issue_ and _trial_, if occasion so fall out, the one side affirmatively, the other negatively, as common experience teacheth. our trials and recoveries are either by _verdict_ and _demur_, _confession_ or _default_, wherein if any negligence or trespass hath been committed, either in process and form, or in matter and judgment, the party aggrieved may have a _writ of error_ to undo the same, but not in the same court where the former judgment was given. customary law consisteth of certain laudable customs used in some private country, intended first to begin upon good and reasonable considerations, as _gavelkind_, which is all the male children equally to inherit, and continued to this day in kent, where it is only to my knowledge retained, and nowhere else in england. it was at the first devised by the romans, as appeareth by cæsar in his _commentaries_, wherein i find that, to break and daunt the force of the rebellious germans, they made a law that all the male children (or females for want of males, which holdeth still in england) should have their father's inheritance equally divided amongst them. by this means also it came to pass that, whereas before time for the space of sixty years they had put the romans to great and manifold troubles, within the space of thirty years after this law was made their power did wax so feeble and such discord fell out amongst themselves that they were not able to maintain wars with the romans nor raise any just army against them. for, as a river running with one stream is swift and more plentiful of water than when it is drained or drawn into many branches, so the lands and goods of the ancestors being dispersed amongst their issue males, of one strong there were raised sundry weak, whereby the original or general strength to resist the adversary became enfeebled and brought almost to nothing. "_vis unita_ (saith the philosopher) _fortior est eadem dispersa_," and one good purse is better than many evil; and when every man is benefited alike each one will seek to maintain his private estate, and few take care to provide for public welfare. _burrowkind_ is where the youngest is preferred before the eldest, which is the custom of many countries of this region: also the woman to have the third of her husband's possessions, the husband that marrieth an heir to have such lands as move by her during his natural life if he survive her and hath a child by her which hath been heard cry through four walls, etc. of such like to be learned elsewhere, and sometimes frequented generally over all. prescription is a certain custom which hath continued time out of mind, but it is more particular than customary law, as where only a parish or some private person doth prescribe to have common, or a way in another man's soil, or tithes to be paid after this or that manner, i mean otherwise than the common course and order of the law requireth. whereof let this suffice at this time, instead of a larger discourse of our own laws, lest i should seem to enter far into that whereof i have no skill. for what hath the meditation of the law of god to do with any precise knowledge of the law of man, sith they are several trades, and incident to divers persons? there are also sundry usual courts holden once in every quarter of the year, which we commonly call terms, of the latin word _terminus_, wherein all controversies are determined that happen within the queen's dominions. these are commonly holden at london, except upon some great occasion they be transferred to other places. at what times also they are kept, both for spiritual and temporal dealing, the table ensuing shall easily declare. finally, how well they are followed by suitors, the great wealth of lawyers without any travel of mine can readily express. for, as after the coming of the normans the nobility had the start, and after them the clergy, so now all the wealth of the land doth flow unto our common lawyers, of whom some one having practised little above thirteen or fourteen years is able to buy a purchase of so many one thousand pounds: which argueth that they wax rich apace, and will be richer if their clients become not the more wise and wary hereafter. it is not long since a sergeant at the law--whom i could name--was arrested upon an extent, for three or four hundred pounds, and another standing by did greatly marvel that he could not spare the gains of one term for the satisfaction of that duty. the time hath been that our lawyers did sit in paul's upon stools against the pillars and walls to get clients, but now some of them will not come from their chambers to the guildhall in london under ten pounds, or twenty nobles at the least. and one, being demanded why he made so much of his travel, answered that it was but folly for him to go so far when he was assured to get more money by sitting still at home. a friend of mine also had a suit of late of some value, and, to be sure of counsel at his time, he gave unto two lawyers, whose names i forbear to deliver, twenty shillings apiece, telling them of the day and hour wherein his matter should be called upon. to be short, they came not unto the bar at all; whereupon he stayed for that day. on the morrow, after he met them again, increased his former gifts by so much more, and told them of the time; but they once again served him as before. in the end, he met them both in the very hall door, and, after some timorous reprehension of their uncourteous demeanour toward him, he bestowed either three angels or four more upon each of them, whereupon they promised peremptorily to speak earnestly in his cause. and yet for all this, one of them, not having yet sucked enough, utterly deceived him: the other indeed came in, and, wagging a scroll which he had in his hand before the judge, he spake not above three or four words, almost so soon uttered as a "good morrow," and so went from the bar. and this was all the poor man got for his money, and the care which his counsellors did seem to take of his cause then standing upon the hazard. but enough of these matters; for, if i should set down how little law poor men can have for their small fees in these days, and the great murmurings that are on all sides uttered against their excessive taking of money--for they can abide no small gain--i should extend this treatise into a far greater volume than is convenient for my purpose. wherefore it shall suffice to have set down so much of their demeanour, and so much as is even enough to cause them to look with somewhat more conscience into their dealings, except they be dull and senseless. this furthermore is to be noted, that albeit the princes heretofore reigning in this land have erected sundry courts, especially of the chancery at york and ludlow, for the ease of poor men dwelling in those parts, yet will the poorest (of all men commonly most contentious) refuse to have his cause heard so near home, but endeavoureth rather to his utter undoing to travel up to london, thinking there soonest to prevail against his adversary, though his case be never so doubtful. but in this toy our welshmen do exceed of all that ever i heard: for you shall here and there have some one odd poor david of them given so much to contention and strife that, without all respect of charges, he will up to london, though he go bare-legged by the way and carry his hosen on his neck (to save their feet from wearing), because he hath no change. when he cometh there also, he will make such importunate begging of his countrymen, and hard shift otherwise, that he will sometimes carry down six or seven writs with him in his purse, wherewith to molest his neighbour, though the greatest quarrel be scarcely worth the fee that he hath paid for any one of them. but enough of this, lest, in revealing the superfluous folly of a few brablers in this behalf, i bring no good-will to myself amongst the wisest of that nation. certes it is a lamentable case to see furthermore how a number of poor men are daily abused and utterly undone by sundry varlets that go about the country as promoters or brokers between the pettifoggers of the law and the common people, only to kindle and espy coals of contention, whereby the one side may reap commodity and the other spend and be put to travel. but, of all that ever i knew in essex, denis and mainford excelled, till john of ludlow, _alias_ mason, came in place, unto whom in comparison they two were but children: for this last in less than three or four years did bring one man (among many elsewhere in other places) almost to extreme misery (if beggary be the uttermost) that before he had the shaving of his beard was valued at two hundred pounds (i speak with the least), and finally, feeling that he had not sufficient wherewith to sustain himself and his family, and also to satisfy that greedy ravenour which still called upon him for new fees, he went to bed, and within four days made an end of his woeful life, even with care and pensiveness. after his death also he so handled his son that there was never sheep shorn in may so near clipped of his fleece present as he was of many to come: so that he was compelled to let away his land, because his cattle and stock were consumed and he no longer able to occupy the ground. but hereof let this suffice, and, instead of these enormities, a table shall follow of the terms containing their beginnings and endings, as i have borrowed them from my friend john stow, whose study is the only storehouse of antiquities in my time, and he worthy therefore to be had in reputation and honour. a man would imagine that the time of the execution of our laws, being little above one quarter or not fully a third part of the year, and the appointment of the same to be holden in one place only, to wit, near london in westminster, and finally the great expenses employed upon the same, should be no small cause of the stay and hindrance of the administration of justice in this land: but, as it falleth out, they prove great occasions and the stay of much contention. the reasons of these are soon to be conceived; for as the broken sleeve doth hold the elbow back, and pain of travel cause many to sit at home in quiet, so the shortness of time and fear of delay doth drive those oftentimes to like of peace who otherwise would live at strife and quickly be at odds. some men desirous of gains would have the terms yet made shorter, that more delay might engender longer suit; other would have the houses made larger and more offices erected wherein to minister the laws. but as the times of the terms are rather too short than too long by one return apiece, so, if there were smaller rooms and fouler ways unto them, they would enforce many to make pause before they did rashly enter into plea. but, sith my purpose is not to make an ample discourse of these things, it shall suffice to deliver the times of the holding of our terms, which ensueth after this manner:-- _a perfect rule to know the beginning and ending of every term, with their returns._ hilary term beginneth the three-and-twentieth day of january (if it be not sunday); otherwise the next day after, and is finished the twelfth of february; it hath four returns, octabis hilarij. craftino purific. quind. hilarij. octabis purific. easter term beginneth seventeen days after easter, endeth four days after the ascension day, and hath five returns, quind. pasch. mense. quinque paschae. tres paschae. pasch. craft. ascension. trinity term beginneth the friday after trinity sunday, and endeth the wednesday fortnight after, in which time it hath four returns, craft. trinitatis. quind. trinitatis. octabis trinitatis. tres trinitatis. michaelmas term beginneth the ninth of october (if it be not sunday), and ending the eight-and-twentieth of november; it hath eight returns, octabis michael. craft. anima. quind. michael. craft. martini. tres michael. octa. martini. mense michael. quind. martini. note also that the exchequer, which is _fiscus_ or _ærarium publicam princeps_, openeth eight days before any term begin, except trinity term, which openeth but four days before. chapter vi.[ ] of the ancient and present estate of the church of england. [ , book ii., chapter ; , book ii., chapter .] there are now two provinces only in england, of which the first and greatest is subject to the see of canterbury, comprehending a part of lhoegres,[ ] whole cambria, and also ireland, which in time past were several, and brought into one by the archbishop of the said see, and assistance of the pope, who, in respect of meed, did yield unto the ambitious desires of sundry archbishops of canterbury, as i have elsewhere declared.[ ] the second province is under the see of york. and, of these, each hath her archbishop resident commonly within her own limits, who hath not only the chief dealing in matters appertaining to the hierarchy and jurisdiction of the church, but also great authority in civil affairs touching the government of the commonwealth, so far forth as their commissions and several circuits do extend.[ ] in old time there were three archbishops, and so many provinces in this isle, of which one kept at london, another at york, and the third at caerleon upon usk.[ ] but as that of london was translated to canterbury by augustine, and that of york remaineth (notwithstanding that the greatest part of his jurisdiction is now bereft him and given to the scottish archbishop), so that of caerleon is utterly extinguished, and the government of the country united to that of canterbury in spiritual cases, after it was once before removed to st. david's in wales, by david, successor to dubritius, and uncle to king arthur, in the of grace, to the end that he and his clerks might be further off from the cruelty of the saxons, where it remained till the time of the bastard, and for a season after, before it was annexed to the see of canterbury.[ ] the archbishop of canterbury is commonly called the primate of all england; and in the coronations of the kings of this land, and all other times wherein it shall please the prince to wear and put on his crown, his office is to set it upon their heads. they bear also the name of their high chaplains continually, although not a few of them have presumed (in time past) to be their equals, and void of subjection unto them. that this is true, it may easily appear by their own acts yet kept in record, beside their epistles and answers written or in print, wherein they have sought not only to match but also to mate them with great rigour and more than open tyranny. our adversaries will peradventure deny this absolutely, as they do many other things apparent, though not without shameless impudence, or at the leastwise defend it as just and not swerving from common equity, because they imagine every archbishop to be the king's equal in his own province. but how well their doing herein agreeth with the saying of peter and examples of the primitive church it may easily appear. some examples also of their demeanour--i mean in the time of popery--i will not let to remember, lest they should say i speak of malice, and without all ground of likelihood. of their practices with mean persons i speak not, neither will i begin at dunstan,[ ] the author of all their pride and presumption here in england.[ ] * * * * * wherefore i refer you to those reports of anselm and becket sufficiently penned by other, the which anselm also making a shew as if he had been very unwilling to be placed in the see of canterbury, gave this answer to the letters of such his friends as did make request unto him to take the charge upon him-- "_secularia negotia nescio, quia scire nolo, eorum námque occupationes horreo, liberum affectans animum. voluntati sacrarum intendo scripturarum, vos dissonantiam facitis, verendúmque est nè aratrum sanctæ ecclesiæ, quod in anglia duo boves validi et pari fortitudine, ad bonum certantes, id est, rex et archiepiscopus, debeant trahere, nunc ove vetula cum tauro indomito jugata, distorqueatur à recto. ego ovis vetula, qui si quietus essem, verbi dei lacte, et operimento lanæ, aliquibus possèm fortassis non ingratus essè, sed si me cum hoc tauro coniungitis, videbitis pro disparilitate trahentium, aratrum non rectè procedere_," etc. which is in english thus-- "of secular affairs i have no skill, because i will not know them; for i even abhor the troubles that rise about them, as one that desireth to have his mind at liberty. i apply my whole endeavour to the rule of the scriptures; you lead me to the contrary; and it is to be feared lest the plough of holy church, which two strong oxen of equal force, and both like earnest to contend unto that which is good (that is, the king and the archbishop), ought to draw, should thereby now swerve from the right furrow, by matching of an old sheep with a wild, untamed bull. i am that old sheep, who, if i might be quiet, could peradventure shew myself not altogether ungrateful to some, by feeding them with the milk of the word of god, and covering them with wool: but if you match me with this bull, you shall see that, through want of equality in draught, the plough will not go to right," etc. as followeth in the process of his letters. the said thomas becket was so proud that he wrote to king henry the second, as to his lord, to his king, and to his son, offering him his counsel, his reverence, and due correction, etc. others in like sort have protested that they owed nothing to the kings of this land, but their council only, reserving all obedience unto the see of rome, whereby we may easily see the pride and ambition of the clergy in the blind time of ignorance.[ ] and as the old cock of canterbury did crow in this behalf, so the young cockerels of other sees did imitate his demeanour, as may be seen by this one example also in king stephen's time, worthy to be remembered; unto whom the bishop of london would not so much as swear to be true subject: wherein also he was maintained by the pope.[ ] * * * * * thus we see that kings were to rule no further than it pleased the pope to like of; neither to challenge more obedience of their subjects than stood also with their good will and pleasure. he wrote in like sort unto queen maud about the same matter, making her "samson's calf"[ ] (the better to bring his purpose to pass).[ ] * * * * * is it not strange that a peevish order of religion (devised by man) should break the express law of god, who commandeth all men to honour and obey their kings and princes, in whom some part of the power of god is manifest and laid open unto us? and even unto this end the cardinal of hostia[ ] also wrote to the canons of paul's after this manner, covertly encouraging them to stand to their election of the said robert, who was no more willing to give over his new bishopric than they careful to offend the king, but rather imagined which way to keep it still, maugre his displeasure, and yet not to swear obedience unto him for all that he should be able to do or perform unto the contrary.[ ] * * * * * hereby you see how king stephen was dealt withal. and albeit the archbishop of canterbury is not openly to be touched herewith, yet it is not to be doubted but he was a doer in it, so far as might tend to the maintenance of the right and prerogative of holy church. and even no less unquietness had another of our princes with thomas of arundel,[ ] who fled to rome for fear of his head, and caused the pope to write an ambitious and contumelious letter unto his sovereign about his restitution. but when (by the king's letters yet extant, and beginning thus: "_thomas proditionis non expers nostræ regiæ majestati insidias fabricavit_") the pope understood the bottom of the matter, he was contented that thomas should be deprived, and another archbishop chosen in his stead. neither did this pride stay at archbishops and bishops, but descended lower, even to the rake-hells of the clergy and puddles of all ungodliness. for, beside the injury received of their superiors, how was king john dealt withal by the vile cistertians at lincoln in the second of his reign? certes when he had (upon just occasion) conceived some grudge against them for their ambitious demeanour, and upon denial to pay such sums of money as were allotted unto them, he had caused seizure to be made of such horses, swine, neat, and other things of theirs as were maintained in his forests, they denounced him as fast amongst themselves with bell, book, and candle,[ ] to be accursed and excommunicated. thereunto they so handled the matter with the pope and their friends that the king was fain to yield to their good graces, insomuch that a meeting for pacification was appointed between them at lincoln, by means of the present archbishop of canterbury, who went off between him and the cistertian commissioners before the matter could be finished. in the end the king himself came also unto the said commissioners as they sat in their chapterhouse, and there with tears fell down at their feet, craving pardon for his trespasses against them, and heartily requiring that they would (from henceforth) commend him and his realm in their prayers unto the protection of the almighty, and receive him into their fraternity, promising moreover full satisfaction of their damages sustained, and to build an house of their order in whatsoever place of england it should please them to assign. and this he confirmed by charter bearing date the seven-and-twentieth of november, after the scottish king was returned into scotland,[ ] and departed from the king. whereby (and by other the like, as between john stratford[ ] and edward the third, etc.) a man may easily conceive how proud the clergymen have been in former times, as wholly presuming upon the primacy of their pope. more matter could i allege of these and the like broils, not to be found among our common historiographers. howbeit, reserving the same unto places more convenient, i will cease to speak of them at this time, and go forward with such other things as my purpose is to speak of. at the first, therefore, there was like and equal authority in both our archbishops, but as he of canterbury hath long since obtained the prerogative above york (although i say not without great trouble, suit, some bloodshed, and contention), so the archbishop of york is nevertheless written primate of england, as one contenting himself with a piece of a title at the least, when all could not be gotten. and as he of canterbury crowneth the king, so this of york doth the like to the queen, whose perpetual chaplain he is, and hath been from time to time, since the determination of this controversy, as writers do report. the first also hath under his jurisdiction to the number of one-and-twenty inferior bishops; the other hath only four, by reason that the churches of scotland are now removed from his obedience unto an archbishop of their own, whereby the greatness and circuit of the jurisdiction of york is not a little diminished. in like sort, each of these seven-and-twenty sees have their cathedral churches, wherein the deans (a calling not known in england before the conquest) do bear the chief rule, being men especially chosen to that vocation, both for their learning and godliness, so near as can be possible. these cathedral churches have in like manner other dignities and canonries still remaining unto them, as heretofore under the popish regiment. howbeit those that are chosen to the same are no idle and unprofitable persons (as in times past they have been when most of these livings were either furnished with strangers, especially out of italy, boys, or such idiots as had least skill of all in discharging of those functions whereunto they were called by virtue of these stipends), but such as by preaching and teaching can and do learnedly set forth the glory of god, and further the overthrow of anti-christ to the uttermost of their powers. these churches are called cathedral, because the bishops dwell or lie near unto the same, as bound to keep continual residence within their jurisdictions for the better oversight and governance of the same, the word being derived _a cathedra_--that is to say, a chair or seat where he resteth, and for the most part abideth. at the first there was but one church in every jurisdiction, whereinto no man entered to pray but with some oblation or other toward the maintenance of the pastor. for as it was reputed an infamy to pass by any of them without visitation, so it was no less reproach to appear empty before the lord. and for this occasion also they were builded very huge and great; for otherwise they were not capable to such multitudes as came daily unto them to hear the word and receive the sacraments. but as the number of christians increased, so first monasteries, then finally parish churches, were builded in every jurisdiction: from whence i take our deanery churches to have their original (now called "mother churches," and their incumbents, archpriests), the rest being added since the conquest, either by the lords of every town, or zealous men, loth to travel far, and willing to have some ease by building them near hand. unto these deanery churches also the clergy in old time of the same deanery were appointed to repair at sundry seasons, there to receive wholesome ordinances, and to consult upon the necessary affairs of the whole jurisdiction if necessity so required; and some image hereof is yet to be seen in the north parts. but as the number of churches increased, so the repair of the faithful unto the cathedrals did diminish; whereby they now become, especially in their nether parts, rather markets and shops for merchandise than solemn places of prayer, whereunto they were first erected. moreover, in the said cathedral churches upon sundays and festival days the canons do make certain ordinary sermons by course, whereunto great numbers of all estates do orderly resort; and upon the working days, thrice in the week, one of the said canons (or some other in his stead) doth read and expound some piece of holy scripture, whereunto the people do very reverently repair. the bishops themselves in like sort are not idle in their callings; for, being now exempt from court and council, which is one (and a no small) piece of their felicity (although richard archbishop of canterbury thought otherwise, as yet appeareth by his letters to pope alexander, epistola , petri blesensis, where he saith, because the clergy of his time were somewhat narrowly looked unto, "_supra dorsum ecclesiæ fabricant peccatores_," etc.), they so apply their minds to the setting forth of the word that there are very few of them which do not every sunday or oftener resort to some place or other within their jurisdictions where they expound the scriptures with much gravity and skill, and yet not without the great misliking and contempt of such as hate the word. of their manifold translations from one see to another i will say nothing, which is not now done for the benefit of the flock as the preferment of the party favoured and advantage unto the prince, a matter in time past much doubted of--to wit, whether a bishop or pastor might be translated from one see to another, and left undecided till prescription by royal authority made it good. for, among princes, a thing once done is well done, and to be done oftentimes, though no warrant be to be found therefore. they have under them also their archdeacons, some one, divers two, and many four or more, as their circuits are in quantity, which archdeacons are termed in law the bishops' eyes; and these (beside their ordinary courts, which are holden within so many or more of their several deaneries by themselves or their officials once in a month at the least) do keep yearly two visitations or synods (as the bishop doth in every third year, wherein he confirmeth some children, though most care but a little for that ceremony), in which they make diligent inquisition and search, as well for the doctrine and behaviour of the ministers as the orderly dealing of the parishioners in resorting to their parish churches and conformity unto religion. they punish also with great severity all such trespassers, either in person or by the purse (where permutation of penance is thought more grievous to the offender), as are presented unto them; or, if the cause be of the more weight, as in cases of heresy, pertinacy, contempt, and such like, they refer them either to the bishop of the diocese, or his chancellor, or else to sundry grave persons set in authority, by virtue of an high commission directed unto them from the prince to that end, who in very courteous manner do see the offenders gently reformed or else severely punished if necessity so enforce. beside this, in many of our archdeaconries, we have an exercise lately begun which for the most part is called a _prophecy_[ ] or _conference_, and erected only for the examination or trial of the diligence of the clergy in their study of holy scriptures. howbeit, such is the thirsty desire of the people in these days to hear the word of god that they also have as it were with zealous violence intruded themselves among them (but as hearers only) to come by more knowledge through their presence at the same. herein also (for the most part) two of the younger sort of ministers do expound each after other some piece of the scriptures ordinarily appointed unto them in their courses (wherein they orderly go through with some one of the evangelists, or of the epistles, as it pleaseth the whole assembly to choose at the first in every of these conferences); and when they have spent an hour or a little more between them, then cometh one of the better learned sort, who, being a graduate for the most part, or known to be a preacher sufficiently authorised and of a sound judgment, supplieth the room of a moderator, making first a brief rehearsal of their discourses, and then adding what him thinketh good of his own knowledge, whereby two hours are thus commonly spent at this most profitable meeting. when all is done, if the first speakers have shewed any piece of diligence, they are commended for their travel, and encouraged to go forward. if they have been found to be slack, or not sound in delivery of their doctrine, their negligence and error is openly reproved before all their brethren, who go aside of purpose from the laity after the exercise ended to judge of these matters, and consult of the next speakers and quantity of the text to be handled in that place. the laity never speak, of course (except some vain and busy head will now and then intrude themselves with offence), but are only hearers; and, as it is used in some places weekly, in other once in fourteen days, in divers monthly, and elsewhere twice in a year, so is it a notable spur unto all the ministers thereby to apply their books, which otherwise (as in times past) would give themselves to hawking, hunting, tables, cards, dice, tippling at the alehouse, shooting of matches, and other like vanities, nothing commendable in such as should be godly and zealous stewards of the good gifts of god, faithful distributors of his word unto the people, and diligent pastors according to their calling. but alas! as sathan, the author of all mischief, hath in sundry manners heretofore hindered the erection and maintenance of many good things, so in this he hath stirred up adversaries of late unto this most profitable exercise, who, not regarding the commodity that riseth thereby so well to the hearers as speakers, but either stumbling (i cannot tell how) at words and terms, or at the leastwise not liking to hear of the reprehension of vice, or peradventure taking a misliking at the slender demeanours of such negligent ministers as now and then in their course do occupy the rooms, have either by their own practice, their sinister information, or suggestions made upon surmises unto other, procured the suppression of these conferences, condemning them as hurtful, pernicious, and daily breeders of no small hurt and inconvenience.[ ] but hereof let god be judge, unto the cause belongeth. our elders or ministers and deacons (for subdeacons and the other inferior orders sometime used in popish church we have not) are made according to a certain form of consecration concluded upon in the time of king edward the sixth by the clergy of england, and soon after confirmed by the three estates of the realm in the high court of parliament. and out of the first sort--that is to say, of such as are called to the ministry (without respect whether they be married or not)--are bishops, deans, archdeacons, and such as have the higher places in the hierarchy of the church elected; and these also, as all the rest, at the first coming unto any spiritual promotion do yield unto the prince the entire tax of that their living for one whole year, if it amount in value unto ten pounds and upwards, and this under the name and title of first fruits.[ ] with us also it is permitted that a sufficient man may (by dispensation from the prince[ ]) hold two livings, not distant either from other above thirty miles; whereby it cometh to pass that, as her majesty doth reap some commodity by the faculty, so that the unition of two in one man doth bring oftentimes more benefit to one of them in a month (i mean for doctrine) than they have had before peradventure in many years. many exclaim against such faculties,[ ] as if there were more good preachers that want maintenance than livings to maintain them. indeed when a living is void there are so many suitors for it that a man would think the report to be true, and most certain; but when it cometh to the trial (who are sufficient and who not, who are staid men in conversation, judgment, and learning), of that great number you shall hardly find one or two such as they ought to be, and yet none more earnest to make suit, to promise largely, bear a better shew, or find fault with the stage of things than they. nevertheless i do not think that their exclamations, if they were wisely handled, are altogether grounded upon rumours or ambitious minds, if you respect the state of the thing itself, and not the necessity growing through want of able men to furnish out all the cures in england, which both our universities are never able to perform. for if you observe what numbers of preachers cambridge[ ] and oxford do yearly send forth, and how many new compositions are made in the court of first fruits by the deaths of the last incumbents, you shall soon see a difference. wherefore, if in country towns and cities, yea even in london itself, four or five of the little churches were brought into one, the inconvenience would in great part be redressed and amended. and, to say truth, one most commonly of those small livings is of so little value that it is not able to maintain a mean scholar, much less a learned man, as not being above ten, twelve, sixteen, seventeen, twenty, or thirty pounds at the most, toward their charges, which now (more than before time) do go out of the same. i say more than before, because every small trifle, nobleman's request, or courtesy craved by the bishop, doth impose and command a twentieth part, a three score part, or twopence in the pound, etc., out of the livings, which hitherto hath not been usually granted, but by the consent of a synod, wherein things were decided according to equity, and the poorer sort considered of, which now are equally burdened. we pay also the tenths of our livings to the prince yearly, according to such valuation of each of them as hath been lately made: which nevertheless in time past were not annual, but voluntary, and paid at request of king or pope.[ ] * * * * * but to return to our tenths, a payment first as devised by the pope, and afterward taken up as by the prescription of the king, whereunto we may join also our first fruits, which is one whole year's commodity of our living, due at our entrance into the same, the tenths abated unto the prince's coffers, and paid commonly in two years. for the receipt also of these two payments an especial office or court is erected, which beareth name of first fruits and tenths, whereunto, if the party to be preferred do not make his dutiful repair by an appointed time after possession taken, there to compound for the payment of his said fruits, he incurreth the danger of a great penalty, limited by a certain statute provided in that behalf against such as do intrude into the ecclesiastical function and refuse to pay the accustomed duties belonging to the same. they pay likewise subsidies with the temporalty, but in such sort that if these pay after four shillings for land, the clergy contribute commonly after six shillings of the pound, so that of a benefice of twenty pounds by the year the incumbent thinketh himself well acquitted if, all ordinary payments being discharged, he may reserve thirteen pounds six shillings eightpence towards his own sustentation or maintenance of his family. seldom also are they without the compass of a subsidy; for if they be one year clear from this payment (a thing not often seen of late years), they are like in the next to hear of another grant: so that i say again they are seldom without the limit of a subsidy. herein also they somewhat find themselves grieved that the laity may at every taxation help themselves, and so they do, through consideration had of their decay and hindrance, and yet their impoverishment cannot but touch also the parson or vicar, unto whom such liberty is denied, as is daily to be seen in their accounts and tithings. some of them also, after the marriages of their children, will have their proportions qualified, or by friendship get themselves quite out of the book. but what stand i upon these things, who have rather to complain of the injury offered by some of our neighbours of the laity, which daily endeavour to bring us also within the compass of their fifteens or taxes for their own ease, whereas the tax of the whole realm, which is commonly greater in the champagne than woodland soil, amounteth only to , pounds ninepence halfpenny, is a burden easy enough to be borne upon so many shoulders, without the help of the clergy, whose tenths and subsidies make up commonly a double, if not treble sum unto their aforesaid payments? sometimes also we are threatened with a _melius inquirendum_, as if our livings were not racked high enough already. but if a man should seek out where all those church lands which in time past did contribute unto the old sum required or to be made up, no doubt no small number of the laity of all states should be contributors also with us, the prince not defrauded of her expectation and right. we are also charged with armour and munitions from thirty pounds upwards, a thing more needful than divers other charges imposed upon us are convenient, by which and other burdens our ease groweth to be more heavy by a great deal (notwithstanding our immunity from temporal services) than that of the laity, and, for aught that i see, not likely to be diminished, as if the church were now become the ass whereon every market man is to ride and cast his wallet. the other payments due unto the archbishop and bishop at their several visitations (of which the first is double to the latter), and such also as the archdeacon receive that his synods, etc., remain still as they did without any alteration. only this i think he added within memory of man, that at the coming of every prince his appointed officers do commonly visit the whole realm under the form of an ecclesiastical inquisition, in which the clergy do usually pay double fees, as unto the archbishop. hereby then, and by those already remembered, it is found that the church of england is no less commodious to the prince's coffers than the state of the laity, if it do not far exceed the same, since their payments are certain, continual, and seldom abated, howsoever they gather up their own duties with grudging, murmuring, suit, and slanderous speeches of the payers, or have their livings otherwise hardly valued unto the uttermost farthing, or shrewdly cancelled by the covetousness of the patrons, of whom some do bestow advowsons of benefices upon their bakers, butlers, cooks, good archers, falconers, and horsekeepers,[ ] instead of other recompense, for their long and faithful service, which they employ afterward unto the most advantage.[ ] certes here they resemble the pope very much; for, as he sendeth out his idols, so do they their parasites, pages, chamberlains, stewards, grooms, and lackeys; and yet these be the men that first exclaim of the insufficiency of the ministers, as hoping thereby in due time to get also their glebes and grounds into their hands.[ ] in times past bishoprics went almost after the same manner under the lay princes, and then under the pope, so that he which helped a clerk unto a see was sure to have a present or purse fine, if not an annual pension, besides that which went to the pope's coffers, and was thought to be very good merchandise. to proceed therefore with the rest, i think it good also to remember that the names usually given unto such as feed the flock remain in like sort as in times past, so that these words, _parson_, _vicar_, _curate_, and such, are not yet abolished more than the canon law itself, which is daily pleaded, as i have said elsewhere, although the statutes of the realm have greatly infringed the large scope and brought the exercise of the same into some narrower limits. there is nothing read in our churches but the canonical scriptures, whereby it cometh to pass that the psalter is said over once in thirty days, the new testament four times, and the old testament once in the year. and hereunto, if the curate be adjudged by the bishop or his deputies sufficiently instructed in the holy scriptures, and therewithal able to teach, he permitteth him to make some exposition or exhortation in his parish unto amendment of life. and for so much as our churches and universities have been so spoiled in time of error, as there cannot yet be had such number of able pastors as may suffice for every parish to have one, there are (beside four sermons appointed by public order in the year) certain sermons or homilies (devised by sundry learned men, confirmed for sound doctrine by consent of the divines, and public authority of the prince), and those appointed to be read by the curates of mean understanding (which homilies do comprehend the principal parts of christian doctrine, as of original sin, of justification by faith, of charity, and such like) upon the sabbath days unto the congregation. and, after a certain number of psalms read, which are limited according to the dates of the month, for morning and evening prayer we have two lessons, whereof the first is taken out of the old testament, the second out of the new; and of these latter, that in the morning is out of the gospels, the other in the afternoon out of some one of the epistles. after morning prayer also, we have the litany and suffrages, an invocation in mine opinion not devised without the great assistance of the spirit of god, although many curious mind-sick persons utterly condemn it as superstitious, and savouring of conjuration and sorcery. this being done, we proceed unto the communion, if any communicants be to receive the eucharist; if not, we read the decalogue, epistle, and gospel, with the nicene creed (of some in derision called the "dry communion"), and then proceed unto an homily or sermon, which hath a psalm before and after it, and finally unto the baptism of such infants as on every sabbath day (if occasion so require) are brought unto the churches; and thus is the forenoon bestowed. in the afternoon likewise we meet again, and, after the psalms and lessons ended, we have commonly a sermon, or at the leastwise our youth catechised by the space of an hour. and thus do we spend the sabbath day in good and godly exercises, all done in our vulgar tongue, that each one present may hear and understand the same, which also in cathedral and collegiate churches is so ordered that the psalms only are sung by note, the rest being read (as in common parish churches) by the minister with a loud voice, saving that in the administration of the communion the choir singeth the answers, the creed, and sundry other things appointed, but in so plain, i say, and distinct manner that each one present may understand what they sing, every word having but one note, though the whole harmony consist of many parts, and those very cunningly set by the skilful in that science. certes this translation of the service of the church into the vulgar tongue hath not a little offended the pope almost in every age, as a thing very often attempted by divers princes, but never generally obtained, for fear lest the consenting thereunto might breed the overthrow (as it would indeed) of all his religion and hierarchy; nevertheless, in some places where the kings and princes dwelled not under his nose, it was performed maugre his resistance. wratislaus, duke of bohemia, would long since have done the like also in his kingdom; but, not daring to venture so far without the consent of the pope, he wrote unto him thereof, and received his answer inhibitory unto all his proceeding in the same. * * * * * i would set down two or three more of the like instruments passed from that see unto the like end, but this shall suffice, being less common than the other, which are to be had more plentifully. as for our churches themselves, bells and times of morning and evening prayer remain as in times past, saving that all images, shrines, tabernacles, rood-lofts, and monuments of idolatry are removed, taken down, and defaced, only the stories in glass windows excepted, which, for want of sufficient store of new stuff, and by reason of extreme charge that should grow by the alteration of the same into white panes throughout the realm, are not altogether abolished in most places at once, but by little and little suffered to decay, that white glass may be provided and set up in their rooms. finally, whereas there was wont to be a great partition between the choir and the body of the church, now it is either very small or none at all, and (to say the truth) altogether needless, sith the minister saith his service commonly in the body of the church, with his face toward the people, in a little tabernacle of wainscot provided for the purpose, by which means the ignorant do not only learn divers of the psalms and usual prayers by heart, but also such as can read do pray together with him, so that the whole congregation at one instant pour out their petitions unto the living god for the whole estate of his church in most earnest and fervent manner. our holy and festival days are very well reduced also unto a less number; for whereas (not long since) we had under the pope four score and fifteen, called festival, and thirty _profesti_, beside the sundays, they are all brought unto seven and twenty, and, with them, the superfluous numbers of idle wakes, guilds, fraternities, church-ales, help-ales, and soul-ales, called also dirge-ales, with the heathenish rioting at bride-ales, are well diminished and laid aside. and no great matter were it if the feasts of all our apostles, evangelists, and martyrs, with that of all saints, were brought to the holy days that follow upon christmas, easter, and whitsuntide, and those of the virgin mary, with the rest, utterly removed from the calendars, as neither necessary nor commendable in a reformed church. the apparel in like sort of our clergymen is comely, and, in truth, more decent than ever it was in the popish church, before the universities bound their graduates unto a stable attire, afterward usurped also even by the blind sir johns. for, if you peruse well my chronology ensuing, you shall find that they went either in divers colours like players, or in garments of light hue, as yellow, red, green, etc., with their shoes piked, their hair crisped, their girdles armed with silver, their shoes, spurs, bridles, etc., buckled with like metal, their apparel (for the most part) of silk, and richly furred, their caps laced and buttoned with gold, so that to meet a priest in those days was to behold a peacock that spreadeth his tail when he danceth before the hen,[ ] which now (i say) is well reformed. touching hospitality, there was never any greater used in england, sith by reason that marriage is permitted to him that will choose that kind of life, their meat and drink is more orderly and frugally dressed, their furniture of household more convenient and better looked unto, and the poor oftener fed generally than heretofore they have been, when only a few bishops and double or treble beneficed men did make good cheer at christmas only, or otherwise kept great houses for the entertainment of the rich, which did often see and visit them. it is thought much peradventure that some bishops, etc., in our time do come short of the ancient gluttony and prodigality of their predecessors; but to such as do consider of the curtailing of their livings, or excessive prices whereunto things are grown, and how their course is limited by law, and estate looked into on every side, the cause of their so doing is well enough perceived. this also offended many, that they should, after their deaths, leave their substances to their wives and children, whereas they consider not that in old time such as had no lemans nor bastards[ ] (very few were there, god wot, of this sort) did leave their goods and possessions to their brethren and kinsfolks, whereby (as i can shew by good record) many houses of gentility have grown and been erected. if in any age some one of them did found a college, almshouse, or school, if you look unto these our times, you shall see no fewer deeds of charity done, nor better grounded upon the right stub of piety than before. if you say that their wives be fond, after the decease of their husbands, and bestow themselves not so advisedly as their calling requireth (which, god knoweth, these curious surveyors make small account of truth, further than thereby to gather matter of reprehension), i beseech you then to look into all states of the laity, and tell me whether some duchesses, countesses, barons' or knights' wives, do not fully so often offend in the like as they? for eve will be eve, though adam would say nay. not a few also find fault with our threadbare gowns, as if not our patrons but our wives were causes of our woe. but if it were known to all that i know to have been performed of late in essex, where a minister taking a benefice (of less than twenty pounds in the queen's books, so far as i remember) was enforced to pay to his patron twenty quarters of oats, ten quarters of wheat, and sixteen yearly of barley (which he called _hawks' meat_), and another let the like in farm to his patron for ten pounds by the year which is well worth forty at the least, the cause of our threadbare gowns would easily appear: for such patrons do scrape the wool from our cloaks. wherefore i may well say that such a threadbare minister is either an ill man or hath an ill patron, or both; and when such cooks and cobbling shifters[ ] shall be removed and weeded out of the ministry, i doubt not but our patrons will prove better men, and be reformed whether they will or not, or else the single-minded bishops shall see the living bestowed upon such as do deserve it. when the pragmatic sanction took place first in france, it was supposed that these enormities should utterly have ceased; but when the elections of bishops came once into the hands of the canons and spiritual men, it grew to be far worse. for they also, within a while waxing covetous, by their own experience learned aforehand, raised the markets, and sought after new gains by the gifts of the greatest livings in that country, wherein (as machiavelli writeth) are eighteen archbishoprics, one hundred forty and five bishoprics, abbeys, eleven universities, , , steeples (if his report be sound). some are of the opinion that, if sufficient men in every town might be sent for from the universities, this mischief would soon be remedied; but i am clean of another mind. for, when i consider whereunto the gifts of fellowships in some places are grown, the profit that ariseth at sundry elections of scholars out of grammar schools to the posers, schoolmasters, and preferers of them to our universities, the gifts of a great number of almshouses builded for the maimed and impotent soldiers by princes and good men heretofore moved with a pitiful consideration of the poor distressed, how rewards, pensions, and annuities also do reign in other cases whereby the giver is brought sometimes into extreme misery, and that not so much as the room of a common soldier is not obtained oftentimes without a "_what will you give me?_" i am brought into such a mistrust of the sequel of this device that i dare pronounce (almost for certain) that, if homer were now alive, it should be said to him: "tuque licet venias musis comitatus homere, si nihil attuleris, ibis homere foras!" more i could say, and more i would say, of these and other things, were it not that in mine own judgment i have said enough already for the advertisement of such as be wise. nevertheless, before i finish this chapter, i will add a word or two (so briefly as i can) of the old estate of cathedral churches, which i have collected together here and there among the writers, and whereby it shall easily be seen what they were, and how near the government of ours do in these days approach unto them; for that there is an irreconcilable odds between them and those of the papists, i hope there is no learned man indeed but will acknowledge and yield unto it. we find therefore in the time of the primitive church that there was in every see or jurisdiction one school at the least, whereunto such as were catechists in christian religion did resort. and hereof, as we may find great testimony for alexandria, antioch, rome, and jerusalem, so no small notice is left of the like in the inferior sort, if the names of such as taught in them be called to mind, and the histories well read which make report of the same. these schools were under the jurisdiction of the bishops, and from thence did they and the rest of the elders choose out such as were the ripest scholars, and willing to serve in the ministry, whom they placed also in their cathedral churches, there not only to be further instructed in the knowledge of the world, but also to inure them to the delivery of the same unto the people in sound manner, to minister the sacraments, to visit the sick and brethren imprisoned, and to perform such other duties as then belonged to their charges. the bishop himself and elders of the church were also hearers and examiners of their doctrine; and, being in process of time found meet workmen for the lord's harvest, they were forthwith sent abroad (after imposition of hands and prayer generally made for their good proceeding) to some place or other then destitute of her pastor, and other taken from the school also placed in their rooms. what number of such clerks belonged now and then to some one see, the chronology following shall easily declare; and, in like sort, what officers, widows, and other persons were daily maintained in those seasons by the offerings and oblations of the faithful it is incredible to be reported, if we compare the same with the decays and oblations seen and practised at this present. but what is that in all the world which avarice and negligence will not corrupt and impair? and, as this is a pattern of the estate of the cathedral churches in those times, so i wish that the like order of government might once again be restored unto the same, which may be done with ease, sith the schools are already builded in every diocese, the universities, places of their preferment unto further knowledge, and the cathedral churches great enough to receive so many as shall come from thence to be instructed unto doctrine. but one hindrance of this is already and more and more to be looked for (beside the plucking and snatching commonly seen from such houses and the church), and that is, the general contempt of the ministry, and small consideration of their former pains taken, whereby less and less hope of competent maintenance by preaching the word is likely to ensue. wherefore the greatest part of the more excellent wits choose rather to employ their studies unto physic and the laws, utterly giving over the study of the scriptures, for fear lest they should in time not get their bread by the same. by this means also the stalls in their choirs would be better filled, which now (for the most part) are empty, and prebends should be prebends indeed, there to live till they were preferred to some ecclesiastical function, and then other men chosen to succeed them in their rooms, whereas now prebends are but superfluous additiments unto former excesses, and perpetual commodities unto the owners, which before time were but temporal (as i have said before). but as i have good leisure to wish for these things, so it shall be a longer time before it will be brought to pass. nevertheless, as i will pray for a reformation in this behold, so will i here conclude my discourse on the estate of our churches. chapter vii. of the food and diet of the english. [ , book iii., chapter ; , book ii., chapter .] the situation of our region, lying near unto the north, doth cause the heat of our stomachs to be of somewhat greater force: therefore our bodies do crave a little more ample nourishment than the inhabitants of the hotter regions are accustomed withal, whose digestive force is not altogether so vehement, because their internal heat is not so strong as ours, which is kept in by the coldness of the air that from time to time (especially in winter) doth environ our bodies. it is no marvel therefore that our tables are oftentimes more plentifully garnished than those of other nations, and this trade hath continued with us even since the very beginning. for, before the romans found out and knew the way unto our country, our predecessors fed largely upon flesh and milk, whereof there was great abundance in this isle,[ ] because they applied their chief studies unto pasturage and feeding. after this manner also did our welsh britons order themselves in their diet so long as they lived of themselves, but after they became to be united and made equal with the english they framed their appetites to live after our manner, so that at this day there is very little difference between us in our diets. in scotland likewise they have given themselves (of late years to speak of) unto very ample and large diet, wherein as for some respect nature doth make them equal with us, so otherwise they far exceed us in over much and distemperate gormandise, and so ingross their bodies that divers of them do oft become unapt to any other purpose than to spend their times in large tabling and belly cheer. against this pampering of their carcasses doth hector boethius in his description of the country very sharply inveigh in the first chapter of that treatise. henry wardlaw also,[ ] bishop of st. andrews, noting their vehement alteration from competent frugality into excessive gluttony to be brought out of england with james the first (who had been long time prisoner there under the fourth and fifth henries, and at his return carried divers english gentlemen into his country with him, whom he very honourably preferred there), doth vehemently exclaim against the same in open parliament holden at perth, ,[ ] before the three estates, and so bringeth his purpose to pass in the end, by force of his learned persuasions, that a law was presently made there for the restraint of superfluous diet; amongst other things, baked meats (dishes never before this man's days seen in scotland) were generally so provided for by virtue of this act that it was not lawful for any to eat of the same under the degree of a gentleman, and those only but on high and festival days. but, alas, it was soon forgotten! in old time these north britons did give themselves universally to great abstinence, and in time of wars their soldiers would often feed but once or twice at the most in two or three days (especially if they held themselves in secret, or could have no issue out of their bogs and marshes, through the presence of the enemy), and in this distress they used to eat a certain kind of confection, whereof so much as a bean would qualify their hunger above common expectation. in woods moreover they lived with herbs and roots, or, if these shifts served not through want of such provision at hand, then used they to creep into the water or said moorish plots up unto the chins, and there remain a long time, only to qualify the heats of their stomachs by violence, which otherwise would have wrought and been ready to oppress them for hunger and want of sustenance. in those days likewise it was taken for a great offence over all to eat either goose, hare, or hen, because of a certain superstitious opinion which they had conceived of those three creatures; howbeit after that the romans, i say, had once found an entrance into this island it was not long ere open shipwreck was made of this religious observation, so that in process of time so well the north and south britons as the romans gave over to make such difference in meats as they had done before. from thenceforth also unto our days, and even in this season wherein we live, there is no restraint of any meat either for religious sake or public order in england, but it is lawful for every man to feed upon whatsoever he is able to purchase, except it be upon those days whereon eating of flesh is especially forbidden by the laws of the realm, which order is taken only to the end our numbers of cattle may be the better increased and that abundance of fish which the sea yieldeth more generally received. besides this, there is great consideration had in making this law for the preservation of the navy and maintenance of convenient numbers of seafaring men, both which would otherwise greatly decay if some means were not found whereby they might be increased. but, howsoever this case standeth, white meats, milk, butter, and cheese (which were never so dear as in my time, and wont to be accounted of as one of the chief stays throughout the island) are now reputed as food appertinent only to the inferior sort, whilst such as are more wealthy do feed upon the flesh of all kinds of cattle accustomed to be eaten, all sorts of fish taken upon our coasts and in our fresh rivers, and such diversity of wild and tame fowls as are either bred in our island or brought over unto us from other countries of the main. in number of dishes and change of meat the nobility of england (whose cooks are for the most part musical-headed frenchmen and strangers) do most exceed, sith there is no day in manner that passeth over their heads wherein they have not only beef, mutton, veal, lamb, kid, pork, cony, capon, pig, or so many of these as the season yieldeth, but also some portion of the red or fallow deer, beside great variety of fish and wild fowl, and thereto sundry other delicates wherein the sweet hand of the seafaring portugal is not wanting: so that for a man to dine with one of them, and to taste of every dish that standeth before him (which few used to do, but each one feedeth upon that meat him best liketh for the time, the beginning of every dish notwithstanding being reserved unto the greatest personage that sitteth at the table, to whom it is drawn up still by the waiters as order requireth, and from whom it descendeth again even to the lower end, whereby each one may taste thereof), is rather to yield unto a conspiracy with a great deal of meat for the speedy suppression of natural health than the use of a necessary mean to satisfy himself with a competent repast to sustain his body withal. but, as this large feeding is not seen in their guests, no more is it in their own persons; for, sith they have daily much resort unto their tables (and many times unlooked for), and thereto retain great numbers of servants, it is very requisite and expedient for them to be somewhat plentiful in this behalf. the chief part likewise of their daily provision is brought in before them (commonly in silver vessels, if they be of the degree of barons, bishops, and upwards) and placed on their tables, whereof, when they have taken what it pleaseth them, the rest is reserved, and afterwards sent down to their serving men and waiters, who feed thereon in like sort with convenient moderation, their reversion also being bestowed upon the poor which lie ready at their gates in great numbers to receive the same. this is spoken of the principal tables whereat the nobleman, his lady, and guests are accustomed to sit; besides which they have a certain ordinary allowance daily appointed for their halls, where the chief officers and household servants (for all are not permitted by custom to wait upon their master), and with them such inferior guests do feed as are not of calling to associate the nobleman himself; so that, besides those aforementioned, which are called to the principal table, there are commonly forty or three score persons fed in those halls, to the great relief of such poor suitors and strangers also as oft be partakers thereof and otherwise like to dine hardly. as for drink, it is usually filled in pots, goblets, jugs, bowls of silver, in noblemen's houses; also in fine venice glasses of all forms; and, for want of these elsewhere, in pots of earth of sundry colours and moulds, whereof many are garnished with silver, or at the leastwise in pewter, all which notwithstanding are seldom set on the table, but each one, as necessity urgeth, calleth for a cup of such drink as him listeth to have, so that, when he has tasted of it, he delivered the cup again to some one of the standers by, who, making it clean by pouring out the drink that remaineth, restoreth it to the cupboard from whence he fetched the same. by this device (a thing brought up at the first by mnesitheus of athens, in conservation of the honour of orestes, who had not yet made expiation for the death of his adulterous parents,[ ] Ægisthus and clytemnestra) much idle tippling is furthermore cut off; for, if the full pots should continually stand at the elbow or near the trencher, divers would always be dealing with them, whereas now they drink seldom, and only when necessity urgeth, and so avoid the note of great drinking, or often troubling of the servitors with filling of their bowls. nevertheless in the noblemen's halls this order is not used, neither is any man's house commonly under the degree of a knight or esquire of great revenues. it is a world to see in these our days, wherein gold and silver most aboundeth, how that our gentility, as loathing those metals (because of the plenty)[ ] do now generally choose rather the venice glasses, both for our wine and beer, than any of those metals or stone wherein before time we have been accustomed to drink; but such is the nature of man generally that it most coveteth things difficult to be attained; and such is the estimation of this stuff that many become rich only with their new trade unto murana (a town near to venice, situate on the adriatic sea), from whence the very best are daily to be had, and such as for beauty do well near match the crystal or the ancient _murrhina vasa_ whereof now no man hath knowledge. and as this is seen in the gentility, so in the wealthy communalty the like desire of glass is not neglected, whereby the gain gotten by their purchase is yet much more increased to the benefit of the merchant. the poorest also will have glass if they may; but, sith the venetian is somewhat too dear for them, they content themselves with such as are made at home of fern and burned stone; but in fine all go one way--that is, to shards at the last, so that our great expenses in glasses (beside that they breed much strife toward such as have the charge of them) are worst of all bestowed in mine opinion, because their pieces do turn unto no profit. if the philosopher's stone were once found, and one part hereof mixed with forty of molten glass, it would induce such a metallical toughness thereunto that a fall should nothing hurt it in such manner; yet it might peradventure bunch or batter it; nevertheless that inconvenience were quickly to be redressed by the hammer.[ ] but whither am i slipped? the gentlemen and merchants keep much about one rate, and each of them contenteth himself with four, five, or six dishes, when they have but small resort, or peradventure with one, or two, or three at the most, when they have no strangers to accompany them at their tables. and yet their servants have their ordinary diet assigned, beside such as is left at their master's boards, and not appointed to be brought thither the second time, which nevertheless is often seen, generally in venison, lamb, or some especial dish, whereon the merchantman himself liketh to feed when it is cold, or peradventure for sundry causes incident to the feeder is better so than if it were warm or hot. to be short, at such times as the merchants do make their ordinary or voluntary feasts, it is a world to see what great provision is made of all manner of delicate meats, from every quarter of the country, wherein, beside that they are often comparable herein to the nobility of the land, they will seldom regard anything that the butcher usually killeth, but reject the same as not worthy to come in place. in such cases also jellies of all colours, mixed with a variety in the representation of sundry flowers, herbs, trees, forms of beasts, fish, fowls, and fruits, and thereunto marchpane wrought with no small curiosity, tarts of divers hues, and sundry denominations, conserves of old fruits, foreign and home-bred, suckets, codinacs, marmalades, marchpane, sugar-bread, gingerbread, florentines, wild fowls, venison of all sorts, and sundry outlandish confections, altogether seasoned with sugar (which pliny calleth _mel ex arundinibus_, a device not common nor greatly used in old time at the table, but only in medicine, although it grew in arabia, india, and sicilia), do generally bear the sway, besides infinite devices of our own not possible for me to remember. of the potato, and such venerous[ ] roots as are brought out of spain, portugal, and the indies to furnish up our banquets, i speak not, wherein our mures[ ] of no less force, and to be had about crosby-ravenswath,[ ] do now begin to have place. but among all these, the kind of meat which is obtained with most difficulty and costs, is commonly taken for the most delicate, and thereupon each guest will soonest desire to feed. and as all estates do exceed herein, i mean for strangeness and number of costly dishes, so these forget not to use the like excess in wine, insomuch as there is no kind to be had, neither anywhere more store of all sorts than in england, although we have none growing with us but yearly to the proportion of , or , tun and upwards, notwithstanding the daily restraints of the same brought over unto us, whereof at great meetings there is not some store to be had. neither do i mean this of small wines only, as claret, white, red, french, etc., which amount to about fifty-six sorts, according to the number of regions from whence they came, but also of the thirty kinds of italian, grecian, spanish, canarian, etc., whereof vernage, catepument, raspis, muscadell, romnie, bastard lire, osy caprie, clary, and malmesey, are not least of all accompted of, because of their strength and valour. for, as i have said in meat, so, the stronger the wine is, the more it is desired, by means whereof, in old time, the best was called _theologicum_, because it was had from the clergy and religious men, unto whose houses many of the laity would often send for bottles filled with the same, being sure they would neither drink nor be served of the worst, or such as was any ways mingled or brewed by the vinterer: nay, the merchant would have thought that his soul should have gone straightway to the devil if he should have served them with other than the best. furthermore, when these have had their course which nature yieldeth, sundry sorts of artificial stuff as ypocras and wormwood wine must in like manner succeed in their turns, beside stale ale and strong beer, which nevertheless bear the greatest brunt in drinking, and are of so many sorts and ages as it pleaseth the brewer to make them. the beer that is used at noblemen's tables in their fixed and standing houses is commonly a year old, or peradventure of two years' tunning or more; but this is not general. it is also brewed in march, and therefore called march beer; but, for the household, it is usually not under a month's age, each one coveting to have the same stale as he may, so that it be not sour, and his bread new as is possible, so that it be not hot. the artificer and husbandman makes greatest account of such meat as they may soonest come by, and have it quickliest ready, except it be in london when the companies of every trade do meet on their quarter days, at which time they be nothing inferior to the nobility. their food also consisteth principally in beef, and such meat as the butcher selleth--that is to say, mutton, veal, lamb, pork, etc., whereof he findeth great store in the markets adjoining, beside sows, brawn, bacon, fruit, pies of fruit, fowls of sundry sorts, cheese, butter, eggs, etc., as the other wanteth it not at home, by his own provision which is at the best hand, and commonly least charge. in feasting also, this latter sort, i mean the husbandmen, do exceed after their manner, especially at bridals, purifications of women, and such odd meetings, where it is incredible to tell what meat is consumed and spent, each one bringing such a dish, or so many with him, as his wife and he do consult upon, but always with this consideration, that the lesser friend shall have the better provision. this also is commonly seen at these banquets, that the good man of the house is not charged with anything saving bread, drink, sauce, house-room, and fire. but the artificers in cities and good towns do deal far otherwise; for, albeit that some of them do suffer their jaws to go oft before their claws, and divers of them, by making good cheer, do hinder themselves and other men, yet the wiser sort can handle the matter well enough in these junkettings, and therefore their frugality deserveth commendation. to conclude, both the artificer and the husbandman are sufficiently liberal, and very friendly at their tables; and, when they meet, they are so merry without malice, and plain without inward italian or french craft and subtlety, that it would do a man good to be in company among them. herein only are the inferior sort somewhat to be blamed, that, being thus assembled, their talk is now and then such as savoureth of scurrility and ribaldry, a thing naturally incident to carters and clowns, who think themselves not to be merry and welcome if their foolish veins in this behalf be never so little restrained. this is moreover to be added in these meetings, that if they happen to stumble upon a piece of venison and a cup of wine or very strong beer or ale (which latter they commonly provide against their appointed days), they think their cheer so great, and themselves to have fared so well, as the lord mayor of london, with whom, when their bellies be full, they will not often stick to make comparison, because that of a subject there is no public officer of any city in europe that may compare in port and countenance with him during the time of his office. i might here talk somewhat of the great silence that is used at the tables of the honourable and wiser sort generally over all the realm (albeit that too much deserveth no commendation, for it belongeth to guests neither to be _muti_ nor _loquaces_), likewise of the moderate eating and drinking that is daily seen, and finally of the regard that each one hath to keep himself from the note of surfeiting and drunkenness (for which cause salt meat, except beef, bacon, and pork, are not any whit esteemed, and yet these three may not be much powdered); but, as in rehearsal thereof i should commend the nobleman, merchant, and frugal artificer, so i could not clear the meaner sort of husbandmen and country inhabitants of very much babbling (except it be here and there some odd yeoman), with whom he is thought to be the merriest that talketh of most ribaldry or the wisest man that speaketh fastest among them, and now and then surfeiting and drunkenness which they rather fall into for want of heed taking than wilfully following or delighting in those errors of set mind and purpose. it may be that divers of them living at home, with hard and pinching diet, small drink, and some of them having scarce enough of that, are soonest overtaken when they come into such banquets; howbeit they take it generally as no small disgrace if they happen to be cupshotten, so that it is a grief unto them, though now sans remedy, sith the thing is done and past. if the friends also of the wealthier sort come to their houses from far, they are commonly so welcome till they depart as upon the first day of their coming; whereas in good towns and cities, as london, etc., men oftentimes complain of little room, and, in reward of a fat capon or plenty of beef and mutton largely bestowed upon them in the country, a cup of wine or beer with a napkin to wipe their lips and an "you are heartily welcome!" is thought to be a great entertainment; and therefore the old country clerks have framed this saying in that behalf, i mean upon the entertainment of townsmen and londoners after the days of their abode, in this manner: "primus jucundus, tollerabilis estque secundus, tertius est vanus, sed fetet quatriduanus." the bread throughout the land is made of such grain as the soil yieldeth; nevertheless the gentility commonly provide themselves sufficiently of wheat for their own tables, whilst their household and poor neighbours in some shires are forced to content themselves with rye, or barley, yea, and in time of dearth, many with bread made either of beans, peas, or oats, or of altogether and some acorns among, of which scourge the poorest do soonest taste, sith they are least able to provide themselves of better. i will not say that this extremity is oft so well to be seen in time of plenty as of dearth, but, if i should, i could easily bring my trial. for, albeit that there be much more ground eared now almost in every place than hath been of late years, yet such a price of corn continueth in each town and market without any just cause (except it be that landlords do get licences to carry corn out of the land only to keep up the prices for their own private gains and ruin of the commonwealth), that the artificer and poor labouring man is not able to reach unto it, but is driven to content himself with horse corn--i mean beans, peas, oats, tares, and lentils: and therefore it is a true proverb, and never so well verified as now, that "hunger setteth his first foot into the horse-manger."[ ] if the world last awhile after this rate, wheat and rye will be no grain for poor men to feed on; and some caterpillars there are that can say so much already. of bread made of wheat we have sundry sorts daily brought to the table, whereof the first and most excellent is the manchet, which we commonly call white bread, in latin _primarius panis_, whereof budeus also speaketh, in his first book _de asse_; and our good workmen deliver commonly such proportion that of the flour of one bushel with another they make forty cast of manchet, of which every loaf weigheth eight ounces into the oven, and six ounces out, as i have been informed. the second is the cheat or wheaten bread, so named because the colour thereof resembleth the grey or yellowish wheat, being clean and well dressed, and out of this is the coarsest of the bran (usually called gurgeons or pollard) taken. the ravelled is a kind of cheap bread also, but it retaineth more of the gross, and less of the pure substance of the wheat; and this, being more slightly wrought up, is used in the halls of the nobility and gentry only, whereas the other either is or should be baked in cities and good towns of an appointed size (according to such price as the corn doth bear), and by a statute provided by king john in that behalf.[ ] the ravelled cheat therefore is generally so made that out of one bushel of meal, after two and twenty pounds of bran be sifted and taken from it (whereunto they add the gurgeons that rise from the manchet), they make thirty cast, every loaf weighing eighteen ounces into the oven, and sixteen ounces out; and, beside this, they so handle the matter that to every bushel of meal they add only two and twenty, or three and twenty, pound of water, washing also (in some houses) their corn before it go to the mill, whereby their manchet bread is more excellent in colour, and pleasing to the eye, than otherwise it would be. the next sort is named brown bread, of the colour of which we have two sorts one baked up as it cometh from the mill, so that neither the bran nor the flour are any whit diminished; this, celsus called _autopirus panis_, lib. , and putteth it in the second place of nourishment. the other hath little or no flour left therein at all, howbeit he calleth it _panem cibarium_, and it is not only the worst and weakest of all the other sorts, but also appointed in old time for servants, slaves, and the inferior kind of people to feed upon. hereunto likewise, because it is dry and brickie in the working (for it will hardly be made up handsomely into loaves), some add a portion of rye meal in our time, whereby the rough dryness or dry roughness thereof is somewhat qualified, and then it is named _miscelin_, that is, bread made of mingled corn, albeit that divers do sow or mingle wheat and rye of set purpose at the mill, or before it come there, and sell the same at the markets under the aforesaid name. in champaign countries much rye and barley bread is eaten, but especially where wheat is scant and geson. as for the difference that is between the summer and winter wheat, most husbandmen know it not, sith they are neither acquainted with summer wheat nor winter barley; yet here and there i find of both sorts, specially in the north and about kendal, where they call it march wheat, and also of summer rye, but in so small quantities as that i dare not pronounce them to be greatly common among us. our drink, whose force and continuance is partly touched already, is made of barley, water, and hops, sodden and mingled together, by the industry of our brewers in a certain exact proportion. but, before our barley do come into their hands, it sustaineth great alteration, and is converted into malt, the making whereof i will here set down in such order as my skill therein may extend unto (for i am scarce a good maltster), chiefly for that foreign writers have attempted to describe the same, and the making of our beer, wherein they have shot so far wide, as the quantity of ground was between themselves and their mark. in the meantime bear with me, gentle reader (i beseech thee), that lead thee from the description of the plentiful diet of our country unto the fond report of a servile trade, or rather from a table delicately furnished into a musty malt-house; but such is now thy hap, wherefore i pray thee be contented. our malt is made all the year long in some great towns; but in gentlemen's and yeomen's houses, who commonly make sufficient for their own expenses only, the winter half is thought most meet for that commodity: howbeit the malt that is made when the willow doth bud is commonly worst of all. nevertheless each one endeavoureth to make it of the best barley, which is steeped in a cistern, in greater or less quantity, by the space of three days and three nights, until it be thoroughly soaked. this being done, the water is drained from it by little and little, till it be quite gone. afterward they take it out, and, laying it upon the clean floor on a round heap, it resteth so until it be ready to shoot at the root end, which maltsters call _combing_. when it beginneth therefore to shoot in this manner, they say it is come, and then forthwith they spread it abroad, first thick, and afterwards thinner and thinner upon the said floor (as it _combeth_), and there it lieth (with turning every day four or five times) by the space of one and twenty days at the least, the workmen not suffering it in any wise to take any heat, whereby the bud end should spire, that bringeth forth the blade, and by which oversight or hurt of the stuff itself the malt would be spoiled and turn small commodity to the brewer. when it hath gone, or been turned, so long upon the floor, they carry it to a kiln covered with hair cloth, where they give it gentle heats (after they have spread it there very thin abroad) till it be dry, and in the meanwhile they turn it often, that it may be uniformly dried. for the more it be dried (yet must it be done with soft fire) the sweeter and better the malt is, and the longer it will continue, whereas, if it be not dried down (as they call it), but slackly handled, it will breed a kind of worm called a weevil, which groweth in the flour of the corn, and in process of time will so eat out itself that nothing shall remain of the grain but even the very rind or husk. the best malt is tried by the hardness and colour; for, if it look fresh with a yellow hue, and thereto will write like a piece of chalk, after you have bitten a kernel in sunder in the midst, then you may assure yourself that it is dried down. in some places it is dried at leisure with wood alone or straw alone, in others with wood and straw together; but, of all, the straw-dried is the most excellent. for the wood-dried malt when it is brewed, beside that the drink is higher of colour, it doth hurt and annoy the head of him that is not used thereto, because of the smoke. such also as use both indifferently do bark, cleave, and dry their wood in an oven, thereby to remove all moisture that should procure the fume; and this malt is in the second place, and, with the same likewise, that which is made with dried furze, broom, etc.: whereas, if they also be occupied green, they are in manner so prejudicial to the corn as is the moist wood. and thus much of our malts, in brewing whereof some grind the same somewhat grossly, and, in seething well the liquor that shall be put into it, they add to every nine quarters of malt one of headcorn (which consisteth of sundry grain, as wheat and oats ground). but what have i to do with this matter, or rather so great a quantity, wherewith i am not acquainted? nevertheless, sith i have taken occasion to speak of brewing, i will exemplify in such a proportion as i am best skilled in, because it is the usual rate for mine own family, and once in a month practised by my wife and her maid-servants, who proceed withal after this manner, as she hath oft informed me. having therefore ground eight bushels of good malt upon our quern, where the toll is saved, she addeth unto it half a bushel of wheat meal, and so much of oats small ground, and so tempereth or mixeth them with the malt that you cannot easily discern the one from the other; otherwise these latter would clunter, fall into lumps, and thereby become unprofitable. the first liquor (which is full eighty gallons, according to the proportion of our furnace) she maketh boiling hot, and then poureth it softly into the malt, where it resteth (but without stirring) until her second liquor be almost ready to boil. this done, she letteth her mash run till the malt be left without liquor, or at the leastwise the greatest part of the moisture, which she perceiveth by the stay and soft issue thereof; and by this time her second liquor in the furnace is ready to seethe, which is put also to the malt, as the first woort also again into the furnace, whereunto she addeth two pounds of the best english hops, and so letteth them seethe together by the space of two hours in summer or an hour and a half in winter, whereby it getteth an excellent colour, and continuance without impeachment or any superfluous tartness. but, before she putteth her first woort into the furnace, or mingleth it with the hops, she taketh out a vessel full, of eight or nine gallons, which she shutteth up close, and suffereth no air to come into it till it become yellow, and this she reserveth by itself unto further use, as shall appear hereafter, calling it _brackwoort_ or _charwoort_, and, as she saith, it addeth also to the colour of the drink, whereby it yieldeth not unto amber or fine gold in hue unto the eye. by this time also her second woort is let run; and, the first being taken out of the furnace, and placed to cool, she returneth the middle woort unto the furnace, where it is stricken over, or from whence it is taken again, when it beginneth to boil, and mashed the second time, whilst the third liquor is heat (for there are three liquors), and this last put into the furnace, when the second is mashed again. when she hath mashed also the last liquor (and set the second to cool by the first), she letteth it run, and then seetheth it again with a pound and a half of new hops, or peradventure two pounds, as she seeth cause by the goodness or baseness of the hops, and, when it hath sodden, in summer two hours, and in winter an hour and a half, she striketh it also, and reserveth it unto mixture with the rest when time doth serve therefore. finally, when she setteth her drink together, she addeth to her brackwoort or charwoort half an ounce of arras, and half a quarter of an ounce of bayberries, finely powdered, and then, putting the same into her woort, with a handful of wheat flour, she proceedeth in such usual order as common brewing requireth. some, instead of arras and bays, add so much long pepper only, but, in her opinion and my liking, it is not so good as the first, and hereof we make three hogsheads of good beer, such (i mean) as is meet for poor men as i am to live withal, whose small maintenance (for what great thing is forty pounds a year, _computatis computandis_, able to perform?) may endure no deeper cut, the charges whereof groweth in this manner. i value my malt at ten shillings, my wood at four shillings (which i buy), my hops at twenty pence, the spice at twopence, servants' wages two shillings sixpence, with meat and drink, and the wearing of my vessel at twenty pence, so that for my twenty shillings i have ten score gallons of beer or more, notwithstanding the loss in seething, which some, being loth to forego, do not observe the time, and therefore speed thereafter in their success, and worthily. the continuance of the drink is always determined after the quantity of the hops, so that being well _hopt_ it lasteth longer. for it feedeth upon the hop, and holdeth out so long as the force of the same continueth, which being extinguished, the drink must be spent, or else it dieth and becometh of no value. in this trade also our brewers observe very diligently the nature of the water, which they daily occupy, and soil through which it passeth, for all waters are not of like goodness, sith the fattest standing water is always the best; for, although the waters that run by chalk or cledgy soils be good, and next unto the thames water, which is the most excellent, yet the water that standeth in either of these is the best for us that dwell in the country, as whereon the sun lieth longest, and fattest fish is bred. but, of all other, the fenny and marsh is the worst, and the clearest spring water next unto it. in this business therefore the skilful workman doth redeem the iniquity of that element, by changing of his proportions, which trouble in ale (sometime our only, but now taken with many for old and sick men's drink) is never seen nor heard of. howbeit, as the beer well sodden in the brewing, and stale, is clear and well coloured as muscadel or malvesey,[ ] or rather yellow as the gold noble, as our pot-knights call it, so our ale, which is not at all or very little sodden, and without hops, is more thick, fulsome, and of no such continuance, which are three notable things to be considered in that liquor. but what for that? certes i know some ale-knights so much addicted thereunto that they will not cease from morrow until even to visit the same, cleansing house after house, till they defile themselves, and either fall quite under the board, or else, not daring to stir from their stools, sit still pinking with their narrow eyes, as half sleeping, till the fume of their adversary be digested that he may go to it afresh. such slights also have the ale-wives for the utterance of this drink that they will mix it with rosen and salt; but if you heat a knife red-hot, and quench it in the ale so near the bottom of the pot as you can put it, you shall see the rosen come forth hanging on the knife. as for the force of salt, it is well known by the effect, for the more the drinker tippleth, the more he may, and so doth he carry off a dry drunken noll to bed with him, except his luck be the better. but to my purpose. in some places of england there is a kind of drink made of apples which they call cider or pomage, but that of pears is called perry, and both are ground and pressed in presses made for the nonce. certes these two are very common in sussex, kent, worcester, and other steeds where these sorts of fruits do abound, howbeit they are not their only drink at all times, but referred unto the delicate sorts of drink, as metheglin is in wales, whereof the welshmen make no less account (and not without cause, if it be well handled) than the greeks did of their ambrosia or nectar, which for the pleasantness thereof was supposed to be such as the gods themselves did delight in. there is a kind of swish-swash made also in essex, and divers other places, with honeycombs and water, which the homely country wives, putting some pepper and a little other spice among, call mead, very good in mine opinion for such as love to be loose bodied at large, or a little eased of the cough. otherwise it differeth so much from the true metheglin as chalk from cheese. truly it is nothing else but the washing of the combs, when the honey is wrung out, and one of the best things that i know belonging thereto is that they spend but little labour, and less cost, in making of the same, and therefore no great loss if it were never occupied. hitherto of the diet of my countrymen, and somewhat more at large peradventure than many men will like of, wherefore i think good now to finish this tractation, and so will i, when i have added a few other things incident unto that which goeth before, whereby the whole process of the same shall fully be delivered, and my promise to my friend[ ] in this behalf performed. heretofore there hath been much more time spent in eating and drinking than commonly is in these days; for whereas of old we had breakfasts in the forenoon, beverages or nunchions[ ] after dinner, and thereto rear suppers generally when it was time to go to rest (a toy brought into england by hardy canutus, and a custom whereof athenæus[ ] also speaketh, lib. , albeit hippocrates speaks but of twice at the most, lib. , _de rat vict. in feb ac_). now, these odd repasts--thanked be god!--are very well left, and each one in manner (except here and there some young, hungry stomach that cannot fast till dinner-time) contenteth himself with dinner and supper only. the normans, misliking the gormandise of canutus, ordained after their arrival that no table should be covered above once in the day, which huntingdon[ ] imputeth to their avarice; but in the end, either waxing weary of their own frugality, or suffering the cockle of old custom to overgrow the good corn of their new constitution, they fell to such liberty that in often-feeding they surmounted canutus surnamed the hardy. for, whereas he covered his table but three or four times in the day, these spread their cloths five or six times, and in such wise as i before rehearsed. they brought in also the custom of long and stately sitting at meat, whereby their feasts resembled those ancient pontifical banquets whereof macrobius speaketh (lib. , cap. ), and pliny (lib. , cap. ), and which for sumptuousness of fare, long sitting, and curiosity shewed in the same, exceeded all other men's feasting; which fondness is not yet left with us, notwithstanding that it proveth very beneficial for the physicians, who most abound where most excess and misgovernment of our bodies do appear, although it be a great expense of time, and worthy of reprehension. for the nobility, gentlemen, and merchantmen, especially at great meetings, do sit commonly till two or three of the clock at afternoon, so that with many it is a hard matter to rise from the table to go to evening prayer, and return from thence to come time enough to supper.[ ] * * * * * with us the nobility, gentry, and students do ordinarily go to dinner at eleven before noon, and to supper at five, or between five and six at afternoon. the merchants dine and sup seldom before twelve at noon, and six at night, especially in london. the husbandmen dine also at high noon as they call it, and sup at seven or eight; but out of the term in our universities the scholars dine at ten. as for the poorest sort they generally dine and sup when they may, so that to talk of their order of repast it were but a needless matter. i might here take occasion also to set down the variety used by antiquity in their beginnings of their diets, wherein almost every nation had a several fashion, some beginning of custom (as we do in summer time) with salads at supper, and some ending with lettuce,[ ] some making their entry[ ] with eggs, and shutting up their tables with mulberries, as we do with fruit and conceits of all sorts. divers (as the old romans) began with a few crops of rue, as the venetians did with the fish called gobius; the belgæs with butter, or (as we do yet also) with butter and eggs upon fish days. but whereas we commonly begin with the most gross food, and end with the most delicate, the scot, thinking much to leave the best for his menial servants, maketh his entrance at the best, so that he is sure thereby to leave the worst. we use also our wines by degrees, so that the hostess cometh last to the table: but to stand upon such toys would spend much time, and turn to small profit. wherefore i will deal with other things more necessary for this turn. chapter viii. of our apparel and attire. [ , book iii., chapter ; , book ii., chapter .] an englishman, endeavouring sometime to write of our attire, made sundry platforms for his purpose, supposing by some of them to find out one steadfast ground whereon to build the sum of his discourse. but in the end (like an orator long without exercise), when he saw what a difficult piece of work he had taken in hand, he gave over his travel, and only drew the picture of a naked man,[ ] unto whom he gave a pair of shears in the one hand and a piece of cloth in the other, to the end he should shape his apparel after such fashion as himself liked, sith he could find no kind of garment that could please him any while together; and this he called an englishman. certes this writer (otherwise being a lewd popish hypocrite and ungracious priest[ ]) shewed himself herein not to be altogether void of judgment, sith the phantastical folly of our nation (even from the courtier to the carter) is such that no form of apparel liketh us longer than the first garment is in the wearing, if it continue so long, and be not laid aside to receive some other trinket newly devised by the fickle-headed tailors, who covet to have several tricks in cutting, thereby to draw fond customers to more expense of money. for my part, i can tell better how to inveigh against this enormity than describe any certainty of our attire; sithence such is our mutability that to-day there is none to the spanish guise, to-morrow the french toys are most fine and delectable, ere long no such apparel as that which is after the high almaine[ ] fashion, by-and-by the turkish manner is generally best liked of, otherwise the morisco gowns, the barbarian fleeces, the mandilion worn to colley-weston ward,[ ] and the short french breeches make such a comely vesture that, except it were a dog in a doublet, you shall not see any so disguised as are my countrymen of england.[ ] and as these fashions are diverse, so likewise it is a world to see the costliness and the curiosity, the excess and the vanity, the pomp and the bravery, the change and the variety, and finally the fickleness and the folly, that is in all degrees, insomuch that nothing is more constant in england than inconstancy of attire. oh, how much cost is bestowed nowadays upon our bodies, and how little upon our souls! how many suits of apparel hath the one, and how little furniture hath the other! how long time is asked in decking up of the first, and how little space left wherein to feed the latter! how curious, how nice also, are a number of men and women, and how hardly can the tailor please them in making it fit for their bodies! how many times must it be sent back again to him that made it! what chafing, what fretting, what reproachful language, doth the poor workman bear away![ ] and many times when he doth nothing to it at all, yet when it is brought home again it is very fit and handsome; then must we put it on, then must the long seams of our hose be set by a plumb-line, then we puff, then we blow, and finally sweat till we drop, that our clothes may stand well upon us. i will say nothing of our heads, which sometimes are polled, sometimes curled, or suffered to grow at length like woman's locks, many times cut off, above or under the ears, round as by a wooden dish. neither will i meddle with our variety of beards, of which some are shaven from the chin like those of turks, not a few cut short like to the beard of marquess otto, some made round like a rubbing brush, others with a _pique de vant_ (o! fine fashion!), or now and then suffered to grow long, the barbers being grown to be so cunning in this behalf as the tailors. and therefore if a man have a lean and straight face, a marquess otton's cut will make it broad and large; if it be platter-like, a long, slender beard will make it seem the narrower; if he be weasel-becked, then much hair left on the cheeks will make the owner look big like a bowdled hen, and as grim as a goose, if cornelis of chelmersford say true. many old men do wear no beards at all. some lusty courtiers also and gentlemen of courage do wear either rings of gold, stones, or pearl, in their ears, whereby they imagine the workmanship of god not to be a little amended. but herein they rather disgrace than adorn their persons, as by their niceness in apparel, for which i say most nations do not unjustly deride us, as also for that we do seem to imitate all nations round about us, wherein we be like to the polypus or chameleon; and thereunto bestow most cost upon our arses, and much more than upon all the rest of our bodies, as women do likewise upon their heads and shoulders. in women also, it is most to be lamented, that they do now far exceed the lightness of our men (who nevertheless are transformed from the cap even to the very shoe), and such staring attire as in time past was supposed meet for none but light housewives only is now become a habit for chaste and sober matrons. what should i say of their doublets with pendant codpieces on the breast full of jags and cuts, and sleeves of sundry colours? their galligascons to bear out their bums and make their attire to fit plum round (as they term it) about them. their fardingals, and diversely coloured nether stocks of silk, jerdsey, and such like, whereby their bodies are rather deformed than commended? i have met with some of these trulls in london so disguised that it hath passed my skill to discern whether they were men or women.[ ] thus it is now come to pass, that women are become men, and men transformed[ ] into monsters; and those good gifts which almighty god hath given unto us to relieve our necessities withal (as a nation turning altogether the grace of god into wantonness, for "luxuriant animi rebus plerunque fecundis,") not otherwise bestowed than in all excess, as if we wist not otherwise how to consume and waste them. i pray god that in this behalf our sin be not like unto that of sodom and gomorrah, whose errors were pride, excess of diet, and abuse of god's benefits abundantly bestowed upon them, beside want of charity towards the poor, and certain other points which the prophet shutteth up in silence. certes the commonwealth cannot be said to flourish where these abuses reign, but is rather oppressed by unreasonable exactions made upon rich farmers, and of poor tenants, wherewith to maintain the same. neither was it ever merrier with england than when an englishman was known abroad by his own cloth, and contented himself at home with his fine carsey hosen, and a mean slop; his coat, gown, and cloak of brown, blue, or puke,[ ] with some pretty furniture of velvet or fur, and a doublet of sad tawny, or black velvet, or other comely silk, without such cuts and garish colours as are worn in these days, and never brought in but by the consent of the french, who think themselves the gayest men when they have most diversities of jags[ ] and change of colours about them. certes of all estates our merchants do least alter their attire, and therefore are most to be commended; for albeit that which they wear be very fine and costly, yet in form and colour it representeth a great piece of the ancient gravity appertaining to citizens and burgesses, albeit the younger sort of their wives, both in attire and costly housekeeping, cannot tell when and how to make an end, as being women indeed in whom all kind of curiosity is to be found and seen, and in far greater measure than in women of higher calling. i might here name a sort of hues devised for the nonce, wherewith to please fantastical heads, as goose-turd green,[ ] peas-porridge tawny, popingay blue,[ ] lusty gallant, the devil-in-the-head (i should say the hedge), and such like; but i pass them over, thinking it sufficient to have said thus much of apparel generally, when nothing can particularly be spoken of any constancy thereof.[ ] chapter ix. of the manner of building and furniture of our houses.[ ] [ , book ii., chapter ; , book ii., chapter .] the greatest part of our building in the cities and good towns of england consisteth only of timber, for as yet few of the houses of the communalty (except here and there in the west-country towns) are made of stone, although they may (in my opinion) in divers other places be builded so good cheap of the one as of the other. in old time the houses of the britons were slightly set up with a few posts and many raddles, with stable and all offices under one roof, the like whereof almost is to be seen in the fenny countries and northern parts unto this day, where for lack of wood they are enforced to continue this ancient manner of building. it is not in vain, therefore, in speaking of building, to make a distinction between the plain and woody soils; for as in these, our houses are commonly strong and well-timbered (so that in many places there are not above four, six, or nine inches between stud and stud), so in the open champaign countries they are forced, for want of stuff, to use no studs at all, but only frankposts, raisins, beams, prickposts, groundsels, summers (or dormants), transoms, and such principals, with here and there a girding, whereunto they fasten their splints or raddles, and then cast it all over with thick clay to keep out the wind, which otherwise would annoy them. certes this rude kind of building made the spaniards in queen mary's days to wonder, but chiefly when they saw what large diet was used in many of these so homely cottages; insomuch that one of no small reputation amongst them said after this manner--"these english (quoth he) have their houses made of sticks and dirt, but they fare commonly so well as the king." whereby it appeareth that he liked better of our good fare in such coarse cabins than of their own thin diet in their prince-like habitations and palaces. in like sort as every country house is thus apparelled on the outside, so is it inwardly divided into sundry rooms above and beneath; and, where plenty of wood is, they cover them with tiles, otherwise with straw, sedge, or reed,[ ] except some quarry of slate be near hand, from whence they have for their money much as may suffice them. the clay wherewith our houses are impannelled is either white, red, or blue; and of these the first doth participate very much of the nature of our chalk; the second is called loam; but the third eftsoons changeth colour as soon as it is wrought, notwithstanding that it looks blue when it is thrown out of the pit. of chalk also we have our excellent asbestos or white lime, made in most places, wherewith being quenched, we strike over our clay works and stone walls, in cities, good towns, rich farmers' and gentlemen's houses: otherwise, instead of chalk (where it wanteth, for it is so scant that in some places it is sold by the pound), they are compelled to burn a certain kind of red stone, as in wales, and elsewhere other stones and shells of oysters and like fish found upon the sea coast, which, being converted into lime, doth naturally (as the other) abhor and eschew water, whereby it is dissolved, and nevertheless desire oil, wherewith it is easily mixed, as i have seen by experience. within their doors also, such as are of ability do oft make their floors and parget of fine alabaster burned, which they call plaster of paris, whereof in some places we have great plenty, and that very profitable against the rage of fire. in plastering likewise of our fairest houses over our heads, we use to lay first a line or two of white mortar, tempered with hair, upon laths, which are nailed one by another (or sometimes upon reed of wickers more dangerous for fire, and made fast here and there saplaths for falling down), and finally cover all with the aforesaid plaster, which, beside the delectable whiteness of the stuff itself, is laid on so even and smoothly as nothing in my judgment can be done with more exactness. the walls of our houses on the inner sides in like sort be either hanged with tapestry, arras work, or painted cloths, wherein either divers histories, or herbs, beasts, knots, and such like are stained, or else they are ceiled with oak of our own, or wainscot brought hither out of the east countries, whereby the rooms are not a little commended, made warm, and much more close than otherwise they would be. as for stoves, we have not hitherto used them greatly, yet do they now begin to be made in divers houses of the gentry and wealthy citizens, who build them not to work and feed in, as in germany and elsewhere, but now and then to sweat in, as occasion and need shall require it. this also hath been common in england, contrary to the customs of all other nations, and yet to be seen (for example, in most streets of london), that many of our greatest houses have outwardly been very simple and plain to sight, which inwardly have been able to receive a duke with his whole train, and lodge them at their ease. hereby, moreover, it is come to pass that the fronts of our streets have not been so uniform and orderly builded as those of foreign cities, where (to say truth) the outer side of their mansions and dwellings have oft more cost bestowed upon them than all the rest of the house, which are often very simple and uneasy within, as experience doth confirm. of old time, our country houses, instead of glass, did use much lattice, and that made either of wicker or fine rifts of oak in checkerwise. i read also that some of the better sort, in and before the times of the saxons (who notwithstanding used some glass also since the time of benedict biscop, the monk that brought the feat of glazing first into this land), did make panels of horn instead of glass, and fix them in wooden calmes. but as horn in windows is now quite laid down in every place, so our lattices are also grown into less use, because glass is come to be so plentiful, and within a very little so good cheap, if not better than the other. i find obscure mention of the specular stone also to have been found and applied to this use in england, but in such doubtful sort as i dare not affirm it for certain. nevertheless certain it is that antiquity used it before glass was known, under the name of _selenites_. and how glass was first found i care not greatly to remember, even at this present, although it be directly beside my purposed matter. in syria phenices, which bordereth upon jewry, and near to the foot of mount carmel, there is a moor or marsh whereout riseth a brook called sometime belus, and falleth into the sea near to ptolemais. this river was fondly ascribed unto baal, and also honoured under that name by the infidels long time before there was any king in israel. it came to pass also, as a certain merchant sailed that way, loaden with nitrum, the passengers went to land for to repose themselves, and to take in some store of fresh water into their vessel. being also on the shore, they kindled a fire and made provision for their dinner, but (because they wanted trevets or stones whereon to set their kettles on) ran by chance into the ship, and brought great pieces of nitrum with them, which served their turn for that present. to be short, the said substance being hot, and beginning to melt, it mixed by chance with the gravel that lay under it, and so brought forth that shining substance which now is called glass, and about the time of semiramis. when the company saw this, they made no small accompt of their success, and forthwith began to practise the like in other mixtures, whereby great variety of the said stuff did also ensue. certes for the time this history may well be true, for i read of glass in job; but, for the rest, i refer me to the common opinion conceived by writers. now, to turn again to our windows. heretofore also the houses of our princes and noblemen were often glazed with beryl (an example whereof is yet to be seen in sudeley castle) and in divers other places with fine crystal, but this especially in the time of the romans, whereof also some fragments have been taken up in old ruins. but now these are not in use, so that only the clearest glass is most esteemed: for we have divers sorts, some brought out of burgundy, some out of normandy, much out of flanders, beside that which is made in england, which would be so good as the best if we were diligent and careful to bestow more cost upon it, and yet as it is each one that may will have it for his building. moreover the mansion houses of our country towns and villages (which in champaign ground stand altogether by streets, and joining one to another, but in woodland soils dispersed here and there, each one upon the several grounds of their owners) are builded in such sort generally as that they have neither dairy, stable, nor brew-house annexed unto them under the same roof (as in many places beyond the sea and some of the north parts of our country), but all separate from the first, and one of them from another. and yet, for all this, they are not so far distant in sunder but that the goodman lying in his bed may lightly hear what is done in each of them with ease, and call quickly unto his many if any danger should attack him. the ancient manors and houses of our gentlemen are yet and for the most part of strong timber, in framing whereof our carpenters have been and are worthily preferred before those of like science among all other nations. howbeit such as be lately builded are commonly either of brick or hard stone, or both, their rooms large and comely, and houses of office further distant from their lodgings. those of the nobility are likewise wrought with brick and hard stone, as provision may best be made, but so magnificent and stately as the basest house of a baron doth often match in our days with some honours of princes in old time. so that, if ever curious building did flourish in england, it is in these our years wherein our workmen excel and are in manner comparable in skill with old vitruvius, leo baptista, and serlo. nevertheless their estimation, more than their greedy and servile covetousness, joined with a lingering humour, causeth them often to be rejected, and strangers preferred to greater bargains, who are more reasonable in their takings, and less wasters of time by a great deal than our own. the furniture of our houses also exceedeth, and is grown in manner even to passing delicacy: and herein i do not speak of the nobility and gentry only, but likewise of the lowest sort in most places of our south country that have anything at all to take to. certes in noblemen's houses it is not rare to see abundance of arras, rich hangings of tapestry, silver vessel, and so much other plate as may furnish sundry cupboards to the sum oftentimes of a thousand or two thousand pounds at the least, whereby the value of this and the rest of their stuff doth grow to be almost inestimable. likewise in the houses of knights, gentlemen, merchantmen, and some other wealthy citizens, it is not geson to behold generally their great provision of tapestry, turkey work, pewter, brass, fine linen, and thereto costly cupboards of plate, worth five or six hundred or a thousand pounds to be deemed by estimation. but, as herein all these sorts do far exceed their elders and predecessors, and in neatness and curiosity the merchant all other, so in times past the costly furniture stayed there, whereas now it is descended yet lower even unto the inferior artificers and many farmers, who, by virtue of their old and not of their new leases, have, for the most part, learned also to garnish their cupboards with plate, their joined beds with tapestry and silk hangings, and their tables with carpets and fine napery, whereby the wealth of our country (god be praised therefore, and give us grace to employ it well) doth infinitely appear. neither do i speak this in reproach of any man, god is my judge, but to shew that i do rejoice rather to see how god hath blessed us with his good gifts; and whilst, i behold how (in a time wherein all things are grown to most excessive prices, and what commodity so ever is to be had is daily plucked from the communalty by such as look into every trade) we do yet find the means to obtain and achieve such furniture as heretofore hath been unpossible. there are old men yet dwelling in the village where i remain which have noted three things to be marvellously altered in england within their sound remembrance, and other three things too much increased. one is the multitude of chimneys lately erected, whereas in their young days there were not above two or three, if so many, in most uplandish towns of the realm (the religious houses and manor places of their lords always excepted, and peradventure some great personages), but each one made his fire against a reredos in the hall, where he dined and dressed his meat. the second is the great (although not general) amendment of lodging; for, said they, our fathers, yea and we ourselves also, have lain full oft upon straw pallets, on rough mats covered only with a sheet, under coverlets made of dagswain or hopharlots (i use their own terms), and a good round log under their heads instead of a bolster or pillow. if it were so that our fathers--or the good man of the house had within seven years after his marriage purchased a mattress or flock bed, and thereto a stack of chaff to rest his head upon, he thought himself to be as well lodged as the lord of the town, that peradventure lay seldom in a bed of down or whole feathers, so well were they content, and with such base kind of furniture: which also is not very much amended as yet in some parts of bedfordshire, and elsewhere, further off from our southern parts. pillows (said they) were thought meet only for women in childbed. as for servants, if they had any sheet above them, it was well, for seldom had they any under their bodies to keep them from the pricking straws that ran oft through the canvas of the pallet and rased their hardened hides. the third thing they tell of is the exchange of vessel, as of treen platters into pewter, and wooden spoons into silver or tin. for so common were all sorts of treen stuff in old time that a man should hardly find four pieces of pewter (of which one was peradventure a salt) in a good farmer's house, and yet for all this frugality (if it may so be justly called) they were scarce able to live and pay their rents at their days without selling of a cow, or a horse or more,[ ] although they paid but four pounds at the uttermost by the year. such also was their poverty that, if some one odd farmer or husbandman had been at the alehouse, a thing greatly used in those days, amongst six or seven of his neighbours, and there in a bravery, to shew what store he had, did cast down his purse, and therein a noble or six shillings in silver, unto them (for few such men then cared for gold, because it was not so ready payment, and they were oft enforced to give a penny for the exchange of an angel), it was very likely that all the rest could not lay down so much against it; whereas in my time, although peradventure four pounds of old rent be improved to forty, fifty, or a hundred pounds, yet will the farmer, as another palm or date tree, think his gains very small toward the end of his term if he have not six or seven years' rent lying by him, therewith to purchase a new lease, beside a fair garnish of pewter on his cupboard, with so much more in odd vessel going about the house, three or four feather beds, so many coverlids and carpets of tapestry, a silver salt, a bowl for wine (if not a whole neast), and a dozen of spoons to furnish up the suit. this also he takes to be his own clear, for what stock of money soever he gathereth and layeth up in all his years it is often seen that the landlord will take such order with him for the same when he reneweth his lease, which is commonly eight or six years before the old be expired (sith it is now grown almost to a custom that if he come not to his lord so long before another shall step in for a reversion, and so defeat him outright), that it shall never trouble him more than the hair of his beard when the barber hath washed and shaved it from his chin. and as they commend these, so (beside the decay of housekeeping whereby the poor have been relieved) they speak also of three things that are grown to be very grievous unto them--to wit, the enhancing of rents, lately mentioned; the daily oppression of copyholders, whose lords seek to bring their poor tenants almost into plain servitude and misery, daily devising new means, and seeking up all the old, how to cut them shorter and shorter, doubling, trebling, and now and then seven times increasing their fines, driving them also for every trifle to lose and forfeit their tenures (by whom the greatest part of the realm doth stand and is maintained), to the end they may fleece them yet more, which is a lamentable hearing. the third thing they talk of is usury, a trade brought in by the jews, now perfectly practised almost by every christian, and so commonly that he is accompted but for a fool that doth lend his money for nothing. in time past it was _sors pro sorte_--that is, the principal only for the principal; but now, beside that which is above the principal properly called _usura_, we challenge _foenus_--that is, commodity of soil and fruits of the earth, if not the ground itself. in time past also one of the hundred was much; from thence it rose unto two, called in latin _usura, ex sextante_; three, to wit, _ex quadrante_; then to four, to wit, _ex triente_; then to five, which is _ex quincunce_; then to six, called _ex semisse_, etc. as the accompt of the _assis_ ariseth, and coming at the last unto _usura ex asse_, it amounteth to twelve in the hundred, and therefore the latins call it _centesima_, for that in the hundred month it doubleth the principal; but more of this elsewhere. see cicero against verres, demosthenes against aphobus, and athenæus, lib. , in fine; and, when thou hast read them well, help i pray thee in lawful manner to hang up such as take _centum pro cento_, for they are no better worthy as i do judge in conscience. forget not also such landlords as used to value their leases at a secret estimation given of the wealth and credit of the taker, whereby they seem (as it were) to eat them up, and deal with bondmen, so that if the lessee be thought to be worth a hundred pounds he shall pay no less for his new term, or else another to enter with hard and doubtful covenants. i am sorry to report it, much more grieved to understand of the practice, but most sorrowful of all to understand that men of great port and countenance are so far from suffering their farmers to have any gain at all that they themselves become graziers, butchers, tanners, sheepmasters, woodmen, and _denique quid non_, thereby to enrich themselves, and bring all the wealth of the country into their own hands, leaving the communalty weak, or as an idol with broken or feeble arms, which may in a time of peace have a plausible shew, but when necessity shall enforce have a heavy and bitter sequel. chapter x. of provision made for the poor. [ , book iii., chapter ; , book ii., chapter .] there is no commonwealth at this day in europe wherein there is not great store of poor people, and those necessarily to be relieved by the wealthier sort, which otherwise would starve and come to utter confusion. with us the poor is commonly divided into three sorts, so that some are poor by impotence, as the fatherless child, the aged, blind, and lame, and the diseased person that is judged to be incurable; the second are poor by casualty, as the wounded soldier, the decayed householder, and the sick person visited with grievous and painful diseases; the third consisteth of thriftless poor, as the rioter that hath consumed all, the vagabond that will abide nowhere, but runneth up and down from place to place (as it were seeking work and finding none), and finally the rogue and the strumpet, which are not possible to be divided in sunder, but run to and fro over all the realm, chiefly keeping the champaign soils in summer to avoid the scorching heat, and the woodland grounds in winter to eschew the blustering winds. for the first two sorts[ ] (that is to say, the poor by impotence and poor by casualty, which are the true poor indeed, and for whom the word doth bind us to make some daily provision), there is order taken throughout every parish in the realm that weekly collection shall be made for their help and sustentation--to the end they shall not scatter abroad, and, by begging here and there, annoy both town and country. authority also is given unto the justices in every county (and great penalties appointed for such as make default) to see that the intent of the statute in this behalf be truly executed according to the purpose and meaning of the same, so that these two sorts are sufficiently provided for; and such as can live within the limits of their allowance (as each one will do that is godly and well disposed) may well forbear to roam and range about. but if they refuse to be supported by this benefit of the law, and will rather endeavour by going to and fro to maintain their idle trades, then are they adjudged to be parcel of the third sort, and so, instead of courteous refreshing at home, are often corrected with sharp execution and whip of justice abroad. many there are which, notwithstanding the rigour of the laws provided in that behalf, yield rather with this liberty (as they call it) to be daily under the fear and terror of the whip than, by abiding where they were born or bred, to be provided for by the devotion of the parishes. i found not long since a note of these latter sort, the effect whereof ensueth. idle beggars are such either through other men's occasion or through their own default--by other men's occasion (as one way for example) when some covetous man (such, i mean, as have the cast or right vein daily to make beggars enough whereby to pester the land, espying a further commodity in their commons, holds, and tenures) doth find such means as thereby to wipe many out of their occupyings and turn the same unto his private gains.[ ] hereupon it followeth that, although the wise and better-minded do either forsake the realm for altogether, and seek to live in other countries, as france, germany, barbary, india, muscovia, and very calcutta, complaining of no room to be left for them at home, do so behave themselves that they are worthily to be accounted among the second sort, yet the greater part, commonly having nothing to stay upon, are wilful, and thereupon do either prove idle beggars or else continue stark thieves till the gallows do eat them up, which is a lamentable case. certes in some men's judgment these things are but trifles, and not worthy the regarding. some also do grudge at the great increase of people in these days, thinking a necessary brood of cattle far better than a superfluous augmentation of mankind. but i can liken such men best of all unto the pope and the devil, who practise the hindrance of the furniture of the number of the elect to their uttermost, to the end the authority of the one upon the earth, the deferring of the locking up of the other in everlasting chains, and the great gains of the first, may continue and endure the longer. but if it should come to pass that any foreign invasion should be made--which the lord god forbid for his mercies' sake!--then should these men find that a wall of men is far better than stacks of corn and bags of money, and complain of the want when it is too late to seek remedy. the like occasion caused the romans to devise their law _agraria_: but the rich, not liking of it, and the covetous, utterly condemning it as rigorous and unprofitable, never ceased to practise disturbance till it was quite abolished. but to proceed with my purpose. such as are idle beggars[ ] through their own default are of two sorts, and continue their estates either by casual or mere voluntary means: those that are such by casual means are in the beginning justly to be referred either to the first or second sort of poor aforementioned, but, degenerating into the thriftless sort, they do what they can to continue their misery, and, with such impediments as they have, to stray and wander about, as creatures abhorring all labour and every honest exercise. certes i call these casual means, not in the respect of the original of all poverty, but of the continuance of the same, from whence they will not be delivered, such is their own ungracious lewdness and froward disposition. the voluntary means proceed from outward causes, as by making of corrosives, and applying the same to the more fleshy parts of their bodies, and also laying of ratsbane, spearwort, crowfoot, and such like unto their whole members, thereby to raise pitiful and odious sores, and move the hearts of the goers-by such places where they lie, to yearn at their misery, and thereupon bestow large alms upon them. how artificially they beg, what forcible speech, and how they select and choose out words of vehemence, whereby they do in manner conjure or adjure the goer-by to pity their cases, i pass over to remember, as judging the name of god and christ to be more conversant in the mouths of none and yet the presence of the heavenly majesty further off from no men than from this ungracious company. which maketh me to think that punishment is far meeter for them than liberality or alms, and sith christ willeth us chiefly to have a regard to himself and his poor members. unto this nest is another sort to be referred, more sturdy than the rest, which, having sound and perfect limbs, do yet notwithstanding sometime counterfeit the possession of all sorts of diseases. divers times in their apparel also they will be like serving men or labourers: oftentimes they can play the mariners, and seek for ships which they never lost. but in fine they are all thieves and caterpillars in the commonwealth, and by the word of god not permitted to eat, sith they do but lick the sweat from the true labourers' brows, and bereave the godly poor of that which is due unto them, to maintain their excess, consuming the charity of well-disposed people bestowed upon them, after a most wicked and detestable manner. it is not yet full threescore years since this trade began: but how it hath prospered since that time it is easy to judge, for they are now supposed, of one sex and another, to amount unto above , persons, as i have heard reported. moreover, in counterfeiting the egyptian rogues,[ ] they have devised a language among themselves, which they name "canting," but others, "pedler's french," a speech compact thirty years since, of english and a great number of odd words of their own devising, without all order or reason, and yet such is it as none but themselves are able to understand. the first deviser thereof was hanged by the neck--a just reward, no doubt, for his deserts, and a common end to all of that profession. a gentleman[ ] also of late hath taken great pains to search out the secret practices of this ungracious rabble. and among other things he setteth down and describeth three and twenty sorts of them, whose names it shall not be amiss to remember whereby each one may take occasion to read and know as also by his industry what wicked people they are, and what villainy remaineth in them. _the several disorders and degrees amongst our idle vagabonds._ . rufflers. . fraters. . uprightmen. . abrams. . hookers or anglers. . freshwater mariners or whipiacks. . rogues. . drummerers. . wild rogues. . drunken tinkers. . priggers or pransers. . swadders or pedlers. . palliards. . jarkemen or patricoes. _of the women kind._ . demanders for glimmar or fire. . walking mortes. . bawdy-baskets. . doxies. . mortes. . dells. . autem mortem. . kinching mortes. . kinching cooes.[ ] the punishment that is ordained for this kind of people is very sharp, and yet it cannot restrain them from their gadding: wherefore the end must needs be martial law,[ ] to be exercised upon them, as upon thieves, robbers, despisers of all laws, and enemies to the commonwealth and welfare of the land. what notable robberies, pilferies, murders, rapes, and stealings of young children, burning, breaking, and disfiguring their limbs to make them pitiful in the sight of the people, i need not to rehearse; but for their idle rogueing about the country, the law ordaineth this manner of correction. the rogue being apprehended, committed to prison, and tried in the next assizes (whether they be of gaol delivery or sessions of the peace), if he happen to be convicted for a vagabond, either by inquest of office or the testimony of two honest and credible witnesses upon their oaths, he is then immediately adjudged to be grievously whipped and burned through the gristle of the right ear with a hot iron of the compass of an inch about, as a manifestation of his wicked life, and due punishment received for the same.[ ] and this judgment is to be executed upon him except some honest person worth five pounds in the queen's books in goods, or twenty shillings in land, or some rich householder to be allowed by the justices, will be bound in recognisance to retain him in his service for one whole year. if he be taken the second time, and proved to have forsaken his said service, he shall then be whipped again, bored likewise through the other ear, and set to service: from whence if he depart before a year be expired, and happen afterwards to be attached again, he is condemned to suffer pains of death as a felon (except before excepted) without benefit of clergy or sanctuary, as by the statute doth appear. among rogues and idle persons, finally, we find to be comprised all proctors that go up and down with counterfeit licences, cozeners, and such as gad about the country, using unlawful games, practisers of physiognomy and palmestry, tellers of fortunes, fencers, players, minstrels, jugglers, pedlers, tinkers, pretended scholars, shipmen, prisoners gathering for fees, and others so oft as they be taken without sufficient licence. from among which company our bearwards are not excepted, and just cause: for i have read that they have, either voluntarily or for want of power to master their savage beasts, been occasion of the death and devouration of many children in sundry countries by which they have passed, whose parents never knew what was become of them. and for that cause there is and have been many sharp laws made for bearwards in germany, whereof you may read in other. but to our rogues. each one also that harboureth or aideth them with meat or money is taxed and compelled to fine with the queen's majesty for every time that he doth succour them as it shall please the justices of peace to assign, so that the taxation exceed not twenty, as i have been informed. and thus much of the poor and such provision as is appointed for them within the realm of england. chapter xi. of the air and soil and commodities of this island. [ , book i., chapter ; , book i., chapter .] the air (for the most part) throughout the island is such as by reason in manner of continual clouds is reputed to be gross, and nothing so pleasant as that of the main. howbeit, as they which affirm these things have only respect to the impediment or hindrance of the sunbeams by the interposition of the clouds and of ingrossed air, so experience teacheth us that it is no less pure, wholesome, and commodious than is that of other countries, and (as cæsar himself hereto addeth) much more temperate in summer than that of the gauls, from whom he adventured hither. neither is there any thing found in the air of our region that is not usually seen amongst other nations lying beyond the seas. wherefore we must needs confess that the situation of our island (for benefit of the heavens) is nothing inferior to that of any country of the main, wheresoever it lie under the open firmament. and this plutarch knew full well, who affirmeth a part of the elysian fields to be found in britain, and the isles that are situated about it in the ocean. the soil of britain is such as by the testimonies and reports both of the old and new writers, and experience also of such as now inhabit the same, is very fruitful, and such indeed as bringeth forth many commodities, whereof other countries have need, and yet itself (if fond niceness were abolished) needless of those that are daily brought from other places. nevertheless it is more inclined to feeding and grazing than profitable for tillage and bearing of corn, by reason whereof the country is wonderfully replenished with neat and all kind of cattle; and such store is there also of the same in every place that the fourth part of the land is scarcely manured for the provision and maintenance of grain. certes this fruitfulness was not unknown unto the britons long before cæsar's time, which was the cause wherefore our predecessors living in those days in manner neglected tillage and lived by feeding and grazing only. the grazers themselves also then dwelled in movable villages by companies, whose custom was to divide the ground amongst them, and each one not to depart from the place where his lot lay (a thing much like the irish criacht[ ]) till, by eating up of the country about him, he was enforced to remove further and seek for better pasture. and this was the british custom, as i learn, at first. it hath been commonly reported that the ground of wales is neither so fruitful as that of england, neither the soil of scotland so bountiful as that of wales, which is true for corn and for the most part; otherwise there is so good ground in some parts of wales as is in england, albeit the best of scotland be scarcely comparable to the mean of either of both. howbeit, as the bounty of the scotch doth fail in some respect, so doth it surmount in other, god and nature having not appointed all countries to yield forth like commodities. but where our ground is not so good as we would wish, we have--if need be--sufficient help to cherish our ground withal, and to make it more fruitful. for, beside the compest that is carried out of the husbandmen's yards, ditches, ponds, dung-houses, or cities and great towns, we have with us a kind of white marl which is of so great force that if it be cast over a piece of land but once in threescore years it shall not need of any further compesting. hereof also doth pliny speak (lib. , cap. , , ), where he affirmeth that our marl endureth upon the earth by the space of fourscore years: insomuch that it is laid upon the same but once in a man's life, whereby the owner shall not need to travel twice in procuring to commend and better his soil. he calleth it _marga_, and, making divers kinds thereof, he finally commendeth ours, and that of france, above all other, which lieth sometime a hundred foot deep, and far better than the scattering of chalk upon the same, as the hedui and pictones did in his time, or as some of our days also do practise: albeit divers do like better to cast on lime, but it will not so long endure, as i have heard reported. there are also in this island great plenty of fresh rivers and streams, as you have heard already, and these thoroughly fraught with all kinds of delicate fish accustomed to be found in rivers. the whole isle likewise is very full of hills, of which some (though not very many) are of exceeding height, and divers extending themselves very far from the beginning; as we may see by shooter's hill, which, rising east of london and not far from the thames, runneth along the south side of the island westward until it come to cornwall. like unto these also are the crowdon hills, which, though under divers names (as also the other from the peak), do run into the borders of scotland. what should i speak of the cheviot hills, which reach twenty miles in length? of the black mountains in wales, which go from [ ] to [ ] miles at the least in length? of the clee hills in shropshire, which come within four miles of ludlow, and are divided from some part of worcester by the leme? of the crames in scotland, and of our chiltern, which are eighteen miles at the least from one end of them, which reach from henley in oxfordshire to dunstable in bedfordshire, and are very well replenished with wood and corn, notwithstanding that the most part yield a sweet short grass, profitable for sheep? wherein albeit they of scotland do somewhat come behind us, yet their outward defect is inwardly recompensed, not only with plenty of quarries (and those of sundry kinds of marble, hard stone, and fine alabaster), but also rich mines of metal, as shall be shewed hereafter. in this island the winds are commonly more strong and fierce than in any other places of the main (which cardane also espied): and that is often seen upon the naked hills not guarded with trees to bear and keep it off. that grievous inconvenience also enforceth our nobility, gentry, and communalty to build their houses in the valleys, leaving the high grounds unto their corn and cattle, lest the cold and stormy blasts of winter should breed them greater annoyance; whereas in other regions each one desireth to set his house aloft on the hill, not only to be seen afar off, and cast forth his beams of stately and curious workmanship into every quarter of the country, but also (in hot habitations) for coldness sake of the air, sith the heat is never so vehement on the hill-top as in the valley, because the reverberation of the sun's beams either reacheth not so far as the highest, or else becometh not so strong as when it is reflected upon the lower soil. but to leave our buildings unto the purposed place (which notwithstanding have very much increased, i mean for curiosity and cost, in england, wales, and scotland, within these few years) and to return to the soil again. certainly it is even now in these our days grown to be much more fruitful than it hath been in times past. the cause is for that our countrymen are grown to be more painful, skilful, and careful through recompense of gain, than heretofore they have been: insomuch that my _synchroni_ or time fellows can reap at this present great commodity in a little room; whereas of late years a great compass hath yielded but small profit, and this only through the idle and negligent occupation of such as daily manured and had the same in occupying. i might set down examples of these things out of all the parts of this island--that is to say, many of england, more out of scotland, but most of all out of wales: in which two last rehearsed, very other little food and livelihood was wont to be looked for (beside flesh) more than the soil of itself and the cow gave, the people in the meantime living idly, dissolutely, and by picking and stealing one from another. all which vices are now (for the most part) relinquished, so that each nation manureth her own with triple commodity to that it was before time. the pasture of this island is according to the nature and bounty of the soil, whereby in most places it is plentiful, very fine, batable, and such as either fatteth our cattle with speed or yieldeth great abundance of milk and cream whereof the yellowest butter and finest cheese are made. but where the blue clay aboundeth (which hardly drinketh up the winter's water in long season) there the grass is speary, rough, and very apt for bushes: by which occasion it becometh nothing so profitable unto the owner as the other. the best pasture ground of all england is in wales, and of all the pasture in wales that of cardigan is the chief. i speak of the same which is to be found in the mountains there, where the hundredth part of the grass growing is not eaten, but suffered to rot on the ground, whereby the soil becometh matted and divers bogs and quick-moors made withal in long continuance: because all the cattle in the country are not able to eat it down. if it be accounted good soil on which a man may lay a wand over night and on the morrow find it hidden and overgrown with grass, it is not hard to find plenty thereof in many places of this land. nevertheless such is the fruitfulness of the aforesaid county that it far surmounteth this proportion, whereby it may be compared for batableness with italy, which in my time is called the paradise of the world, although by reason of the wickedness of such as dwell therein it may be called the sink and drain of hell: so that whereas they were wont to say of us that our land is good but our people evil, they did but only speak it; whereas we know by experience that the soil of italy is a noble soil, but the dwellers therein far off any virtue or goodness. our meadows are either bottoms (whereof we have great store, and those very large, because our soil is hilly) or else such as we call land meads, and borrowed from the best and fattest pasturages. the first of them are yearly and often overflown by the rising of such streams as pass through the same, or violent falls of land-waters, that descend from the hills about them. the other are seldom or never overflown, and that is the cause wherefore their grass is shorter than that of the bottoms, and yet is it far more fine, wholesome, and batable, sith the hay of our low meadows is not only full of sandy cinder, which breedeth sundry diseases in our cattle, but also more rowty, foggy, and full of flags, and therefore not so profitable for store and forrage as the higher meads be. the difference furthermore in their commodities is great; for, whereas in our land meadows we have not often above one good load of hay, or peradventure a little more in an acre of ground (i use the word _carrucata_, or _carruca_, which is a wain load, and, as i remember, used by pliny, lib. , cap. ), in low meadows we have sometimes three, but commonly two or upwards, as experience hath oft confirmed. of such as are twice mowed i speak not, sith their later math is not so wholesome for cattle as the first; although in the mouth more pleasant for the time: for thereby they become oftentimes to be rotten, or to increase so fast in blood, that the garget and other diseases do consume many of them before the owners can seek out any remedy, by phlebotomy or otherwise. some superstitious fools suppose that they which die of the garget are ridden with the nightmare, and therefore they hang up stones which naturally have holes in them, and must be found unlooked for; as if such a stone were an apt cockshot for the devil to run through and solace himself withal, while the cattle go scot-free and are not molested by him! but if i should set down but half the toys that superstition hath brought into our husbandmen's heads in this and other behalf, it would ask a greater volume than is convenient for such a purpose, wherefore it shall suffice to have said thus much of these things. the yield of our corn-ground is also much after this rate following. throughout the land (if you please to make an estimate thereof by the acre) in mean and indifferent years, wherein each acre of rye or wheat, well tilled and dressed, will yield commonly sixteen or twenty bushels, an acre of barley six-and-thirty bushels, of oats and such like four or five quarters, which proportion is notwithstanding oft abated toward the north, as it is oftentimes surmounted in the south. of mixed corn, as peas and beans, sown together, tares and oats (which they call bulmong), rye and wheat (named miscelin), here is no place to speak, yet their yield is nevertheless much after this proportion, as i have often marked. and yet is not this our great foison comparable to that of hotter countries of the main. but, of all that i ever read, the increase which eldred danus writeth of in his _de imperie judæorum in Æthiopia_ surmounteth, where he saith that in the field near to the sabbatike river, called in old time gosan, the ground is so fertile that every grain of barley growing doth yield an hundred kernels at the least unto the owner. of late years also we have found and taken up a great trade in planting of hops, whereof our moory hitherto and unprofitable grounds do yield such plenty and increase that there are few farmers or occupiers in the country which have not gardens and hops growing of their own, and those far better than do come from flanders unto us. certes the corruptions used by the flemings, and forgery daily practised in this kind of ware, gave us occasion to plant them here at home; so that now we may spare and send many over unto them. and this i know by experience, that some one man by conversion of his moory grounds into hopyards, whereof before he had no commodity, doth raise yearly by so little as twelve acres in compass two hundred marks--all charges borne towards the maintenance of his family. which industry god continue! though some secret friends of flemings let not to exclaim against this commodity, as a spoil of wood, by reason of the poles, which nevertheless after three years do also come to the fire, and spare their other fuel. the cattle which we breed are commonly such as for greatness of bone, sweetness of flesh, and other benefits to be reaped by the same, give place unto none other; as may appear first by our oxen, whose largeness, height, weight, tallow, hides, and horns are such as none of any other nation do commonly or may easily exceed them. our sheep likewise, for good taste of flesh, quantity of limbs, fineness of fleece, caused by their hardness of pasturage and abundance of increase (for in many places they bring forth two or three at an eaning), give no place unto any, more than do our goats, who in like sort do follow the same order, and our deer come not behind. as for our conies, i have seen them so fat in some soils, especially about meall and disnege, that the grease of one being weighed hath peised very near six or seven ounces. all which benefits we first refer to the grace and goodness of god, and next of all unto the bounty of our soil, which he hath endued with so notable and commodious fruitfulness. but, as i mean to intreat of these things more largely hereafter, so will i touch in this place one benefit which our nation wanteth, and that is wine, the fault whereof is not in our soil, but the negligence of our countrymen (especially of the south parts), who do not inure the same to this commodity, and which by reason of long discontinuance is now become inapt to bear any grapes almost for pleasure and shadow, much less then the plain fields or several vineyards for advantage and commodity. yet of late time some have essayed to deal for wine (as to your lordship also is right well known). but sith that liquor, when it cometh to the drinking, hath been found more hard than that which is brought from beyond the sea, and the cost of planting and keeping thereof so chargeable that they may buy it far better cheap from other countries, they have given over their enterprises without any consideration that, as in all other things, so neither the ground itself in the beginning, nor success of their travel, can answer their expectation at the first, until such time as the soil be brought as it were into acquaintance with this commodity, and that provision may be made for the more easiness of charge to be employed upon the same. if it be true that where wine doth last and endure well there it will grow no worse, i muse not a little wherefore the planting of vines should be neglected in england. that this liquor might have grown in this island heretofore, first the charter that probus the emperor gave equally to us, the gauls, and spaniards, is one sufficient testimony. and that it did grow here (beside the testimony of beda, lib. ., cap. ) the old notes of tithes for wine that yet remain in the accounts of some parsons and vicars in kent, elsewhere, besides the records of sundry suits, commenced in divers ecclesiastical courts, both in kent, surrey, etc., also the enclosed parcels almost in every abbey yet called the vineyards, may be a notable witness, as also the plot which we now call east smithfield in london, given by canutus, sometime king of this land, with other soil thereabout, unto certain of his knights, with the liberty of a guild which thereof was called knighton guild. the truth is (saith john stow, our countryman and diligent traveller in the old estate of this my native city) that it is now named portsoken ward, and given in time past to the religious house within aldgate. howbeit first otwell, the archovel, otto, and finally geffrey earl of essex, constables of the tower of london, withheld that portion from the said house until the reign of king stephen, and thereof made a vineyard to their great commodity and lucre. the isle of ely also was in the first times of the normans called le ile des vignes. and good record appeareth that the bishop there had yearly three or four tun at the least given him _nomine decimæ_, beside whatsoever over-sum of the liquor did accrue to him by leases and other excheats whereof also i have seen mention. wherefore our soil is not to be blamed, as though our nights were so exceeding short that in august and september the moon, which is lady of moisture and chief ripener of this liquor, cannot in any wise shine long enough upon the same: a very mere toy and fable, right worthy to be suppressed, because experience convinceth the upholders thereof even in the rhenish wines. the time hath been also that woad, wherewith our countrymen dyed their faces (as cæsar saith), that they might seem terrible to their enemies in the field (and also women and their daughters-in-law did stain their bodies and go naked, in that pickle, to the sacrifices of their gods, coveting to resemble therein the ethiopians, as pliny saith, lib. , cap. ), and also madder have been (next unto our tin and wools) the chief commodities and merchandise of this realm. i find also that rape oil hath been made within this land. but now our soil either will not, or at the leastwise may not, bear either woad or madder. i say not that the ground is not able so to do, but that we are negligent, afraid of the pilling of our grounds, and careless of our own profits, as men rather willing to buy the same of others than take any pain to plant them here at home. the like i may say of flax, which by law ought to be sown in every country town in england, more or less; but i see no success of that good and wholesome law, sith it is rather contemptuously rejected than otherwise dutifully kept in any place in england. some say that our great number of laws do breed a general negligence and contempt of all good order, because we have so many that no subject can live without the transgression of some of them, and that the often alteration of our ordinances doth much harm in this respect, which (after aristotle) doth seem to carry some reason withal, for (as cornelius gallus hath)-- "_eventus varios res nova semper habet._" but very many let not to affirm that the greedy corruption of the promoters on the one side, facility in dispensing with good laws and first breach of the same in the lawmakers and superiors and private respects of their establishment on the other, are the greatest causes why the inferiors regard no good order, being always so ready to offend without any faculty one way as they are otherwise to presume upon the examples of their betters when any hold is to be taken.[ ] but as in these things i have no skill, so i wish that fewer licences for the private commodity but of a few were granted (not that thereby i deny the maintenance of the prerogative royal, but rather would with all my heart that it might be yet more honourably increased), and that every one which by fee'd friendship (or otherwise) doth attempt to procure ought from the prince that may profit but few and prove hurtful to many might be at open assizes and sessions denounced enemy to his country and commonwealth of the land. glass also hath been made here in great plenty before, and in the time of the romans; and the said stuff also, beside fine scissors, shears, collars of gold and silver for women's necks, cruises and cups of amber, were a parcel of the tribute which augustus in his days laid upon this island. in like sort he charged the britons with certain implements and vessels of ivory (as strabo saith); whereby it appeareth that in old time our countrymen were far more industrious and painful in the use and application of the benefits of their country than either after the coming of the saxons or normans, in which they gave themselves more to idleness and following of the wars. if it were requisite that i should speak of the sundry kinds of mould, as the cledgy, or clay, whereof are divers sorts (red, blue, black, and white), also the red or white sandy, the loamy, roselly, gravelly, chalky, or black, i could say that there are so many divers veins in britain as elsewhere in any quarter of like quantity in the world. howbeit this i must need confess, that the sand and clay do bear great sway: but clay most of all, as hath been and yet is always seen and felt through plenty and dearth of corn. for if this latter (i mean the clay) do yield her full increase (which it doth commonly in dry years for wheat), then is there general plenty: whereas if it fail, then have we scarcity, according to the old rude verse set down of england, but to be understood of the whole island, as experience doth confirm-- "_when the sand doth serve the clay, then may we sing well-away; but when the clay doth serve the sand, then is it merry with england._" i might here intreat of the famous valleys in england, of which one is called the vale of white horse, another of evesham (commonly taken for the granary of worcestershire), the third of aylesbury, that goeth by thame, the roots of chiltern hills, to dunstable, newport pagnel, stony stratford, buckingham, birstane park, etc. likewise of the fourth, of whitehart or blackmoor in dorsetshire. the fifth, of ringdale or renidale, corruptly called kingtaile, that lieth (as mine author saith) upon the edge of essex and cambridgeshire, and also the marshwood vale: but, forsomuch as i know not well their several limits, i give over to go any further in their description. in like sort it should not be amiss to speak of our fens, although our country be not so full of this kind of soil as the parts beyond the seas (to wit, narbonne, etc.), and thereto of other pleasant bottoms, the which are not only endued with excellent rivers and great store of corn and fine fodder for neat and horses in time of the year (whereby they are exceeding beneficial unto their owners), but also of no small compass and quantity in ground. for some of our fens are well known to be either of ten, twelve, sixteen, twenty, or thirty miles in length, that of the girwies yet passing all the rest, which is full sixty (as i have often read). wherein also ely, the famous isle, standeth, which is seven miles every way, and whereunto there is no access but by three causies, whose inhabitants in like sort by an old privilege may take wood, sedge turf, etc., to burn, likewise hay for their cattle and thatch for their houses of custom, and each occupier in his appointed quantity throughout the isle; albeit that covetousness hath now begun somewhat to abridge this large benevolence and commodity, as well in the said isle as most other places of this land. finally, i might discourse in like order of the large commons, laid out heretofore by the lords of the soil for the benefit of such poor as inhabit within the compass of their manors. but, as the true intent of the givers is now in most places defrauded, insomuch that not the poor tenants inhabitating upon the same, but their landlords, have all the commodity and gain. wherefore i mean not at this present to deal withal, but reserve the same wholly unto the due place, whilst i go forward with the rest, setting down nevertheless by the way a general commendation of the whole island, which i find in an ancient monument, much unto this effect-- "illa quidem longè celebris splendore, beata, glebis, lacte, favis, supereminet insula cunctis, quas regit ille deus, spumanti cujus ab ore profluit oceanus," etc. and a little after-- "testis lundoniaratibus, wintonia baccho, herefordia grege, worcestria frugeredundans, batha lacu, salabyra feris, cantuaria pisce, eboraca sylvis, excestria clara metallis, norwicum dacis hybernis, cestria gallis, cicestrum norwagenis, dunelmia præpinguis, testis lincolnia gens infinita decore, testis eli formosa situ, doncastria visu," etc. chapter xii. of sundry minerals and metals. [ , book iii., chapters and ; , book iii., chapters and .] with how great benefits this island of ours hath been endued from the beginning i hope there is no godly man but will readily confess, and yield unto the lord god his due honour for the same. for we are blessed every way, and there is no temporal commodity necessary to be had or craved by any nation at god's hand that he hath not in most abundant manner bestowed upon us englishmen, if we could see to use it, and be thankful for the same. but alas! (as i said in the chapter precedent) we love to enrich them that care not for us, but for our great commodities: and one trifling toy not worth the carriage, coming (as the proverb saith) in three ships from beyond the sea, is more worth with us than a right good jewel easy to be had at home. they have also the cast to teach us to neglect our own things; for, if they see that we begin to make any account of our commodities (if it be so that they have also the like in their own countries) they will suddenly abase the same to so low a price that our gain not being worthy our travel, and the same commodity with less cost ready to be had at home from other countries (though but for a while), it causeth us to give over our endeavours and as it were by-and-by to forget the matter whereabout we went before, to obtain them at their hands. and this is the only cause wherefore our commodities are oft so little esteemed of. some of them can say, without any teacher, that they will buy the case of a fox of an englishman for a groat, and make him afterwards give twelve pence for the tail. would to god we might once wax wiser, and each one endeavour that the commonwealth of england may flourish again in her old rate, and that our commodities may be fully wrought at home (as cloth if you will for an example) and not carried out to be shorn and dressed abroad, while our clothworkers here do starve and beg their bread, and for lack of daily practice utterly neglect to be skilful in this science! but to my purpose. we have in england great plenty of quicksilver, antimony, sulphur, black lead, and orpiment red and yellow. we have also the finest alum (wherein the diligence of one of the greatest favourers of the commonwealth of england of a subject[ ] hath been of late egregiously abused, and even almost with barbarous incivility) and of no less force against fire, if it were used in our parietings, than that of lipari, which only was in use sometime amongst the asians and romans and whereof sylla had such trial that when he meant to have burned a tower of wood erected by archelaus, the lieutenant of mithridates, he could by no means set it on fire in a long time, because it was washed over with alum, as were also the gates of the temple of jerusalem with like effect, and perceived when titus commanded fire to be put unto the same. besides this, we have also the natural cinnabarum or vermillion, the sulphurous glebe called bitumen in old time, for mortar, and yet burned in lamps where oil is scant and geson; the chrysocolla, copperas, and mineral stone, whereof petriolum is made, and that which is most strange, the mineral pearl, which as they are for greatness and colour most excellent of all other, so are they digged out of the main land and in sundry places far distant from the shore. certes the western part of the land hath in times past greatly abounded with these and many other rare and excellent commodities, but now they are washed away by the violence of the sea, which hath devoured the greatest part of cornwall and devonshire on either side; and it doth appear yet by good record that, whereas now there is a great distance between the scilly isles and the point of the land's end, there was of late years to speak of scarcely a brook or drain of one fathom water between them, if so much, as by those evidences appeareth, and are yet to be seen in the hands of the lord and chief owner of those isles. but to proceed. of coal-mines we have such plenty in the north and western parts of our island as may suffice for all the realm of england; and so must they do hereafter indeed, if wood be not better cherished than it is at this present. and so say the truth, notwithstanding that very many of them are carried into other countries of the main, yet their greatest trade beginneth now to grow from the forge into the kitchen and hall, as may appear already in most cities and towns that lie about the coast, where they have but little other fuel except it be turf and hassock. i marvel not a little that there is no trade of these into sussex and southamptonshire, for want thereof the smiths do work their iron with charcoal. i think that far carriage be the only cause, which is but a slender excuse to enforce us to carry them into the main from hence. besides our coal-mines, we have pits in like sort of white plaster, and of fat and white and other coloured marble, wherewith in many places the inhabitors do compest their soil, and which doth benefit their land in ample manner for many years to come. we have saltpetre for our ordinance and salt soda for our glass, and thereto in one place a kind of earth (in southery; as i ween, hard by codington, and sometime in the tenure of one croxton of london) which is so fine to make moulds for goldsmiths and casters of metal, that a load of it was worth five shillings thirty years ago; none such again they say in england. but whether there be or not, let us not be unthankful to god, for these and other his benefits bestowed upon us, whereby he sheweth himself a loving and merciful father unto us, which contrariwise return unto him in lieu of humility and obedience nothing but wickedness, avarice, mere contempt of his will, pride, excess, atheism, and no less than jewish ingratitude.[ ] all metals receive their beginning of quicksilver and sulphur, which are as mother and father to them. and such is the purpose of nature in their generations that she tendeth always to the procreation of gold; nevertheless she seldom reacheth unto that her end, because of the unequal mixture and proportion of these two in the substance engendered, whereby impediment and corruption is induced, which as it is more or less doth shew itself in the metal that is produced. * * * * * and albeit that we have no such abundance of these (as some other countries do yield), yet have my rich countrymen store enough of both in their purses, where in time past they were wont to have least, because the garnishing of our churches, tabernacles, images, shrines, and apparel of the priests consumed the greatest part, as experience hath confirmed. of late my countrymen have found out i wot not what voyage into the west indies, from whence they have brought some gold, whereby our country is enriched; but of all that ever adventured into those parts, none have sped better than sir francis drake, whose success ( ) hath far passed even his own expectation. one john frobisher in like manner, attempting to seek out a shorter cut by the northerly regions into the peaceable sea and kingdom of cathay, happened ( ) upon certain islands by the way, wherein great plenty of much gold appeared, and so much that some letted not to give out for certainty that solomon had his gold from thence, wherewith he builded the temple. this golden shew made him so desirous also of like success that he left off his former voyage and returned home to bring news of such things as he had seen. but, when after another voyage it was found to be but dross, he gave over both the enterprises, and now keepeth home without any desire at all to seek into far countries. in truth, such was the plenty of ore there seen and to be had that, if it had holden perfect, might have furnished all the world with abundance of that metal; the journey also was short and performed in four or five months, which was a notable encouragement. but to proceed. tin and lead, metals which strabo noteth in his time to be carried unto marsilis from hence, as diodorus also confirmeth, are very plentiful with us, the one in cornwall, devonshire, and elsewhere in the north, the other in derbyshire, weredale, and sundry places of this island; whereby my countrymen do reap no small commodity, but especially our pewterers, who in times past employed the use of pewter only upon dishes, pots, and a few other trifles for service here at home, whereas now they are grown unto such exquisite cunning that they can in manner imitate by infusion any form or fashion of cup, dish, salt bowl, or goblet, which is made by goldsmiths' craft, though they be never so curious, exquisite, and artificially forged. such furniture of household of this metal as we commonly call by the name of _vessel_ is sold usually by the garnish, which doth contain twelve platters, twelve dishes, twelve saucers, and those are either of silver fashion or else with broad or narrow brims, and bought by the pound, which is now valued at six or seven pence, or peradventure at eight pence. of porringers, pots, and other like, i speak not, albeit that in the making of all these things there is such exquisite diligence used, i mean for the mixture of the metal and true making of this commodity (by reason of sharp laws provided in that behalf), as the like is not to be found in any other trade. i have been also informed that it consisteth of a composition which hath thirty pounds of kettle brass to a thousand pounds of tin, whereunto they add three or four pounds of tin-glass; but as too much of this doth make the stuff brickle, so the more the brass be, the better is the pewter, and more profitable unto him that doth buy and purchase the same. but to proceed. in some places beyond the sea a garnish of good flat english pewter of an ordinary making (i say flat, because dishes and platters in my time begin to be made deep like basins, and are indeed more convenient both for sauce, broth, and keeping the meat warm) is esteemed almost so precious as the like number of vessels that are made of fine silver, and in manner no less desired amongst the great estates, whose workmen are nothing so skilful in that trade as ours, neither their metal so good, nor plenty so great, as we have here in england. the romans made excellent looking-glasses of our english tin, howbeit our workmen were not then so exquisite in that feat as the brundusians, wherefore the wrought metal was carried over unto them by way of merchandise, and very highly were those glasses esteemed of till silver came generally in place, which in the end brought the tin into such contempt that in manner every dishwasher refused to look in other than silver glasses for the attiring of her head. howbeit the making of silver glasses had been in use before britain was known unto the romans, for i read that one praxiteles devised them in the young time of pompey, which was before the coming of cæsar into this island. there were mines of lead sometimes also in wales, which endured so long till the people had consumed all their wood by melting of the same (as they did also at comeriswith, six miles from stradfleur), and i suppose that in pliny's time the abundance of lead (whereof he speaketh) was to be found in those parts, in the seventeenth of his thirty-fourth book; also he affirmeth that it lay in the very sward of the earth, and daily gotten in such plenty that the romans made a restraint of the carriage thereof to rome, limiting how much should yearly be wrought and transported over the sea.[ ] * * * * * iron is found in many places, as in sussex, kent, weredale, mendip, walshall, as also in shropshire, but chiefly in the woods betwixt belvos and willock (or wicberry) near manchester, and elsewhere in wales. of which mines divers do bring forth so fine and good stuff as any that cometh from beyond the sea, beside the infinite gains to the owners, if we would so accept it, or bestow a little more cost in the refining of it. it is also of such toughness, that it yieldeth to the making of claricord wire in some places of the realm. nevertheless, it was better cheap with us when strangers only brought it hither; for it is our quality when we get any commodity to use it with extremity towards our own nation, after we have once found the means to shut out foreigners from the bringing in of the like. it breedeth in like manner great expense and waste of wood, as doth the making of our pots and table vessel of glass, wherein is much loss, sith it is so quickly broken; and yet (as i think) easy to be made tougher, if our alchemists could once find the true birth or production of the red man, whose mixture would induce a metallic toughness unto it, whereby it should abide the hammer. copper is lately not found, but rather restored again to light. for i have read of copper to have been heretofore gotten in our island; howbeit as strangers have most commonly the governance of our mines, so they hitherto make small gains of this in hand in the north parts; for (as i am informed) the profit doth very hardly countervail the charges, whereat wise men do not a little marvel, considering the abundance which that mine doth seem to offer, and, as it were, at hand. leland, our countryman, noteth sundry great likelihoods of natural copper mines to be eastwards, as between dudman and trewardth, in the sea cliffs, beside other places, whereof divers are noted here and there in sundry places of this book already, and therefore it shall be but in vain to repeat them here again. as for that which is gotten out of the marchasite, i speak not of it, sith it is not incident to my purpose. in dorsetshire also a copper mine lately found is brought to good perfection. as for our steel, it is not so good for edge-tools as that of cologne, and yet the one is often sold for the other, and like tale used in both, that is to say, thirty gads to the sheaf, and twelve sheaves to the burden. our alchemy is artificial, and thereof our spoons and some salts are commonly made and preferred before our pewter with some,[ ] albeit in truth it be much subject to corruption, putrefaction, more heavy and foul to handle than our pewter; yet some ignorant persons affirm it to be a metal more natural, and the very same which encelius calleth _plumbum cinereum_, the germans _wisemute_, _mithan_, and _counterfeie_, adding that where it groweth silver cannot be far off. nevertheless it is known to be a mixture of brass, lead, and tin (of which this latter occupieth the one-half), but after another proportion than is used in pewter. but alas, i am persuaded that neither the old arabians nor new alchemists of our time did ever hear of it, albeit that the name thereof do seem to come out of their forge. for the common sort indeed do call it alchemy, an unwholesome metal (god wot) and worthy to be banished and driven out of the land. and thus i conclude with this discourse, as having no more to say of the metals of my country, except i should talk of brass, bell metal, and such as are brought over for merchandise from other countries; and yet i cannot but say that there is some brass found also in england, but so small is the quantity that it is not greatly to be esteemed or accounted for. chapter xiii. of cattle kept for profit. [ , book iii., chapter ; , book iii., chapter .] there is no kind of tame cattle usually to be seen in these parts of the world whereof we have not some, and that great store, in england, as horses, oxen, sheep, goats, swine, and far surmounting the like in other countries, as may be proved with ease. for where are oxen commonly made more large of bone, horses more decent and pleasant in pace, kine more commodious for the pail, sheep more profitable for wool, swine more wholesome of flesh, and goats more gainful to their keepers than here with us in england? but, to speak of them peculiarly, i suppose that our kine are so abundant in yield of milk, whereof we make our butter and cheese, as the like any where else, and so apt for the plough in divers places as either our horses or oxen. and, albeit they now and then twin, yet herein they seem to come short of that commodity which is looked for in other countries, to wit, in that they bring forth most commonly but one calf at once. the gains also gotten by a cow (all charges borne) hath been valued at twenty shillings yearly; but now, as land is enhanced, this proportion of gain is much abated, and likely to decay more and more, if ground arise to be yet dearer--which god forbid, if it be his will and pleasure. i heard of late of a cow in warwickshire, belonging to thomas breuer of studley, which in six years had sixteen calves, that is four at once in three calvings and twice twins, which unto many may seem a thing incredible. in like manner our oxen are such as the like are not to be found in any country of europe, both for greatness of body and sweetness of flesh, or else would not the roman writers have preferred them before those of liguria. in most places our graziers are now grown to be so cunning that if they do but see an ox or bullock, and come to the feeling of him, they will give a guess at his weight, and how many score or stone of flesh and tallow he beareth, how the butcher may live by the sale, and what he may have for the skin and tallow, which is a point of skill not commonly practised heretofore. some such graziers also are reported to ride with velvet coats and chains of gold about them, and in their absence their wives will not let to supply those turns with no less skill than their husbands: which is a hard work for the poor butcher, sith he through this means can seldom be rich or wealthy by his trade. in like sort the flesh of our oxen and kine is sold both by hand and by weight as the buyer will; but in young ware rather by weight, especially for the steer and heifer, sith the finer beef is the lightest, whereas the flesh of bulls and old kine, etc., is of sadder substance, and therefore much heavier as it lieth in the scale. their horns also are known to be more fair and large in england than in any other places, except those which are to be seen among the pæones, which quality, albeit that it be given to our breed generally by nature, yet it is now and then helped also by art. for, when they be very young, many graziers will oftentimes anoint their budding horns or tender tips with honey, which mollifieth the natural hardness of that substance, and thereby maketh them to grow unto a notable greatness. certes it is not strange in england to see oxen whose horns have the length of a yard or three feet between the tips, and they themselves thereto so tall as the height of a man of mean and indifferent stature is scarce equal unto them. nevertheless it is much to be lamented that our general breed of cattle is not better looked unto; for the greatest occupiers wean least store, because they can buy them (as they say) far better cheap than to raise and bring them up. in my time a cow hath risen from four nobles to four marks by this means, which notwithstanding were no great price if they did yearly bring forth more than one calf a piece, as i hear they do in other countries. our horses, moreover, are high, and, although not commonly of such huge greatness as in other places of the main, yet, if you respect the easiness of their pace, it is hard to say where their like are to be had. our land doth yield no asses, and therefore we want the generation also of mules and somers, and therefore the most part of our carriage is made by these, which, remaining stoned, are either reserved for the cart or appointed to bear such burdens as are convenient for them. our cart or plough horses (for we use them indifferently) are commonly so strong that five or six of them (at the most) will draw three thousand weight of the greatest tale with ease for a long journey, although it be not a load of common usage, which consisteth only of two thousand, or fifty foot of timber, forty bushels of white salt, or six-and-thirty of bay, or five quarters of wheat, experience daily teacheth, and i have elsewhere remembered. such as are kept also for burden will carry four hundredweight commonly without any hurt or hindrance. this furthermore is to be noted, that our princes and the nobility have their carriage commonly made by carts, whereby it cometh to pass that when the queen's majesty doth remove from any one place to another, there are usually carewares, which amount to the sum of horses, appointed out of the countries adjoining, whereby her carriage is conveyed safely unto the appointed place. hereby also the ancient use of somers and sumpter horses is in manner utterly relinquished, which causeth the trains of our princes in their progresses to shew far less than those of the kings of other nations. such as serve for the saddle are commonly gelded, and now grow to be very dear among us, especially if they be well coloured, justly limbed, and have thereto an easy ambling pace. for our countrymen, seeking their ease in every corner where it is to be had, delight very much in those qualities, but chiefly in their excellent paces, which, besides that it is in manner peculiar unto horses of our soil, and not hurtful to the rider or owner sitting on their backs, it is moreover very pleasant and delectable in his ears, in that the noise of their well-proportioned pace doth yield comfortable sound as he travelleth by the way. yet is there no greater deceit used anywhere than among our horsekeepers, horsecoursers, and hostelers; for such is the subtle knavery of a great sort of them (without exception of any of them be it spoken which deal for private gain) that an honest-meaning man shall have very good luck among them if he be not deceived by some false trick or other. there are certain notable markets wherein great plenty of horses and colts is bought and sold, and whereunto such as have need resort yearly to buy and make their necessary provision of them, as ripon, newport pond, wolfpit, harboro', and divers others. but, as most drovers are very diligent to bring great store of these unto those places, so many of them are too too lewd in abusing such as buy them. for they have a custom, to make them look fair to the eye, when they come within two days' journey of the market to drive them till they sweat, and for the space of eight or twelve hours, which, being done, they turn them all over the backs into some water, where they stand for a season, and then go forward with them to the place appointed, where they make sale of their infected ware, and such as by this means do fall into many diseases and maladies. of such outlandish horses as are daily brought over unto us i speak not, as the jennet of spain, the courser of naples, the hobby of ireland, the flemish roile and the scottish nag, because that further speech of them cometh not within the compass of this treatise, and for whose breed and maintenance (especially of the greatest sort) king henry the eighth erected a noble studdery, and for a time had very good success with them, till the officers, waxing weary, procured a mixed brood of bastard races, whereby his good purpose came to little effect. sir nicholas arnold of late hath bred the best horses in england, and written of the manner of their production: would to god his compass of ground were like to that of pella in syria, wherein the king of that nation had usually a studdery of , mares and stallions, as strabo doth remember, lib. . but to leave this, let us see what may be said of sheep. our sheep are very excellent, sith for sweetness of flesh they pass all other. and so much are our wools to be preferred before those of milesia and other places that if jason had known the value of them that are bred and to be had in britain he would never have gone to colchis to look for any there. for, as dionysius alexandrinus saith in his _de situ orbis_, it may by spinning be made comparable to the spider's web. what fools then are our countrymen, in that they seek to bereave themselves of this commodity by practising daily how to transfer the same to other nations, in carrying over their rams and ewes to breed and increase among them! the first example hereof was given under edward the fourth, who, not understanding the bottom of the suit of sundry traitorous merchants that sought a present gain with the perpetual hindrance of their country, licensed them to carry over certain numbers of them into spain, who, having licence but for a few, shipped very many: a thing practised in other commodities also, whereby the prince and his land are not seldom times defrauded. but such is our nature, and so blind are we indeed, that we see no inconvenience before we feel it; and for a present gain we regard not what damage may ensue to our posterity. hereto some other man would add also the desire that we have to benefit other countries and to impeach our own. and it is, so sure as god liveth, that every trifle which cometh from beyond the sea, though it be not worth threepence, is more esteemed than a continual commodity at home with us, which far exceedeth that value. in time past the use of this commodity consisteth (for the most part) in cloth and woolsteds; but now, by means of strangers succoured here from domestic persecution, the same hath been employed unto sundry other uses, as mockados, bays, vellures, grograines, etc., whereby the makers have reaped no small commodity. it is furthermore to be noted, for the low countries of belgie know it, and daily experience (notwithstanding the sharpness of our laws to the contrary) doth yet confirm it, that, although our rams and wethers do go thither from us never so well headed according to their kind, yet after they have remained there a while they cast there their heads, and from thenceforth they remain polled without any horns at all. certes this kind of cattle is more cherished in england than standeth well with the commodity of the commons or prosperity of divers towns, whereof some are wholly converted to their feeding; yet such a profitable sweetness is their fleece, such necessity in their flesh, and so great a benefit in the manuring of barren soil with their dung and piss, that their superfluous members are the better born withal. and there is never a husbandman (for now i speak not of our great sheepmasters, of whom some one man hath , ) but hath more or less of this cattle feeding on his fallows and short grounds, which yield the finer fleece. nevertheless the sheep of our country are often troubled with the rot (as are our swine with the measles, though never so generally), and many men are now and then great losers by the same; but, after the calamity is over, if they can recover and keep their new stocks sound for seven years together, the former loss will easily be recompensed with double commodity. cardan writeth that our waters are hurtful to our sheep; howbeit this is but his conjecture, for we know that our sheep are infected by going to the water, and take the same as a sure and certain token that a rot hath gotten hold of them, their livers and lights being already distempered through excessive heat, which enforceth them the rather to seek unto the water. certes there is no parcel of the main wherein a man shall generally find more fine and wholesome water than in england; and therefore it is impossible that our sheep should decay by tasting of the same. wherefore the hindrance by rot is rather to be ascribed to the unseasonableness and moisture of the weather in summer, also their licking in of mildews, gossamire, rowtie fogs, and rank grass, full of superfluous juice, but especially (i say) to over moist weather, whereby the continual rain piercing into their hollow fells soaketh forthwith into their flesh, which bringeth them to their baines. being also infected, their first shew of sickness is their desire to drink, so that our waters are not unto them _causa ægritudinis_, but _signum morbi_, whatsoever cardan do maintain to the contrary. there are (and peradventure no small babes) which are grown to be such good husbands that they can make account of every ten kine to be clearly worth twenty pounds in common and indifferent years, if the milk of five sheep be daily added to the same. but, as i wot not how true this surmise is, because it is no part of my trade, so i am sure hereof that some housewives can and do add daily a less portion of ewe's milk unto the cheese of so many kine, whereby their cheese doth the longer abide moist, and eateth more brickle and mellow than otherwise it would. goats we have plenty, and of sundry colours, in the west parts of england, especially in and towards wales and amongst the rocky hills, by whom the owners do reap so small advantage: some also are cherished elsewhere, in divers steeds, for the benefit of such as are diseased with sundry maladies, unto whom (as i hear) their milk, cheese, and bodies of their young kids are judged very profitable, and therefore inquired for of many far and near. certes i find among the writers that the milk of a goat is next in estimation to that of the woman, for that it helpeth the stomach, removeth oppilations and stoppings of the liver, and looseth the belly. some place also next unto it the milk of the ewe, and thirdly that of the cow. but hereof i can shew no reason; only this i know, that ewe's milk is fulsome, sweet, and such in taste as (except such as are used unto it) no man will gladly yield to live and feed withal. as for swine, there is no place that hath greater store, nor more wholesome in eating, than are these here in england, which nevertheless do never any good till they come to the table. of these some we eat green for pork, and other dried up into bacon to have it in more continuance. lard we make some, though very little, because it is chargeable: neither have we such use thereof as is to be seen in france and other countries, sith we do either bake our meat with sweet suet of beef or mutton and baste all our meat with sweet or salt butter or suffer the fattest to baste itself by leisure. in champaign countries they are kept by herds, and a hogherd appointed to attend and wait upon them, who commonly gathereth them together by his noise and cry, and leadeth them forth to feed abroad in the fields. in some places also women do scour and wet their clothes with their dung, as other do with hemlocks and nettles; but such is the savour of the clothes touched withal that i cannot abide to wear them on my body, more than such as are scoured with the refuse soap, than the which (in mine opinion) there is none more unkindly savour. of our tame boars we make brawn, which is a kind of meat not usually known to strangers (as i take it), otherwise would not the swart rutters and french cooks, at the loss of calais (where they found great store of this provision almost in every house), have attempted with ridiculous success to roast, bake, broil, and fry the same for their masters, till they were better informed. i have heard moreover how a nobleman of england not long since did send over a hogshead of brawn ready soused to a catholic gentleman of france, who, supposing it to be fish, reserved it till lent, at which time he did eat thereof with great frugality. thereto he so well liked the provision itself that he wrote over very earnestly, and with offer of great recompense, for more of the same fish against the year ensuing; whereas if he had known it to have been flesh he would not have touched it (i dare say) for a thousand crowns without the pope's dispensation. a friend of mine also dwelling some time in spain, having certain jews at his table, did set brawn before them, whereof they did eat very earnestly, supposing it to be a kind of fish not common in those parts; but when the goodman of the house brought in the head in pastime among them, to shew what they had eaten, they rose from the table, hied them home in haste, each of them procuring himself to vomit, some by oil and some by other means, till (as they supposed) they had cleansed their stomachs of that prohibited food. with us it is accounted a great piece of service at the table from november until february be ended, but chiefly in the christmas time. with the same also we begin our dinners each day after other; and, because it is somewhat hard of digestion, a draught of malvesey, bastard, or muscadel, is usually drank after it, where either of them are conveniently to be had; otherwise the meaner sort content themselves with their own drink, which at that season is generally very strong, and stronger indeed than it is all the year beside. it is made commonly of the fore part of a tame boar, set up for the purpose by the space of a whole year or two, especially in gentlemen's houses (for the husbandmen and farmers never frank them for their own use above three or four months, or half a year at the most), in which time he is dieted with oats and peason, and lodged on the bare planks of an uneasy coat, till his fat be hardened sufficiently for their purpose: afterward he is killed, scalded, and cut out, and then of his former parts is our brawn made. the rest is nothing so fat, and therefore it beareth the name of sowse only, and is commonly reserved for the serving-man and hind, except it please the owner to have any part thereof baked, which are then handled of custom after this manner: the hinder parts being cut off, they are first drawn with lard, and then sodden; being sodden, they are soused in claret wine and vinegar a certain space, and afterward baked in pasties, and eaten of many instead of the wild boar, and truly it is very good meat: the pestles may be hanged up a while to dry before they be drawn with lard, if you will, and thereby prove the better. but hereof enough, and therefore to come again unto our brawn. the neck pieces, being cut off round, are called collars of brawn, the shoulders are named shilds, only the ribs retain the former denomination, so that these aforesaid pieces deserve the name of brawn: the bowels of the beast are commonly cast away because of their rankness, and so were likewise his stones, till a foolish fantasy got hold of late amongst some delicate dames, who have now found the means to dress them also with great cost for a dainty dish, and bring them to the board as a service among other of like sort, though not without note of their desire to the provocation of fleshly lust, which by this their fond curiosity is not a little revealed. when the boar is thus cut out each piece is wrapped up, either with bulrushes, ozier, peels, tape inkle,[ ] or such like, and then sodden in a lead or caldron together, till they be so tender that a man may thrust a bruised rush or straw clean through the fat: which being done, they take it up and lay it abroad to cool. afterward, putting it into close vessels, they pour either good small ale or beer mingled with verjuice and salt thereto till it be covered, and so let it lie (now and then altering and changing the sousing drink lest it should was sour) till occasion serve to spend it out of the way. some use to make brawn of great barrow hogs, and seethe them, and souse the whole as they do that of the boar; and in my judgment it is the better of both, and more easy of digestion. but of brawn thus much, and so much may seem sufficient.[ ] chapter xiv. of wild and tame fowls. [ , book iii., chapters and ; , book iii., chapters and .] order requireth that i speak somewhat of the fowls also of england, which i may easily divide into the wild and tame; but, alas! such is my small skill in fowls that, to say the truth, i can neither recite their numbers nor well distinguish one kind of them from another. yet this i have by general knowledge, that there is no nation under the sun which hath already in the time of the year more plenty of wild fowl than we, for so many kinds as our island doth bring forth, and much more would have if those of the higher soil might be spared but one year or two from the greedy engines of covetous fowlers which set only for the pot and purse. certes this enormity bred great troubles in king john's days, insomuch that, going in progress about the tenth of his reign, he found little or no game wherewith to solace himself or exercise his falcons. wherefore, being at bristow in the christmas ensuing, he restrained all manner of hawking or taking of wild fowl throughout england for a season, whereby the land within few years was thoroughly replenished again. but what stand i upon this impertinent discourse? of such therefore as are bred in our land, we have the crane, the bitter,[ ] the wild and tame swan, the bustard, the heron, curlew, snite, wildgoose, wind or doterell, brant, lark, plover (of both sorts), lapwing, teal, widgeon, mallard, sheldrake, shoveller, peewitt, seamew, barnacle, quail (who, only with man, are subject to the falling sickness), the knot, the oliet or olive, the dunbird, woodcock, partridge, and pheasant, besides divers others, whose names to me are utterly unknown, and much more the taste of their flesh, wherewith i was never acquainted. but as these serve not at all seasons, so in their several turns there is no plenty of them wanting whereby the tables of the nobility and gentry should seem at any time furnished. but of all these the production of none is more marvellous, in my mind, than that of the barnacle, whose place of generation we have sought ofttimes as far as the orchades, whereas peradventure we might have found the same nearer home, and not only upon the coasts of ireland, but even in our own rivers. if i should say how either these or some such other fowl not much unlike unto them have bred of late times (for their place of generation is not perpetual, but as opportunity serveth and the circumstances do minister occasion) in the thames mouth, i do not think that many will believe me; yet such a thing hath there been seen where a kind of fowl had his beginning upon a short tender shrub standing near unto the shore, from whence, when their time came, they fell down, either into the salt water and lived, or upon the dry land and perished, as pena the french herbarian hath also noted in the very end of his herbal. what i for mine own part have seen here by experience, i have already so touched upon in the chapter of islands, that it should be but time spent in vain to repeat it here again.[ ] look therefore in the description of man (or manaw) for more of these barnacles, as also in the eleventh chapter of the description of scotland, and i do not doubt but you shall in some respect be satisfied in the generation of these fowls. as for egrets, pawpers, and such like, they are daily brought unto us from beyond the sea, as if all the fowl of our country could not suffice to satisfy our delicate appetites. our tame fowl are such (for the most part) as are common both to us and to other countries, as cocks, hens, geese, ducks, peacocks of ind, pigeons, now a hurtful fowl by reason of their multitudes, and number of houses daily erected for their increase (which the boors of the country call in scorn almshouses, and dens of thieves, and such like), whereof there is great plenty in every farmer's yard. they are kept there also to be sold either for ready money in the open markets, or else to be spent at home in good company amongst their neighbours without reprehension or fines. neither are we so miserable in england (a thing only granted unto us by the especial grace of god and liberty of our princes) as to dine or sup with a quarter of a hen, or to make as great a repast with a cock's comb as they do in some other countries; but, if occasion serve, the whole carcases of many capons, hens, pigeons, and such like do oft go to wrack, beside beef, mutton, veal, and lamb, all of which at every feast are taken for necessary dishes amongst the communalty of england. the gelding of cocks, whereby capons are made, is an ancient practice brought in of old time by the romans when they dwelt here in this land; but the gelding of turkeys or indish peacocks is a newer device, and certainly not used amiss, sith the rankness of that bird is very much abated thereby and the strong taste of the flesh in sundry wise amended. if i should say that ganders grow also to be gelded, i suppose that some will laugh me to scorn, neither have i tasted at any time of such a fowl so served, yet have i heard it more than once to be used in the country, where their geese are driven to the field like herds of cattle by a gooseherd, a toy also no less to be marvelled at than the other. for, as it is rare to hear of a gelded gander, so is it strange to me to see or hear of geese to be led to the field like sheep; yet so it is, and their gooseherd carrieth a rattle of paper or parchment with him when he goeth about in the morning to gather his goslings together, the noise whereof cometh no sooner to their ears than they fall to gaggling, and hasten to go with him. if it happen that the gates be not yet open, or that none of the house be stirring, it is ridiculous to see how they will peep under the doors, and never leave creaking and gaggling till they be let out unto him to overtake their fellows. with us where i dwell they are not kept in this sort, nor in many other places, neither are they kept so much for their bodies as their feathers. some hold furthermore an opinion that in over rank soils their dung doth so qualify the batableness of the soil that their cattle is thereby kept from the garget, and sundry other diseases, although some of them come to their ends now and then by licking up of their feathers. i might here make mention of other fowls produced by the industry of man, as between the pheasant cock and dunghill hen, or between the pheasant and the ringdove, the peacock and the turkey hen, the partridge and the pigeon; but, sith i have no more knowledge of these than what i have gotten by mine ear, i will not meddle with them. yet cardan, speaking of the second sort, doth affirm it to be a fowl of excellent beauty. i would likewise intreat of other fowls which we repute unclean, as ravens, crows, pies, choughs, rooks, kites, jays, ringtails, starlings, woodspikes, woodnaws, etc.; but, sith they abound in all countries, though peradventure most of all in england (by reason of our negligence), i shall not need to spend any time in the rehearsal of them. neither are our crows and choughs cherished of purpose to catch up the worms that breed in our soils (as polydor supposeth), sith there are no uplandish towns but have (or should have) nets of their own in store to catch them withal. sundry acts of parliament are likewise made for their utter destruction, as also the spoil of other ravenous fowls hurtful to poultry, conies, lambs, and kids, whose valuation of reward to him that killeth them is after the head: a device brought from the goths, who had the like ordinance for the destruction of their white crows, and tale made by the beck, which killed both lambs and pigs. the like order is taken with us for our vermin as with them also for the rootage out of their wild beasts, saving that they spared their greatest bears, especially the white, whose skins are by custom and privilege reserved to cover those planchers whereupon their priests do stand at mass, lest he should take some unkind cold in such a long piece of work: and happy is the man that may provide them for him, for he shall have pardon enough for that so religious an act, to last if he will till doomsday do approach, and many thousands after. nothing therefore can be more unlikely to be true than that these noisome creatures are nourished amongst us to devour our worms, which do not abound much more in england than elsewhere in other countries of the main. it may be that some look for a discourse also of our other fowls in this place at my hand, as nightingales, thrushes, blackbirds, mavises, ruddocks, redstarts or dunocks, larks, tivits, kingfishers, buntings, turtles (white or grey), linnets, bullfinches, goldfinches, washtails, cherrycrackers, yellowhammers, fieldfares, etc.; but i should then spend more time upon them than is convenient. neither will i speak of our costly and curious aviaries daily made for the better hearing of their melody, and observation of their natures; but i cease also to go any further in these things, having (as i think) said enough already of these that i have named.[ ] * * * * * i cannot make as yet any just report how many sorts of hawks are bred within this realm. howbeit which of those that are usually had among us are disclosed within this land, i think it more easy and less difficult to set down. first of all, therefore, that we have the eagle common experience doth evidently confirm, and divers of our rocks whereon they breed, if speech did serve, could well declare the same. but the most excellent eyrie of all is not much from chester, at a castle called dinas bren, sometime builded by brennus, as our writers do remember. certes this castle is no great thing, but yet a pile sometime very strong and inaccessible for enemies, though now all ruinous as many others are. it standeth upon a hard rock, in the side whereof an eagle breedeth every year. this also is notable in the overthrow of her nest (a thing oft attempted), that he which goeth thither must be sure of two large baskets, and so provide to be let down thereto, that he may sit in the one and be covered with the other: for otherwise the eagle would kill him and tear the flesh from his bones with her sharp talons, though his apparel were never so good. the common people call this fowl an erne; but, as i am ignorant whether the word eagle and erne do shew any difference of sex, i mean between the male and the female, so we have great store of them. and, near to the places where they breed, the commons complain of great harm to be done by them in their fields; for they are able to bear a young lamb or kid unto their nests, therewith to feed their young and come again for more. i was once of the opinion that there was a diversity of kind between the eagle and the erne, till i perceived that our nation used the word erne in most places for the eagle. we have also the lanner and the lanneret, the tersel and the goshawk, the musket and the sparhawk, the jack and the hobby, and finally some (though very few) marleons. and these are all the hawks that i do hear as yet to be bred within this island. howbeit, as these are not wanting with us, so are they not very plentiful: wherefore such as delight in hawking do make their chief purveyance and provision for the same out of danske, germany, and the eastern countries, from whence we have them in great abundance and at excellent prices, whereas at home and where they be bred they are sold for almost right nought, and usually brought to the markets as chickens, pullets, and pigeons are with us, and there bought up to be eaten (as we do the aforesaid fowl) almost of every man. it is said that the sparhawk pryeth not upon the fowl in the morning, that she taketh over even, but as loath to have double benefit by one seelie fowl doth let it go to make some shift for itself. but hereof as i stand in some doubt. so this i find among the writers worthy the noting: that the sparhawk is enemy to young children, as is also the ape, but of the peacock she is marvellously afraid, and so appalled that all courage and stomach for a time is taken from her upon the sight thereof. but to proceed with the rest. of other ravenous birds we have also very great plenty, as the buzzard, the kite, the ringtail, dunkite, and such as often annoy our country dames by spoiling of their young breeds of chickens, ducks, and goslings, whereunto our very ravens and crows have learned also the way: and so much are ravens given to this kind of spoil that some idle and curious heads of set purpose have manned, reclaimed, and used them instead of hawks, when other could not be had. some do imagine that the raven should be the vulture, and i was almost persuaded in times past to believe the same; but, finding of late a description of the vulture, which better agreeth with the form of a second kind of eagle, i freely surcease to be longer of that opinion: for, as it hath, after a sort, the shape, colour, and quantity of an eagle, so are the legs and feet more hairy and rough, their sides under their wings better covered with thick down (wherewith also their gorge or a part of their breast under their throats is armed, and not with feathers) than are the like parts of the eagle, and unto which portraiture there is no member of the raven (who is almost black of colour) that can have any resemblance: we have none of them in england to my knowledge, if we have, they go generally under the name of eagle or erne. neither have we the pygargus or grip, wherefore i have no occasion to treat further. i have seen the carrion crows so cunning also by their own industry of late that they have used to soar over great rivers (as the thames for example) and, suddenly coming down, have caught a small fish in their feet and gone away withal without wetting of their wings. and even at this present the aforesaid river is not without some of them, a thing (in my opinion) not a little to be wondered at. we have also osprays, which breed with us in parks and woods, whereby the keepers of the same do reap in breeding time no small commodity; for, so soon almost as the young are hatched, they tie them to the butt ends or ground ends of sundry trees, where the old ones, finding them, do never cease to bring fish unto them, which the keepers take and eat from them, and commonly is such as is well fed or not of the worst sort. it hath not been my hap hitherto to see any of these fowl, and partly through mine own negligence; but i hear that it hath one foot like a hawk, to catch hold withal, and another resembling a goose, wherewith to swim; but, whether it be so or not so, i refer the further search and trial thereof unto some other. this nevertheless is certain, that both alive and dead, yea even her very oil, is a deadly terror to such fish as come within the wind of it. there is no cause whereof i should describe the cormorant amongst hawks, of which some be black and many pied, chiefly about the isle of ely, where they are taken for the night raven, except i should call him a water hawk. but, sith such dealing is not convenient, let us now see what may be said of our venomous worms, and how many kinds we have of them within our realm and country.[ ] chapter xv. of savage beasts and vermin. [ , book iii., chapters and ; , book iii., chapters and .] it is none of the least blessings wherewith god hath endued this island that it is void of noisome beasts, as lions, bears, tigers, pardes, wolves, and such like, by means whereof our countrymen may travel in safety, and our herds and flocks remain for the most part abroad in the field without any herdman or keeper. this is chiefly spoken of the south and south-west parts of the island. for, whereas we that dwell on this side of the tweed may safely boast of our security in this behalf, yet cannot the scots do the like in every point within their kingdom, sith they have grievous wolves and cruel foxes, beside some others of like disposition continually conversant among them, to the general hindrance of their husbandmen, and no small damage unto the inhabitants of those quarters. the happy and fortunate want of these beasts in england is universally ascribed to the politic government of king edgar.[ ] * * * * * of foxes we have some, but no great store, and also badgers in our sandy and light grounds, where woods, furze, broom, and plenty of shrubs are to shroud them in when they be from their burrows, and thereunto warrens of conies at hand to feed upon at will. otherwise in clay, which we call the cledgy mould, we seldom hear of any, because the moisture and the toughness of the soil is such as will not suffer them to draw and make their burrows deep. certes, if i may freely say what i think, i suppose that these two kinds (i mean foxes and badgers) are rather preserved by gentlemen to hunt and have pastime withal at their own pleasures than otherwise suffered to live as not able to be destroyed because of their great numbers. for such is the scantity of them here in england, in comparison of the plenty that is to be seen in other countries, and so earnestly are the inhabitants bent to root them out, that, except it had been to bear thus with the recreations of their superiors in this behalf, it could not otherwise have been chosen but that they should have been utterly destroyed by many years agone. i might here intreat largely of other vermin, as the polecat, the miniver, the weasel, stote, fulmart, squirrel, fitchew, and such like, which cardan includeth under the word _mustela_: also of the otter, and likewise of the beaver, whose hinder feet and tail only are supposed to be fish. certes the tail of this beast is like unto a thin whetstone, as the body unto a monstrous rat: as the beast also itself is of such force in the teeth that it will gnaw a hole through a thick plank, or shere through a double billet in a night; it loveth also the stillest rivers, and it is given to them by nature to go by flocks unto the woods at hand, where they gather sticks wherewith to build their nests, wherein their bodies lie dry above the water, although they so provide most commonly that their tails may hang within the same. it is also reported that their said tails are a delicate dish, and their stones of such medicinal force that (as vertomannus saith) four men smelling unto them each after other did bleed at the nose through their attractive force, proceeding from a vehement savour wherewith they are endued. there is greatest plenty of them in persia, chiefly about balascham, from whence they and their dried cods are brought into all quarters of the world, though not without some forgery by such as provide them. and of all these here remembered, as the first sorts are plentiful in every wood and hedgerow, so these latter, especially the otter (for, to say the truth, we have not many beavers, but only in the teisie in wales) is not wanting or to seek in many, but most, streams and rivers of this isle; but it shall suffice in this sort to have named them, as i do finally the martern, a beast of the chase, although for number i worthily doubt whether that of our beavers or marterns may bethought to be the less. other pernicious beasts we have not, except you repute the great plenty of red and fallow deer whose colours are oft garled white and black, all white or all black, and store of conies amongst the hurtful sort. which although that of themselves they are not offensive at all, yet their great numbers are thought to be very prejudicial, and therefore justly reproved of many, as are in like sort our huge flocks of sheep, whereon the greatest part of our soil is employed almost in every place, and yet our mutton, wool, and felles never the better cheap. the young males which our fallow deer do bring forth are commonly named according to their several ages: for the first year it is a fawn, the second a puckot, the third a serell,[ ] the fourth a soare, the fifth a buck of the first head, not bearing the name of a buck till he be five years old: and from henceforth his age is commonly known by his head or horns. howbeit this notice of his years is not so certain but that the best woodman may now and then be deceived in that account: for in some grounds a buck of the first head will be as well headed as another in a high rowtie soil will be in the fourth. it is also much to be marvelled at that, whereas they do yearly mew and cast their horns, yet in fighting they never break off where they do grife or mew. furthermore, in examining the condition of our red deer, i find that the young male is called in the first year a calf, in the second a broket, the third a spay, the fourth a staggon or stag, the fifth a great stag, the sixth a hart, and so forth unto his death. and with him in degree of venerie are accounted the hare, boar, and wolf. the fallow deer, as bucks and does, are nourished in parks, and conies in warrens and burrows. as for hares, they run at their own adventure, except some gentleman or other (for his pleasure) do make an enclosure for them. of these also the stag is accounted for the most noble game, the fallow deer is the next, then the roe, whereof we have indifferent store, and last of all the hare, not the least in estimation, because the hunting of that seely beast is mother to all the terms, blasts, and artificial devices that hunters do use. all which (notwithstanding our custom) are pastimes more meet for ladies and gentlewomen to exercise (whatsoever franciscus patritius saith to the contrary in his _institution of a prince_) than for men of courage to follow, whose hunting should practise their arms in tasting of their manhood, and dealing with such beasts as eftsoons will turn again and offer them the hardest, rather than their horses' feet which many times may carry them with dishonour from the field.[ ] * * * * * if i should go about to make any long discourse of venomous beasts or worms bred in england, i should attempt more than occasion itself would readily offer, sith we have very few worms, but no beasts at all, that are thought by their natural qualities to be either venomous or hurtful. first of all, therefore, we have the adder (in our old saxon tongue called an atter), which some men do not rashly take to be the viper. certes, if it be so, then is not the viper author of the death of her[ ] parents, as some histories affirm, and thereto encelius, a late writer, in his _de re metallica_, lib. , cap. , where he maketh mention of a she adder which he saw in sala, whose womb (as he saith) was eaten out after a like fashion, her young ones lying by her in the sunshine, as if they had been earthworms. nevertheless, as he nameth them _viperas_, so he calleth the male _echis_, and the female _echidna_, concluding in the end that _echis_ is the same serpent which his countrymen to this day call _ein atter_, as i have also noted before out of a saxon dictionary. for my part i am persuaded that the slaughter of their parents is either not true at all, or not always (although i doubt not but that nature hath right well provided to inhibit their superfluous increase by some means or other), and so much the rather am i led hereunto for that i gather by nicander that of all venomous worms the viper only bringeth out her young alive, and therefore is called in latin _vipera quasivivipara_, but of her own death he doth not (to my remembrance) say anything. it is testified also by other in other words, and to the like sense, that "_echis id est vipera sola ex serpentibus non ava sed animalia parit_." and it may well be, for i remember that i have read in philostratus, _de vita appollonii_, how he saw a viper licking her young. i did see an adder once myself that lay (as i thought) sleeping on a molehill, out of whose mouth came eleven young adders of twelve or thirteen inches in length apiece, which played to and fro in the grass one with another, till some of them espied me. so soon therefore as they saw my face they ran again into the mouth of their dam, whom i killed, and then found each of them shrouded in a distinct cell or pannicle in her belly, much like unto a soft white jelly, which maketh me to be of the opinion that our adder is the viper indeed. the colour of their skin is for the most part like rusty iron or iron grey, but such as be very old resemble a ruddy blue; and as once in the year (to wit, in april or about the beginning of may) they cast their old skins (whereby as it is thought their age reneweth), so their stinging bringeth death without present remedy be at hand, the wounded never ceasing to swell, neither the venom to work till the skin of the one break, and the other ascend upward to the heart, where it finisheth the natural effect, except the juice of dragons (in latin called _dracunculus minor_) be speedily ministered and drunk in strong ale, or else some other medicine taken of like force that may countervail and overcome the venom of the same. the length of them is most commonly two feet, and somewhat more, but seldom doth it extend into two feet six inches, except it be in some rare and monstrous one, whereas our snakes are much longer, and seen sometimes to surmount a yard, or three feet, although their poison be nothing so grievous and deadly as the others. our adders lie in winter under stones, as aristotle also saith of the viper (lib. , cap. ), and in holes of the earth, rotten stubs of trees, and amongst the dead leaves; but in the heat of the summer they come abroad, and lie either round in heaps or at length upon some hillock, or elsewhere in the grass. they are found only in our woodland countries and highest grounds, where sometimes (though seldom) a speckled stone called _echites_, in dutch _ein atter stein_, is gotten out of their dried carcases, which divers report to be good against their poison.[ ] as for our snakes, which in latin are properly named _angues_, they commonly are seen in moors, fens, loam walls, and low bottoms. as we have great store of toads where adders commonly are found, so do frogs abound where snakes do keep their residence. we have also the slow-worm, which is black and greyish of colour, and somewhat shorter than an adder. i was at the killing once of one of them, and thereby perceived that she was not so called of any want of nimble motion, but rather of the contrary. nevertheless we have a blind-worm, to be found under logs, in woods and timber that hath lain long in a place, which some also do call (and upon better ground) by the name of slow-worms, and they are known easily by their more or less variety of striped colours, drawn long-ways from their heads, their whole bodies little exceeding a foot in length, and yet is their venom deadly. this also is not to be omitted; and now and then in our fenny countries other kinds of serpents are found of greater quantity than either our adder or our snake, but, as these are not ordinary and oft to be seen, so i mean not to intreat of them among our common annoyances. neither have we the scorpion, a plague of god sent not long since into italy, and whose poison (as apollodorus saith) is white, neither the tarantula or neapolitan spider, whose poison bringeth death, except music be at hand. wherefore i suppose our country to be the more happy (i mean in part) for that it is void of these two grievous annoyances wherewith other nations are plagued. we have also efts both of the land and water, and likewise the noisome swifts, whereof to say any more it would be but loss of time, sith they are all well known, and no region to my knowledge found to be void of many of them. as for flies (sith it shall not be amiss a little to touch them also), we have none that can do hurt or hindrance naturally unto any: for whether they be cut-waisted or whole-bodied, they are void of poison and all venomous inclination. the cut or girt waisted (for so i english the word _insecta_) are the hornets, wasps, bees, and such like, whereof we have great store, and of which an opinion is conceived that the first do breed of the corruption of dead horses, the second of pears and apples corrupted, and the last of kine and oxen: which may be true, especially the first and latter in some parts of the beast, and not their whole substances, as also in the second, sith we have never wasps but when our fruit beginneth to wax ripe. indeed virgil and others speak of a generation of bees by killing or smothering a bruised bullock or calf and laying his bowels or his flesh wrapped up in his hide in a close house for a certain season; but how true it is, hitherto i have not tried. yet sure i am of this, that no one living creature corrupteth without the production of another, as we may see by ourselves, whose flesh doth alter into lice, and also in sheep for excessive numbers of flesh flies, if they be suffered to lie unburied or uneaten by the dogs and swine, who often and happily present such needless generations. as concerning bees, i think it good to remember that, whereas some ancient writers affirm it to be a commodity wanting in our island, it is now found to be nothing so. in old times peradventure we had none indeed; but in my days there is such plenty of them in manner everywhere that in some uplandish towns there are one hundred or two hundred hives of them, although the said hives are not so huge as those of the east country, but far less, and not able to contain above one bushel of corn or five pecks at the most. pliny (a man that of set purpose delighteth to write of wonders), speaking of honey, noteth that in the north regions the hives in his time were of such quantity that some one comb contained eight foot in length, and yet (as it should seem) he speaketh not of the greatest. for in podolia, which is now subject to the king of poland, their hives are so great, and combs so abundant, that huge boars, overturning and falling into them, are drowned in the honey before they can recover and find the means to come out. our honey also is taken and reputed to be the best, because it is harder, better wrought, and cleanlier vesselled up, than that which cometh from beyond the sea, where they stamp and strain their combs, bees, and young blowings altogether into the stuff, as i have been informed. in use also of medicine our physicians and apothecaries eschew the foreign, especially that of spain and pontus, by reason of a venomous quality naturally planted in the same, as some write, and choose the home-made: not only by reason of our soil (which hath no less plenty of wild thyme growing therein than in sicilia and about athens, and maketh the best stuff) as also for that it breedeth (being gotten in harvest time) less choler, and which is oftentimes (as i have seen by experience) so white as sugar, and corned as if it were salt. our hives are made commonly of rye straw and wattled about with bramble quarters; but some make the same of wicker, and cast them over with clay. we cherish none in trees, but set our hives somewhere on the warmest side of the house, providing that they may stand dry and without danger both of the mouse and the moth. this furthermore is to be noted, that whereas in vessels of oil that which is nearest the top is counted the finest and of wine that in the middest, so of honey the best which is heaviest and moistest is always next the bottom, and evermore casteth and driveth his dregs upward toward the very top, contrary to the nature of other liquid substances, whose grounds and leeze do generally settle downwards. and thus much as by the way of our bees and english honey. as for the whole-bodied, as the _cantharides_, and such venomous creatures of the same kind, to be abundantly found in other countries, we hear not of them: yet have we beetles, horseflies, turdbugs or dors (called in latin _scarabei_), the locust or the grasshopper (which to me do seem to be one thing, as i will anon declare), and such like, whereof let other intreat that make an exercise in catching of flies, but a far greater sport in offering them to spiders, as did domitian sometime, and another prince yet living who delighted so much to see the jolly combats betwixt a stout fly and an old spider that divers men have had great rewards given them for their painful provision of flies made only for this purpose. some parasites also, in the time of the aforesaid emperor (when they were disposed to laugh at his folly, and yet would seem in appearance to gratify his fantastical head with some shew of dutiful demeanour), could devise to set their lord on work by letting a flesh fly privily into his chamber, which he forthwith would eagerly have hunted (all other business set apart) and never ceased till he had caught her into his fingers, wherewith arose the proverb, "_ne musca quidem_," uttered first by vibius priscus, who being asked whether anybody was with domitian, answered "_ne musca quidem_," whereby he noted his folly. there are some cockscombs here and there in england, learning it abroad as men transregionate, which make account also of this pastime, as of a notable matter, telling what a sight is seen between them, if either of them be lusty and courageous in his kind. one also hath made a book of the spider and the fly, wherein he dealeth so profoundly, and beyond all measure of skill that neither he himself that made it nor any one that readeth it can reach unto the meaning thereof. but if those jolly fellows, instead of the straw that they must thrust into the fly's tail (a great injury no doubt to such a noble champion), would bestow the cost to set a fool's cap upon their own heads, then might they with more security and less reprehension behold these notable battles. now, as concerning the locust, i am led by divers of my country, who (as they say) were either in germany, italy, or pannonia, , when those nations were greatly annoyed with that kind of fly, and affirm very constantly that they saw none other creature than the grasshopper during the time of that annoyance, which was said to come to them from the meotides. in most of our translations also of the bible the word _locusta_ is englished a grasshopper, and thereunto (leviticus xi.) it is reputed among the clean food, otherwise john the baptist would never have lived with them in the wilderness. in barbary, numidia, and sundry other places of africa, as they have been,[ ] so are they eaten to this day powdered in barrels, and therefore the people of those parts are called _acedophagi_: nevertheless they shorten the life of the eaters, by the production at the last of an irksome and filthy disease. in india they are three foot long, in ethiopia much shorter, but in england seldom above an inch. as for the cricket, called in latin _cicada_, he hath some likelihood, but not very great, with the grasshopper, and therefore he is not to be brought in as an umpire in this case. finally, matthiolus and so many as describe the locust do set down none other form than that of our grasshopper, which maketh me so much the more to rest upon my former imagination, which is that the locust and the grasshopper are one. chapter xvi. of our english dogs and their qualities. [ , book iii., chapter ; , book iii., chapter .] there is no country that may (as i take it) compare with ours in number, excellency, and diversity of dogs. the first sort therefore he divideth either into such as rouse the beast, and continue the chase, or springeth the bird, and bewrayeth her flight by pursuit. and as these are commonly called spaniels, so the other are named hounds, whereof he maketh eight sorts, of which the foremost excelleth in perfect smelling, the second in quick espying, the third in swiftness and quickness, the fourth in smelling and nimbleness, etc., and the last in subtlety and deceitfulness. these (saith strabo) are most apt for game, and called sagaces by a general name, not only because of their skill in hunting, but also for that they know their own and the names of their fellows most exactly. for if the hunter see any one to follow skilfully, and with likelihood of good success, he biddeth the rest to hark and follow such a dog, and they eftsoones obey so soon as they hear his name. the first kind of these are often called harriers, whose game is the fox, the hare, the wolf (if we had any), hart, buck, badger, otter, polecat, lopstart, weasel, conie, etc.: the second height a terrier, and it hunteth the badger and grey only: the third a bloodhound, whose office is to follow the fierce, and now and then to pursue a thief or beast by his dry foot: the fourth height a gazehound, who hunteth by the eye: the fifth a greyhound, cherished for his strength and swiftness and stature, commended by bratius in his _de venatione_, and not unremembered by hercules stroza in a like treatise, and above all other those of britain, where he saith: "magna spectandi mole britanni;" also by nemesianus, libro cynegeticôn, where he saith: "divisa britannia mittit veloces nostrique orbis venatibus aptos," of which sort also some be smooth, of sundry colours, and some shake-haired: the sixth a liemer, that excelleth in smelling and swift running: the seventh a tumbler: and the eighth a thief whose offices (i mean of the latter two) incline only to deceit, wherein they are oft so skilful that few men would think so mischievous a wit to remain in such silly creatures. having made this enumeration of dogs which are apt for the chase and hunting, he cometh next to such as serve the falcons in their time, whereof he maketh also two sorts. one that findeth his game on the land, another that putteth up such fowl as keepeth in the water: and of these this is commonly most usual for the net or train, the other for the hawk, as he doth shew at large. of the first he saith that they have no peculiar names assigned to them severally, but each of them is called after the bird which by natural appointment he is allotted to hunt or serve, for which consideration some be named dogs for the pheasant, some for the falcon, and some for the partridge. howbeit the common name for all is spaniel (saith he), and thereupon alluded as if these kinds of dogs had been brought hither out of spain. in like sort we have of water spaniels in their kind. the third sort of dogs of the gentle kind is the spaniel gentle, or comforter, or (as the common term is) the fistinghound, and those are called melitei, of the island malta, from whence they were brought hither. these are little and pretty, proper and fine, and sought out far and near to falsify the nice delicacy of dainty dames, and wanton women's wills, instruments of folly to play and dally withal, in trifling away the treasure of time, to withdraw their minds from more commendable exercises, and to content their corrupt concupiscences with vain disport--a silly poor shift to shun their irksome idleness. these sybaritical puppies the smaller they be (and thereto if they have a hole in the fore parts of their heads) the better they are accepted, the more pleasure also they provoke, as meet playfellows for mincing mistresses to bear in their bosoms, to keep company withal in their chambers, to succour with sleep in bed, and nourish with meat at board, to lie in their laps, and lick their lips as they lie (like young dianas) in their waggons and coaches. and good reason it should be so, for coarseness with fineness hath no fellowship, but featness with neatness hath neighbourhood enough. that plausible proverb therefore versified sometime upon a tyrant--namely, that he loved his sow better than his son--may well be applied to some of this kind of people, who delight more in their dogs, that are deprived of all possibility of reason, than they do in children that are capable of wisdom and judgment. yea, they oft feed them of the best where the poor man's child at their doors can hardly come by the worst. but the former abuse peradventure reigneth where there hath been long want of issue, else where barrenness is the best blossom of beauty: or, finally, where poor men's children for want of their own issue are not ready to be had. it is thought of some that it is very wholesome for a weak stomach to bear such a dog in the bosom, as it is for him that hath the palsy to feel the daily smell and savour of a fox. but how truly this is affirmed let the learned judge: only it shall suffice for doctor caius to have said thus much of spaniels and dogs of the gentle kind. dogs of the homely kind are either shepherd's curs or mastiffs. the first are so common that it needeth me not to speak of them. their use also is so well known in keeping the herd together (either when they grass or go before the shepherd) that it should be but in vain to spend any time about them. wherefore i will leave this cur unto his own kind, and go in hand with the mastiff, tie dog, or band dog, so called because many of them are tied up in chains and strong bonds in the daytime, for doing hurt abroad, which is a huge dog, stubborn, ugly, eager, burthenous of body (and therefore of but little swiftness), terrible and fearful to behold, and oftentimes more fierce and fell than any archadian or corsican cur. our englishmen, to the extent that these dogs may be more cruel and fierce, assist nature with some art, use, and custom. for although this kind of dog be capable of courage, violent, valiant, stout, and bold: yet will they increase these their stomachs by teaching them to bait the bear, the bull, the lion, and other such like cruel and bloody beasts (either brought over or kept up at home for the same purpose), without any collar to defend their throats, and oftentimes there too they train them up in fighting and wrestling with a man (having for the safeguard of his life either a pikestaff, club, sword, privy coat), whereby they become the more fierce and cruel unto strangers. the caspians make so much account sometimes of such great dogs, that every able man would nourish sundry of them in his house of set purpose, to the end they should devour their carcases after their deaths, thinking the dog's bellies to be the most honourable sepulchres. the common people also followed the same rate, and therefore there were tie dogs kept up by public ordinance, to devour them after their deaths: by means whereof these beasts became the more eager, and with great difficulty after a while restrained from falling upon the living. but whither am i digressed? in returning therefore to our own, i say that of mastiffs, some bark only with fierce and open mouth but will not bite; but the cruelest do either not bark at all or bite before they bark, and therefore are more to be feared than any of the other. they take also their name of the word "mase" and "thief" (or "master-thief" if you will), because they often stound and put such persons to their shifts in towns and villages, and are the principal causes of their apprehension and taking. the force which is in them surmounteth all belief, and the fast hold which they take with their teeth exceedeth all credit: for three of them against a bear, four against a lion, are sufficient to try mastries with them. king henry the seventh, as the report goeth, commanded all such curs to be hanged, because they durst presume to fight against the lion, who is their king and sovereign. the like he did with an excellent falcon, as some say, because he feared not hand-to-hand match with an eagle, willing his falconers in his own presence to pluck off his head after he was taken down, saying that it was not meet for any subject to offer such wrong unto his lord and superior, wherein he had a further meaning. but if king henry the seventh had lived in our time what would he have done to our english mastiff, which alone and without any help at all pulled down first a huge bear, then a pard, and last of all a lion, each after other before the french king in one day, when the lord buckhurst was ambassador unto him, and whereof if i should write the circumstances, that is, how he took his advantage being let loose unto them, and finally drave them into such exceeding fear, that they were all glad to run away when he was taken from them, i should take much pains, and yet reap but small credit: wherefore it shall suffice to have said thus much thereof. some of our mastiffs will rage only in the night, some are to be tied up both day and night. such also as are suffered to go loose about the house and yard are so gentle in the daytime that children may ride on their backs and play with them at their pleasures. divers of them likewise are of such jealousy over their master and whosoever of his household, that if a stranger do embrace or touch any of them, they will fall fiercely upon them, unto their extreme mischief if their fury be not prevented. such a one was the dog of nichomedes, king sometime of bithynia, who seeing consigne the queen to embrace and kiss her husband as they walked together in a garden, did tear her all to pieces, maugre his resistance and the present aid of such as attended on them. some of them moreover will suffer a stranger to come in and walk about the house or yard where he listeth, without giving over to follow him: but if he put forth his hand to touch anything, then will they fly upon them and kill them if they may. i had one myself once, which would not suffer any man to bring in his weapon further than my gate: neither those that were of my house to be touched in his presence. or if i had beaten any of my children, he would gently have essayed to catch the rod in his teeth and take it out of my hand or else pluck down their clothes to save them from the stripes: which in my opinion is not unworthy to be noted. the last sort of dogs consisteth of the currish kind meet for many toys, of which the whappet or prick-eared cur is one. some men call them warners, because they are good for nothing else but to bark and give warning when anybody doth stir or lie in wait about the house in the night season. certes it is impossible to describe these curs in any order, because they have no one kind proper unto themselves, but are a confused company mixed of all the rest. the second sort of them are called turnspits, whose office is not unknown to any. and as these are only reserved for this purpose, so in many places our mastiffs (beside the use which tinkers have of them in carrying their heavy budgets) are made to draw water in great wheels out of deep wells, going much like unto those which are framed for our turnspits, as is to be seen at roiston, where this feat is often practised. besides these also we have sholts or curs daily brought out of ireland, and made much of among us, because of their sauciness and quarrelling. moreover they bite very sore, and love candles exceedingly, as do the men and women of their country: but i may say no more of them, because they are not bred with us. yet this will i make report of by the way, for pastime's sake, that when a great man of those parts came of late into one of our ships which went thither for fish, to see the form and fashion of the same, his wife apparelled in fine sables, abiding on the deck whilst her husband was under the hatches with the mariners, espied a pound or two of candles hanging on the mast, and being loath to stand there idle alone, she fell to and eat them up every one, supposing herself to have been at a jolly banquet, and shewing very pleasant gesture when her husband came up again unto her. the last kind of toyish curs are named dancers, and those being of a mongrel sort also, are taught and exercised to dance in measure at the musical sound of an instrument, as at the just stroke of a drum, sweet accent of the citharne, and pleasant harmony of the harp, shewing many tricks by the gesture of their bodies: as to stand bolt upright, to lie flat on the ground, to turn round as a ring holding their tails in their teeth, to saw and beg for meat, to take a man's cap from his head, and sundry such properties, which they learn of their idle roguish masters, whose instruments they are to gather gain, as old apes clothed in motley and coloured short-waisted jackets are for the like vagabonds, who seek no better living than that which they may get by fond pastime and idleness. i might here intreat of other dogs, as of those which are bred between a bitch and a wolf, also between a bitch and a fox, or a bear and a mastiff. but as we utterly want the first sort, except they be brought unto us: so it happeneth sometime that the other two are engendered and seen at home amongst us. but all the rest heretofore remembered in this chapter there is none more ugly and odious in sight, cruel and fierce in deed, nor untractable in hand, than that which is begotten between the bear and the bandog. for whatsoever he catcheth hold of he taketh it so fast that a man may sooner tear and rend his body in sunder than get open his mouth to separate his chaps. certes he regardeth neither wolf, bear, nor lion, and therefore may well be compared with those two dogs which were sent to alexander out of india (and procreated as it is thought between a mastiff and a male tiger, as be those also of hircania), or to them that are bred in archadia, where copulation is oft seen between lions and bitches, as the lion is in france (as i said) between she wolves and dogs, whereof let this suffice, sith the further tractation of them doth not concern my purpose, more than the confutation of cardan's talk, _de subt._, lib. , who saith that after many generations dogs do become wolves, and contrariwise, which if it were true, then could not england be without many wolves: but nature hath set a difference between them, not only in outward form, but also in inward disposition of their bones, whereof it is impossible that his assertion can be sound. chapter xvii. of fish usually taken upon our coasts. [ , book iii., chapter ; , book iii., chapter .] i have in my description of waters, as occasion hath served, treated of the names of some of the several fishes which are commonly to be found in our rivers. nevertheless, as every water hath a sundry mixture, and therefore is not stored with every kind, so there is almost no house, even of the meanest boors, which hath not one or more ponds or holes made for reservation of water unstored with some of them, as with tench, carp, bream, roach, dace, eels, or such like as will live and breed together. certes it is not possible for me to deliver the names of all such kinds of fishes as our rivers are found to bear; yet, lest i should seem injurious to the reader in not delivering as many of them as have been brought to my knowledge, i will not let to set them down as they do come to mind. besides the salmon therefore, which are not to be taken from the middest of september to the middest of november, and are very plentiful in our greatest rivers, as their young store are not to be touched from mid april unto midsummer, we gave the trout, barbel, graile, pout, cheven, pike, gudgeon, smelt, perch, menan, shrimps, crevises, lampreys, and such like, whose preservation is provided for by very sharp laws, not only in our rivers, but also in plashes or lakes and ponds, which otherwise would bring small profit to the owners, and do much harm by continual maintenance of idle persons, who would spend their whole time upon their banks, not coveting to labour with their hands nor follow any good trade. of all these there are none more prejudicial to their neighbours that dwell in the same water than the pike and eel, which commonly devour such fish or fry and spawn as they may get and come by. nevertheless the pike is friend unto the tench, as to his leech and surgeon. for when the fishmonger hath opened his side and laid out his rivet and fat unto the buyer, for the better utterance of his ware, and cannot make him away at that present, he layeth the same again into the proper place, and sewing up the wound, he restoreth him to the pond where tenches are, who never cease to suck and lick his grieved place, till they have restored him to health, and made him ready to come again to the stall, when his turn shall come about. i might here make report how the pike, carp, and some other of our river fishes are sold by inches of clean fish, from the eyes or gills to the crotch of the tails, but it is needless: also how the pike as he ageth receiveth divers names, as from a _fry_ to a _gilthead_, from a _gilthead_ to a _pod_, from a _pod_ to a _jack_, from a _jack_ to a _pickerel_, from a _pickerel_ to a _pike_, and last of all to a _luce_; also that a salmon is the first year a _gravellin_, and commonly as big as a herring, the second a _salmon peal_, the third a _pug_, and the fourth a _salmon_: but this is in like sort unnecessary. i might finally tell you how that in fenny rivers' sides, if you cut a turf, and lay it with the grass downwards upon the earth in such sort as the water may touch it as it passeth by, you shall have a brood of eels. it would seem a wonder; and yet it is believed with no less assurance by some, that than a horse hair laid in a pail full of the like water will in a short time stir and become a living creature. but sith the certainty of these things is rather proved by few than the certainty of them known unto many, i let it pass at this time. nevertheless this is generally observed in the maintenance of fry as well in rivers as in ponds, that in the time of spawn we use to throw in faggots made of willow and sallow (and now and then of bushes for want of the other), whereby such spawn as falleth into the same is preserved and kept from the pike, perch, eel, and other fish, of which the carp also will feed upon his own, and thereby hinder the store and increase of proper kind. some use in every sixth or seventh year to lay their great ponds dry for all the summer time, to the end they may gather grass, and a thin swart for the fish to feed upon; and afterwards store them with breeders, after the water be let anew again into them. finally, when they have spawned, they draw out the breeders, leaving not above four or six behind, even in the greatest ponds, by means whereof the rest do prosper the better: and this observation is most used in carp and bream. as for perch (a delicate fish), it prospereth everywhere, i mean so well in ponds as rivers, and also in moats and pits, as i do know by experience, though their bottoms be but clay. more would i write of our fresh fish, if any more were needful: wherefore i will now turn over unto such of the salt water as are taken upon our coasts. as our fowls therefore have their seasons, so likewise have all our sorts of sea fish: whereby it cometh to pass that none, or at least very few of them, are to be had at all times. nevertheless the seas that environ our coasts are of all other most plentiful; for as by reason of their depth they are a great succour, so our low shores minister great plenty of food unto the fish that come thereto, no place being void or barren, either through want of food for them or the falls of filthy rivers, which naturally annoy them. in december therefore and january we commonly abound in herring and red fish, as rochet and gurnard. in february and march we feed on plaice, trouts, turbot, mussels, etc. in april and may, with mackerel and cockles. in june and july, with conger. in august and september, with haddock and herring: and the two months ensuing with the same, as also thornback and ray of all sorts: all which are the most usual, and wherewith our common sort are best of all refreshed. for mine own part, i am greatly acquainted neither with the seasons, nor yet with the fish itself: and therefore, if i should take upon me to describe or speak of either of them absolutely, i should enterprise more than i am able to perform, and go in hand with a greater matter than i can well bring about. it shall suffice therefore to declare what sorts of fishes i have most often seen, to the end i may not altogether pass over this chapter without the rehearsal of something, although the whole sum of that which i have to say be nothing indeed, if the performance of a full discourse hereof be anything hardly required. of fishes, therefore, as i find five sorts (the flat, the round, the long, the legged, and shelled), so the flat are divided into the smooth, sealed, and tailed. of the first are the plaice, the but, the turbot, birt, fluke or sea flounder, doree, dab, etc. of the second the soles and thornback, whereof the greater be for the most part either dried and carried into other countries, or sodden, soused, and eaten here at home, whilst the lesser be fried or buttered soon after they be taken, as provision not to be kept long for fear of putrefaction. under the round kinds are commonly comprehended lumps (an ugly fish to sight, and yet very delicate in eating if it be kindly dressed), the whiting (an old waiter or servitor in the court), the rochet, sea bream, pirle, hake, sea trout, gurnard, haddock, cod, herring, pilchard, sprat, and such like. and these are they whereof i have best knowledge, and are commonly to be had in their times upon our coasts. under this kind also are all the great fish contained, as the seal, the dolphin, the porpoise, the thirlepole, whale, and whatsoever is round of body, be it never so great and huge. of the long sort are congers, eels, garefish, and such other of that form. finally, of the legged kind we have not many, neither have i seen any more of this sort than the polypus, called in english the lobster, crayfish (or _crevis_), and the crab. as for the little crayfishes, they are not taken in the sea, but plentifully in our fresh rivers in banks, and under stones, where they keep themselves in most secret manner, and oft, by likeness of colour with the stones among which they lie, deceive even the skilful takers of them except they use great diligence. carolus stephanus, in his _maison rustique_, doubted whether these lobsters be fish or not; and in the end concludeth them to grow of the purgation of the water, as doth the frog, and these also not to be eaten, for that they be strong and very hard of digestion. but hereof let other determine further. i might here speak of sundry other fishes now and then taken also upon our coasts; but, sith my mind is only to touch either on all such as are usually gotten, or so many of them only as i can well rehearse upon certain knowledge, i think it good at this time to forbear the further intreaty of them. as touching the shelly sort, we have plenty of oysters; whose value in old time for their sweetness was not unknown in rome (although mutianus, as pliny noteth, lib. , cap. , prefer the cyzicene before them), and these we have in like manner of divers quantities, and no less variety also of our mussels and cockles. we have in like sort no small store of great whelks, scallops, and periwinkles, and each of them brought far into the land from the sea coast in their several seasons. and albeit our oysters are generally forborne in the four hot months of the year (that is to say, may, june, july, and august) which are void of the letter r, yet in some places they be continually eaten, where they are kept in pits, as i have known by experience. and thus much of our sea fish, as a man in manner utterly unacquainted with their diversity of kinds, yet so much have i yielded to do, hoping hereafter to say somewhat more, and more orderly of them, if it shall please god that i may live and have leisure once again to peruse this treatise and so make up a perfect piece of work of that which, as you now see, is very slenderly attempted and begun. chapter xviii. of quarries of stone for building. [ , book ii., chapter ; , book ii., chapter .] quarries with us are pits or mines, out of which we dig our stone to build withal, and of these as we have great plenty in england so are they of divers sorts, and those very profitable for sundry necessary uses. in times past the use of stone was in manner dedicated to the building of churches, religious houses, princely palaces, bishops' manors, and holds only; but now that scrupulous observation is altogether infringed, and building with stone so commonly taken up that amongst noblemen and gentlemen the timber frames are supposed to be not much better than paper work, of little continuance, and least continuance of all. it far passeth my cunning to set down how many sorts of stone for building are to be found in england, but much further to call each of them by their proper names. howbeit, such is the curiosity of our countrymen, that notwithstanding almighty god hath so blessed our realm in most plentiful manner with such and so many quarries apt and meet for piles of longest continuance, yet we as loathsome of this abundance, or not liking of the plenty, do commonly leave these natural gifts to mould and cinder in the ground, and take up an artificial brick, in burning whereof a great part of the wood of this land is daily consumed and spent, to the no small decay of that commodity, and hindrance of the poor that oft perish for cold. our elders have from time to time, following our natural vice in misliking of our own commodities at home, and desiring those of other countries abroad, most esteemed the caen stone that is brought hither out of normandy: and many even in these our days following the same vein, do covet in their works almost to use none other. howbeit experience on the one side, and our skilful masons on the other (whose judgment is nothing inferior to those of other countries), do affirm that in the north (and south) parts of england, and certain other places, there are some quarries which for hardness and beauty are equal to the outlandish greet. this may also be confirmed by the king's chapel at cambridge, the greatest part of the square stone whereof was brought thither out of the north. some commend the vein of white free-stone, slate, and mere stone, which is between pentowen and the black head in cornwall, for very fine stuff. other do speak much of the quarries at hamden, nine miles from milbery, and paving stone of burbeck. for toph stone not a few allow of the quarry that is at dresley, divers mislike not of the veins of hard stone that are at oxford and burford. one praiseth the free-stone at manchester and presbury in gloucestershire; another the quarries of the like in richmond. the third liketh well of the hard stone in clee hill in shropshire; the fourth of that of thorowbridge, welden, terrinton. whereby it appeareth that we have quarries enough (and good enough) in england sufficient for us to build withal, if the peevish contempt of our own commodities, and delectations to enrich other countries, did not catch such foolish hold upon us. it is also verified (as any other way) that all nations have rather need of england than england of any other. and this i think may suffice for the substance of our works. now if you have regard to their ornature, how many mines of sundry kinds of coarse and fine marble are there to be had in england? but chiefly one in staffordshire, another near to the peak, the third at uavldry, the fourth at snothill (longing to the lord chandos), the fifth at eglestone, which is of black marble, spotted with grey or white spots; the sixth not far from durham. (of white marble also we have store, and so fair as the marpesian of paris isle.) but what mean i to go about to recite all, or the most excellent? sith these which i have named already are not altogether of the best, nor scarcely of any value in comparison of those whose places of growth are utterly unknown unto me, and whereof the black marble spotted with green is none of the vilest sort, as may appear by parcel of the pavement of the lower part of the choir of paul's in london (and also in westminster), where some pieces thereof are yet to be seen and marked, if any will look for them. if marble will not serve, then have we the finest alabaster that may elsewhere be had, as about saint david's of wales; also near to beau manor, which is about four or five miles from leicester, and taken to be the best, although there are divers other quarries hereof beyond the trent (as in yorkshire, etc., and fully so good as that) whose names at this time are out of my remembrance. what should i talk of the plaster of axholm (for of that which they dig out of the earth in sundry places of lincoln and derbyshire, wherewith they blanch their houses instead of lime, i speak not), certes it is a fine kind of alabaster. but sith it is sold commonly but after twelvepence the load, we judge it to be but vile and coarse. for my part i cannot skill of stone, yet in my opinion it is not without great use for plaster of paris, and such is the mine of it that the stones (thereof) lie in flakes one upon another like planks or tables, and under the same is an (exceeding) hard stone very profitable for building, as hath oftentimes been proved. (this is also to be marked further of our plaster white and grey, that not contented with the same, as god by the quarry doth send and yield it forth, we have now devised to cast it in moulds for windows and pillars of what form and fashion we list, even as alabaster itself: and with such stuff sundry houses in yorkshire are furnished of late. but of what continuance this device is likely to prove the time to come shall easily betray. in the meantime sir ralph burcher, knight, hath put the device in practice, and affirmeth that six men in six months shall travel in that trade to see greater profit to the owner than twelve men in six years could before this trick was invented.) if neither alabaster nor marble doth suffice, we have the touchstone, called in latin _lydius lapis_ (shining as glass), either to match in sockets with our pillars of alabaster, or contrariwise: or if it please the workmen to join pillars of alabaster or touch with sockets of brass, pewter, or copper, we want not (also) these metals. so that i think no nation can have more excellent and greater diversity of stuff for building than we may have in england, if ourselves could so like of it. but such, alas! is our nature, that not our own but other men's do most of all delight us; and for desire of novelty we oft exchange our finest cloth, corn, tin, and wools for halfpenny cockhorses for children, dogs of wax (or of cheese), twopenny tabers, leaden swords, painted feathers, gewgaws for fools, dog-tricks for disards, hawk's hoods, and such like trumpery, whereby we reap just mockage and reproach (in other countries). i might remember here our pits for millstones, that are to be had in divers places of our country, as in anglesea (kent), also at queen-hope of blue greet, of no less value than the colaine, yea, than the french stones: our grindstones for hardware men. our whetstones are no less laudable than those of crete and lacedæmonia, albeit we use no oil with them, as they did in those parts, but only water, as the italians and narians do with theirs: whereas they that grow in cilicia must have both oil and water laid upon them, or else they make no edge. there also are divided either into hard greet, as the common that shoemakers use, or the soft greet called hones, to be had among the barbers, and those either black or white, and the rub or brickle stone which husbandmen do occupy in the whetting of their scythes. in like manner slate of sundry colours is everywhere in manner to be had, as is the flint and chalk, the shalder and the pebble. howbeit for all this we must fetch them still from far, as did the hull men their stones out of iceland, wherewith they paved their town for want of the like in england: or as sir thomas gresham did when he bought the stones in flanders wherewith he paved the burse. but as he will answer (peradventure) that he bargained for the whole mould and substance of his workmanship in flanders, so the hullanders or hull men will say how that stock-fish is light loading, and therefore they did balance their vessels with these iceland stones to keep them from turning over in their so tedious a voyage. sometimes also they find precious stones (though seldom), and some of them perfectly squared by nature, and much like unto the diamond found of late in a quarry of marble at naples, which was so perfectly pointed as if all the workmen in the world had consulted about the performance of that workmanship. i know that these reports unto some will seem incredible, and therefore i stand the longer upon them; nevertheless omitting to speak particularly of such things as happen amongst us, and rather seeking to confirm the same by the like in other countries, i will deliver a few more examples, whereby the truth hereof shall so much the better appear. for in the midst of a stone not long since found at chius, upon the breaking up thereof, there was seen _caput panisci_ enclosed therein, very perfectly formed, as the beholders do remember. how come the grains of gold to be so fast enclosed in the stones that are and have been found in the spanish baetis? but this is most marvellous, that a most delectable and sweet oil, comparable to the finest balm, or oil of spike in smell, was found naturally enclosed in a stone, which could not otherwise be broken but with a smith's hammer. finally, i myself have seen stones opened, and within them the substances of corrupted worms like unto adders (but far shorter), whose crests and wrinkles of body appeared also therein as if they had been engraved in the stones by art and industry of man. wherefore to affirm that as well living creatures as precious stones, gold, etc., are now and then found in our quarries, shall not hereafter be a thing so incredible as many talking philosophers, void of all experience, do affirm and wilfully maintain against such as hold the contrary. chapter xix. of woods and marshes. [ , book ii., chapter ; , book ii., chapter .] it should seem by ancient records, and the testimony of sundry authors, that the whole countries of lhoegres and cambria, now england and wales, have sometimes been very well replenished with great woods and groves, although at this time the said commodity be not a little decayed in both, and in such wise that a man shall oft ride ten or twenty miles in each of them and find very little, or rather none at all, except it be near unto towns, gentlemen's houses, and villages, where the inhabitants have planted a few elms, oaks, hazels, or ashes about their dwellings, for their defence from the rough winds and keeping of the stormy weather from annoyance of the same. this scarcity at the first grew (as it is thought) either by the industry of man, for maintenance of tillage (as we understand the like to be done of late by the spaniards in the west indies, where they fired whole woods of very great compass, thereby to come by ground whereon to sow their grains), or else through the covetousness of such as, in preferring of pasture for their sheep and greater cattle, do make small account of firebote and timber, or, finally, by the cruelty of the enemies, whereof we have sundry examples declared in our histories. howbeit where the rocks and quarry grounds are i take the swart of the earth to be so thin that no tree of any greatness, other than shrubs and bushes, is able to grow or prosper long therein for want of sufficient moisture wherewith to feed them with fresh humour, or at the leastwise of mould to shroud, stay upright, and cherish the same in the blustering winter's weather, till they may grow into any greatness, and spread or yield their roots down right into the soil about them: and this either is or may be one other cause, wherefore some places are naturally void of wood. but to proceed. although i must needs confess that there is good store of great wood or timber here and there even now in some places of england, yet in our days it is far unlike to that plenty which our ancestors have seen heretofore when stately building was less in use. for, albeit that there were then greater number of messuages and mansions almost in every place, yet were their frames so slight and slender that one mean dwelling-house in our time is able to countervail very many of them, if you consider the present charge with the plenty of timber that we bestow upon them. in times past men were contented to dwell in houses built of sallow, willow, plum tree, hardbeam, and elm, so that the use of oak was in manner dedicated wholly unto churches, religious houses, princes' palaces, noblemen's lodgings, and navigation; but now all these are rejected, and nothing but oak any whit regarded. and yet see the change! for, when our houses were built of willow, then had we oaken men; but, now that our houses are come to be made of oak, our men are not only become willow, but a great many through persian delicacy crept in among us altogether of straw: which is a sore alteration. in those, the courage of the owner was a sufficient defence to keep the house in safety; but now the assurance of the timber, double doors, locks, and bolts, must defend the man from robbing. now have we many chimneys; and yet our tenderlings complain of rheums, catarrhs, and poses. then had we none but reredosses; and our heads did never ache. for, as the smoke in those days was supposed to be a sufficient hardening for the timber of the house, so it was reputed a far better medicine to keep the goodman and his family from the quake or pose, wherewith as then very few were oft acquainted. of the curiousness of these piles i speak not, sith our workmen are grown generally to such an excellency of device in the frames now made that they far pass the finest of the old. and, such is their husbandry in dealing with their timber, that the same stuff which in time past was rejected as crooked, unprofitable, and of no use but the fire doth now come in the fronts and best part of the work. whereby the common saying is likewise in these days verified in our mansion houses, which erst was said only of the timber for ships, that "no oak can grow so crooked but it falleth out to some use," and that necessary in the navy. it is a world to see, moreover, how divers men being bent to building, and having a delectable vein in spending of their goods by that trade, do daily imagine new devices of their own, to guide their workmen withal, and those more curious and excellent always than the former. in the proceeding also of their works, how they set up, how they pull down, how they enlarge, how they restrain, how they add to, how they take from, whereby their heads are never idle, their purses never shut, nor their books of account never made perfect. "_destruunt, ædificant, mutant quadrata rotundis_," saith the poet. so that, if a man should well consider of all the odd crotchets in such a builder's brain, he would think his head to have even enough of those affairs only, and therefore judge that he would not well be able to deal in any other. but such commonly are our work-masters that they have beside this vein aforementioned either great charge of merchandises, little less business in the commonwealth, or, finally, no small dealings otherwise incident unto them, whereby gain ariseth, and some trouble oft among withal. which causeth me to wonder not a little how they can play the parts so well of so many sundry men, whereas divers other, of greater forecast in appearance, can seldom shift well or thrive in any one of them. but to our purpose. we have many woods, forests, and parks, which cherish trees abundantly, although in the woodland countries there is almost no hedge that hath not some store of the greatest sort, beside infinite numbers of hedgerows, groves, and springs, that are maintained of purpose for the building and provision of such owners as do possess the same. howbeit, as every soil doth not bear all kinds of wood, so there is not any wood, park, hedgerow, grove, or forest, that is not mixed with divers, as oak, ash, hazel, hawthorn, birch, beech, hardbeam, hull, sorb, quicken, asp, poplars, wild cherry, and such like, whereof oak hath always the pre-eminence, as most meet for building and the navy, whereunto it is reserved. this tree bringeth forth also a profitable kind of mast, whereby such as dwell near unto the aforesaid places do cherish and bring up innumerable herds of swine. in time of plenty of this mast, our red and fallow deer will not let to participate thereof with our hogs, more than our neat, yea, our common poultry also, if they may come unto them.[ ] but, as this abundance doth prove very pernicious unto the first, so the eggs which these latter do bring forth (beside blackness in colour and bitterness of taste) have not seldom been found to breed divers diseases unto such persons as have eaten of the same. i might add in like sort the profit ensuing by the bark of this wood, whereof our tanners have great use in dressing leather, and which they buy yearly in may by the fadame, as i have oft seen; but it shall not need at this time to enter into any such discourse, only this i wish, that our sole and upper leathering may have their due time, and not be hasted on by extraordinary flights, as with ash, bark, etc. whereby, as i grant that it seemeth outwardly to be very thick and well done, so if you respect the sadness thereof, it doth prove in the end to be very hollow, and not able to hold out water. nevertheless we have good laws for the redress of this enormity, but it cometh to pass in these as in the execution of most penal statutes. for the gains to be got by the same being given to one or two hungry and unthrifty persons, they make a shew of great reformation at the first, and for a little while, till they find that following of suit in law against the offenders is somewhat too chargeable and tedious. this therefore perceived, they give over the law, and fall to the admission of gifts and rewards to wink at things past; and, when they have once gone over their ground with this kind of tillage, then do they tender licences, and offer large dispensations unto him that shall ask the same, thereby to do what he listeth in his trade for a yearly pension, whereby the briber now groweth to some certain revenues and the tanner to so great liberty that his leather is much worse than before. but is not this a mockery of our laws, and manifest illusion of the good subject whom they thus pill and poll? of all oak growing in england the park oak is the softest, and far more spalt and brittle than the hedge oak. and of all in essex, that growing in bardfield park is the finest for joiners' craft; for oftentimes have i seen of their works made of that oak as fine and fair as most of the wainscot that is brought hither out of denmark: for our wainscot is not made in england. yet divers have essayed to deal without oaks to that end, but not with so good success as they have hoped, because the ab or juice will not so soon be removed and clean drawn out, which some attribute to want of time in the salt water. nevertheless, in building, so well the hedge as the park oak go all one way, and never so much hath been spent in a hundred years before as is in ten years of our time; for every man almost is a builder, and he that hath bought any small parcel of ground, be it never so little, will not be quiet till he have pulled down the old house (if any were there standing) and set up a new after his own device. but whereunto will this curiosity come? of elm we have great store in every highway and elsewhere, yet have i not seen thereof any together in woods or forests but where they have been first planted and then suffered to spread at their own wills. yet have i known great woods of beech and hazel in many places, especially in berkshire, oxfordshire, and buckinghamshire, where they are greatly cherished, and converted to sundry uses by such as dwell about them. of all the elms that ever i saw, those in the south side of dovercourt, in essex, near harwich, are the most notable, for they grow (i mean) in crooked manner, that they are almost apt for nothing else but navy timber, great ordinance, and beetles; and such thereto is their natural quality that, being used in the said behalf, they continue longer, and more long than any the like trees in whatsoever parcel else of this land, without cuphar, shaking, or cleaving, as i find. ash cometh up everywhere of itself, and with every kind of wood. and as we have very great plenty, and no less use of these in our husbandry, so are we not without the plane, the yew, the sorb, the chestnut, the lime, the black cherry, and such like. and although we enjoy them not in as great plenty now in most places as in times past, or the other afore remembered; yet have we sufficient of them all for our necessary turns and uses, especially of yew; as may be seen betwixt rotherham and sheffield, and some steads of kent also, as i have been informed. the fir, frankincense, and pine we do not altogether want, especially the fir, whereof we have some store in chatley moor in derbyshire, shropshire, anderness, and a moss near manchester, not far from leicester's house: although that in time past, not only all lancashire, but a great part of the coast between chester and the solme, were well stored. as for the frankincense and the pine, they have been planted only in colleges and cloisters, by the clergy and religious heretofore. wherefore (in mine opinion) we may rather say that we want them altogether: for, except they grew naturally, and not by force, i see no cause why they should be accounted for parcel of our commodities. we have also the asp, whereof our fletchers make their arrows. the several kinds of poplars of our turners have great use for bowls, trees, troughs, dishes, etc. also the alder, whose bark is not unprofitable to dye black withal, and therefore much used by our country wives in colouring their knit hosen. i might here take occasion to speak of the great sales yearly made of wood, whereby an infinite quantity hath been destroyed within these few years: but i give over to travel in this behalf. howbeit, thus much i dare affirm, that if woods go so fast to decay in the next hundred years of grace as they have done and are like to do in this, sometimes for increase of sheepwalks, and some maintenance of prodigality and pomp (for i have known a well-burnished gentleman that hath borne threescore at once in one pair of galigascons to shew his strength and bravery[ ]), it is to be feared that the fenny bote, broom, turf, gall, heath, furze, brakes, whins, ling, dies, hassacks, flags, straw, sedge, reed, rush, and also seacale, will be good merchandise even in the city of london, whereunto some of them even now have gotten ready passage, and taken up their inns in the greatest merchants' parlours. a man would think that our laws were able enough to make sufficient provision for the redress of this error and enormity likely to ensue. but such is the nature of our countrymen that as many laws as are made, so they will keep none; or, if they be urged to make answer, they will rather seek some crooked construction of them to the increase of their private gain than yield themselves to be guided by the same for a commonwealth and profit to their country. so that in the end, whatsoever the law saith, we will have our wills, whereby the wholesome ordinances of the prince are contemned, the travel of the nobility and councillors (as it were) derided, the commonwealth impoverished, and a few only enriched by this perverse dealing. thus many thousand persons do suffer hindrance by this their lewd behaviour. hereby the wholesome laws of the prince are oft defrauded, and the good-meaning magistrate in consultation about the commonwealth utterly neglected. i would wish that i might live no longer than to see four things in this land reformed, that is, the want of discipline in the church, the covetous dealing of most of our merchants in the preferment of the commodities of other countries and hindrance of their own, the holding of fairs[ ] and markets upon the sundays be abolished and referred to the wednesdays, and that every man in whatsoever part of the champaign soil enjoyeth forty acres of land and upwards (after that rate, either by free deed, copyhold, or free farm) might plant one acre of wood or sow the same with oak mast, hazel, beech, and sufficient provision be made that it may be cherished and kept. but i fear me that i should then live too long, and so long that i should either be weary of the world, or the world of me; and yet they are not such things but that they may easily be brought to pass. certes every small occasion in my time is enough to cut down a great wood, and every trifle sufficeth to lay infinite acres of ground unto pasture. as for the taking down of houses, a small fine will bear out a great many. would to god we might once take example of the romans, who, in restraint of superfluous grazing, made an exact limitation how many head of cattle each estate might keep, and what number of acres should suffice for that and other purposes. neither was wood ever better cherished, or mansion houses maintained, than by their laws and statutes. such also was their care in the maintenance of navigation that it was a great part of the charge of their consuls yearly to view and look unto the hills whereon great timber did grow, lest their unnecessary faults for the satisfaction of the private owner and his covetous mind might prove a prejudice unto the commonwealth in the hindrance of sufficient stuff for the furniture of their navy. certes the like hereof is yet observed in venice. read also, i pray you, what suetonius writeth of the consulship of bibulus and cæsar. as for the wood that ancus martius dedicated toward the maintenance of the common navy, i pass it over, as having elsewhere remembered it unto another end. but what do i mean to speak of these, sith my purpose is only to talk of our own woods? well, take this then for a final conclusion in woods, that besides some countries are already driven to sell their wood by the pound, which is a heavy report, within these forty years we shall have little great timber growing about forty years old; for it is commonly seen that those young staddles which we leave standing at one and twenty years fall are usually at the next sale cut down without any danger of the statute, and serve for fire bote, if it please the owner to burn them. marshes and fenny bogs we have many in england, though not now so many as some of the old roman writers do specify, but more in wales, if you have respect unto the several quantities of the countries. howbeit, as they are very profitable in the summer half of the year, so are a number of them which lie low and near to great rivers to small commodity in the winter part, as common experience doth teach. yet this i find of many moors, that in times past they have been harder ground, and sundry of them well replenished with great woods that now are void of bushes. and, for the example hereof, we may see the trial (beside the roots that are daily found in the deeps of monmouth, where turf is digged, also in wales, abergavenny, and merioneth) in sundry parts of lancashire, where great store of fir hath grown in times past, as i said, and the people go unto this day into their fens and marshes with long spits, which they dash here and there up to the very cronge into the ground. in which practice (a thing commonly done in winter), if they happen to smite upon any fir trees which lie there at their whole lengths, or other blocks, they note the place, and about harvest time (when the ground is at the driest) they come again and get them up, and afterward, carrying them home, apply them to their uses. the like do they in shropshire with the like, which hath been felled in old time, within seven miles of salop. some of them foolishly suppose the same to have lien there since noah's flood: and other, more fond than the rest, imagine them to grow even in the places where they find them, without all consideration that in times past the most part, if not all, lhoegres and cambria was generally replenished with wood, which, being felled or overthrown upon sundry occasions, was left lying in some places still on the ground, and in process of time became to be quite overgrown with earth and moulds, which moulds, wanting their due sadness, are now turned into moory plots. whereby it cometh to pass also that great plenty of water cometh between the new loose swart and the old hard earth, that being drawn away by ditching and drains (a thing soon done, if our countrymen were painful in that behalf) might soon leave a dry soil to the great lucre and advantage of the owner. we find in our histories that lincoln was sometime builded by lud, brother to cassibelan, who called it cair ludcoit, of the great store of woods that environed the same: but now the commodity is utterly decayed there, so that if lud were alive again he would not call it his city in the wood, but rather his town in the plains: for the wood (as i hear) is wasted altogether about the same. the hills called the peak were in like sort named mennith and orcoit--that is, the woody hills and forests. but how much wood is now to be seen in those places, let him that hath been there testify if he list; for i hear of no such store there as hath been in time past by those that travel that way. and thus much of woods and marshes, and as far as i can deal with the same. chapter xx. of parks and warrens. [ , book ii., chapter ; , book ii., chapter .] in every shire of england there are great plenty of parks, whereof some here and there, to wit, well near to the number of two hundred, for her daily provision of that flesh, appertain to the prince, the rest to such of the nobility and gentlemen as have their lands and patrimonies lying in or near unto the same. i would gladly have set down the just number of these enclosures to be found in every county; but, sith i cannot so do, it shall suffice to say that in kent and essex only are to the number of an hundred, and twenty in the bishopric of durham, wherein great plenty of fallow deer is cherished and kept. as for warrens of conies, i judge them almost innumerable, and daily like to increase, by reason that the black skins[ ] of those beasts are thought to countervail the prices of their naked carcases, and this is the only cause why the grey are less esteemed. near unto london their quickest merchandise is of the young rabbits, wherefore the older conies[ ] are brought from further off, where there is no such speedy utterance of rabbits and sucklings[ ] in their season, nor so great loss by their skins, sith they are suffered to grow up to their full greatness with their owners. our parks are generally enclosed with strong pales made of oak, of which kind of wood there is great store cherished in the woodland countries from time to time in each of them only for the maintenance of the said defence and safe keeping of the fallow deer from ranging about the country. howbeit in times past divers have been fenced in with stone walls, especially in the times of the romans, who first brought fallow deer into this land (as some conjecture), albeit those enclosures were overthrown again by the saxons and danes, as cavisham, towner, and woodstock, beside other in the west country, and one also at bolton. among other things also to be seen in that town there is one of the fairest clocks in europe. where no wood is they are also enclosed with piles of slate; and thereto it is doubted of many whether our buck or doe are to be reckoned in wild or tame beasts or not. pliny deemeth them to be wild; martial is also of the same opinion, where he saith, "_imbelles damæ quid nisi præda sumus?_" and so in time past the like controversy was about bees, which the lawyers call _feras_ (_tit de acquirendo rerum dominio_, lib. instit.). but pliny, attempting to decide the quarrel, calleth them _medias inter feras et placidas aves_. but whither am i so suddenly digressed? in returning therefore unto our parks, i find also the circuit of these enclosures in like manner contain oftentimes a walk of four or five miles, and sometimes more or less. whereby it is to be seen what store of ground is employed upon that vain commodity, which bringeth no manner of gain or profit to the owner, sith they commonly give away their flesh, never taking penny for the same, except the ordinary fee, and parts of the deer given unto the keeper by a custom, who beside three shillings four pence or five shillings in money, hath the skin, head, umbles, chine, and shoulders: whereby he that hath the warrant for a whole buck hath in the end little more than half, which in my judgment is scarcely equal dealing; for venison in england is neither bought nor sold, as in other countries, but maintained only for the pleasure of the owner and his friends. albeit i heard of late of one ancient lady which maketh a great gain by selling yearly her husband's venison[ ] to the cooks (as another of no less name will not stick to ride to the market to see her butter sold), but not performed without infinite scoffs and mocks, even of the poorest peasants of the country, who think them as odious matters in ladies and women of such countenance to sell their venison and their butter as for an earl to feel his oxen, sheep, and lambs, whether they be ready for the butcher or not, or to sell his wool unto the clothier, or to keep a tan-house, or deal with such like affairs as belong not to men of honour, but rather to farmers or graziers; for which such, if there be any, may well be noted (and not unjustly) to degenerate from true nobility, and betake themselves to husbandry.[ ] and even the same enormity took place sometimes among the romans, and entered as far as into the very senate, of whom some one had two or three ships going upon the sea, pretending provision for their houses, but in truth following the trades of merchandise, till a law was made which did inhibit and restrain them. livy also telleth of another law which passed likewise against the senators by claudius the tribune, and help only of c. flaminius, that no senator, or he that had been father to any senator, should possess any ship or vessel above the capacity of three hundred amphoras, which was supposed sufficient for the carriage and recarriage of such necessities as should appertain unto his house, sith further trading with merchandises and commodities doth declare but a base and covetous mind (not altogether void of envy that any man should live but he: or that, if any gain were to be had, he only would have it himself), which is a wonderful dealing, and must needs prove in time the confusion of that country wherein such enormities are exercised. where in times past many large and wealthy occupiers were dwelling within the compass of some one park, and thereby great plenty of corn and cattle seen and to be had among them, beside a more copious procreation of human issue, whereby the realm was always better furnished with able men to serve the prince in his affairs, now there is almost nothing kept but a sort of wild and savage beasts, cherished for pleasure and delight; and yet some owners, still desirous to enlarge those grounds, as either for the breed and feeding of cattle, do not let daily to take in more, not sparing the very commons whereupon many townships now and then do live, affirming that we have already too great store of people in england, and that youth by marrying too soon do nothing profit the country, but fill it full of beggars to the hurt and utter undoing (they say) of the commonwealth. certes if it be not a curse of the lord to have our country converted in such sort, from the furniture of mankind into the walks and shrouds of wild beasts, i know not what is any.[ ] how many families also these great and small game (for so most keepers call them) have eaten up and are likely hereafter to devour, some men may conjecture, but many more lament, sith there is no hope of restraint to be looked for in this behalf because the corruption is so general. but, if a man may presently give a guess at the universality of this evil by contemplation of the circumstance, he shall say at the last that the twentieth part of the realm is employed upon deer and conies already, which seemeth very much if it be duly considered of. king henry the eighth, one of the noblest princes that ever reigned in this land, lamented oft that he was constrained to hire foreign aid, for want of competent store of soldiers here at home, perceiving (as it is indeed) that such supplies are oftentimes more hurtful than profitable unto those that entertain them, as may chiefly be seen in valens the emperor, our vortiger, and no small number of others. he would oft marvel in private talk how that, when seven or eight princes ruled here at once, one of them could lead thirty or forty thousand men to the field against another, or two of them , against the third, and those taken out only of their own dominions. but as he found the want, so he saw not the cause of this decay, which grew beside this occasion now mentioned, also by laying house to house and land to land, whereby many men's occupyings were converted into one, and the breed of people not a little thereby diminished. the avarice of landlords, by increasing of rents and fines, also did so weary the people that they were ready to rebel with him that would arise, supposing a short end in the wars to be better than a long and miserable life in peace. privileges and faculties also are another great cause of the ruin of a commonwealth and diminution of mankind: for, whereas law and nature doth permit all men to live in their best manner, and whatsoever trade they are exercised in, there cometh some privilege or other in the way which cutteth them off from this or that trade, whereby they must needs shift soil and seek unto other countries. by these also the greatest commodities are brought into the hands of few, who imbase, corrupt, and yet raise the prices of things at their own pleasures. example of this last i can give also in books, which, after the first impression of any one book, are for the most part very negligently handled:[ ] whereas, if another might print it so well as the first, then would men strive which of them should do it best; and so it falleth out in all other trades. it is an easy matter to prove that england was never less furnished with people than at this present; for, if the old records of every manor be sought (and search made to find what tenements are fallen either down or into the lord's hands, or brought and united together by other men), it will soon appear that, in some one manor, seventeen, eighteen, or twenty houses are shrunk. i know what i say, by mine own experience. notwithstanding that some one cottage be here and there erected of late, which is to little purpose. of cities and towns either utterly decayed or more than a quarter or half diminished, though some one be a little increased here and there, of towns pulled down for sheep-walks,[ ] and no more but the lordships now standing in them, beside those that william rufus pulled down in his time, i could say somewhat; but then i should swerve yet further from my purpose, whereunto i now return. we had no parks left in england at the coming of the normans, who added this calamity also to the servitude of our nation, making men of the best sort furthermore to become keepers of their game, whilst they lived in the meantime upon the spoil of their revenues, and daily overthrew towns, villages, and an infinite sort of families, for the maintenance of their venery. neither was any park supposed in these times to be stately enough that contained not at the least eight or ten hidelands, that is, so many hundred acres or families (or, as they have been always called in some places of the realm, carrucats or cartwares), of which one was sufficient in old time to maintain an honest yeoman. king john, travelling on a time northwards, to wit, , to war upon the king of scots, because he had married his daughter to the earl of bullen without his consent, in his return overthrew a great number of parks and warrens, of which some belonged to his barons, but the greatest part to the abbots and prelates of the clergy. for hearing (as he travelled), by complaint of the country, how these enclosures were the chief decay of men, and of tillage in the land, he sware with an oath that he would not suffer wild beasts to feed upon the fat of his soil, and see the people perish for want of ability to procure and buy them food that should defend the realm. howbeit, this act of his was so ill taken by the religious and their adherents, that they inverted his intent herein to another end, affirming, and most slanderously, how he did it rather of purpose to spoil the corn and grass of the commons and catholics that held against him of both estates, and by so doing to impoverish and bring the north part of the realm to destruction because they refused to go with him into scotland. if the said prince were alive in these days (wherein andrew boord saith there are more parks in england than in all europe, over which he travelled in his own person), and saw how much ground they consume, i think he would either double his oaths, or lay most of them open, that tillage might be better looked unto. but this i hope shall not need in time, for the owners of a great sort of them begin now to smell out that such parcels might be employed to their more gain, and therefore some of them do grow to be disparked. next of all, we have the frank chase, which taketh something both of park and forest, and is given either by the king's grant or prescription. certes it differeth not much from a park; nay, it is in manner the selfsame thing that a park is, saving that a park is environed with pale, wall, or such like, the chase always open and nothing at all enclosed, as we see in enfield and malvern chases. and, as it is the cause of the seizure of the franchise of a park not to keep the same enclosed, so it is the like in a chase if at any time it be imparked. it is trespass, and against the law also, for any man to have or make a chase, park, or free warren, without good warranty of the king by his charter or perfect title of prescription; for it is not lawful for any subject either to carnilate, that is, build stone houses, embattle, have the querk of the sea, or keep the assize of bread, ale, or wine, or set up furels, tumbrel, thew, or pillory, or enclose any ground to the aforesaid purposes within his own soil, without his warrant and grant. the beasts of the chase were commonly the buck, the roe, the fox, and the martern. but those of venery in old time were the hart, the hare, the boar, and the wolf; but as this held not in the time of canutus, so instead of the wolf the bear has now crept in, which is a beast commonly hunted in the east countries, and fed upon as excellent venison, although with us i know not any that feed thereon or care for it at all. certes it should seem that forests and frank chases have always been had, and religiously preserved in this island, for the solace of the prince and the recreation of his nobility: howbeit i read not that ever they were enclosed more than at this present, or otherwise fenced than by usual notes of limitation, whereby their bounds were remembered from time to time for the better preservation of such venery and vert of all sorts as were nourished in the same. neither are any of the ancient laws prescribed for their maintenance before the days of canutus now to be had, sith time hath so dealt with them that they are perished and lost. canutus therefore, seeing the daily spoil that was made almost in all places of his game, did at the last make sundry sanctions and decrees, whereby from thenceforth the red and fallow deer were better looked to throughout his whole dominions. we have in these days divers forests in england and wales, of which some belong to the king, and some to his subjects, as waltham forest, windsor, pickering, fecknam, delamore, gillingham, kingswood, wencedale, clun, rath, bredon, weir, charlie, leicester, lee, rockingham, selwood, new forest, wichwood, hatfield, savernake, westbury, blacamore peak, dean, penrise, and many others now clean out of my remembrance; and which, although they are far greater in circuit than many parks and warrens, yet are they in this our time less devourers of the people than these latter, sith, beside, much tillage and many towns are found in each of them, whereas in parks and warrens we have nothing else than either the keeper's and warrener's lodge, or, at least, the manor place of the chief lord and owner of the soil. i find also, by good record, that all essex hath in time past wholly been forest ground, except one cantred or hundred; but how long it is since it lost the said denomination, in good sooth i do not read. this nevertheless remaineth yet in memory, that the town of walden in essex, standing in the limits of the aforesaid county, doth take her name thereof. for in the keltic tongue, wherewith the saxon or scythian speech doth not a little participate, huge woods and forests were called _walds_, and likewise their druids were named _walie_ or _waldie_, because they frequented the woods, and there made sacrifice among the oaks and thickets. so that, if my conjecture in this behalf be anything at all, the aforesaid town taketh denomination of _wald_ and _end_, as if i should say, "the end of the woody soil;" for, being once out of that parish, the champaign is at hand. or it may be that it is so called of _wald_ and _dene_: for i have read it written in old evidences waldæne, with a diphthong. and to say truth, _dene_ is the old saxon word for a vale or low bottom, as _dune_ or _don_ is for a hill or hilly soil. certes, if it be so, then walden taketh her name of the woody vale, in which it sometime stood. but the first derivation liketh me better; and the highest part of the town is called also chipping-walden, of the saxon word _zipping_, which signifies "leaning or hanging," and may very well be applied thereunto, sith the whole town hangeth as it were upon the sides of two hills, whereof the lesser runneth quite through the midst of the same. i might here, for further confirmation of these things, bring in mention of the wald of kent; but this may suffice for the use of the word _wald_, which now differeth much from _wold_. for as that signifieth a woody soil, so this betokeneth a soil without wood, or plain champaign country, without any store of trees, as may be seen in cotswold, porkwold, etc. beside this i could say more of our forests, and the aforesaid enclosures also, and therein to prove by the book of forest law that the whole county of lancaster hath likewise been forest heretofore. also how william the bastard made a law that whosoever did take any wild beast within the forest should lose an ear (as henry the first did punish them either by life or limb, which ordinance was confirmed by henry the second and his peers at woodstock, whereupon great trouble rose under king john and henry the third, as appeareth by the chronicles); but it shall suffice to have said so much as is set down already.[ ] chapter xxi. of palaces belonging to the prince. [ , book ii., chapter ; , book ii., chapter .] it lieth not in me to set down exactly the number and names of the palaces belonging to the prince, nor to make any description of her grace's court, sith my calling is, and hath been such, as that i have scarcely presumed to peep in at her gates; much less then have i adventured to search out and know the estate of those houses, and what magnificent behaviour is to be seen within them. yet thus much will i say generally of all the houses and honours pertaining to her majesty, that they are builded either of square stone or brick, or else of both. and thereunto, although their capacity and hugeness be not so monstrous as the like of divers foreign princes are to be seen in the main and new found nations of the world, yet are they so curious, neat, and commodious as any of them, both for convenience of offices and lodgings and excellence of situation, which is not the least thing to be considered of in building. those that were builded before the time of king henry the eighth retain to these days the shew and image of the ancient kind of workmanship used in this land; but such as he erected after his own device (for he was nothing inferior in this trade to adrian the emperor and justician the law-giver) do represent another manner of pattern, which, as they are supposed to excel all the rest that he found standing in this realm, so they are and shall be a perpetual precedent unto those that do come after to follow in their works and buildings of importance. certes masonry did never better flourish in england than in his time. and albeit that in these days there be many goodly houses erected in the sundry quarters of this island, yet they are rather curious to the eye like paper work than substantial for continuance: whereas such as he did set up excels in both, and therefore may justly be preferred far above all the rest. the names of those which come now to my remembrance and are as yet reserved to her majesty's only use at pleasure are these: for of such as are given away i speak not, neither of those that are utterly decayed (as baynard's castle in london, builded in the days of the conqueror by a noble man called william baynard, whose wife inga builded the priory of little dunmow in the days of henry the first), neither of the tower royal there also, etc., sith i see no cause wherefore i should remember them and many of the like, of whose very ruins i have no certain knowledge. of such (i say therefore) as i erst mentioned, we have, first of all, whitehall, at the west end of london (which is taken for the most large and principal of all the rest), was first a lodging of the archbishops of york, then pulled down, begun by cardinal wolsey, and finally enlarged and finished by king henry the eighth. by east of this standeth durham place, sometime belonging to the bishops of durham, but converted also by king henry the eighth into a palace royal and lodging for the prince. of somerset place i speak not, yet if the first beginner thereof (i mean the lord edward, the learned and godly duke of somerset) had lived, i doubt not but it should have been well finished and brought to a sumptuous end; but as untimely death took him from that house and from us all, so it proved the stay of such proceeding as was intended about it. whereby it cometh to pass that it standeth as he left it. neither will i remember the tower of london, which is rather an armoury and house of munition, and thereunto a place for the safe keeping of offenders, than a palace royal for a king or queen to sojourn in. yet in times past i find that belliny held his abode there, and thereunto extended the site of his palace in such wise that it stretched over the broken wharf, and came further into the city, insomuch that it approached near to billingsgate; and, as it is thought, some of the ruins of his house are yet extant, howbeit patched up and made warehouses in that tract of ground in our times. st. james's, sometime a nunnery, was builded also by the same prince. her grace hath also oteland, ashridge, hatfield, havering, enfield, eltham, langley, richmond (builded by henry the first), hampton court (begun sometime by cardinal wolsey, and finished by her father), and thereunto woodstock, erected by king henry the first, in which the queen's majesty delighteth greatly to sojourn, notwithstanding that in time past it was the place of a parcel of her captivity, when it pleased god to try her by affliction and calamity. for strength, windlesor or windsor is supposed to be the chief, a castle builded in time past by king arthur, or before him by arviragus, as it is thought, and repaired by edward the third, who erected also a notable college there. after him, divers of his successors have bestowed exceeding charges upon the same, which notwithstanding are far surmounted by the queen's majesty now living, who hath appointed huge sums of money to be employed upon the ornature and alteration of the mould, according to the form of building used in our days, which is more for pleasure than for either profit or safeguard. such also hath been the estimation of this place that divers kings have not only been interred there, but also made it the chief house of assembly and creation of the knights of the honourable order of the garter, than the which there is nothing in this land more magnificent and stately. greenwich was first builded by humphrey, duke of gloucester, upon the thames side, four miles east from london, in the time of henry the sixth, and called pleasance. afterwards it was greatly enlarged by king edward iv., garnished by king henry vii., and finally made perfect by king henry viii., the only phoenix of his time for fine and curious masonry. not far from this is dartford, and not much distant also from the south side of the said stream, sometime a nunnery builded by edward the third, but now a very commodious palace, whereunto it was also converted by king henry the eighth. eltham (as i take it) was builded by king henry the third, if not before. there are besides these, moreover, divers others. but what shall i need to take upon me to repeat all, and tell what houses the queen's majesty hath? sith all is hers: and, when it pleaseth her in the summer season to recreate herself abroad, and view the estate of the country, and hear the complaints of her poor commons injured by her unjust officers or their substitutes, every noble man's house is her palace, where she continueth during pleasure, and till she return again to some of her own, in which she remaineth so long as pleaseth her. the court of england, which necessarily is holden always where the prince lieth, is in these days one of the most renowned and magnificent courts[ ] that are to be found in europe. for, whether you regard the rich and infinite furniture of household, order of officers, or the entertainment of such strangers as daily resort unto the same, you shall not find many equal thereunto, much less one excelling it in any manner of wise. i might here (if i would, or had sufficient disposition of matter conceived of the same) make a large discourse of such honourable ports, of such grave councillors, and noble personages, as give their daily attendance upon the queen's majesty there. i could in like sort set forth a singular commendation of the virtuous beauty or beautiful virtues of such ladies and gentlewomen as wait upon her person, between whose amiable countenances and costliness of attire there seemeth to be such a daily conflict and contention as that it is very difficult for me to guess whether of the twain shall bear away the pre-eminence. this further is not to be omitted, to the singular commendation of both sorts and sexes of our courtiers here in england, that there are very few of them which have not the use and skill of sundry speeches, besides an excellent vein of writing beforetime not regarded. would to god the rest of their lives and conversations were correspondent to these gifts! for as our common courtiers (for the most part) are the best learned and endued with excellent gifts, so are many of them the worst men when they come abroad that any man shall either hear or read of. truly it is a rare thing with us now to hear of a courtier which hath but his own language. and to say how many gentlewomen and ladies there are that besides sound knowledge of the greek and latin tongues are thereto no less skilful in the spanish, italian, and french, or in some one of them, it resteth not in me, sith i am persuaded that, as the noblemen and gentlemen do surmount in this behalf, so these come very little or nothing at all behind them for their parts: which industry god continue, and accomplish that which otherwise is wanting! besides these things, i could in like sort set down the ways and means whereby our ancient ladies of the court do shun and avoid idleness, some of them exercising their fingers with the needle, others in caulwork, divers in spinning of silk, some in continual reading either of the holy scriptures, or histories of our own or foreign nations about us, and divers in writing volumes of their own, or translating of other men's into our english and latin tongue,[ ] whilst the youngest sort in the meantime apply their lutes, citherns, pricksong, and all kind of music, which they use only for recreation's sake when they have leisure, and are free from attendance upon the queen's majesty or such as they belong unto. how many of the eldest sort also are skilful in surgery and distillation of waters, besides sundry other artificial practices pertaining to the ornature and commendations of their bodies, i might (if i listed to deal further in this behalf) easily declare; but i pass over such manner of dealing, lest i should seem to glaver and curry favour with some of them. nevertheless this i will generally say of them all, that as each of them are cunning in something whereby they keep themselves occupied in the court, so there is in manner none of them but when they be at home can help to supply the ordinary want of the kitchen with a number of delicate dishes of their own devising, wherein the portuguese is their chief counsellor, as some of them are most commonly with the clerk of the kitchen, who useth (by a trick taken up of late) to give in a brief rehearsal of such and so many dishes as are to come in at every course throughout the whole service in the dinner or supper while, which bill some do call a memorial, others a billet, but some a fillet, because such are commonly hanged on the file and kept by the lady or gentlewoman unto some other purpose. but whither am i digressed? i might finally describe the large allowances in offices and yearly liveries, and thereunto the great plenty of gold and silver plate, the several pieces whereof are commonly so great and massive, and the quantity thereof so abundantly serving all the household, that (as i suppose) cinyras, croesus, and crassus had not the like furniture; nay, if midas were now living and once again put to his choice, i think he could ask no more, or rather not half so much as is there to be seen and used. but i pass over to make such needless discourses, resolving myself that even in this also, as in all the rest, the exceeding mercy and loving kindness of god doth wonderfully appear towards us, in that he hath so largely endued us with these his so ample benefits. in some great princes' courts beyond the seas, and which even for that cause are likened unto hell by divers learned writers that have spent a great part of their time in them, as henricus cornelius agrippa, one (for example) who in his epistle _ad aulicum quendam_, saith thus-- "_an non in inferno es amice, qui es in aula, ubi dæmonum habitatio est, qui illic suis artibus humana licet effigie regnant, atque ubi scelerum schola est, et animarum jactura ingens, ac quicquid uspiam est perfidæ ac doli, quicquid crudelitatis et inclementiæ quicquid effrænatæ superbiæ et rapacis avariciæ quicquid obscenæ libidinis, fædissimæ impudicitiæ, quicquid nefandæ impietatis et norum pessimorum, totum illic acervatur cumulatissime ubi strupra, raptus, incestus, adulteria, principum et nobilium ludi sunt ubi fastus et tumor, ira, livor, foedaque cupido cum sociis suis imperavit, ubi, criminum omnium procellæ virtutumque omnium inenarrabile naufragium_," etc. in such great princes' courts (i say) it is a world to see what lewd behaviour is used among divers of those that resort unto the same, and what whoredom, swearing, ribaldry, atheism, dicing, carding, carousing, drunkenness, gluttony, quarrelling, and such like inconveniences do daily take hold, and sometimes even among those in whose estates the like behaviour is least convenient (whereby their talk is verified, which say that the thing increaseth and groweth in the courts of princes, saving virtue, which in such places doth languish and daily fade away), all which enormities are either utterly expelled out of the court of england or else so qualified by the diligent endeavour of the chief officers of her grace's household that seldom are any of these things apparently seen there without due reprehension and such severe correction as belongeth to those trespassers. finally, to avoid idleness, and prevent sundry transgressions otherwise likely to be committed and done, such order is taken that every office hath either a bible, or the books of the acts and monuments of the church of england, or both, besides some histories and chronicles lying therein, for the exercise of such as come into the same: whereby the stranger that entereth into the court of england upon the sudden shall rather imagine himself to come into some public school of the universities, where many give ear to one that readeth, than into a princes' palace, if you confer the same with those of other nations. would to god all honourable personages would take example of her grace's godly dealing in this behalf, and shew their conformity unto these her so good beginnings! which, if they would, then should many grievous offences (wherewith god is highly displeased) be cut off and restrained, which now do reign exceedingly, in most noble and gentlemen's houses, whereof they see no pattern within her grace's gates. i might speak here of the great trains and troops of serving men also which attend upon the nobility of england in their several liveries and with differences of cognisances on their sleeves, whereby it is known to whom they appertain. i could also set down what a goodly sight it is to see them muster in the court, which, being filled with them, doth yield the contemplation of a noble variety unto the beholder, much like to the shew of the peacock's tail in the full beauty, or of some meadow garnished with infinite kinds and diversities of pleasant flowers.[ ] but i pass over the rehearsal hereof to other men, who more delight in vain amplification than i, and seek to be more curious in these points than i profess to be.[ ] chapter xxii. of armour and munition. [ , book ii., chapter ; , book ii., chapter .] how well or how strongly our country hath been furnished in times past with armour and artillery it lieth not in me as of myself to make rehearsal. yet that it lacketh both in the late time of queen mary, not only the experience of mine elders, but also the talk of certain spaniards not yet forgotten, did leave some manifest notice. upon the first i need not stand, for few will deny it. for the second, i have heard that when one of the greatest peers of spain espied our nakedness in this behalf, and did solemnly utter in no obscure place that "it should be an easy matter in short time to conquer england, because it wanted armour," his words were then not so rashly uttered as they were politically noted. for, albeit that for the present time their efficacy was dissembled and semblance made as though he spake but merrily, yet at the very entrance of this our gracious queen unto the possession of the crown they were so providently called to remembrance, and such speedy reformation sought of all hands for the redress of this inconvenience, that our country was sooner furnished with armour and munition, from divers parts of the main (beside great plenty that was forged here at home), than our enemies could get understanding of any such provision to be made. by this policy also was the no small hope conceived by spaniards utterly cut off, who, of open friends being now become our secret enemies, and thereto watching a time wherein to achieve some heavy exploit against us and our country, did thereupon change their purposes, whereby england obtained rest, that otherwise might have been sure of sharp and cruel wars. thus a spanish word uttered by one man at one time overthrew, or at the leastwise hindered, sundry privy practices of many at another. in times past the chief force of england consisted in their long bows.[ ] but now we have in manner generally given over that kind of artillery, and for long bows indeed do practise to shoot compass for our pastime: which kind of shooting can never yield any smart stroke, nor beat down our enemies, as our countrymen were wont to do at every time of need. certes the frenchmen and rutters, deriding our new archery in respect of their corslets, will not let, in open skirmish, if any leisure serve, to turn up their tails and cry: "shoot, english!" and all because our strong shooting is decayed and laid in bed. but, if some of our englishmen now lived that served king edward the third in his wars with france, the breech of such a varlet should have been nailed to his bum with one arrow, and another feathered in his bowels before he should have turned about to see who shot the first. but, as our shooting is thus in manner utterly decayed among us one way, so our countrymen wax skilful in sundry other points, as in shooting in small pieces, the caliver, the handling of the pike, in the several uses whereof they are become very expert. our armour differeth not from that of other nations, and therefore consisteth of corslets, almaine rivets, shirts of mail, jacks quilted and covered over with leather, fustian, or canvas, over thick plates of iron that are sewed in the same, and of which there is no town or village that hath not her convenient furniture. the said armour and munition likewise is kept in one several place of every town, appointed by the consent of the whole parish, where it is always ready to be had and worn within an hour's warning. sometimes also it is occupied when it pleaseth the magistrate either to view the able men, and take note of the well-keeping of the same, or finally to see those that are enrolled to exercise each one his several weapon, at the charge of the townsmen of each parish, according to his appointment. certes there is almost no village so poor in england (be it never so small) that hath not sufficient furniture in a readiness to set forth three or four soldiers, as one archer, one gunner, one pike, and a billman at the least. no, there is not so much wanting as their very liveries and caps, which are least to be accounted of, if any haste required: so that, if this good order may continue, it shall be impossible for the sudden enemy to find us unprovided. as for able men for service, thanked be god! we are not without good store; for, by the musters taken and , our number amounted to , , , and yet were they not so narrowly taken but that a third part of this like multitude was left unbilled and uncalled. what store of munition and armour the queen's majesty had in her storehouses it lieth not in me to yield account, sith i suppose the same to be infinite. and whereas it was commonly said after the loss of calais that england should never recover the store of ordinance there left and lost, that same is at this time proved false, sith even some of the same persons do now confess that this land was never better furnished with these things in any king's days that reigned since the conquest. the names of our greatest ordnance are commonly these: _brobonet_, whose weight is two hundred pounds, and it hath one inch and a quarter within the mouth; _falconet_, weigheth five hundred pounds, and his wideness is two inches within the mouth; _falcon_, hath eight hundred pounds, and two inches and a half within the mouth; _minion_, poiseth eleven hundred pounds, and hath three inches and a quarter within the mouth; _sacre_, hath fifteen hundred pounds, and is three inches and a half wide in the mouth; _demi-culverin_, weigheth three thousand pounds, and hath four inches and a half within the mouth; _culverin_, hath four thousand pounds, and five inches and a half within the mouth; _demi-cannon_, six thousand pounds, and six inches and a half within the mouth; _cannon_, seven thousand pounds, and seven inches within the mouth; _e. cannon_, eight thousand pounds, and seven inches within the mouth; _basilisk_, nine thousand pounds, eight inches and three-quarters within the mouth. by which proportions also it is easy to come by the weight of every shot, how many scores it doth flee at point-blank, and how much powder is to be had to the same, and finally how many inches in height each bullet ought to carry: --------------------------------------------------------------- the names of the | weight of | scores of| pounds of| height of greatest ordnance.| the shot. | carriage.| powder. | bullet. --------------------------------------------------------------- robinet | lb. | | - / | falconet | lb. | | | - / falcon | - / lb.| | - / | - / minion | - / lb.| | - / | sacre | lb. | | | - / demi-culverin | lb. | | | culverin | lb. | | | - / demi-cannon | lb. | | | - / cannon | lb. | | | - / e. cannon | lb. | | | - / basilisk | lb. | | | - / --------------------------------------------------------------- i might here take just occasion to speak of the prince's armories. but what shall it need? sith the whole realm is her armory, and therefore her furniture infinite. the turk had one gun made by one orban, a dane, the caster of his ordnance, which could not be drawn to the siege of constantinople but by seventy yoke of oxen and two thousand men; he had two other there also whose shot poised above two talents in weight, made by the same orban. but to proceed. as for the armories of some of the nobility (whereof i also have seen a part), they are so well furnished that within some one baron's custody i have seen three score or a hundred corslets at once, besides calivers, hand-guns, bows, sheaves of arrows, pikes, bills, poleaxes, flasks, touchboxes, targets, etc., the very sight whereof appalled my courage. what would the wearing of some of them do then (trow you) if i should be enforced to use one of them in the field? but thanked be god! our peaceable days are such as no man hath any great cause to occupy them at all, but only taketh good leisure to have them in a readiness, and therefore both high and low in england.[ ] "_cymbala pro galeis pro scutis tympana pulsant._" i would write here also of our manner of going to the wars, but what hath the long black gown to do with glittering armour? what sound acquaintance can there be betwixt mars and the muses? or how should a man write anything to the purpose of that wherewith he is nothing acquainted? this nevertheless will i add of things at home, that seldom shall you see any of my countrymen above eighteen or twenty years old to go without a dagger at the least at his back or by his side, although they be aged burgesses or magistrates of any city who in appearance are most exempt from brabling and contention. our nobility wear commonly swords or rapiers with their daggers, as doth every common serving-man also that followeth his lord and master. some desperate cutters we have in like sort, which carry two daggers or two rapiers in a sheath always about them, wherewith in every drunken fray they are known to work much mischief. their swords and daggers also are of a great length, and longer than the like used in any other country, whereby each one pretendeth to have the more advantage of his enemy. but as many orders have been taken for the intolerable length of these weapons, so i see as yet small redress; but where the cause thereof doth rest, in sooth for my part, i wot not. i might here speak of the excessive staves which divers that travel by the way do carry upon their shoulders, whereof some are twelve or thirteen foot long, beside the pike of twelve inches; but, as they are commonly suspected of honest men to be thieves and robbers, or at the leastwise scarce true men which bear them, so by reason of this and the like suspicious weapons the honest traveller is now forced to ride with a case of dags at his saddlebow, or with some pretty short snapper, whereby he may deal with them further off in his own self-defence before he come within the danger of these weapons. finally, no man travelleth by the way without his sword, or some such weapon, with us, except the minister, who commonly weareth none at all, unless it be a dagger or hanger at his side. seldom also are they or any other wayfaring men robbed, without the consent of the chamberlain, tapster, or ostler where they bait and lie, who feeling at their alighting whether their capcases or budgets be of any weight or not, by taking them down from their saddles, or otherwise see their store in drawing of their purses, do by-and-by give intimation to some one or other attendant daily in the yard or house, or dwelling hard by, upon such matches, whether the prey be worth the following or no. if it be for their turn, then the gentleman peradventure is asked which way he travelleth, and whether it please him to have another guest to bear him company at supper, who rideth the same way in the morning that he doth, or not. and thus if he admit him, or be glad of his acquaintance, the cheat is half wrought. and often it is seen that the new guest shall be robbed with the old, only to colour out the matter and keep him from suspicion. sometimes, when they know which way the passenger travelleth, they will either go before and lie in wait for him, or else come galloping apace after, whereby they will be sure, if he ride not the stronger, to be fingering with his purse. and these are some of the policies of such shrews or close-booted gentlemen as lie in wait for fat booties by the highways, and which are most commonly practised in the winter season, about the feast of christmas, when serving-men and unthrifty gentlemen want money to play at the dice and cards, lewdly spending in such wise whatsoever they have wickedly gotten, till some of them sharply set upon their chevisances, be trussed up in a tyburn tippet, which happeneth unto them commonly before they come to middle age. whereby it appeareth that some sort of youth will oft have his swing, although it be in a halter.[ ] chapter xxiii. of the navy of england. [ , book ii., chapter ; , book ii., chapter .] there is nothing that hath brought me into more admiration of the power and force of antiquity than their diligence and care had of their navies: wherein, whether i consider their speedy building, or great number of ships which some one kingdom or region possessed at one instant, it giveth me still occasion either to suspect the history, or to think that in our times we come very far behind them.[ ] * * * * * i must needs confess therefore that the ancient vessels far exceeded ours for capacity, nevertheless if you regard the form, and the assurance from peril of the sea, and therewithal the strength and nimbleness of such as are made in our time, you shall easily find that ours are of more value than theirs: for as the greatest vessel is not always the fastest, so that of most huge capacity is not always the aptest to shift and brook the seas: as might be seen by the _great henry_,[ ] the hugest vessel that ever england framed in our times. neither were the ships of old like unto ours in mould and manner of building above the water (for of low galleys in our seas we make small account) nor so full of ease within, since time hath engendered more skill in the wrights, and brought all things to more perfection than they had in the beginning. and now to come unto our purpose at the first intended. the navy of england may be divided into three sorts, of which the one serveth for the wars, the other for burden, and the third for fishermen which get their living by fishing on the sea. how many of the first order are maintained within the realm it passeth my cunning to express; yet, since it may be parted into the navy royal and common fleet, i think good to speak of those that belong unto the prince, and so much the rather, for that their number is certain and well known to very many. certainly there is no prince in europe that hath a more beautiful or gallant sort of ships than the queen's majesty of england at this present, and those generally are of such exceeding force that two of them, being well appointed and furnished as they ought, will not let to encounter with three or four of those of other countries, and either bowge them or put them to flight, if they may not bring them home.[ ] neither are the moulds of any foreign barks so conveniently made, to brook so well one sea as another lying upon the shore of any part of the continent, as those of england. and therefore the common report that strangers make of our ships amongst themselves is daily confirmed to be true, which is, that for strength, assurance, nimbleness, and swiftness of sailing, there are no vessels in the world to be compared with ours. and all these are committed to the regiment and safe custody of the admiral, who is so called (as some imagine) of the greek word _almiras_, a captain on the sea; for so saith zonaras in _basilio macedone_ and _basilio porphyriogenito_, though others fetch it from _ad mare_, the latin words, another sort from _amyras_, the saracen magistrate, or from some french derivation: but these things are not for this place, and therefore i pass them over. the queen's highness hath at this present (which is the four-and-twentieth of her reign) already made and furnished, to the number of four or five-and-twenty great ships, which lie for the most part in gillingham road, beside three galleys, of whose particular names and furniture (so far forth as i can come by them) it shall not be amiss to make report at this time.[ ] _the names of so many ships belonging to her majesty as i could come by at this present._ the bonadventure. foresight. elizabeth jonas.[ ] swift sute. white bear. aid. philip and mary. handmaid. triumph. dreadnought. bull. swallow. tiger.[ ] genet. antelope. bark of bullen. hope. achates. lion. falcon. victory. george. mary rose. revenge.[ ] it is said that as kings and princes have in the young days of the world, and long since, framed themselves to erect every year a city in some one place or other of their kingdom (and no small wonder that sardanapalus should begin and finish two, to wit, anchialus and tarsus, in one day), so her grace doth yearly build one ship or other to the better defence of her frontiers from the enemy. but, as of this report i have no assured certainty, so it shall suffice to have said so much of these things; yet this i think worthy further to be added, that if they should all be driven to service at one instant (which god forbid) she should have a power by sea of about nine or ten thousand men, which were a notable company, beside the supply of other vessels appertaining to her subjects to furnish up her voyage. beside these, her grace hath other in hand also, of whom hereafter, as their turns do come about, i will not let to leave some further remembrance. she hath likewise three notable galleys: the speedwell, the try right, and the black galley, with the sight whereof, and the rest of the navy royal, it is incredible to say how greatly her grace is delighted: and not without great cause (i say) since by their means her coasts are kept in quiet, and sundry foreign enemies put back, which otherwise would invade us.[ ] the number of those that serve for burden with the other, whereof i have made mention already and whose use is daily seen, as occasion serveth in time of the wars, is to me utterly unknown. yet if the report of one record be anything at all to be credited, there are one hundred and thirty-five ships that exceed five hundred ton; topmen, under one hundred and above forty, six hundred and fifty-six; hoys, one hundred; but of hulks, catches, fisherboats, and crayers, it lieth not in me to deliver the just account, since they are hard to come by. of these also there are some of the queen's majesty's subjects that have two or three; some, four or six; and (as i heard of late) one man, whose name i suppress for modesty's sake, hath been known not long since to have had sixteen or seventeen, and employed them wholly to the wafting in and out of our merchants, whereby he hath reaped no small commodity and gain. i might take occasion to tell of the notable and difficult voyages made into strange countries by englishmen, and of their daily success there;[ ] but as these things are nothing incident to my purpose, so i surcease to speak of them. only this will i add, to the end all men shall understand somewhat of the great masses of treasure daily employed upon our navy, how there are few of those ships, of the first and second sort, that, being apparelled and made ready to sail, are not worth one thousand pounds, or three thousand ducats at the least, if they should presently be sold. what shall we think then of the greater, but especially of the navy royal, of which some one vessel is worth two of the other, as the shipwrights have often told me? it is possible that some covetous person, hearing this report, will either not credit it at all, or suppose money so employed to be nothing profitable to the queen's coffers: as a good husband said once when he heard there should be a provision made for armour, wishing the queen's money to be rather laid out to some speedier return of gain unto her grace, "because the realm (saith he) is in case good enough," and so peradventure he thought. but if, as by store of armour for the defence of the country, he had likewise understanded that the good keeping of the sea is the safeguard of our land, he would have altered his censure, and soon given over his judgment. for in times past, when our nation made small account of navigation, how soon did the romans, then the saxons, and last of all the danes, invade this island? whose cruelty in the end enforced our countrymen, as it were even against their wills, to provide for ships from other places, and build at home of their own, whereby their enemies were oftentimes distressed. but most of all were the normans therein to be commended. for, in a short process of time after the conquest of this island, and good consideration had for the well-keeping of the same, they supposed nothing more commodious for the defence of the country than the maintenance of a strong navy, which they speedily provided, maintained, and thereby reaped in the end their wished security, wherewith before their times this island was never acquainted. before the coming of the romans i do not read that we had any ships at all, except a few made of wicker and covered with buffalo hides, like unto which there are some to be seen at this present in scotland (as i hear), although there be a little (i wot not well what) difference between them. of the same also solinus speaketh, so far as i remember: nevertheless it may be gathered from his words how the upper parts of them above the water only were framed of the said wickers, and that the britons did use to fast all the whiles they went to the sea in them; but whether it were done for policy or superstition, as yet i do not read. in the beginning of the saxons' regiment we had some ships also; but as their number and mould was little, and nothing to the purpose, so egbert was the first prince that ever thoroughly began to know this necessity of a navy and use the service thereof in the defence of his country. after him also other princes, as alfred, edgar, ethelred, etc., endeavoured more and more to store themselves at the full with ships of all quantities, but chiefly edgar, for he provided a navy of _aliàs_ sail, which he divided into four parts, and sent them to abide upon four sundry coasts of the land, to keep the same from pirates. next unto him (and worthy to be remembered) is etheldred, who made a law that every man that hold hidelands should find a ship furnished to serve him in the wars. howbeit, as i said before, when all their navy was at the greatest, it was not comparable for force and sure building to that which afterward the normans provided, neither that of the normans anything like to the same that is to be seen now in these our days. for the journeys also of our ships, you shall understand that a well-builded vessel will run or sail commonly three hundred leagues or nine hundred miles in a week, or peradventure some will go leagues in six weeks and a half. and surely, if their lading be ready against they come thither, there be of them that will be here, at the west indies, and home again in twelve or thirteen weeks from colchester, although the said indies be eight hundred leagues from the cape or point of cornwall, as i have been informed. this also i understand by report of some travellers, that, if any of our vessels happen to make a voyage to hispaniola or new spain (called in time past quinquegia and haiti), which lieth between the north tropic and the equator, after they have once touched at the canaries (which are eight days' sailing or two hundred and fifty leagues from st. lucas de barameda, in spain) they will be there in thirty or forty days, and home again in cornwall in other eight weeks, which is a goodly matter, beside the safety and quietness in the passage, but more of this elsewhere. chapter xxiv. of sundry kinds of punishment appointed for offenders. [ , book iii., chapter ; , book ii., chapter .] in cases of felony, manslaughter, robbery, murder, rape, piracy, and such capital crimes as are not reputed for treason or hurt of the estate, our sentence pronounced upon the offender is, to hang till he be dead. for of other punishments used in other countries we have no knowledge or use; and yet so few grievous crimes committed with us as elsewhere in the world. to use torment also or question by pain and torture in these common cases with us is greatly abhorred, since we are found always to be such as despise death, and yet abhor to be tormented, choosing rather frankly to open our minds than to yield our bodies unto such servile haulings and tearings as are used in other countries. and this is one cause wherefore our condemned persons do go so cheerfully to their deaths; for our nation is free, stout, haughty, prodigal of life and blood, as sir thomas smith saith, lib. , cap. , _de republica_,[ ] and therefore cannot in any wise digest to be used as villains and slaves, in suffering continually beating, servitude, and servile torments.[ ] no, our gaolers are guilty of felony, by an old law of the land, if they torment any prisoner committed to their custody for the revealing of his accomplices. the greatest and most grievous punishment used in england for such as offend against the state is drawing from the prison to the place of execution upon an hurdle or sled, where they are hanged till they be half dead, and then taken down, and quartered alive; after that, their members and bowels are cut from their bodies, and thrown into a fire,[ ] provided near hand and within their own sight, even for the same purpose. sometimes, if the trespass be not the more heinous, they are suffered to hang till they be quite dead. and whensoever any of the nobility are convicted of high treason by their peers, that is to say, equals (for an inquest of yeomen passeth not upon them, but only of the lords of parliament), this manner of their death is converted into the loss of their heads only, notwithstanding that the sentence do run after the former order. in trial of cases concerning treason, felony, or any other grievous crime not confessed, the party accused doth yield, if he be a noble man, to be tried by an inquest (as i have said) and his peers; if a gentleman, by gentlemen; and an inferior, by god and by the country, to wit, the yeomanry (for combat or battle is not greatly in use), and, being condemned of felony, manslaughter, etc., he is eftsoons hanged by the neck till he be dead, and then cut down and buried. but if he be convicted of wilful murder, done either upon pretended malice or in any notable robbery, he is either hanged alive in chains near the place where the fact was committed (or else upon compassion taken, first strangled with a rope), and so continueth till his bones consume to nothing. we have use neither of the wheel nor of the bar, as in other countries; but, when wilful manslaughter is perpetrated, beside hanging, the offender hath his right hand commonly stricken off before or near unto the place where the act was done, after which he is led forth to the place of execution, and there put to death according to the law. the word felon is derived of the saxon words _fell_ and _one_, that is to say, an evil and wicked one, a one of untameable nature and lewdness not to be suffered for fear of evil example and the corruption of others. in like sort in the word _felony_ are many grievous crimes contained, as breach of prison (ann. of edward the second), disfigurers of the prince's liege people (ann. of henry the fourth), hunting by night with painted faces and visors (ann. of henry the seventh), rape, or stealing of women and maidens (ann. of henry eight), conspiracies against the person of the prince (ann. of henry the seventh), embezzling of goods committed by the master to the servant above the value of forty shillings (ann. of henry the eighth), carrying of horses or mares into scotland (ann. of henry eight), sodomy and buggery[ ] (ann. of henry the eighth), conjuring,[ ] forgery, witchcraft, and digging up of crosses (ann. of henry eight),[ ] prophesying upon arms, cognisances, names, and badges (ann. of henry eight), casting of slanderous bills (ann. , henry eight), wilful killing by poison (ann. of edward the sixth), departure of a soldier from the field (ann. of edward the sixth), diminution of coin, all offences within case of premunire, embezzling of records, goods taken from dead men by their servants, stealing of whatsoever cattle, robbing by the high way, upon the sea, or of dwelling houses, letting out of ponds, cutting of purses,[ ] stealing of deer by night,[ ] counterfeits of coin,[ ] evidences charters, and writings, and divers other needless to be remembered. if a woman poison her husband, she is burned alive;[ ] if the servant kill his master, he is to be executed for petty treason; he that poisoneth a man is to be boiled to death in water or lead, although the party die not of the practice; in cases of murder, all the accessories are to suffer pains of death accordingly. perjury is punished by the pillory, burning in the forehead with the letter p, the rewalting of the trees growing upon the grounds of the offenders, and loss of all his movables. many trespasses also are punished by the cutting off of one or both ears from the head of the offender, as the utterance of seditious words against the magistrates, fraymakers, petty robbers, etc. rogues are burned through the ears; carriers of sheep out of the land, by the loss of their hands; such as kill by poison are either boiled or scalded to death in lead or seething water. heretics are burned quick;[ ] harlots and their mates, by carting, ducking, and doing of open penance in sheets in churches and market steeds, are often put to rebuke. howbeit, as this is counted with some either as no punishment at all to speak of, or but little regarded of the offenders, so i would with adultery and fornication to have some sharper law. for what great smart is it to be turned out of hot sheet into a cold, or after a little washing in the water to be let loose again unto their former trades? howbeit the dragging of some of them over the thames between lambeth and westminster at the tail of a boat is a punishment that most terrifieth them which are condemned thereto; but this is inflicted upon them by none other than the knight marshall, and that within the compass of his jurisdiction and limits only. canutus was the first that gave authority to the clergy to punish whoredom, who at that time found fault with the former laws as being too severe in this behalf. for, before the time of the said canutus, the adulterer forfeited all his goods to the king and his body to be at his pleasure; and the adulteress was to lose her eyes or nose, or both if the case were more than common: whereby it appears of what estimation marriage was amongst them, since the breakers of that holy estate were so grievously rewarded. but afterward the clergy dealt more favourably with them, shooting rather at the punishments of such priests and clerks as were married than the reformation of adultery and fornication, wherein you shall find no example that any severity was shewed except upon such lay men as had defiled their nuns. as in theft therefore, so in adultery and whoredom, i would wish the parties trespassing to be made bond or slaves unto those that received the injury, to sell and give where they listed, or to be condemned to the galleys: for that punishment would prove more bitter to them than half-an-hour's hanging, or than standing in a sheet, though the weather be never so cold. manslaughter in time past was punished by the purse, wherein the quantity or quality of the punishment was rated after the state and calling of the party killed: so that one was valued sometime at , another at , or shillings. and by a statute made under henry the first, a citizen of london at , whereof elsewhere i have spoken more at large. such as kill themselves are buried in the field with a stake driven through their bodies. witches are hanged, or sometimes burned; but thieves are hanged (as i said before) generally on the gibbet or gallows, saving in halifax, where they are beheaded after a strange manner, and whereof i find this report. there is and has been of ancient time a law, or rather a custom, at halifax, that whosoever does commit any felony, and is taken with the same, or confesses the fact upon examination, if it be valued by four constables to amount to the sum of thirteenpence-halfpenny, he is forthwith beheaded upon one of the next market days (which fall usually upon the tuesdays, thursdays, and saturdays), or else upon the same day that he is so convicted, if market be then holden. the engine wherewith the execution is done is a square block of wood of the length of four feet and a half, which does ride up and down in a slot, rabbet, or regall, between two pieces of timber, that are framed and set upright, of five yards in height. in the nether end of the sliding block is an axe, keyed or fastened with an iron into the wood, which being drawn up to the top of the frame is there fastened by a wooden pin (with a notch made into the same, after the manner of a samson's post), unto the midst of which pin also there is a long rope fastened that cometh down among the people, so that, when the offender hath made his confession and hath laid his neck over the nethermost block, every man there present doth either take hold of the rope (or putteth forth his arm so near to the same as he can get, in token that he is willing to see true justice executed), and, pulling out the pin in this manner, the head-block wherein the axe is fastened doth fall down with such a violence that, if the neck of the transgressor were as big as that of a bull, it should be cut in sunder at a stroke and roll from the body by a huge distance. if it be so that the offender be apprehended for an ox, oxen, sheep, kine, horse, or any such cattle, the self beast or other of the same kind shall have the end of the rope tied somewhere unto them, so that they, being driven, do draw out the pin, whereby the offender is executed. thus much of halifax law, which i set down only to shew the custom of that country in this behalf. rogues and vagabonds are often stocked and whipped; scolds are ducked upon cucking-stools in the water. such felons as stand mute, and speak not at their arraignment, are pressed to death by huge weights laid upon a board, that lieth over their breast, and a sharp stone under their backs; and these commonly held their peace, thereby to save their goods unto their wives and children, which, if they were condemned, should be confiscated to the prince. thieves that are saved by their books and clergy, for the first offence, if they have stolen nothing else but oxen, sheep, money, or such like, which be no open robberies, as by the highway side, or assailing of any man's house in the night, without putting him in fear of his life, or breaking up his walls or doors, are burned in the left hand, upon the brawn of the thumb, with a hot iron, so that, if they be apprehended again, that mark betrayeth them to have been arraigned of felony before, whereby they are sure at that time to have no mercy. i do not read that this custom of saving by the book is used anywhere else than in england; neither do i find (after much diligent enquiry) what saxon prince ordained that law. howbeit this i generally gather thereof, that it was devised to train the inhabitants of this land to the love of learning, which before contemned letters and all good knowledge, as men only giving themselves to husbandry and the wars: the like whereof i read to have been amongst the goths and vandals, who for a time would not suffer even their princes to be learned, for weakening of their courage, nor any learned men to remain in the council house, but by open proclamation would command them to avoid whensoever anything touching the state of the land was to be consulted upon. pirates and robbers by sea are condemned in the court of the admiralty, and hanged on the shore at low-water mark, where they are left till three tides have overwashed them.[ ] finally, such as having walls and banks near unto the sea, and do suffer the same to decay (after convenient admonition), whereby the water entereth and drowneth up the country, are by a certain ancient custom apprehended, condemned, and staked in the breach, where they remain for ever as parcel of the foundation of the new wall that is to be made upon them, as i have heard reported. and thus much in part of the administration of justice used in our country, wherein, notwithstanding that we do not often hear of horrible, merciless, and wilful murders (such i mean as are not seldom seen in the countries of the main), yet now and then some manslaughter and bloody robberies are perpetrated and committed, contrary to the laws, which be severely punished, and in such wise as i have before reported. certes there is no greater mischief done in england than by robberies, the first by young shifting gentlemen, which oftentimes do bear more port than they are able to maintain. secondly by serving-men,[ ] whose wages cannot suffice so much as to find them breeches; wherefore they are now and then constrained either to keep highways, and break into the wealthy men's houses with the first sort, or else to walk up and down in gentlemen's and rich farmer's pastures, there to see and view which horses feed best, whereby they many times get something, although with hard adventure: it hath been known by their confession at the gallows that some one such chapman hath had forty, fifty, or sixty stolen horses at pasture here and there abroad in the country at a time, which they have sold at fairs and markets far off, they themselves in the mean season being taken about home for honest yeomen, and very wealthy drovers, till their dealings have been betrayed. it is not long since one of this company was apprehended, who was before time reputed for a very honest and wealthy townsman; he uttered also more horses than any of his trade, because he sold a reasonable pennyworth and was a fair-spoken man. it was his custom likewise to say, if any man hucked hard with him about the price of a gelding, "so god help me, gentlemen (or sir), either he did cost me so much, or else, by jesus, i stole him!" which talk was plain enough; and yet such was his estimation that each believed the first part of his tale, and made no account of the latter, which was truer indeed. our third annoyers of the commonwealth are rogues, which do very great mischief in all places where they become. for, whereas the rich only suffer injury by the first two, these spare neither rich nor poor; but, whether it be great gain or small, all is fish that cometh to net with them. and yet, i say, both they and the rest are trussed up apace. for there is not one year commonly wherein three hundred or four hundred of them are not devoured and eaten up by the gallows in one place and other. it appeareth by cardan (who writeth it upon the report of the bishop of lexovia), in the geniture of king edward the sixth, how henry the eighth, executing his laws very severely against such idle persons, i mean great thieves, petty thieves, and rogues, did hang up threescore and twelve thousand of them in his time. he seemed for a while greatly to have terrified the rest; but since his death the number of them is so increased, yea, although we have had no wars, which are a great occasion of their breed (for it is the custom of the more idle sort, having once served, or but seen the other side of the sea under colour of service, to shake hand with labour for ever, thinking it a disgrace for himself to return unto his former trade), that, except some better order be taken, or the laws already made be better executed, such as dwell in uplandish towns and little villages shall live but in small safety and rest. for the better apprehension also of thieves and man-killers, there is an old law in england very well provided whereby it is ordered that, if he that is robbed (or any man) complain and give warning of slaughter or murder committed, the constable of the village whereunto he cometh and crieth for succour is to raise the parish about him, and to search woods, groves, and all suspected houses and places, where the trespasser may be, or is supposed to lurk; and not finding him there, he is to give warning unto the next constable, and so one constable, after search made, to advertise another from parish to parish, till they come to the same where the offender is harboured and found. it is also provided that, if any parish in this business do not her duty, but suffereth the thief (for the avoiding of trouble sake) in carrying him to the gaol, if he should be apprehended, or other letting of their work to escape, the same parish is not only to make fine to the king, but also the same, with the whole hundred wherein it standeth, to repay the party robbed his damages, and leave his estate harmless. certainly this is a good law; howbeit i have known by my own experience felons being taken to have escaped out of the stocks, being rescued by other for want of watch and guard, that thieves have been let pass, because the covetous and greedy parishioners would neither take the pains nor be at the charge, to carry them to prison, if it were far off; that when hue and cry have been made even to the faces of some constables, they have said: "god restore your loss! i have other business at this time." and by such means the meaning of many a good law is left unexecuted, malefactors emboldened; and many a poor man turned out of that which he hath sweat and taken great pains toward the maintenance of himself and his poor children and family. chapter xxv. of universities. [ , book ii., chapter ; , book ii., chapter .] there have been heretofore, and at sundry times, divers famous universities in this island, and those even in my days not altogether forgotten, as one at bangor, erected by lucius, and afterward converted into a monastery, not by congellus (as some write), but by pelagius the monk. the second at caerleon-upon-usk, near to the place where the river doth fall into the severn, founded by king arthur. the third at thetford, wherein were six hundred students, in the time of one rond, sometime king of that region. the fourth at stamford, suppressed by augustine the monk. and likewise other in other places, as salisbury, eridon or cricklade, lachlade, reading, and northampton; albeit that the two last rehearsed were not authorised, but only arose to that name by the departure of the students from oxford in time of civil dissension unto the said towns, where also they continued but for a little season. when that of salisbury began i cannot tell; but that it flourished most under henry the third and edward the first i find good testimony by the writers, as also by the discord which fell, , between the chancellor for the scholars there on the one part and william the archdeacon on the other, whereof you shall see more in the chronology here following. in my time there are three noble universities in england--to wit, one at oxford, the second at cambridge, and the third in london; of which the first two are the most famous, i mean cambridge and oxford, for that in them the use of the tongues, philosophy, and the liberal sciences, besides the profound studies of the civil law, physic, and theology, are daily taught and had: whereas in the latter the laws of the realm are only read and learned by such as give their minds unto the knowledge of the same. in the first there are not only divers goodly houses builded four square for the most part of hard freestone or brick, with great numbers of lodgings and chambers in the same for students, after a sumptuous sort, through the exceeding liberality of kings, queens, bishops, noblemen and ladies of the land; but also large livings and great revenues bestowed upon them (the like whereof is not to be seen in any other region, as peter martyr did oft affirm) to the maintenance only of such convenient numbers of poor men's sons as the several stipends bestowed upon the said houses are able to support.[ ] * * * * * of these two, that of oxford (which lieth west and by north from london) standeth most pleasantly, being environed in manner round about with woods on the hills aloft, and goodly rivers in the bottoms and valleys beneath, whose courses would breed no small commodity to that city and country about if such impediments were removed as greatly annoy the same and hinder the carriage which might be made thither also from london. that of cambridge is distant from london about forty and six miles north and by east, and standeth very well, saving that it is somewhat near unto the fens, whereby the wholesomeness of the air is not a little corrupted. it is excellently well served with all kinds of provisions, but especially of fresh water fish and wild fowl, by reason of the river that passeth thereby; and thereto the isle of ely, which is so near at hand. only wood is the chief want to such as study there, wherefore this kind of provision is brought them either from essex and other places thereabouts, as is also their coal, or otherwise the necessity thereof is supplied with gall (a bastard kind of mirtus as i take it) and seacoal, whereof they have great plenty led thither by the grant. moreover it hath not such store of meadow ground as may suffice for the ordinary expenses of the town and university, wherefore the inhabitants are enforced in like sort to provide their hay from other villages about, which minister the same unto them in very great abundance. oxford is supposed to contain in longitude eighteen degrees and eight and twenty minutes, and in latitude one and fifty degrees and fifty minutes: whereas that of cambridge standing more northerly, hath twenty degrees and twenty minutes in longitude, and thereunto fifty and two degrees and fifteen minutes in latitude, as by exact supputation is easy to be found. the colleges of oxford, for curious workmanship and private commodities, are much more stately, magnificent, and commodious than those of cambridge: and thereunto the streets of the town for the most part are more large and comely. but for uniformity of building, orderly compaction, and politic regiment, the town of cambridge, as the newer workmanship,[ ] exceeds that of oxford (which otherwise is, and hath been, the greater of the two) by many a fold (as i guess), although i know divers that are of the contrary opinion. this also is certain, that whatsoever the difference be in building of the town streets, the townsmen of both are glad when they may match and annoy the students, by encroaching upon their liberties, and keep them bare by extreme sale of their wares, whereby many of them become rich for a time, but afterward fall again into poverty, because that goods evil gotten do seldom long endure.[ ] * * * * * in each of these universities also is likewise a church dedicated to the virgin mary, wherein once in the year--to wit, in july--the scholars are holden, and in which such as have been called to any degree in the year precedent do there receive the accomplishment of the same, in solemn and sumptuous manner. in oxford this solemnity is called an act, but in cambridge they use the french word _commencement_; and such resort is made yearly unto the same from all parts of the land by the friends of those who do proceed that all the town is hardly able to receive and lodge those guests. when and by whom the churches aforesaid were built i have elsewhere made relation. that of oxford also was repaired in the time of edward the fourth and henry the seventh, when doctor fitz james, a great helper in that work, was warden of merton college; but ere long, after it was finished, one tempest in a night so defaced the same that it left few pinnacles standing about the church and steeple, which since that time have never been repaired. there were sometime four and twenty parish churches in the town and suburbs; but now there are scarcely sixteen. there have been also burgesses, of which dwelt in the suburbs; and so many students were there in the time of henry the third that he allowed them twenty miles compass about the town for their provision of victuals. the common schools of cambridge also are far more beautiful than those of oxford, only the divinity school at oxford excepted, which for fine and excellent workmanship cometh next the mould of the king's chapel in cambridge, than the which two, with the chapel that king henry the seventh did build at westminster, there are not (in my opinion) made of lime and stone three more notable piles within the compass of europe. in all other things there is so great equality between these two universities as no man can imagine how to set down any greater, so that they seem to be the body of one well-ordered commonwealth, only divided by distance of place and not in friendly consent and orders. in speaking therefore of the one i cannot but describe the other; and in commendation of the first i cannot but extol the latter; and, so much the rather, for that they are both so dear unto me as that i cannot readily tell unto whether of them i owe the most good-will. would to god my knowledge were such as that neither of them might have cause to be ashamed of their pupil, or my power so great that i might worthily requite them both for those manifold kindnesses that i have received of them! but to leave these things, and proceed with other more convenient to my purpose. the manner to live in these universities is not as in some other of foreign countries we see daily to happen, where the students are enforced for want of such houses to dwell in common inns, and taverns, without all order or discipline. but in these our colleges we live in such exact order, and under so precise rules of government, as that the famous learned man erasmus of rotterdam, being here among us fifty years passed, did not let to compare the trades in living of students in these two places, even with the very rules and orders of the ancient monks, affirming moreover, in flat words, our orders to be such as not only came near unto, but rather far exceeded, all the monastical institutions that ever were devised. in most of our colleges there are also great numbers of students, of which many are found by the revenues of the houses and other by the purveyances and help of their rich friends, whereby in some one college you shall have two hundred scholars, in others an hundred and fifty, in divers a hundred and forty, and in the rest less numbers, as the capacity of the said houses is able to receive: so that at this present, of one sort and other, there are about three thousand students nourished in them both (as by a late survey it manifestly appeared). they were erected by their founders at the first only for poor men's sons, whose parents were not able to bring them up unto learning; but now they have the least benefit of them, by reason the rich do so encroach upon them. and so far has this inconvenience spread itself that it is in my time a hard matter for a poor man's child to come by a fellowship (though he be never so good a scholar and worthy of that room). such packing also is used at elections that not he which best deserveth, but he that has most friends, though he be the worst scholar, is always surest to speed, which will turn in the end to the overthrow of learning. that some gentlemen also whose friends have been in times past benefactors to certain of those houses do intrude into the disposition of their estates without all respect of order or statutes devised by the founders, only thereby to place whom they think good (and not without some hope of gain), the case is too evident: and their attempt would soon take place if their superiors did not provide to bridle their endeavours. in some grammar schools likewise which send scholars to these universities, it is lamentable to see what bribery is used; for, ere the scholar can be preferred, such bribage is made that poor men's children are commonly shut out, and the richer sort received (who in time past thought it dishonour to live as it were upon alms), and yet, being placed, most of them study little other than histories, tables, dice, and trifles, as men that make not the living by their study the end of their purposes, which is a lamentable hearing. beside this, being for the most part either gentlemen or rich men's sons, they often bring the universities into much slander. for, standing upon their reputation and liberty, they ruffle and roist it out, exceeding in apparel, and banting riotous company (which draweth them from their books unto another trade), and for excuse, when they are charged with breach of all good order, think it sufficient to say that they be gentlemen, which grieveth many not a little. but to proceed with the rest. every one of these colleges have in like manner their professors or readers of the tongues and several sciences, as they call them, which daily trade up the youth there abiding privately in their halls, to the end they may be able afterward (when their turn cometh about, which is after twelve terms) to shew themselves abroad, by going from thence into the common schools and public disputations (as it were "_in aream_") there to try their skill, and declare how they have profited since their coming thither. moreover, in the public schools of both the universities, there are found at the prince's charge (and that very largely) fine professors and readers, that is to say, of divinity, of the civil law, physic, the hebrew and the greek tongues. and for the other lectures, as of philosophy, logic, rhetoric, and the quadrivials (although the latter, i mean arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy, and with them all skill in the perspectives, are now smally regarded in either of them), the universities themselves do allow competent stipends to such as read the same, whereby they are sufficiently provided for, touching the maintenance of their estates, and no less encouraged to be diligent in their functions. these professors in like sort have all the rule of disputations and other school exercises which are daily used in common schools severally assigned to each of them, and such of their hearers as by their skill shewed in the said disputations are thought to have attained to any convenient ripeness of knowledge according to the custom of other universities (although not in like order) are permitted solemnly to take their deserved degrees of school in the same science and faculty wherein they have spent their travel. from that time forward also they use such difference in apparel as becometh their callings, tendeth unto gravity, and maketh them known to be called to some countenance. the first degree is that of the general sophisters, from whence, when they have learned more sufficiently the rules of logic, rhetoric, and obtained thereto competent skill in philosophy, and in the mathematicals, they ascend higher unto the estate of bachelors of art, after four years of their entrance into their sophistry. from thence also, giving their minds to more perfect knowledge in some or all the other liberal sciences and the tongues, they rise at the last (to wit, after other three or four years) to be called masters of art, each of them being at that time reputed for a doctor in his faculty, if he profess but one of the said sciences (besides philosophy), or for his general skill, if he be exercised in them all. after this they are permitted to choose what other of the higher studies them liketh to follow, whether it be divinity, law, or physic, so that, being once masters of art, the next degree, if they follow physic, is the doctorship belonging to that profession; and likewise in the study of the law, if they bend their minds to the knowledge of the same. but, if they mean to go forward with divinity, this is the order used in that profession. first, after they have necessarily proceeded masters of art, they preach one sermon to the people in english, and another to the university in latin. they answer all comers also in their own persons unto two several questions of divinity in the open schools at one time for the space of two hours, and afterward reply twice against some other man upon a like number and on two several dates in the same place, which being done with commendation, he receiveth the fourth degree, that is, bachelor of divinity, but not before he has been master of arts by the space of seven years, according to their statutes. the next, and last degree of all, is the doctorship, after other three years, for the which he must once again perform all such exercises and acts as are before remembered; and then is he reputed able to govern and teach others, and likewise taken for a doctor. i have read that john of beverley was the first doctor that ever was in oxford, as beda was in cambridge. but i suppose herein that the word "doctor" is not so strictly to be taken in this report as it is now used, since every teacher is in latin called by that name, as also such in the primitive church as kept schools of catechists, wherein they were trained up in the rudiments and principles of religion, either before they were admitted unto baptism or any office in the church. thus we see that from our entrance into the university unto the last degree received is commonly eighteen or twenty years, in which time, if a student has not obtained sufficient learning thereby to serve his own turn and benefit his commonwealth, let him never look by tarrying longer to come by any more. for after this time, and forty years of age, the most part of students do commonly give over their wonted diligence, and live like drone bees on the fat of colleges, withholding better wits from the possession of their places, and yet doing little good in their own vocation and calling. i could rehearse a number (if i listed) of this sort, as well in one university as the other. but this shall suffice instead of a large report, that long continuance in those places is either a sign of lack of friends, or of learning, or of good and upright life, as bishop fox[ ] sometime noted, who thought it sacrilege for a man to tarry any longer at oxford than he had a desire to profit. a man may (if he will) begin his study with the law, or physic (of which this giveth wealth, the other honour), so soon as he cometh to the university, if his knowledge in the tongues and ripeness of judgment serve therefor: which if he do, then his first degree is bachelor of law, or physic; and for the same he must perform such acts in his own science as the bachelors or doctors of divinity do for their parts, the only sermons except, which belong not to his calling. finally, this will i say, that the professors of either of those faculties come to such perfection in both universities as the best students beyond the sea do in their own or elsewhere. one thing only i mislike in them, and that is their usual going into italy, from whence very few without special grace do return good men, whatsoever they pretend of conference or practice, chiefly the physicians[ ] who under pretence of seeking of foreign simples do oftentimes learn the framing of such compositions as were better unknown than practised, as i have heard often alleged, and therefore it is most true that doctor turner said: "italy is not to be seen without a guide, that is, without special grace given from god, because of the licentious and corrupt behaviour of the people." there is moreover in every house a master or provost, who has under him a president and certain censors or deans, appointed to look to the behaviour and manners of the students there, whom they punish very severely if they make any default, according to the quantity and quality of their trespass. and these are the usual names of governors in cambridge. howbeit in oxford the heads of houses are now and then called presidents in respect of such bishops as are their visitors and founders. in each of these also they have one or more treasurers, whom they call _bursarios_ or bursars, beside other officers whose charge is to see unto the welfare and maintenance of these houses. over each university also there is a several chancellor, whose offices are perpetual, howbeit their substitutes, whom we call vice-chancellors, are changed every year, as are also the proctors, taskers, masters of the streets, and other officers, for the better maintenance of their policy and estate. and thus much at this time of our two universities, in each of which i have received such degree as they have vouchsafed--rather of their favour than my desert--to yield and bestow upon me, and unto whose students i wish one thing, the execution whereof cannot be prejudicial to any that meaneth well, as i am resolutely persuaded, and the case now standeth in these our days. when any benefice therefor becometh void it were good that the patron did signify the vacation thereof to the bishop, and the bishop the act of the patron to one of the universities, with request that the vice-chancellor with his assistants might provide some such able man to succeed in the place as should by their judgment be meet to take the charge upon him. certainly if this order were taken, then should the church be provided of good pastors, by whom god should be glorified, the universities better stored, the simoniacal practices of a number of patrons utterly abolished, and the people better trained to live in obedience toward god and their prince, which were a happier estate. to these two also we may in like sort add the third, which is at london (serving only for such as study the laws of the realm) where there are sundry famous houses, of which three are called by the name of inns of the court, the rest of the chancery, and all built before time for the furtherance and commodity of such as apply their minds to our common laws. out of these also come many scholars of great fame, whereof the most part have heretofore been brought up in one of the aforesaid universities, and prove such commonly as in process of time rise up (only through their profound skill) to great honour in the commonwealth of england. they have also degrees of learning among themselves, and rules of discipline, under which they live most civilly in their houses, albeit that the younger of them abroad in the streets are scarcely able to be bridled by any good order at all. certainly this error was wont also greatly to reign in cambridge and oxford, between the students and the burgesses; but, as it is well left in these two places, so in foreign countries it cannot yet be suppressed. besides these universities, also there are great number of grammar schools throughout the realm, and those very liberally endowed, for the better relief of poor scholars, so that there are not many corporate towns now under the queen's dominion that have not one grammar school at the least, with a sufficient living for a master and usher appointed to the same. there are in like manner divers collegiate churches, as windsor, winchester, eton, westminster (in which i was some time an unprofitable grammarian under the reverend father master nowell, now dean of paul's), and in those a great number of poor scholars, daily maintained by the liberality of the founders, with meat, books, and apparel, from whence, after they have been well entered in the knowledge of the latin and greek tongues, and rules of versifying (the trial whereof is made by certain apposers yearly appointed to examine them), they are sent to certain special houses in each university, where they are received and trained up in the points of higher knowledge in their private halls, till they be adjudged meet to shew their faces in the schools as i have said already. and thus much have i thought good to note of our universities, and likewise of colleges in the same, whose names i will also set down here, with those of their founders, to the end the zeal which they bare unto learning may appear, and their remembrance never perish from among the wise and learned. of the colleges of cambridge with their founders. years of the foundation. colleges. founders. trinity college king henry . the king's college king henry , edward , henry , and henry . st. john's lady margaret, grandmother to henry . christ's college king henry and the lady margaret aforesaid. the queen's college lady margaret, wife to king henry . jesus college john alcock, bishop of ely. bennet college the brethren of a popish guild called _corporis christi_. pembroke hall maria de valentia, countess of pembroke. peter college hugh balsham, bishop of ely. gundewill and edmund gundevill, parson of terrington, caius college and john caius, doctor of physic. trinity hall william bateman, bishop of norwich. clare hall richard badow, chancellor of cambridge. catherine hall robert woodlark, doctor of divinity. magdalen college edward, duke of buckingham, and thomas, lord audley. emanuel college sir walter mildmay, etc. of the colleges at oxford. christ's church king henry . magdalen college william wainfleet, first fellow of merton college, then scholar at winchester, and afterwards bishop there.[ ] new college william wickham, bishop of winchester. merton college walter merton, bishop of rochester. all souls' college henry chicheley, archbishop of canterbury. corpus christi college richard fox, bishop of winchester. lincoln college richard fleming, bishop of lincoln. auriel college adam broune, almoner to edward . the queen's college r. eglesfeld, chaplain to philip, queen of england, wife to edward . balliol college john balliol, king of scotland. st. john's sir thomas white, knight. trinity college sir thomas pope, knight. excester college walter stapleten, bishop of excester. brasen nose william smith, bishop of lincoln. university college william, archdeacon of duresine. gloucester college john crifford, who made it a cell for thirteen monks. st. mary's college jesus college, now hugh ap rice, doctor of the civil law. in hand there are also in oxford certain hotels or halls which may right well be called by the names of colleges, if it were not that there is more liberty in them than is to be seen in the other. in my opinion the livers in these are very like to those that are of the inns in the chancery, their names also are these so far as i now remember: brodegates. st. mary hall. hart hall. white hall. magdalen hall. new inn. alburne hall. edmond hall. postminster hall. the students also that remain in them are called hostlers or halliers. hereof it came of late to pass that the right reverend father in god, thomas late archbishop of canterbury, being brought up in such an house at cambridge, was of the ignorant sort of londoners called an "hostler," supposing that he had served with some inn-holder in the stable, and therefore, in despite, divers hung up bottles of hay at his gate when he began to preach the gospel, whereas indeed he was a gentleman born of an ancient house, and in the end a faithful witness of jesus christ, in whose quarrel he refused not to shed his blood, and yield up his life, unto the fury of his adversaries. besides these there is mention and record of divers other halls or hostels that have been there in times past, as beef hall, mutton hall, etc., whose ruins yet appear: so that if antiquity be to be judged by the shew of ancient buildings which is very plentiful in oxford to be seen, it should be an easy matter to conclude that oxford is the elder university. therein are also many dwelling-houses of stone yet standing that have been halls for students, of very antique workmanship, besides the old walls of sundry others, whose plots have been converted into gardens since colleges were erected. in london also the houses of students at the common law are these: sergeant's inn. furnival's inn. gray's inn. clifford's inn. the temple. clement's inn. lincoln's inn. lion's inn. david's inn. barnard's inn. staple inn. new inn. and thus much in general of our noble universities, whose lands some greedy gripers do gape wide for, and of late have (as i hear) propounded sundry reasons whereby they supposed to have prevailed in their purposes. but who are those that have attempted this suit, other than such as either hate learning, piety, and wisdom, or else have spent all their own, and know not otherwise than by encroaching upon other men how to maintain themselves? when such a motion was made by some unto king henry the eighth, he could answer them in this manner: "ah, sirra! i perceive the abbey lands have fleshed you, and set your teeth on edge, to ask also those colleges. and, whereas we had a regard only to pull down sin by defacing the monasteries, you have a desire also to overthrow all goodness, by subversion of colleges. i tell you, sirs, that i judge no land in england better bestowed than that which is given to our universities; for by their maintenance our realm shall be well governed when we be dead and rotten. as you love your welfares therefore, follow no more this vein, but content yourselves with that you have already, or else seek honest means whereby to increase your livelihoods; for i love not learning so ill that i will impair the revenues of any one house by a penny, whereby it may be upholden." in king edward's days likewise the same suit was once again attempted (as i have heard), but in vain; for, saith the duke of somerset, among other speeches tending to that end--who also made answer thereunto in the king's presence by his assignation: "if learning decay, which of wild men maketh civil; of blockish and rash persons, wise and goodly counsellors; of obstinate rebels, obedient subjects; and of evil men, good and godly christians; what shall we look for else but barbarism and tumult? for when the lands of colleges be gone, it shall be hard to say whose staff shall stand next the door; for then i doubt not but the state of bishops, rich farmers, merchants, and the nobility, shall be assailed, by such as live to spend all, and think that whatsoever another man hath is more meet for them and to be at their commandment than for the proper owner that has sweat and laboured for it." in queen mary's days the weather was too warm for any such course to be taken in hand; but in the time of our gracious queen elizabeth i hear that it was after a sort in talk the third time, but without success, as moved also out of season; and so i hope it shall continue for ever. for what comfort should it be for any good man to see his country brought into the estate of the old goths and vandals, who made laws against learning, and would not suffer any skilful man to come into their council-house: by means whereof those people became savage tyrants and merciless hell-hounds, till they restored learning again and thereby fell to civility. appendix. a.--holinshed's dedication. holinshed himself does not come on the scene in the work that goes by his name until in the second volume, devoted to the history of scotland, which he dedicates to dudley, whose star was about to set. the third volume was much the larger of the three, being the history of england, which is inscribed to burghley in this fashion:-- to the right honorable and his singular good lord, sir william cecill, baron of burghleygh, knight of _the most noble order of the garter, lord high treasu-_ rer of england, maister of the courts of wards and _liueries, and one of the queenes maiesties_ priuee councell. considering with my selfe, right honorable and my singular good lord, how redie (no doubt) manie will be to accuse me of vaine presumption, for enterprising to deale in this so weightie a worke, and far aboue my reach to accomplish: i haue thought good to aduertise your honour, by what occasion i was first induced to vndertake the same, although the cause that moued me thereto hath (in part) yer this beene signified vnto your good lordship. whereas therefore, that worthie citizen _reginald wolfe_, late printer to the queenes maiestie, a man well knowne and beholden to your honour, meant in his life time to publish an vniuersall cosmographie of the whole world, and therwith also certaine particular histories of euery knowne nation, amongst other whom he purposed to vse for performance of his intent in that behalfe, he procured me to take in hand the collection of those histories; and hauing proceeded so far in the same, as little wanted to the accomplishment of that long promised worke, it pleased god to call him to his mercie, after fiue and twentie yeares trauell spent therein; so that by his vntimelie deceasse, no hope remained to see that performed, which we had so long trauelled about. neuerthelesse, those whom he put in trust to dispose his things after his departure hence, wishing to the benefit of others, that some fruit might follow of that whereabout he had imployed so long time, willed me to continue mine endeuour for their furtherance in the same. which, although i was redie to doo, so far as mine abilitie would reach, and the rather to answere that trust which the deceassed reposed in me, to see it brought to some perfection; yet when the volume grew so great, as they that were to defraie the charges for the impression, were not willing to go through with the whole, they resolued first to publish the histories of england, scotland, and ireland, with their descriptions; which descriptions, bicause they were not in such readinesse as those of forren countries, they were inforced to vse the helpe of other better able to doo it than my selfe. moreouer, the charts wherein _maister wolfe_ spent a great part of his time were not found so complet as we wished: and againe, vnderstanding of the great charges and notable enterprise of that worthie gentleman maister _thomas sackford_, in procuring the charts of the seuerall prouinces of this realme to be set foorth, we are in hope that in time he will delineate this whole land so perfectlie, as shall be comparable or beyond anie delineation heretofore made of anie other region; and therefore leaue that to his well deserued praise. if any well willer will imitate him in so praiseworthie a work for the two other regions, we will be glad to further his endeauour with all the helpes we may. the histories i haue gathered according to my skill, and conferred the greatest part with _maister wolfe_ in his life time, to his liking, who procured me so manie helpes to the furtherance thereof, that i was loth to omit anie thing that might increase the readers knowledge, which causeth the book to grow so great. but receiuing them by parts, and at seuerall times (as i might get them) it may be, that hauing had more regard to the matter than the apt penning, i haue not so orderlie disposed them, as otherwise i ought; choosing rather to want order, than to defraud the reader of that which for his further understanding might seeme to satisfie expectation. i therefore most humbly beseech your honour to accept these chronicles of england vnder your protection, and according to your wisedome and accustomed benignitie to beare with my faults; the rather, bicause you were euer so especiall good lord to _maister wolfe_, to whom i was singularlie beholden; and in whose name i humblie present this rude worke vnto you, beseeching god that as he hath made you an instrument to aduance his truth, so it may please him to increase his good gifts in you, to his glorie, the furtherance of the queenes maiesties seruice, and the comfort of all her faithful and louing subiects. your honours most humble to be commanded, raphael holinshed. b.--an elizabethan survey of england. harrison closes chapter of his first book (which is the last of several chapters describing all the english rivers) with a most interesting complaint of a literary theft of which he was the victim. from his words it is evident that a complete and minute survey of england may still be possibly hidden away in some heap of manuscripts, and which was the work of thomas seckford, who died three or four months after the _holinshed_ of was issued, and who was evidently intimate with the group engaged on the great folio. seckford was a londoner by residence and occupation, but a suffolk man by birth, and founder of the present seckford hospital at woodbridge, to which place he was taken for burial. he was a barrister of grey's inn, master of requests, surveyor of the court of wards, and steward of the marshalsea. he weathered the storm under catholic and protestant sway, and was a most industrious scholar, although any of his published works are very rare. he apparently had more taste for helping others to literary fame than for appearing himself in athene's arena. harrison's interesting reference to seckford (to whom harrison dedicated the description of scotland as well) is as follows:-- "thus haue i finished the description of such riuers and streames as fall into the ocean, according to my purpose, although not in so precise an order and manner of handling as i might, if information promised had been accordinglie performed; or others would, if they had taken the like in hand. but this will i saie of that which is here done, that from the solueie by west, which parteth england & scotland on that side, to the twede which separateth the said kingdoms on the east, if you go backeward, contrarie to the course of my description, you shall find it so exact, as beside a verie few by-riuers, you shall not need to vse any further aduise for the finding and falles of the aforesaid streames. _for such hath beene my help of maister sackfords cardes, and conference with other men about these_, that i dare pronounce them to be perfect and exact. furthermore, this i have also to remember, that in the courses of our streames, i regard not so much to name the verie towne or church, as the limits of the paroch. and therefore if i saie it goeth by such a towne, i thinke my dutie discharged, if i hit vpon anie part or parcell of the paroch. this also hath not a little troubled me, i meane the euill writing of the names of manie townes and villages; of which i have noted some one man, in the description of a riuer, to write one towne two or three manner of waies, whereby i was inforced to choose one (at adventure most commonlie) that seemed the likeliest to be sound in mine opinion and iudgement. "finallie, whereas i minded to set downe an especiall chapter of ports and creeks, lieng on ech coast of the english part of this ile, and had provided the same in such wise as i iudged most convenient, it came to passe, that _the greater part of my labour was taken from me by stealth_, and therefore as discouraged to meddle with that argument, i would have giuen ouer to set downe anie thing thereof at all, and so much the rather, for that i see it may prooue a spurre vnto further mischeefe, as things come to passe in these daies. neverthelesse because a title thereof is passed in the beginning of the booke, i will deliuer that parcell thereof which remaineth, leauing the supplie of the rest either to my selfe hereafter (if i may come by it), or to some other that can better performe the same. "againe, vnderstanding of the great charges & notable enterprise of that worthie gentleman _maister thomas sackford, in procuring the charts of the seuerall prouinces of this realme to be set foorth, we are in hope that in time he will delineate this whole land so perfectlie_," etc. c.--somebody's quarrel with harrison. the last section refers to harrison's loss by somebody's pilfering. now comes another of the tribulations he had to endure. somebody is in a huff about something, and refused the aid promised to describe all the towns in england. it must have been no ordinary topographer, and may possibly be young camden, whose name seems never to be mentioned by harrison, although in at least his initial labours must have been well known to every scholar in london, especially a man like harrison who knew all that was going to happen in the world of letters as well as all that the public knew. his complaint is as follows, beginning the th chapter of book i., the first of our series just referred to, the thames having as natural the place of honour:-- "having (as you [lord cobham] haue seene) attempted to set downe a full discourse of all the ilands, that are situat upon the coast of britaine, and finding the successe not correspondent to mine intent, it has caused me some what to restreine my purpose in this description also of our riuers. for whereas i intended at the first to haue written at large, of the number situation names quantities townes villages castles mounteines fresh waters plashes or lakes, salt waters, and other commodities of the aforesaid iles, _mine expectation of information from all parts of england was so deceiued in the end, that i was faine at last onelie to leane to that which i knew my selfe either by reading, or such other helpe as i had alreadie purchased and gotten of the same_. and even so it happeneth in this my tractation of waters, of whose heads, courses, length, bredth, depth of chanell (for burden) ebs, flowings, and falles, i had thought to haue made a perfect description under the report also of an imagined course taken by them all. _but now for want of instruction, which hath beene largelie promised, & slacklie perfourmed, and other sudden and iniurious deniall of helpe voluntarilie offered, without occasion giuen on my part_, i must needs content my selfe with such observations as i haue either obteined by mine owne experience, or gathered from time to time out of other mens writings: whereby the full discourse of the whole is vtterlie cut off, and in steed of the same, a mangled rehearsall of the residue set downe and left in memorie." d.--harrison's chronology. dr. furnivall has told in a note to his "forewords" that the manuscript of harrison's still unpublished "chronology" was unearthed in the library of derry diocese. how it came there is very evident. harrison's only son and heir, edmund harrison, was the first prebendary of the diocese, who is described in the visitation as "a man very well qualified both for life and learning." from the manuscript dr. furnivall extracted various entries relating to harrison's own time, which are of most picturesque quality if of rather meagre quantity. those of especial bearing on the reign of elizabeth, though beginning just before her advent, are as follows:-- _dearth and sickness in england._ . derth in england, wherein wheat is worthe liij sh: iiij d the quarter; malt, beanes, rie, at sh:; & peasen at shillinges; but after harvest, wheate was sold for shillinges the quarter, malt at a noble, rie at sh: d. in london; & therefore the price was not so highe in the country.... soche was the plenty of saffron in this yere, that the murmuring crokers envieng the store, said in blasphemous maner, in & aboute waldon in essex, that "god did now shite saffron"; but as some of them died afterward, starke beggars, so in yeres after, there was so little of this commodity, that it was almost lost & perished in england.... a generall sickenesse in england, where-of the third parte of the people of the land did tast; & many clergymen had their desire, who, suspecting an alteration in relligion to insue after the death of quene mary, & fearing to be called to accompt for their bloodshed made, & practize of the losse of calais, craved of god in their daiely praiers, that they might die before her; & so they did; the lord hearing their praiers, & intending therby to geue his churche a breathing time.... _harrison on religious hatred._ . the french protestantes are exiled out of frankeford, aprillis , onely for that, in doctrine, they did not agree with luther, the augustane confession, pacification at wittenberg, & reconciliation made at frankeford: a slender cause, god wote! if it be well examined, you shall find it a thing onely diuised, thereby to put their brethren to incumbrauns. but when i consider what hatred the lutheranes do here vnto the calvinistes, & the precisians to the protestantes, i can liken the same to nothing better then that mallice which reigneth betwene the papistes & the gospellers.... _the spire of st. paul's struck by lightning._ . the rooffe, with the spire & steple of paules church in london, is consumed to ashes, junij , by lightning. certes the toppe of this spire, where the wethercocke stode, was foote from the ground, of which the spire was the one halfe. the bredth of the church also, saith stow, is foote, & the length , or yardes, foote, at this present. also an erthquake is felt in the kingdome.... (_stowe_, p. .--f.) _queen elizabeth at oxford. "falamon and arcite."_ . the queene of england beginneth hir progresse, & vpon the of august cometh to oxford, where she visiteth eche college after other, & making an oration vnto them in latine, as she had done in cambridge two yeres passed, to the gret comfort of all soche as are, or had bene, studentes there. during her being there also the academicall exercises were holden as in their vsuall termes. diuerse commedies & plaies also were set forthe by the studentes of christes church, where her majestie lodged; but of all the rest, onely that of "arcite & palemon"[ ] had a tragicall successe; for, by the falle, of a walle & wooden gallery that leadeth from the staiers vnfinished to the hall, diuers persons were sore hurt, & men killed out right, which came to behold the pastimes. [this paragraph takes up seven lines, and - / inch of the height, of harrison's ms.; so close is the writing.--f.].... _evils of plays and theatres._[ ] . plaies are banished for a time out of london, lest the resort vnto them should ingender a plague, or rather disperse it, being alredy begonne. would to god these comon plaies were exiled for altogether, as semenaries of impiety, & their theaters pulled downe, as no better then houses of baudrie. it is an euident token of a wicked time when plaiers wexe so riche that they can build[ ] suche houses / as moche i wish also to our comon beare baitinges vsed on the sabaothe daies.[ ] _tobacco._ . in these daies, the taking-in of the smoke of the indian herbe called "tabaco," by an instrument formed like a litle ladell, wherby it passeth from the mouth into the hed & stomach, is gretlie taken-vp & vsed in england, against rewmes & some other diseases ingendred in the longes & inward partes, & not without effect / this herbe as yet is not so common, but that for want thereof diuers do practize for the like purposes with the nicetian, otherwise called in latine, "hyosciamus luteus," or the yellow henbane, albeit, not without gret error; for, althoughe that herbe be a souerene healer of old vlcers & sores reputed incurable outwardly, yet is not the smoke or vapour thereof so profitable to be receaued inwardly. the herbe [tobacco] is comonly of the height of a man,[ ] garnished with great leaues like the paciens,[ ] bering seede, colloured, & of quantity like vnto, or rather lesse then, the fine margeronie; the herbe it self yerely coming vp also of the shaking of the seede; the collour of the floure is carnation, resembling that of the lemmon in forme: the roote yellow, with many fillettes, & therto very small in comparison, if you respect the substauns of the herbe.[ ] _a monstrous fish._ . a monstrous fish is taken in thenet vpon the xj{th} of july, of foote in length; one of whose eies was a full cart lode, & the diameter or thickenesse thereof, full two yardes, or of our english feete.... _london bridge tower._ . the towre on the drawe bridge vpon london bridge is taken downe in aprill, being in great decaie; & sone after made a pleasaunt & beautiful dwelling house / & whereas the heddes of soche as were executed for treason were wont to be placed vpon this towre, they were now remoued, & fixed ouer the gate which leadeth from southwarke into the citie by that bridge.... _a great snowstorm._ . a cold winter, & ere long there falleth a great snow in england, whose driftes, in many places, by reason of a northest winde, were so depe that the mere report of them maie seme incredible. it beganne in the of feb: & held on vntil the of the same moneth; during which time some men & women, beside cattell, were lost, & not heard of till the snow was melted & gone, notwithstanding that some shepe & catle lived vnder it, & fedd in the places where they laie, vpon soche grasse as they cold come by. vpon the xj{th} also of that moneth, the thames did rise so highe, after the dissolution of this snow, that westminster hall was drowned, & moche fishe left there in the pallace yard when the water returned to her channell, for who so list, to gather vp.... _plagues of locusts or grasshoppers, and mice._ . great harme done in england in diuerse shires, by locustes, or "grashoppers" as we call them, which deuoured the grasse, & consumed the pastures & medowes in very pitifull maner: soche great nombers of crowes also do come into those partes to fede vpon those creatures, that they tread downe & trample the rest, i meane, whatsoeuer the locust had left vntouched. not long before, if not about this time, also some places of the hundredes in essex were no lesse annoyed with mise, as report then went, which did gret hurt to corne & the fruites of the erth, till an infinite nomber of owles were assembled into those partes, which consumed them all to nothing. certes the report is true; but i am not sure whether it was in this, or the yere before or after this, for i did not enter the note when it was first sent vnto me, the lettre being cast aside, & not hard of after the receipt. _stafford's conspiracy._[ ] . another conspiracy is detected vpon newyeres daie, wherein the death of our queene is ones againe intended, by stafford & other, at the receipt of her newyeres giftes; but, as god hath taken vpon him the defence of his owne cause, so hath he, in extraordinary maner, from time to time preserued her majestie, his servant, from the treason & traiterous practizes of her aduersaries, & wonderfully bewraied their diuises./ _a star in the moon. a wet summer in autumn._ . a sterre is sene in the bodie of the mone vpon the _____ of marche, whereat many men merueiled, & not without cause, for it stode directly betwene the pointes of her hornes, the mone being chaunged, not passing or daies before; & in the later end of the crabbe after this, also there insued a very moyst & wet somer, wherby moche haie was lost, & harvest in the begining grew to be very troublesome. there followed also a like autumn; by meanes wherof, shepe & moche other cattell died in abundant maner in most places of our iland,[ ] wherby the residew grew to be very dere ... ("a reasonable good haruest for corne."--_stowe_, .--f.) the first skonses are made in england vpon the borders of the thames, & in other places of the land, to kepe the spanish powre from entrauns, whose chief purpose is, as most affirme, to invade kent with one part of their navie, & to come by the river of thames to sacke london with the other./.... _the spanish armada. leicester's death._ . the spanish navie so long loked for, doth now at last show it self ouer against our coastes, vpon our of july, where it is foughten withall vpon the morow, onely with saile of our english shipps vnder the conduct of the lord admirall[ ] & sir fraunces drake; afterward by our whole navie of saile, for the space of daies together: in thend whereof, they are put to flight before calice, & driven to returne home about by scotland, with great losse, so that, of saile & more, which came out of spaine, scasely returned againe in safety vnto that king; god himself so fighting for vs, that we lost not men, neither was there so moche as one vessell of oures sonke by the enemy, or taken, in all these skirmishes. in their returne also, & beside those vesselles which they lost in our seas, other of them did either perish vpon the coast of ireland, or, coming thether for succour, were seized vpon also vnto her majesties vse. the lieftenaunt of this great navie was the duke medina of cydonia, & with him were noble men, among which, beside the kinges bastard sonne, were marquesses, one prince, one duke, erles, & lordes, which came to seeke aduentures, & winne honor vpon england, as they said; howbeit, as god would, they neuer touched the land, nor came nere vnto our shore by diuers miles. the duke of parma should haue assisted them at this present with or saile prouided out of the low countries; but being kept in by wether, & a portion of our navie, & his mariners also forsaking him, he was inforced to staie & kepe vpon the land, where he abode in safety, & out of the roring gunshot / (stowe's _annals_, , pp. - .--f.) robert, erle of leicester, dieth, who in his time became the man of grettest powre (being but a subiect) which in this land, or that euer had bene exalted vnder any prince sithens the times of peers gavestone & robert veer,[ ] some time duke of ireland. nothing almost was done, wherein he had not, either a stroke or a commoditie; which, together with his scraping from the churche & comons, spoile of her maiesties thresure, & sodeine death of his first wife &c. procured him soche inward envie & hatred, that all men, so farre as they durst, reioysed no lesse outwardlie at his death, then for the victorie obteined of late against the spanish nauie /.... (stowe's _annals_, , p. .--f.) a generall thankesgeuing thorow out england in euery church, for the victory of the allmightie geuen by thenglish ouer the spanish navie; in which, the queene her selfe, & her nobility, came to s{t} paules churche in london, november the , where, after she had hard the divine service, & in her owne person geuen solemne thankes to god, in the hering of soche as were present, she hard the sermon at the crosse preached by the bishop of sarum, & then dined with the bishop of london in his pallace thereunto annexed. the kinges of scotland, denmarke, sueden, navarra, with the churches of geneva & diuers other cities of germany, had done the like also, a litle while before, in their churches, as we are credibly informed. the spanierdes also, indeuoring to hide their reprochefull voiage from the eies of their comon people, do triumphe for their victory obteined ouer the englishe nation, & send to the pope for a seconde million of gold, which he bound himself to geue them at their landing in england, they having alredy receaved the first at their departure from the groyne in maie past; but his intelligencers informed him, so that he kept his crownes at home/... (_stowe_, p. .--f.) _the mad parliament._ . a parliament is holden in london, which some doe call "the greene meting," other, "the madde parliament," because it consisted, for the most part, of yong burgesses, picked out of purpose to serue some secrete turne against the state present of the clergy; of whome no tale was there left vntold, that might deface their condicion. in this assembly, billes were put vp, as it is said, which required that the ministery of england should be subiect to service in the warres, & called to appeare at musters, sizes, &c. as laie subiectes of the land; that they should prouide furniture of armour & munition, according to the seuerall valuation of their livinges; that eche of them should haue but one living, & be resident vpon the same; & that all impropriations in spirituall mens handes onely, should be restored to the churche, with other like diuises; but in thend, none of them all went forward; & right good cause; for hereby most churches should quickely haue bene without their pastor, the collegiate & cathedrall houses (the chief marke whereat they shot) rellinquished, & some of the spiritualty more charged then vj of the greattest of the nobility in the land, whose livinges are not valued in soche strict maner as those are of the clergy, who also in this parliament are charged with a doble subsidie to be paid in yeres. (stowe's _annals_, , p. .--f.) _the parliament of feb. - ._ [_last entry, in a very tottery hand, months before harrison's death or burial on april , six days after he'd ended his th year._--f.] . a parliament beginneth at london, feb. [ - ], being mondaie / many men looke for many thinges at the handes of the congregates, chiefly the precisiens for the ouerthrow of bishops & all ecclesiasticall regiment, and erection of soche discipline as thei themselues haue prescribed / the clergy also feared some stoppage of former lawes provided for the wel [?] paiment of their tithes / but all men expect a generall graunt of money, the cheef end, in our time, of the aforesaid assemblies; which being obserued, the rest will sone haue an ende / in the very begining of this parliament, there were more then of the lower house, returned for outlawes, i meane, so well of knightes as of burgesses, & more are daiely loked for to be found in like estate / but is it not, thinke you, a likely matter, that soche men can be authors of good lawes, who, for their own partes, will obey no law at all? how gret frendes the precisians in ther practizes are to these men, the possession of their desire wold esily declare, if thei might ones obteine it. [_a later entry: the parliament broke up on april , ,_[ ] _a fortnight before harrison's death_.--f.] neuerthelesse, in the vpshot of that meting, it was found, that notwithstanding the money graunted--which was well nigh yelded vnto, in respect of our generall necessitie--there were so many good profitable lawes ordeined in this parliament as in any other that haue passed in former times, the mallicious dealinges also of the precisians, papistes, & comeling [?] provokers[ ] was not a litle restreigned in the same, to the gret benefite of the country. ["the rest is silence."] _printed by_ walter scott, _felling, newcastle-on-tyne_. footnotes: [ ] condensed from the first part of the edition of for the "new shakspere society."--w. [ ] this does not apply to a small portion of book i. used by dr. f., and also somewhat in this reprint.--w. [ ] who'll write a like one for victorian england? (mr. fyffe has since done this.) oh that we had one for chaucer's england!--f. [ ] the elizabethan sweep in this, as in so many other plans of the day.--f. [ ] see holinshed's dedication to lord burghley in vol. iii. of his _chronicle_.--f. (see appendix.--w.) [ ] william harrison's _chronologie_ is mentioned on the last leaf of the preface to vol. iii. of _holinshed_, p. , at foot--"for the computation of the yeares of the world, i had by maister wolfes aduise followed _functius_; but after his [wolfe's] deceasse, m. w[illiam] h[arrison] made me partaker of a chronologie, which he had gathered and compiled with most exquisit diligence, following _gerardus mercator_, and other late chronologers, and his owne obseruations, according to the which i haue reformed the same."--holinshed, in the preface to his _chronicles_, vol. iii. sign a , ed. ,--and in his _description_, "i haue reserued them vnto the publication of my great _chronologie_, if (while i liue) it happen to come abroad." it was never publisht. my search for the ms. of it results in my having just received (aug. ) its large folio vols. , , , from the diocesan library of derry, in ireland. the rev. h. cotton, _thurles, ireland_ (dec. , ), said where it was, in i. _notes and queries_, iii. , col. ; and after two fruitless searches it was found, and lent me by the bishop, through his librarian, the rev. b. moffett of foyle college, londonderry, as well as a curious and terribly corrected ms. of an english work on weights and measures, hebrew, greek, english, etc., dated , which must be harrison's too. the folio volumes of the _chronologie_ are inches deep as they lie, each being - / inches broad, by - / high, with , and sometimes more, lines to a page. an enormous amount of work is in them, and all of them are in harrison's own hand, at different times of his life. vol. , "the second part of the english chronologye written by wm. harrison," runs from the creation to christ's birth. vol. , "the third p_ar_t of the chronology conteining a just & perfite true &c. as followeth in the next leafe, to thend of the title, & to be brought hether," stretches from the birth of christ to william the norman's conquest of england. vol. , "the iij{th} and last part of the great english chronology writte_n_ by wm. h.," [title in another hand?] goes from the beginning of william the conqueror's reign, oct. , , to the february of - , only two months before harrison's own death (or burial) on april , . and each volume tells, in chronicle fashion, what went on all over the world in each successive year, so far as harrison knew. the contemporary part of vol. is of course the most interesting: "a william harrison wrote some latin lines on the deaths of the brandons, dukes of suffolk, printed with the collection published on that occasion, to, london, ."--f. [ ] holinshed, iii. ; extract in my edition of thynne's _animadversions_, , p. lxxxv.--f. [ ] in his account of the rivers, etc., harrison sometimes quotes other people in the first person, "i, we," as if he had himself been to the places they describe.--f. [ ] folio harrison, p. , col. , ed. .--f. [ ] folio harrison, p. , col. (ed. ).--f. [see appendix.--w.] [ ] he complains of help promist, and never given: see in the folio harrison, p. , col. i (beginning of cap. ii, book i., about the thames).--f. [see appendix.--w.] [ ] still you get his side-note--i suppose 'tis his--at p. below, on the report of two old british books being found in a stone wall at verolamium, "_this soundeth like a lie_." other bits of wholesome doubt turn up elsewhere.--f. [ ] the thames "hieth to sudlington, otherwise called maidenhead, and so to windleshore (or windsore), eaton, and then to chertseie.... from chertseie it hasteth directlie vnto stanes, and receiuing an other streame by the waie, called the cole (wherevpon colbrooke standeth), it goeth by kingstone, shene, sion, and brentford or bregentford."... bk. i. p. , col. , l. , vol. i., folio ed. .--f. [ ] the extracts quoted by dr. f. will be mostly found in the modernised text. here they are printed in the old spelling, giving an idea of the original volume, saving the black letter type.--w. [ ] still, i find it very hard that he spoke so harshly of andrew boorde.--f. [ ] harrison doesn't scold the women for painting their faces and wearing false hair, in the persistent way that shakspere does. these two bits of falseness (in town women only?) evidently made a great impression on the country-bred shakspere's mind. stubbes complaind bitterly of them too. [ ] "before the earliest date of parish registers ( ). i have all the marriage licences issued by the bishop of london, beginning as early as ; but they do not include that of harrison's father."--j. l. chester. [ ] as harrison left by his will twenty shillings to the poor of st. thomas the apostle in london, colonel chester thinks he may have been born in that parish.----p.s. aug. , . i've just found in harrison's ms. _chronologie_, under , "the author of this boke is borne, vpon y{e} of aprill, hora minut , secunde , at london, in cordwainer streete, otherwise called bowe lane in y{e} [_crosst thro'_: house next to y{e} holly lambe towards chepeside, & in y{e}] p_ar_ish of st. thomas the apostle."--f. [ ] dr. scott, the present head-master, tells me that the early registers are not. "my dear sir,--i regret to say that no early records of westminster school are known to be in existence anywhere, except the names of those admitted to the foundation, and even these merely from an old "buttery book" in the earliest times, to which noel belongs; only those who were elected to ch. ch. or trinity are recorded. there is no trace of such a name as harrison. i have done my best to hunt up old records, but with very small result.--faithfully yours, chas. b. scott." after harrison's days, dean goodman gave the school for a time a sanatorium at chiswick--"_cheswicke_, h. , belonging to a prebend of paules now in the handes of doctor _goodman_, deane of _westminster_, where he hath a faire house, whereunto (in the time of any common plague or sicknes, as also to take the aire) he withdraweth the schollers of the colledge of _westminster_." . jn. norden's _description of middlesex_, p. , ed. . [ ] alexander nowell was one of the most famous divines of the reformation. born in lancashire about , he got a fellowship at brasenose in ; in became second master of westminster school; and in prebendary of westminster. he was elected m.p. for looe in cornwall, in the first parliament of queen mary, but his election was voided because he was a church dignitary. he then went to strassburg; returnd on the accession of elizabeth, and was made dean of st. paul's in . he publisht his celebrated larger catechism, and an abridgment of it, both in latin, in ; and is supposed to have written the greater part of the church of england catechism. he was elected master of brasenose in , and died february, - . (_cooper._).--f. [ ] cooper, in his _athenæ cantabrigienses_, says of harrison--"he was a member of this university [cambridge] in , and afterwards studied at oxford. we are unable to ascertain his house at either university." ? merton, oxf. see p. xvi. (there's no merton admission book so early as harrison's time, the bursar says.) [ ] he us'd his eyes too at both places, and at school; for he says of the buildings: "the common schooles of cambridge also are farre more beautifull than those of oxford, onelie the diuinitie schoole at oxford excepted, which for fine and excellent workemanship, commeth next the moold of the kings chappell in cambridge, than the which two, with the chappell that king henrie the seauenth did build at westminster, there are not (in mine opinion) made of lime & stone three more notable piles within the compasse of europe."--f. [ ] mr. luard of trinity, the registrar of the university, has kindly copied the grace for me:--" . grace book [greek: d], fol. _b_: conceditur junii magistro willelmo harryson ut studium annorum in theologia postquam rexerit in artibus oxoniæ cum oppositionibus etc. perficiendis etc. sub poena x librarum ponendarum etc. sufficiat ei tam ad opponendum quam ad intrandum in sacra theologia, præsentatus per d. longeworth[ ] et admissus junii."--f. [ ] master of st. john's. [ ] wood's _ath. ox._, ed. bliss., i. col. ; cooper's _ath. cant._ ii. . [ ] the manor and advowson of _great radwinter_ had been part of the property of the cobham family since , if not before. (see wright's _hist. of essex_, ii. ; morant's do., ii. .).--f. [ ] see his defence of pluralism. [in the chapter on "the church of england."--w.] it was vehemently condemnd by most of his contemporaries.--f. [ ] the vicarage of _wimbish_ not being a "competent maintenance," and the adjoining vicarage of _thunderley_ being so small that no one would accept of it, dr. kemp, bishop of london in , united the two. the presentation to these incorporated vicarages was made alternate in the rector of wimbish (it is a sinecure rectory) and the priory of hatfield regis (who had the great tithes and advowson of thunderley). in , ed. vi. granted this priory's advowson or right of presenting alternately to wimbish, to ed. waldgrave, esq.; and it passed on in private hands, so that from to it belonged to francis de la wood, who thus, it would seem, must have been the patron who presented william harrison. see morant's _hist. of essex_, pp. , . by the _valor ecclesiasticus_ of hen. viii. the clear yearly value of _wimbish vicarage_ was £ ; tithes s. that of _radwinter rectory_ £ s. d.; tithes £ s. - / d. some of the parson of radwinter's tithes were made up thus:--"to the parson of radwynter forseid for the yerely tythes of the said maner [bendish hall, in the parish of radwinter], one acre of whete in harvest p_ri_ce x s, one acre of otes p_ri_ce v s iiij d, a lambe p_ri_ce viij d, a pigg, p_ri_ce iiij d, and in money iij s iiij d."--_valor eccl._, vol. i. p. , col. .--f. [ ] i assume that harrison had once more children, whom he floggd occasionally. when speaking of mastiffs in bk. , chap. , p. , col. , l. , ed. , he says, "i had one my selfe once, which would not suffer anie man to bring in his weapon further than my gate, neither those that were of my house, to be touched in his presence. or if i had beaten _anie of my children_, he would gentlie haue assaied to catch the rod in his teeth, and take it out of my hand, or else pluck downe their clothes to saue them from the stripes: which in my opinion is not vnworthie to be noted. and thus much of our mastiffes, creatures of no lesse faith and loue towards their maisters than horses." still, girls were floggd in elizabeth's days, no doubt (compare lady jane grey's case, in ascham), as well as a hundred years before. see how agnes paston beat her daughter elizabeth in , _paston letters_, ed. gairdner, vol. i., introd., p. cxvi.--f. [see chapter xvi., "of our english dogs and their qualities."--w.] [ ] gerard had above a thousand-- "_gerard's catalogue of his garden._--a reprint of 'the first professedly complete catalogue of any one garden, either public or private, ever published' certainly deserves putting on record here. gerard's _herball_ is by no means a rare book; but the _catalogus arborum fruticum ac plantarum tam indigenarum quam exoticarum in horto johannis gerardi civis et chirurgi londinensis nascentium_ is exceedingly rare. this reprint, therefore, which we owe to the liberality of mr. b. daydon jackson, will be extremely welcome to all interested in the early introduction of exotic plants. the reprint consists of a limited number of copies for private circulation only. without being an absolute fac-simile it is almost an exact reproduction of the original, the first edition of which was published in . a second edition appeared in , which mr. jackson also reprints, together with some of his own remarks and notes on the _herball_, and a life of gerard. but what will be found especially useful is the list of modern names affixed to the old ones. gerard's _physic_ garden was in holborn, and included upwards of a thousand different kinds of plants.... there are several other lists of this kind we should be glad to see reprinted--tradescant's, among others, as the younger tradescant made a voyage to virginia and introduced many american trees."--(_academy_, july .)--f. [ ] (note by the late dr. goodall): erat quidem gulielmus harrison socius etonensis mar. , , vice præpositus collegii et rector de everdon in comitatu northampt. ut ille mortuus est etonæ, et ibidem sepultus dec. , .--f. [ ] mr. j. higgs, of sheet street, windsor, has kindly searcht the parish register of burials, which dates from , but he finds no entry of canon harrison's burial.--f. [at radwinter. see appendix.--w.] [ ] see his defence of priests leaving "their substances to their wives and children," in his _description_.--f. [in "church" chapter.--w.] [ ] compare the smart red dress with blue hood and long blue liripipe from it, of the nun's priest, in the colourd illumination of the ellesmere ms. given in my six-text _canterbury tales_.--f. [ ] proude preestes coome with hym, mo than a thousand, in paltokes and _pyked shoes_, and pisseris long knyves. _vision of piers plowman_, pass. xx. l. , , ii. , ed. wright.--f. [ ] william rede or reade, made bp. of chichester , died , "is said to have been a native of devonshire, and to have received his early education in exeter coll., oxford, from whence he removed to merton, having been elected a fellow. he soon discovered a singular genius for the sciences, as they were then known and practised, and excelled in geography, astronomy, and architecture. about the year , he gave a design for a library at merton college, and superintended the building, which is very spacious, if considered as a repository of mss. only.... he contributed greatly to furnishing the library with valuable mss., adding his own, which consisted of several scientific treatises, astronomical tables, and maps. he was a great encourager of learning, particularly by procuring many rare mss. from the continent, which were transcribed at his expense." he built amberley castle, an episcopal residence for chichester.--dallaway's _history of the western division of the county of sussex_, , vol. i. pp. , .--f. [ ] cambridge studies. , aug. . er. ep. ii. . erasmus to bovill. thirty years ago, nothing was taught at cambridge except alexander's _parva logicalia_, some scraps from aristotle, and the _quæstiones_ of duns scotus. in process of time improved studies were added; mathematics, a new aristotle, a knowledge of greek letters. what has been the consequence? the university can now hold its head with the highest, and has excellent theologians. of course they must now study the new testament with greater attention, and not waste their time, as heretofore, in frivolous quibbles.--brewer's _calendar of henry viii.'s time_, vol. ii., pt. i., p. .--f. [ ] as a usually accurate friend of mine always calls this name "asham," i note that it's often spelt "askham" in old writers.--f. [ ] harrison repeats his warning in stronger terms. [see chapter i.--w.] "this neuerthelesse is generallie to be reprehended in all estates of gentilitie, and which in short time will turne to the great ruine of our countrie, and that is the vsuall sending of noblemens & meane gentlemens sonnes into italie, from whence they bring home nothing but meere atheisme, infidelitie, vicious conuersation, & ambitious and proud behauiour, wherby it commeth to passe that they returne far worsse men than they went out." see the sequel.--f. [ ] see sir t. more's _utopia_, "a huge number of idle fellows, who never learned any art by which they may gain their living," etc.--f. [ ] on the finest kind of bread, _manchet_, note that queen elizabeth's was made from heston wheat, middlesex:--"_heston_, h. , a most fertyle place of wheate, yet not so much to be commended for the quantitie, as for the qualitie, for the wheat is most pure, accompted the purest in manie shires. and therefore queene elizabeth hath the most part of her provision from that place for _manchet_ for her highnes own diet, as is reported." . jn. norden, _description of middlesex_, p. , ed. .--f. [ ] but he speaks, at p. , "of the common sort, whose mouthes are alwaies wide open vnto reprehension, and eies readie to espie anie thing that they may reprooue and carpe at." still, harrison took more kindly to the common sort than shakspere did in his plays.--f. [ ] now chapter viii.--w. [ ] _de republica anglorum._ the maner of gouernement or policie of the realme of england, compiled by the honorable sir thomas smyth, knight, doctor of both the lawes, and one of the principal secretaries vnto the two most worthy princes, king edward the sixt, and queen elizabeth ... london ... (some copies ). a posthumous publication.--_hazlitt._--f. [ ] did shakspere ever turn out and chevy a stratford thief, i wonder? he must have been able to hit and hold hard.--f. [ ] made of tree or wood.--f. [ ] see an instance in burleigh house. [ ] of hostlers, harman says, "not one amongst twenty of them but haue well left their honesty, as i here a great sorte saye."--harman's _caueat_, p. , ed. viles and furnivall.--f. [ ] harrison wasn't the only man who felt thus. see arthur standish's two tracts: "the commons complaint. wherein is contained two speciall grievances: the first, the generall destruction and waste of woods in this kingdome.... the second grievance is, the extreame dearth of victvals. fovre remedies for the same, etc. london printed by william stansby, ." {o}. f in fours. "new directions of experience to the commons complaint by the incouragement of the kings most excellent maiesty, as may appeare, for the planting of timber and fire-wood. with a neere estimation what millions of acres the kingdome doth containe, what acres is waste ground, whereon little profit for this purpose will arise.... inuentid by arthur standish. anno domini. mdcxiii. {o}. a--d in fours; e, leaves, and a leaf of f."--_hazlitt's collections and notes_, p. - . also massinger's _guardian_, ii. iv--f. [ ] "if woods go so fast ... i have knowne a well burnished gentleman that hath borne threescore at once [weren't they trees?] in one paire of galigascons, to shew his strength and brauerie." brick-burning also consumd much wood: compare harrison, bk. , chap. , p. , col. , l. , ed. :--"such is the curiositie of our countrimen, that notwithstanding almightie god hath so blessed our realme in most plentifull maner, with such and so manie quarries apt and meet for piles of longest continuance, yet we, as lothsome of this abundance, or not liking of the plentie, doo commonlie leaue these naturall gifts to mould and cinder in the ground, and take vp an artificiall bricke, _in burning whereof a great part of the wood of this land dailie consumed and spent_, to the no small decaie of that commoditie, and hinderance of the poore that perish off for cold." see, too, chap. , p. , col. , l. , "of colemines we have such plentie in the north and westerne parts of our iland, as may suffice for all the realme of england: and so must they doo hereafter in deed, if wood be not better cherrished than it is at this present." [ ] of the reprint.--w. [ ] see dr. furnivall's "forewords."--w. [ ] this apology for "faults escaped herein" was of course omitted in .--w. [ ] see "the english courtier" ... and "the court and country." both reprinted in mr. w. c. hazlitt's "roxburghe library."--f. [ ] here follow etymologies of the terms "duke," "marquess," and "baron."--w. [ ] sam. ii. ; kings i. .--h. [ ] here follows a long paragraph on the character of the clergy which is more appropriate to the chapter on "the church."--w. [ ] every peer ceases to be a legislator the moment the crown considers the advice and aid of such peer unnecessary. the historic meeting between elizabeth woodville and edward plantagenet (which incidentally has made the lady ancestress to nearly every royal house in europe), when she declared herself "too mean to be your queen, and yet too good to be your concubine," was occasioned by the mean estate left by her late husband, sir john grey, to his orphan children. sir john was by right lord grey of groby, but never sat at westminster as such, being killed at saint albans. his children would have had small chance of writs of summons had not their beautiful mother ensnared the monarch who (much to his crook-backed brother's disgust, at least in the play) would "use women honourably." the heir of the birminghams was not only evicted from the house of peers, but from dudley castle, because he was poor. the heir of the staffords had the old barony taken from him by charles i. (simply because he, roger stafford, was poor), and saw it given to a court favourite, one of the honour-hooking howards.--w. [ ] here follows a learned disquisition upon "valvasors."--w. [ ] here follows a discourse upon _equites aurati_.--w. [ ] here is a description of dubbing a knight.--w. [ ] long details are given of garter history, very inaccurate, both here and in the last omitted passage.--w. [ ] derivations of "esquire" and "gentleman" are given.--w. [ ] the proper spelling of what is now called _kersey_. it is really "causeway cloth," and causeway is still pronounced (as it should be) _karsey_ by the homely people who are not tied to the tail of the dogmatic dictionary man, whose unnecessary ingenuity (in place of a small knowledge of "country matters") has in this case set up a phantom phalanx of busy looms in the harmless little village of kersey in suffolk. the scotch have the full phrase still. the french _causie_ is nearer to carsie than to book-made _causeway_.--w. [ ] this etymology of a much-disputed word is doubtless accurate. thus piers plowman's "thoruh ziftes haven _zemen_ to rennen and to ride." the peculiar "z" stood the saxon "ge." in fact geo, old mother earth, stares us in the face. a yeoman is an "earth-man." we may literally say our modern english sabremen of the shires, at a periodical muster on caracoling steeds, are "racy of the soil."--w. [ ] harrison was quick to catch a true idea of the authors he delights in, and his weakness for displaying his fund of classical lore is therefore generally a pleasure instead of a bore. the phrase from the distinguished roman youth, aulus persius flaccus, occurs in the prologue to his poems: "heliconidas pallidamque pirenen illis remitto quorum imagines lambunt hederæ sequaces: ipse _semipaganus_ ad sacra vatum carmen adfero nostrum;" which may be thus englished: "those helicon-births and pallor-breeding pirenes must remit i to them o'er whose countenance traileth the ivy up-clinging: myself, _half-breed of the soil_, to the shrine of our prophets my song i deliver." almost every annotator of persius has handled this passage as though the poet simply prosaically alluded to his being half of _rustic_ birth. as a fact, he was of the bluest blood of the augustine age. harrison makes a happy hit in understanding the passage as alluding to a semi-connection with the territory of the muses, as i have treated it.--w. [ ] capite censi, or proletarii.--h. [ ] the ceylonese. the greek name for the island of ceylon was taprobane, which harrison used merely as a classical scholar.--w. [ ] the wise and learned secretary of state in the dangerous days of edward vi., who under elizabeth had the task of furnishing burleigh with brains (thus heaping "coals of fire" on the man who had stolen his place when reform was triumphant and danger past), was himself born within a gunshot of harrison's radwinter rectory, at saffron walden. though sir thomas smith's own seat was a dozen miles to the south, at theydon, harrison was evidently very intimate with the secretary. some of the foregoing chapter (and much more which has been omitted) are literal transcripts from smith's _de republica anglorum_. this work was still in manuscript in (the year of the first "holinshed"), and late in the summer of that year sir thomas himself committed suicide. in , before the second "holinshed," the first edition of _de republica_ was issued, probably edited by our harrison. the very title breathed the spirit of elizabethan politics. secretaries of state do not now talk about the "english republic." the hampdens were closely connected with sir thomas smith, and _de republica_ was a text-book of john hampden. in the title for smith's work was first englished (without doubt harrison's own handiwork), and that title has been made immortal in english history by hampden's disciples: the commonwealth of england.--w. [ ] if harrison means to give us the impression that a city has any direct connection with episcopal affairs, he is quite in error. cities are distinctly royal and imperial institutions. the accident of the number of cities and sees being the same comes from the natural tendency of the two institutions to drift together, though of distinct origin.--w. [ ] here follows a long and learned disquisition upon the roman and other early towns, especially about st. albans, a portion of which will be found in the appendix.--w. [ ] the regalia which denoted sovereign right within the city limits, even to excluding kings at the head of their armies as the "scroyles of angiers" do in _king john_, much to the bastard's disgust.--w. [ ] the cutters have not been heard from for the three centuries intervening. these would have been the most valuable set of elizabethan maps ever known had they been executed as harrison expected.--w. [ ] here follows an allusion to the decay of eastern cities.--w. [ ] see on this my _ballads from mss._, i.; mr. cowper's edition of _life in tudor england_; _four supplications_; and crowley's _select works_ for the early english text society; more's _utopia_, etc.--f. [ ] the old and proper form of the modern pumpkin.--w. [ ] the historic seat of the de veres is thus a by-word even before the line had risen to its most glorious achievements and gone out in a blaze of military honour.--w. [ ] harrison must have been given access to leland's manuscripts, as the "commentarii" were not published until , or one hundred and fifty-seven years after the author died in the madhouse.--w. [ ] the first is a variant on a keltic, the second on a saxon, word, both relating to matters sufficiently indicated in the text.--w. [ ] harrison may refer to camden, then a young man starting out on the life-mission which has made him immortal. the chief works of abraham ortelius were not as yet published, ; but harrison seems to have had early information on various forthcoming publications.--w. [ ] this chapter (misnumbered ) does not appear anywhere in the edition of .--f. [ ] in a chapter on "vineyards," for an extract from which see appendix.--w. [ ] no vegetables are mentioned by john russell in his different bills of fare for dinners in his "boke of nurture," ab. a.d., _babees book_, pp. - .--f. [ ] _skirret_ is in my book, p. , . i, _sium sisarum_, an umbelliferous plant with a small root like a little carrot, no longer cultivated in england, or very rarely.--r. c. a. prior. [ ] _navew_, brassica napus, is probably only a variety of the turnip, from which it differs in the smaller and less orbicular root, and the leaves being glabrous and not rough. it is that which is cultivated for making colza oil, and for sheep-feed. the differences between _brassica napus_, _b. campestris_, and _b. rapa_ (the turnip) are really very slight, as you will see in any botanical work on british plants.--r. c. a. prior. [ ] see john russell's list of those for the bath of humfrey, duke of gloucester, in _the babees book_, pp. - .--f. [ ] harrison makes a distinction between "dunghill" and "laistowe" (or laystowe, laystall, etc.), again upsetting the theories of the dictionary men.--w. [ ] this was about the epoch when captain price, the "salt sea dog," was smoking the first pipe ever seen on london streets. harrison seems to know of tobacco only as a medicine.--w. [ ] "corn-trees" are probably _cornels_, from one of which, the _c. ras_, l., the berries are commonly eaten in italy, and sherbet made from them in the east. in italy they are called _cornia_ and _corniola_.--r. c. a. prior. [ ] of these four examples, in four shires, surrounding london, west, south, north, and east, not one remains as harrison had it in view. the famous grounds of hampton court are of william iii., wolsey work being effaced. nonsuch in surrey, near epsom race-course, is a mere memory. in harrison's time it was a favourite resort of elizabeth, being designed by her father as the child of his old age, but really built as a "labour of love" by the last of the fitzalans, who saved it from destruction by mary (who loved not her father's works), making it the scene of many an act in the tragic drama of the royal sisters and their cousin of scotland. theobald's, in herts, known to all readers of izaac walton, was just before harrison's day the seat of the family of burbage, the "original hamlet," being bought in by cecil, made the favourite haunt of the stuarts, and finally was destroyed by the commonwealth people. cobham, near gravesend in kent, was the seat of the brookes, the ill-starred patrons of harrison himself. it is still famous in horticultural annals, just as nonsuch will be immortal from its luscious apples.--w. [ ] harrison may be said to have made this word his own, and a classic in the language. its meaning is sufficiently indicated in the text, but the published definition and etymologies are evidently incomplete. a _bodger_ was probably a (tax) collector in his bodge or budget, before he was a buyer and seller.--w. [ ] what a pity the poor men couldn't _co-operate_, imitate the rich buyer, and have their own bodger to buy for them!--f. [ ] victorian writers can say this too. i recollect fresh butter at d. and d. a pound here at egham, and now we pay d. the imported italian butter that we get in london, from ralli, greek street, soho, is d.--f. [ ] an interesting anticipation of john stuart mill's point of the evil of a large middleman class checked only by competition. co-operation, with a few middlemen, the agents and servants of the co-operators, is what we want.--f. [ ] elizabethan england was the transition period when the slavery of money rents was fastened upon an unsuspecting people, leading to the great famines and revolts of the stuart period.--w. [ ] the ancient london counterpart of the more modern "rag fair" known to literary fame.--w. [ ] the kermess, or literally, "church mass," so famous in "faust."--w. [ ] here follows a long treatise on the "law of ordeal." habam was at the mouth of the trent, where the romans crossed the humber; wannetting is wantage; thundersley survives still in essex; excester is exeter; crecklade (misprinted grecklade) is cricklade. all are of historic foundation.--w. [ ] a good deal of this chapter and the following one is mere compilation; but there are interesting bits of harrison's own self in his "_old cock of canterbury_," the _prophecies_ or _conferences_ then lately begun, and soon blessed, the _taxes on parsons_, the church being the "_ass for every market man to ride on_," the then state of the churches, and abolition of feast and _guild-days_, the popish priest "_dressed like a dancing peacock_," the contempt felt for the ministry and their poverty.--f. [some of the merely historical recapitulation has been banished altogether, along with the next chapter referred to, that upon "bishoprics."--w.] [ ] the welsh name for england, as distinct from their own cambria, usually written "lloegr," and poetically derived from the eldest of the three sons of brute, locrine of loegria, camber of cambria, and alban of albania (albany, alban, or scotland), the adventures of this trio furnishing all the island with names, as king humber of the huns defeated and drowned in the humber, his beautiful protegée estreldis and her daughter sabra (by locrine) thrown into the severn (from sabrina) by the jealous and discarded queen gwendolen after she had settled accounts with locrine himself by the banks of the sture. see spenser, milton, the old play of "locrine," and the new one by swinburne: "how britain at the first grew to be divided into three portions."--w. [ ] in his first book and in this chapter.--w. [ ] this "authority" was for ever chopped off in the next generation with the head of william laud.--w. [ ] "there can be no reasonable doubt that there existed an episcopal see at caerleon in early times. it is pretty certain that it disappeared about the sixth century, and that the bishoprics of st. david's, llandaff, and llanbadarn were founded about the same time. nor have we, with a single doubtful exception, any indication of sees in any part of south wales, with the sole exception of caerleon. we may therefore regard the change to a certain extent as a portion of the spiritual jurisdiction between the three chief principalities into which south wales seems at this time to have been divided, and partly as an imitation of the policy of st. martin, by transferring it from the city to the wilderness. or, if we please, we may regard st. david's and llanbadarn as new sees, llandaff being the legitimate representative of caerleon. the question remains whether a metropolitan jurisdiction resided with any of these sees, and with which of them. it was claimed in after times by the bishops of llandaff, as well as by those of st. david's," etc. (_history and antiquity of st. david's_, by w. b. jones and e. a. freeman.)--w. [ ] this is a minor error, canterbury having assumed the functions of st. david's archiepiscopate over a century before archbishop lanfranc of the conquest came to assert the primacy over york, which was doubtless in harrison's mind here.--w. [ ] harrison had doubtless a special antipathy to saint dunstan, because that great autocrat of canterbury, along with his busy labours of humbling kings, enforcing celibacy on the priesthood, building the "church triumphant" over the whole body politic, found time to usurp the archiepiscopal functions of saint david's in the year , thus bringing welshmen for the first time under english ecclesiastical rule, where (much to their disgust) they remain to our own time.--w. [ ] the details of the well-known story of earl godwin, as rendered by harrison, here follow. the great interest of these recapitulations of english clerical history is in the utterance of a mind fresh from the great wrench of the reformation.--w. [ ] the last clause was significantly deleted in the edition of . the armada was looming in the horizon, and the poor printer was obliged to mind his protestant p's and q's for the nonce.--w. [ ] "as appeareth by these letters." giving letter of pope eugenius to king stephen.--w. [ ] "calf," meaning a fool (as witness cotgrave's definition of "_veau_, a calfe or veale; also a lozell, hoydon, dunce, jobbernoll, doddipole"), had divers owners put before it, of whom waltham seems to have been the best known: "waltham's calf. as wise as waltham's calf--_i.e._, very foolish. waltham's calf ran nine miles to suck a bull." (hallwell's glossary.)--f. [ ] "as appeareth by the same letter here ensuing." companion letter to maud of boulogne.--w. [ ] ostia, referring to leo marsicanus, cardinal-archbishop of ostia.--w. [ ] the letter of marsicanus is given in full.--w. [ ] thomas fitzalan, son of the earl of arundel, and great-grandson of edmund crouchback, and third cousin of the black prince and john of gaunt, fathers of the king and his rival bolingbroke, but closely allied to the latter, being cousin-german of john of gaunt's first wife, bolingbroke's mother. the printers misprinted his name as "john." he has been handed down as the great persecutor of the lollards, whom john of gaunt patronised.--w. [ ] "bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back while gold and silver beck me to come on," blurts out the bastard in _king john_. shakespeare was not above taking a hint from harrison.--w. [ ] william the lion, who at coeur de lion's death came into england to do feudal homage for his english lands to the wily john lackland, a visit which john, after his fashion, turned to account by imposing on william the impossible task of following him across the channel and making war upon philip augustus, and, on king william's refusal to drag scotland into a quarrel which was not even _english_, john declared the english lands of william forfeited, and started a feud which had momentous issue in after years.--w. [ ] harrison has here shown less than his usual broad-mindedness. all agree in praising john de stratford as being gentle enough to match his illustrious townsman yet to be, avon apparently breeding nothing but "sweet swans." the archbishop's quarrel with edward about his friendship for the spencers has always been his glory, not his disgrace.--w. [ ] the "vain prophecy of nicholas hopkins" was not the only outbreak of that soul-stirring century, harrison here alluding to the great birth of the puritans, who (contrary to usual belief, and as their historian particularly insisted upon) were a party in the church of england--its whole life, in fact--for one generation, and not by any means _non-conformists_ or _dissenters_.--w. [ ] writing on march , , to one matchet, his chaplain, parson of thurgarton, in the diocese of norwich, archbishop parker requested him to repair to his ordinary, and to show him how the queen willd the archbishop to suppress those _vain prophesyings_, and requird the ordinary, in her majesty's name, to stop them. this not being acceptable to the bishop of norwich, an altercation between the archbishop and the bishop ensu'd. but eventually the prophesyings were stopt,--the following order being sent by the bishop of norwich to his chancellor on the th of june, :--"after my hearty commendations: whereas by the receipt of my lord of canterbury's letter, i am commanded by him, in the queen her majesty's name, that the prophesyings throughout my diocese should be suppressed; these are therefore to will you, that, as conveniently as you may, you give notice to every of my commissaries, that they, in their several circuits, may suppress the same. and so i leave you to god."--strype's _life of abp. parker_, vol. ii. p. . see more about them in these references to strype's works, from the index:--"_prophesyings_, certain exercises expounding the scriptures, so called, p. ii. , a. ii. i. ; orders respecting their use in the church of northampton, , g. ; this exercise set up at bury, a. ii. i. ; bishop parkhurst's letter of permission, ii. ; generally used by the clergy, i. ; bishop cooper's regulations and allowance for them in herefordshire, _ib._ ; bishop parkhurst stops them in the diocese of norwich, - , p. ii. - ; some privy counsellors write to him in their favour, _ib._; he communicates with archbishop parker and some bishops upon the matter, _ib._; they are suppressed, _ib._; the contentions of the ministers, the occasion thereof, _ib._; directions for this exercise in the diocese of chester, a. ii. i. , ii. ; iii. i. ; the permission of bishop chaderton, ii. ii. ; iii. i. ; bishop cox's opinion of them, ii. ii. ; the queen's letter to the bishop of lincoln to stop them in his diocese, , ; abuses of these exercises, g. ; archbishop grindal's orders for their reformation, ; the queen orders the archbishop to put a stop to them, ; his expostulations with her on the subject, , ; the queen's letter for their suppression, , w. i. ."--_index to strype's works_, vol. ii. p. ( edit.). there are frequent allusions to the _prophesyings_ "in the bishops' injunctions and questions, the whole of which are printed in the appendix to the _ nd report of the ritual commission_. see page , par. ; p. , par. ; p. , par. ; p. , par. ."--f. [ ] john parkhurst, bishop of norwich, writing to his friend henry bullinger, on april , , says:--"and that you might not think i had forgotten you (since i was unable to write through illness), i sent you a small present. _whenever i shall have paid my first fruits_, and extricated myself from debt, you shall know who and what kind of a man is your friend parkhurst."--parker society's _zürich letters_, i. .--f. [ ] the act of henry viii. for restraining pluralities contains a clause making employment at court an excuse for non-residence and pluralities; see tyndale's _expositions_, _etc._, , . bradford contends that they are hurtful to the church, _writings_, ii. ; so does jewel, ii. ; whitgift defends them, i. , etc. see also bullinger's _decades_, iv. ; hutchinson's _works_, ; latimer's _works_, i. ; whitgift's _works_, i. , etc., parker society (index).--f. [ ] see w. stafford's argument against pluralities in his _compendious examination_, , fol. . "what reason is it that one man should haue two mens liuinges and two me_n_s charge, when he is able to discharge but one? the_n_, to haue more, and discharge the cure of neuer a one, is to farre agaynst reaso_n_. but some percase will say, 'there be some of vs worthy a greater preferme_n_t then others, and one benefice were to litle for such a one.' is there not as many degrees in the variety of benefices as there is in mens qualities? yes, forsooth, there is yet in this realme (tha_n_ked be god) benefices from m. markes to xx. markes a yeare of sundry value to endow euery man with, after his qualities and degree. and if a meane benefice happen to fal, let euery man be co_n_tented therewith til a better fal," etc., etc.--f. [ ] "it would pytye a mans heart to heare that that i heare of the state of cambridge: what it is in oxforde i can not tell. ther be few do study diuinitie, but so many as of necessiti must furnish _the_ colledges. for their lyuynges be so small, and vytaylee so dere, that they tarry not ther, but go other where to seke lyuynges, and so they go aboute. nowe there be a fewe gentylmen, and they studye a little diuinitie.... there be none nowe but greate mens sonnes in colledges, and theyr fathers loke not to haue them preachers, so euerye waye thys offyce of preachynge is pyncht at."--_latimer's th sermon before edward iv._, a.d. , p. , ed. arber. the scarcity of preachers in the time of queen elizabeth is lamented by jewel in his _works_, ii. , , and by archbp. sandys, _works_, p. (parker soc.). he also complains of the ignorance of ministers in elizabeth's time, _works_, ii. (parker soc).--f. [ ] here follows a story about the bootless errand of a pope's legate in .--w. [ ] "but what do you patrons? sell your benefices, or give them to your servants for their service, for keeping of hounds or hawks, for making of your gardens. these patrons regard no souls, neither their own nor other men's. what care they for souls, so they have money, though they [souls] perish, though they go to the devil?" (latimer's sermon at stamford, th nov. , _works_, i. ).--on the general character of the ministers of england, see the parker society's _zürich letters_, ii. . harding calls them tinkers, tapsters, fiddlers and pipers, jewel's _works_, iv. , ; jewel admits their want of learning, _ib._ ; many of them were made of "the basest sort of the people," whitgift's _works_, i. ; artificers and unlearned men were admitted to the ministry, archbp. parker's _correspondence_, p. ; many had come out of the shop into the clergy, fulke's _works_, ii. ; an order was given to ordain no more artificers, archbp. grindal's _remains_, p. , note; some beneficed ministers were neither priests nor deacons, archbp. parker's _corr._, pp. , , ; laymen were presented to benefices, and made prebendaries, _ib._ , ; and an archdeacon was not in orders, _ib._ , note.--_parker society's index_, p. --f. [ ] "i will not speak now of them that, being not content with their lands and rents, do catch into their hands spiritual livings, as parsonages and such like; and that under the pretence to make provision for their houses. what hurt and damage this realm of england doth sustain by that devilish kind of provision for gentlemen's houses, knights' and lords' houses, they can tell best that do travel in the countries, and see with their eyes great parishes and market towns, with innumerable others, to be utterly destitute of god's word; and that, because that these greedy men have spoiled the livings, and gotten them into their hands; and instead of a faithful and painful preacher, they hire a sir john, which hath better skill in playing at tables, or in keeping of a garden, than in god's word; and he for a trifle doth serve the cure, and so help to bring the people of god in danger of their souls. and all those serve to accomplish the abominable pride of such gentlemen, which consume the goods of the poor (the which ought to have been bestowed upon a learned minister) in costly apparel, belly-cheer, or in building of gorgeous houses." . a. bernher's dedication to latimer's sermons on the lord's prayer of a.d. . _latimer's works_, i. (parker soc.).--f. [ ] on the neglect of their duties by the elizabethan clergy, and shifting the consequences of it on to the laity, see the doctor's speech, on leaves - of wm. stafford's _compendious examination_, a.d.--f. [ ] see chaucer, description of his monk, prologue to _canterbury tales_, lines - , and my _ballads from manuscripts_, vol. i. pp. , .--f. [ ] see _ballads from manuscripts_, vol. i. pp. - .--f. [ ] long side-note here in edition of , as follows:--"the very cause why weauers pedlers & glouers haue been made ministers, for _th_e learned refuse such matches, so that yf the bishops in times past hadde not made such by oversight friendship i wote not howe such men should haue done wyth their aduousons, as for a glouer or a tayler will be glad of an augme_n_tatio_n_ of or pou_n_d by the yere, and well contented that his patrone shall haue all the rest, so he may be sure of this pension."--f. [ ] such a classical expert as harrison makes a curious error here. cæsar, in his _commentaries_, tells of the way in which the britons instantly apprehended his weakness, perceiving during the truce his army's lack of corn, and thereupon plotting to secretly break the truce and annihilate the mightiest julius and his little following (teaching all future invaders a lasting lesson to beware the chalk cliffs of albion). cæsar also notes how he himself quietly neutralised these efforts by gathering in corn from the country thereabouts. the britons, just as much as himself, understood corn as the staff of life, the mainstay of war as well as of peace. the fact is that harrison thought with two brains, his welsh one and his latin one, and, lost in the mists of welsh fictions, sometimes forgot the most incontrovertible of latin authorities. man's written records of things british start with cæsar.--w. [ ] by omitting a comma (upon which the fate of empires may sometimes turn), our brother printers of (for this scotch paragraph is not in the edition of ) have made pope harrison bestow a mitre upon hector boece. that remarkable native of dundee (who may be said to have invented macbeth as we moderns know him) was a doctor of theology, and learned in every art, as becomes the first implanter of the tough fibres of aberdonian scholarship (for, when one has the rare fortune to overcome the capacious skull and strong brain of a son of aberdeen, the victor well may cry-- "achilles hath the mighty hector slain"), but was never much of an ecclesiastic, although he held a canonry. note, by the way, that harrison (and not john bellendon, as generally stated) was the channel through which boece's _history of scotland_ came into the magic cauldron of shakespearian transformation. cardinal wardlaw, the founder of the oldest of scottish schools, was a very different man from boece, being the glow-worm to the grub.--w. [ ] there was no parliament at perth in . the short session of that year was at stirling. no official record of this remarkable law remains. in fact, boece (from whom harrison evidently quotes by memory) does not say either or that a law was made. he simply records the immediate effect of cardinal wardlaw's speech. however, it had a short shift. fate was against the patriotic scot. james stuart took matter more important than "divers english gentlemen" into scotland: the royal troubadour carried something beside his batch of love rondels away from windsor castle as the fruit of his long captivity. he had not sung nor sighed in vain. the "mistress' eyebrow" of his "woeful ballad" belonged to joan of somerset, one of the three fair joans of the house of plantagenet whose marriages were so wonderfully "auspicious to these sorrowing isles." from joan of kent, princess of wales, joan of beaufort, countess of warwick, and joan of somerset, queen of scotland, are descended most of our english, irish, welsh, as well as scotch families. we may be said to owe most of our joans, johannas, janes, jeans, and janets to these three women "big with the fate" of nations.--w. [ ] one would suppose harrison himself had been "conserving the honour of orestes" when he penned this passage. he doubtless quoted from the lost works of the greek physician by means of his favourite athenæus.--w. [ ] "_as loathing those metals because of the plenty_" sounds strangely to modern ears. yet harrison in this one phrase, by mere accident, lets in more light upon the secret of the towering supremacy of the elizabethan age than have all the expounders, historians, and philosophers from that day to this. the comparative plenty of gold in the time of elizabeth was brought about by the spanish invasions of peru and mexico. england had far more gold than it had hitherto understood any use for, and she fortunately escaped being seized with that insatiable gold thirst which swiftly sapped the foundations of spanish dominion as it had that of rome and other empires of the past. we need seek no further for a reason why the england of elizabeth surpassed all other communities. having all material wealth beyond any other people, at no time has the doctrine of universal labour and repudiation of the fictitious riches of metallic hordes or usurious accumulations been so invariably denounced. harrison's simple evidence is supported by all the records of the time.--w. [ ] roger bacon.--h. [the philosopher's stone is yet missing which is to accomplish this miracle of making malleable glass, something which has had a strange fascination as an inventor's dream in all ages. the account of tiberius cæsar dashing out the brains of the all-too-clever mechanic (who had actually accomplished this feat), so as to prevent the roman world from emancipating itself from the rule of _iron_ (or _of gold_), is the most startling legend in the imperial annals. old friar bacon, who devoted so much attention to optics, naturally put this feat in the forefront of the list of wonders to be accomplished by his great elixir; and harrison's _slip_ yet remains beyond the eager grasp of men, though the grand desideratum has been again and again announced in our own time.--w.] [ ] this was the first english idea of the potato as instanced in the last scene of the _merry wives of windsor_. this was not what is now generally understood as the potato, but the sweet potato of virginia brought home by raleigh. the common potato (which has been only _common_ even in north america for less than a century) is often mixed historically with this other tuber. as a fact, our familiar vegetable of to-day is largely a creature of artificial development, and nowhere grows in the same quality wild, whereas the yam or sweet potato is very little altered from its native state.--w. [ ] sweet cicely, sometimes miscalled myrrh. mure is the saxon word. at one time the plant was not uncommon as a salad.--w. [ ] crosby ravensworth in westmorland is misnamed. it is either _raven's thwaite_ or _raven's swarth_, but never _worth_, which is here meaningless. _swarth_ still lingers on the tongues of the mowers, and _thwaite_ was the form adopted by a once famous family from this mountain fastness. the parish is notable as the home of the addisons.--w. [ ] a famine at hand is first seen in the horse-manger, when the poor do fall to horse corn.--h. [ ] the size of bread is very ill kept or not at all looked unto in the country towns or markets.--h. [ ] the wine which scott has (from the gallic tinge to everything caledonian) buried for all modern literature in the french form of _malvoisie_-- "come broach me a pipe of malvoisie!" it is evident from harrison that a good english form was used.--w. [ ] holinshed. this occurs in the last of harrison's prefatory matter.--w. [ ] this word is not obsolete. south-coast countrymen still eat _nuntions_ and not _luncheons_.--w. [ ] harrison must have got some of these out-of-the-way references at second hand--a valuable trick of the trade among learned pundits. the "sophists" of athenæus of naucratis has never even to our day been handled by an english printer, a modern translation in a classical series excepted, but the aldine edition was a favourite of european scholars long before the time of harrison.--w. [ ] it was very wrong of harrison to crib from the copy which newberry, the printer, had in his office--that is, unless sir henry savile gave permission. henry of huntingdon's _history of england_ was not issued until eight years after this, but the printers had it evidently in hand. it is not likely that harrison used the original at oxford.--w. [ ] here follows a disquisition upon the table practices of the ancients.--w. [ ] lettuce was brought over from the low countries along with various new notions in the days of luther. harrison does not seem to mention it as an english institution as yet however.--w. [ ] after three centuries we have not yet plucked up courage to spell this pet phrase of the bill-of-fare writers as an english word. _entry_, as a tangible object, means something between, and not at the beginning; and if we contract _entremets_ there is no reason why we should for ever talk french and say _entrée_, and use superfluous signs, meaningless to english eyes.--w. [ ] [cut.] "i am an english man and naked i stand here, musying in my mynde what rayment i shall were; for now i will were thys, and now i will were that; now i will were i cannot tell what. all new fashyons be plesaunt to me; i wyl haue them, whether i thryve or thee." from andrew boorde's _introduction_ ( ), and _dyetary_ ( ), edited by f. j. f. for early english text society, , p. . (a most quaint and interesting volume, though i say so.).--f. [ ] this is too harsh a character for boorde; for a juster one, as i hope, see my preface to his _introduction_, p. .--f. [ ] almaine; see _halle_, pp. - .--f. [ ] there is no reason to suppose that _collyweston_ was ever in general english use. it is a cheshire side-hit (and not common there), and all the cheshire students cannot unravel the mystery. i have no doubt it belongs to one of the great baronial family of weston, who were geniuses, and therefore of course "to madness near allied," wits and cloaks awry.--w. [weston colvil is eleven miles from cambridge, north of the gogmagog hills.--f.] [ ] see wynkin de worde's _treatise of this galaunt_ (? about a.d.) in my _ballads from manuscripts_ ( - ), vol. i., pp. - (ballad society, and ), a satire on the gallant or vicious dandy of the day.--f. [ ] of the many of shakespeare's happiest hits which can be traced to harrison's fertile suggestion, this is one of the most apparent. who can fail to appreciate that petruchio's side-splitting bout with the tailor had its first hint here?--w. [ ] shakespeare complains of women painting their faces, and wearing sham-hair, in _love's labour's lost_, iv. iii., and the locks from "the skull that bred them in the sepulchre," in _merchant_, iii. ii.--f. [ ] the extravagant variety of woman's attire in the days of the virgin queen (whose own legendary allowance of different habit for each day in the year is still a fondly preserved faith amongst the women and children) was the subject of rebuke from far more famous pulpits than harrison's modest retreat. no choice morsel of the "english chrysostom" surpasses the invective against feminine vanities in his "wedding garment" of almost this very year. for instance: "thus do our curious women put on christ, who, when they hear the messengers of grace offering this garment, and preparing to make the body fit to be garnished with so glorious a vesture (as paul did the romans, first washing away drunkenness and gluttony, then chamberings and wantonness, then strife and envy, and so sin after sin), they seem like the stony ground to receive it with joy, and think to beautify their head with this precious ornament; but when he tells them that there is no communion between christ and belial, that if this garment be put on all other vanities must be put off, they then turn their day into darkness, and reject christ, that would be an eternal crown of beauty to their heads, and wrap their temples in the uncomely rags of every nation's pride."--w. [ ] the etymology of the word is not known. baret describes the colour as between russet and black.--_alvearie_, a.d. .--f. [in the middle ages country housewives mostly made their own colours, and this was most likely made from bilberries, which children still sometimes call "poke-berrys" or "puckers," because of their astringent effect upon the lips.--w.] [ ] a _jag_ was first a notch, a chink, then perhaps any ornamental pendant, ribbon, or other, to one's dress. a saddler was a _jagger_.--w. [ ] _ver d'oye._ goose-turd greene; a greenish yellow; or a colour which is between a green and a yellow.--_cotgrave._--f. [ ] _verd gay._ a popinjay greene.--_cotgrave._--f. [ ] for chaucer's complaints of the men and women's dress of his day see his _parson's tale_, part ii., of confession, _de superbia_. for a ballad on the fantastic dresses of charles i.'s time see _roxburgh collections_, i. ; ballad society's reprint, ii. and . and on the point generally see the percy society's _poems on costume_.--f. [ ] see andrew boorde's _dyetary of helth_, , early english text society, , for a description of how to build houses, and manage them and men's income, and what food folk should eat.--f. [ ] moss, in the gawthorp accounts.--f. [ ] this was in the time of general idleness.--h. [ ] see the interesting account in _holinshed_, iii. - , of how the good young king edward vi., mov'd by a sermon of bishop ridley's, talkt with him about means for relieving the poor, and on his suggestion resolvd to begin with those of london, and wrote to the lord mayor of london, sir richard dobs, about it. dobs, ridley, two aldermen, and six commoners, got up a committee of twenty-four. "and in the end, after sundrie meetings (for by meane of the good diligence of the bishop it was well followed), they agreed vpon a booke that they had deuised, wherein first they considered of nine speciall kinds and sorts of poore people, and those same they brought in these three degrees: { the poore by impotencie. three degrees of poore { poor by casualtie. { thriftlesse poore. . the poore by impotencie { . the fatherlesse poore mans child. are also diuided into { . the aged, blind, and lame. three kinds, that is to { . the diseased person, by leprosie, saie: dropsie, etc. . the poore by casualtie are { . the wounded souldier. of three kinds, that is to { . the decaied housholder. saie: { . the visited with greeuous disease. . the thriftles poore are three { . the riotor that consumeth all. kinds in like wise, that { . the vagabond that will abide in no is to saie: place. { . the idle person, as the strumpet and others. for these sorts of poore were prouided three seuerall houses. first for the innocent and fatherlesse, which is the beggers child, and is in deed the seed and breeder of beggerie, they prouided the house that was late graie friers in london, and now is called christes hospitall, where the poore children are trained in the knowledge of god, and some vertuous exercise to the ouerthrowe of beggerie. for the second degree, is prouided the hospitall of saint thomas in southworke, & saint bartholomew in west smithfield, where are continuallie at least two hundred diseased persons, which are not onelie there lodged and cured, but also fed and nourished. for the third degree, they prouided bridewell, where the vagabond and idle strumpet is chastised, and compelled to labour, to the ouerthrow of the vicious life of idlenes. they prouided also for the honest decaied housholder, that he should be relieued at home at his house, and in the parish where he dwelled, by a weekelie reliefe and pension. and in like manner they prouided for the lazer, to keepe him out of the citie from clapping of dishes, and ringing of bels, to the great trouble of the citizens, and also to the dangerous infection of manie, that they should be relieued at home at their houses with seuerall pensions."--_holinshed_, iii. . the rest of the page should be read about "blessed king" edward vi., and his thanking god that he'd given him life to finish "this worke" of relief to the poor "to the glorie of thy name": two days after, the good young king died.--f. [ ] at whose hands shall the blood of these men be required?--h. [ ] objection , sign. e. i. "i praie you shewe me by what occasion or meanes, this huge nomber of beggers and vacaboundes doe breede here in englande. and why you appointe twelue of them to euery shipp: i thinke they maie carie the shippe awaie, & become pirates. [answer.] if you consider the pouerty that is and doth remaine in the shire tounes, and market tounes, within this realme of england and wales, which tounes, being inhabited with greate store of poore householders, who by their pouertie are driue_n_ to bring vp their youth idlely; and if they liue vntil they come to mans state, then are they past all remedie to be brought to woorke. therfore, at suche tyme as their parentes fayles them, they beginne to shifte, and acquainte them selues with some one like brought vppe, that hath made his shifte, with dicyng, cosenyng, picking or cutting of purses, or els, if he be of courage, plaine robbing by the waie side, which they count an honest shift for the time; and so come they daiely to the gallowes. hereby growes the greate and huge nomber of beggers and vacaboundes, which by no reasonable meanes or lawes could yet be brought to woorke, being thus idely brought vp. whiche perilous state and imminent daunger that they now stande in, i thought it good to auoide, by placeyng twelue of these poore people into euery fishynge shippe, accordyng to this platte." . _robert hitchcok's pollitique platt._--f. [ ] see the earliest known specimen of the gipsy language, the "egyptian rogues'" speech, in my edition of andrew boorde, early english text society, first series, , p. .--f. [ ] thomas harman. see the edition of his book, and audeley's prior one, by mr. viles and myself, in the early english text society's extra series, , no. ix.--f. [ ] see appendix. [ ] law of the marshal.--f. [ ] see my _ballads from mss._, - , ballad society.--f. [ ] harrison has confounded two very similar keltic words. it should be a "d" in place of the second "c."--w. [ ] here lacks.--h. [ ] _principes longè magis exemple quàm culpa peccare solent._--h. [ ] the lord mountjoy.--h. [ ] here ends the chapter entitled "minerals," and the one on "metals" begins.--w. [ ] here follow two stories about crows and miners. see appendix.--w. [ ] some tell me that it is a mixture of brass, lead, and tin.--h. [ ] harrison substituted _inkle_ in for _packthread_ in , a curious flight backward for modern readers. the inkle was a favourite pedlar-sold tape of the day, probably more at hand and more to the purpose than packthread.--w. [ ] though boars are no longer bred, but only bred by, in elizabethan days and before then the rearing of them for old english braun (not the modern substitute) was the chief feature of swine-herding; thus in "cheape and good husbandry," the author says: "now, lastly, the best feeding of a swine for lard or of a boare for braune, is to feed them the first week with barley, sodden till it breake, and sod in such quantity that it may ever be given sweete: then after to feed them with raw mault from the floore, before it be dried, till they be fat enough: and then for a weeke after, to give them drie pease or beanes to harden their flesh. let their drinke be the washing of hoggesheads, or ale barrels, or sweete whay, and let them have store thereof. this manner of feeding breeds the whitest, fattest, and best flesh that may be, as hath beene approved by the best husbands." after this, harrison's maltbugs well might ask: "who would not be a hog?"--w. [ ] the proper english name of the bird which vulgar acceptance forces us to now call _bittern_.--w. [ ] see more in the second chapter of the description of scotland.--h. [ ] here ends the first chapter of "fowls," that which follows being restricted to "hawks and ravenous fowls."--w. [ ] this on "venomous beasts" will be found included in the "savage beasts" of the following. [ ] here follows an account of the extermination of wolves, and a reference to lions and wild bulls rampant in scotland of old.--w. [ ] misprints for "pricket" and "sorel"; see shakespeare's _love's labour's lost_, iv. ii. - ; _the return from parnassus_, etc., etc.--f. [ ] here follows a discourse on ancient boar-hunting, exalting it above the degenerate sports of the day. this ends the chapter on "savage beasts."--w. [ ] galenus, _de theriaca ad pisonem_; pliny, lib. , cap. .--h. [ ] salust, cap. ; pliny, lib. , cap. .--h. [ ] see diodorus siculus.--h. [ ] the like have i seen when hens do feed upon the tender blades of garlic.--h. [ ] this gentleman caught such an heat with this sore load that he was fain to go to rome for physic, yet it would not save his life; but he must needs hie homewards.--h. [ ] compare _stubs's anatomie_, p. . turnbull.--f. [ ] see percy folio, _loose and humorous songs_, p. , l. - .--f. [ ] we've unluckily lost the distinction between _rabbit_ and _coney_.--f. [ ] called "suckers" in _babees book_ and henry viii.'s _household ordinances_.--f. [ ] see andrew boorde's amusing bit about venison in his _dyetary_ (my edition, p. ).--f. [ ] harrison was not quite up to the dignity of labour.--f. [ ] the decay of the people is the destruction of a kingdom: neither is any man born to possess the earth alone.--h. [ ] the fact is well known. see instances in w. de worde's "kerving," second edition, in _babees book_.--f. [ ] see the curious tract on this in mr. john cowper's _four supplications_, early english text society, extra series.--f. [ ] the chapter ends with the forest laws of canute. born londoner though he be, harrison dwells lovingly upon the least point connected with his country home. his saffron walden is ever a fruitful source of discourse, saffron being a prolific theme in other places of the work, and walden here made to "point the moral and adorn the tale."--w. [ ] for her household in - see _household ordinances_, p. .--f. [ ] i suppose that sir thomas more, and henry viii., and lady jane grey's parents began "the higher education of women" in england by having their daughters properly taught. on "education in early england" see my forewords (tho' sadly imperfect) to the _babees book_ (early english text society).--f. [ ] compare chaucer's _prologue: the squire_. on the evils of serving-men see sir t. more's _utopia_, and my _ballads from mss._, i.--f. [ ] the chapter concludes with the special penal regulations for disturbers in the court precincts.--w. [ ] see ascham's _toxophilus_. when our folk and government come to their senses every english boy and man'll be taught rifle-shooting; ranges will be provided by compulsory powers; and every male over sixteen be made sure of his man in any invading force. if then any foreign force wants to come, let it, and find its grave.--f. [ ] "our peaceable days" were on the eve of the greatest struggle for life ever known to england, but never before or since could she put a million men armed to the teeth into the field, and have still a reserve to fall back on. people who dream that the spaniards would have fared better on land than sea are grievously out in their reckoning.--w. [ ] see the amusing extract from william bulleyn in my _babees book_, pp. - .--f. [ ] here follows an account of roman and carthaginian galleys which "did not only match, but far exceed" in capacity our ships and galleys of .--w. [ ] see my _ballads from mss._, i. , on this and henry viii.'s navy. there's an engraving of this _great henry_, or _henry grace_ (burnt august , ), in the british museum.--f. [ ] surely this statement was justified by facts. and nelson, dundonald, and their successors have shown that english sailors since have not degenerated.--f. [ ] see in _household ordinances_, pp. - , "an account of all the queen's ships of war; the musters taken in and ; the warlike stores in the tower and aboard the navy in ; the _custodes rotolorum_ of every county in england and wales, and the names of all the english fugitives."--f. [ ] a name devised by her grace in remembrance of her own deliverance from the fury of her enemies, from which in one respect she was no less miraculously preserved than was the prophet jonas from the belly of the whale.--h. [ ] so called of her exceeding nimbleness in sailing and swiftness of course.--h. [ ] the list of twenty-four ships (with their men and arms) in the list in _household ordinances_, pp. - , contains all these in the note here except the cadish, and adds to them the primrose, and the faulcon, aibates (for achates), and george, named above. the list has not the revenge above. it calls the white boare and dreadnot the white bear and dreadnought (as above); and the genet, jenett. and adds, "the sum of all other, as well merchant shipps as other, in all places in england, of tunns and upwards, . the sum of all barkes and shippes of tunne and upward to an tunne, . there are besides, by estimation, saile of hoyes. also of small barkes and fishermen an infinite number. so as the number of ... through the realme cannot be lesse than , besides london." no doubt mrs. green's calendar of state papers, temp elizabeth, gives further details.--f. [the "note" to which dr. furnivall refers is one collating the text where the cadish is inserted between the forresight and swift sute, and the last four above are not given.--w.] [ ] my friend, mr. h. h. sparling (who has made a special study of the english navy archives from henry viii.'s time downward) kindly furnishes the following navy list of the armada year, dividing the boats into classes with wages descending in scale from these i have retained: "the newe increase of sea wages to maisters, botswaynes, gunners, pursers, and cookes, as also shall serue her ma{tie.} at the seas in any of thes her highnes shipps hereafter, as also what rates have bene & yet are payde, w{c} at this present are servinge in any of these her ma{ties.} shipes now in the narrow seas or ells wheare abroad, as followeth: the elizabet jonas, triumphe, whit beare, merhonour, arke raughley, victory; mathewe and andrewe, spanish shipps. in these viij shippes, yf any of her mg{tie}s vj m{rs} shalbe appointed to serue, then to haue-- new rates per olde rates per mensem. mensem. the boteson the gonner the purser the cooke repulse, warspight, garland, defiance, mary roase, lyon, bonauentur, hope, vauntgard, raynebowe, nonperelia. yf any of these xj shipps, then to have, etc. * * * * * dreadnought, swifsuer, antelope, swallowe, foresight, aduentur. yf any, etc. * * * * * ayde, answere, quittance, crane, aduauntage, teiger. yf any, etc. * * * * * tremontaine, scoute, achates, the gally mercury. yf any, etc. * * * * * charles, aduice, moone, frigett, spye, signet, sonne, george hoye, primrose. * * * * * memorand: that these aduanced rates doe onlie concerne the queens ma{ties} vj maisters, and the botesons, gunners, pursers, & cooks, that daylie serue her ma{tie} in the shipps in ordinarie in harborow, and noe others: w{ch} is so increased to them especiallie to containe them in true seruice and due obedience to her ma{tie}." this will be seen to differ somewhat from harrison's list of the previous year.--w. [ ] see hakluyt's record of the daring and endurance of our elizabethan seamen.--f. [ ] "confession by torment is esteemed for nothing, for if hee confesse at the iudgement, the tryall of the goeth not vpon him; if hee deny the fact: that which he said before, hindreth him not. the nature of english-men is to neglect death, to abide no torment: and therefore hee will confesse rather to haue done anything, yea to haue killed his owne father, than to suffer torment: for death, our nation doth not so much esteeme as a meere torment. in no place shall you see malefactors goe more constantly, more assuredly, and with lesse lamentation to their death than in england.... the nature of our nation is free, stout, haulty, prodigall of life and blood; but contumely, beating, servitude, and seruile torment, and punishment; it will not abide. so in this nature & fashion, our ancient princes and legislatoors haue nourished them, as to make them stout-hearted, couragious, and souldiers, not villaines and slaues; and that is the scope almost of all our policie."--sir thomas smith's _commonwealth of england_, ed. , p. , book ii., chap. (not ).--f. [ ] but see how felons who won't confess are pressed to death by heavy weights.--f. [ ] a.d. . _hol._ iii. , col. . "on the one and twentith daie of ianuarie, two seminarie preests (before arreigned and condemned) were drawne to tiburne, and there _hanged, bowelled, and quartered_. also on the same daie a wench was _burnt_ in smithfield, for _poisoning_ of hir aunt and mistresse, and also attempting to haue doon the like to hir vncle."----a.d. . "the thirtith daie of nouember, cutbert maine was _drawne, hanged, and quartered_ at lanceston in cornewall for preferring romane power ... - . the third daie of februarie, john nelson, for denieng the queenes supremasie, and such other traitorous words against hir maiestie, was drawne from newgate to tiburne, and there _hanged, bowelled, and quartered_. and on the seuenth of the same moneth of februarie, thomas sherewin was likewise drawne from the tower of london to tiburne, and there _hanged, bowelled, and quartered_ for the like offense."--_holinshed_ iii. , col. , l. , l. --f. [ ] a.d. . "the eight and twentith of julie (as you have heard before), the lord cromwell was beheaded, and likewise with him the lord hungerford of heitesburie, who at the houre of his death seemed vnquiet, as manie iudged him rather in a frensie than otherwise: he suffered for buggerie."--_holinshed_, iii. , col. , l. . see the rest of the column for other executions for heresy, for affirming henry viii.'s marriage with his first queen, katherine, to be good, for treason, and for robbing a lady.--f. [ ] a.d. , ann. elizabeth . "the eight and twentith daie of nouember, were arreigned in the king's [queen's] bench, william randoll for _coniuring to know where treasure was hid in the earth_, and goods felloniouslie taken, were become: thomas elks, thomas lupton, rafe spacie, and christopher waddington, for being present, aiding, and procuring the said randoll to the coniuration aforesaid: randoll, elks, spacie, and waddington, were found guiltie, and had iudgement to be hanged: randoll was executed, the other were repriued."--_holinshed_, iii. , col. , l. .----a.d. . "the thirteenth of januarie, a man was draune to saint thomas of waterings, and there hanged, headed and quartered, for begging by a licence whereunto the queenes hand was counterfeited."--_holinshed_, iii. , col. , l. .--f. [ ] cap. , record commission statutes.--f. [ ] sir john falstaff.--f. [ ] mr. william shakspere.--f. [ ] a.d. - . "the seven and twentith of januarie, philip mestrell, a frenchman, and two englishmen, were draune from newgate to tiburne, and there hanged, the frenchman quartered, who had coined gold counterfeit; the englishmen, the one had dipped silver, the other, cast testons of tin."--_hol._, iii. , col. , l. .----a.d. - . "the fiue and twentith of februarie, john de loy, a frenchman, and fiue english gentlemen, was conueied from the tower of london towards norwich, there to be arreigned and executed for coining of monie counterfeit."--_hol._, iii. , col. , l. .--f. [ ] see note [p. ], a.d. . "the ninteenth of julie, a woman was burnt at tunbridge in kent for poisoning of hir husband: and two daies before, a man named orleie was hanged at maidstone, for being accessarie to the same fact."--_holinshed_, iii. , col. , l. .--f. a.d. . "on the sixteenth of julie, rebecca chamber, late wife to thomas chamber of heriettesham, was found culpable [= guilty] of poisoning the said thomas chamber hir husband, at the assises holden at maidstone in the countie of kent. for the which fact, she (hauing well deserued) was there burnt on the next morrow."--_hol._, iii. , col. , l. . see like instances in stowe's _annales_.--f. [ ] note folio , a.d. . "on the eighteenth daie of september, john lewes, who named himself abdoit, an obstinate heretike, denieng the godhead of christ, and holding diuers other detestable heresies (much like to his predecessor matthew hamont), was burned at norwich."--_holinshed_, iii. , col. , l. .--f. [ ] a.d. - .--"on the ninth of march seven pirats were hanged at wapping in the ouze, beside london."--_holinshed_, iii. , column , lines - .--f. [ ] on serving-men, see the striking passage in sir thomas more's _utopia_, pp. - , edition of , and "a health to the gentlemanly profession of seruing-men; or, the seruing-man's comfort: with other thinges not impertinent to the premises, as well pleasant as profitable to the courteous reader," , reprinted in w. c. hazlitt's roxburghe library, _inedited tracts_, . also "the serving-man and the husbandman: a pleasaunt new dialogue," _roxburgh ballads_, ballad society, , i. .--f. [ ] here follows a paragraph about the legendary foundation of the universities. see appendix.--w. [ ] cambridge burned not long since.--h. [ ] here follows an account of oxford and cambridge castles, and the legend of the building of osney abbey by robert and edith d'oyley. see appendix.--w. [ ] this fox builded corpus christi college, in oxford.--h. [ ] so much also may be inferred of lawyers.--h. [ ] he founded also a good part of eton college, and a free school at wainfleet, where he was born. [ ] compare the later, and no doubt distinct, _two noble kinsmen_ by shakspere and fletcher.--f. [ ] see the notes on theatres in the "new shakspere society" reprint.--w. [also the notes to john lane in my tell-trothe volume.--f.] [ ] unless this can be shown to have been written later, it must modify mr. halliwell's argument and statement, in his _illustrations_, pp. , , against the early theatres and houses--those before "_the theatre_" (burbage's) in --being "built" for play-acting. he says, p. , "in northbrooke's treatise, - , youth asks,--'doe you speake against those places also whiche are made uppe and builded for such playes and enterludes, as the theatre and curtaine is, and other suche lyke places besides?' by 'other _suche lyke_ places,' that is, similar places, the writer perhaps alludes [or perhaps does not] to houses or taverns in which interludes were performed, speaking of such buildings generally, the construction of the sentence not necessarily implying that he refers to other edifices _built especially_ for dramatic representations." (yet surely the fair and natural inference from the words is that the "other lyke places" were built for the same purpose as "the theatre and curtaine.") again, at p. , "when gosson, in his _playes confuted_, c. , speaks of 'cupid and psyche plaid at paules, and a greate many comedies more at the blacke friers and in every playe house in london,' he _unquestionably_ refers to _houses or taverns temporarily employed_ for the performances alluded to." and, after quoting rawlidge's _monster late found out_, ,--"some of the pious magistrates made humble suit to the late queene elizabeth of ever-living memorie, and her privy counsaile, and obteined leave from her majesty to thrust those players out of the citty, and to pull downe the dicing houses; which accordingly was affected; and the play-houses in gracious street, bishopsgate street, nigh paules, that on ludgate hill, the whitefriars, were put downe, and other lewd houses quite supprest within the liberties, by the care of those religious senators"--mr. halliwell says, "the 'play-houses' in gracious or gracechurch street, bishopsgate street, and on ludgate hill, were the yards respectively of the well-known taverns called the cross keys, the bull, and the belle savage.[ ] _there is no good reason_ for believing that the other 'play-houses' mentioned, those near st. paul's and in the whitefriars, were, at the period alluded to, other than buildings made for the representation of plays, _not edifices expressly constructed for the purpose_."--f. [ ] he quotes from flecknoe's _short discourse of the english stage_, , "about the beginning of queen elizabeths reign they began here to assemble into companies and set up theaters, first in the city, as in the inn-yards of the cross-keyes and bull, in grace and bishopsgate street, at this day is to be seen."--_illustrations_, p. .--f. [ ] see crowley's epigrams on this, e. e. t. soc. p. .--f. [ ] very short men or very tall tobacco.--w. [ ] _passions or patience_, a dock so called, apparently from the italian name under which it was introduced from the south, _lapazio_, a corruption of _l. lapathum_, having been mistaken for _la passio_, the passion of jesus christ, _rumex patientia_, l. dr. prior, _popular names of british plants_, p. .--f. [ ] the use of tobacco spread very fast in england, to the disgust of barnaby rich, james i., and many others. rich, in _the honestie of this age_, , pp. - , complains of the money wasted on it. he also contests the fact admitted by harrison above, of tobacco doing good; says it's reported that houses live by the trade of tobacco-selling, and that if each of these takes but s. d. a-day,--and probably it takes s.--the sum total amounts to £ , a year, "all spent in smoake." "they say it is good for a cold, for a pose, for rewms, for aches, for dropsies, and for all manner of diseases proceeding of moyst humours: but i cannot see but that those that do take it fastest, are as much (or more) subject to all these infirmities (yea, and to the poxe itself) as those that have nothing at all to do with it.... there is not so base a groome that commes into an ale-house to call for his pot, but he must have his pipe of tobacco; for it is a commoditie that is nowe as vendible in every taverne, inne, and ale-house, as eyther wine, ale, or beare; and for apothicaries shops, grosers shops, chandlers shops, they are (almost) never without company that, from morning till night, are still taking of tobacco. what a number are there besides that doe keep houses, set open shoppes, that have no other trade to live by, but by the selling of tobacco!" see sir john davies's epigram 'of tobacco, xxxvi.' (marlowe's _works_, ed. cunningham, p. ) singing its praises in ; and also that '_in syllam_, xxviii.', p. , on the boldness of the man who horrified 'society' then, "that dares take tobacco on the stage," 'dance in paul's,' etc. (and contrast with him the capital description of a gull in epigram ii., p. ). also the epigram '_in ciprium_, xxii.', , p. , col. .--f. [ ] lady dorothy stafford's son, and not the william stafford who wrote the _compendious & briefe examination_, . see my forewords to the society's edition.--f. [ ] will the memory of this do for the _midsummer night's dream_ contagious fogs, corn rotted (ii. i. - ), and empty fold? the rainfloods of suit better, no doubt; see the end of my _stafford_ forewords.--f. [ ] charles howard, afterwards earl of nottingham, a half-cousin of the poet surrey.--w. [ ] the respective "minions" (_i.e._, "darlings") of the second edward and the second richard; but both, unlike dudley, died wretchedly, one in exile, the other by the block.--w. [ ] "the . of aprill the parliament brake vp at westminster, for the time, wherein was granted three subsidies of .s. .d. the pound goods, and foure s. lands, and . fifteenes."--stowe's _annals_, ed. , p. . (a good 'oration of her maiesty to the parliament men' follows.)--f. [ ] ms. corrected. i'm not sure of either word. 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[_ready th december._ the following writers, among others, are preparing volumes for this series:-- prof. e. d. cope, prof. g. f. fitzgerald, prof. j. geikie, g. l. gomme, e. c. k. gonner, prof. j. jastrow (wisconsin), e. sidney hartland, prof. c. h. herford, j. bland sutton, dr. c. merrier, sidney webb, dr. sims woodhead, dr. c. m. woodward (st. louis, mo.), etc. london: walter scott, warwick lane, paternoster row. _crown vo, about pp. each, cloth cover, s. d. per vol. half-polished morocco, gilt top, s._ count tolstoÏ's works. arrangements have been made to publish, in monthly volumes, a series of translations of works by the eminent russian novelist, count lyof. n. tolstoï. the english reading public will be introduced to an entirely new series of works by one who is probably the greatest living master of fiction in europe. to those unfamiliar with the charm of russian fiction, and especially with the works of count tolstoï, these volumes will come as a new revelation of power. _the following volumes are already issued_-- a russian proprietor. the cossacks. ivan ilyitch, and other stories. the invaders, and other stories. my religion. life. my confession. childhood, boyhood, youth. the physiology of war. anna karÉnina. 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( vols.) the long exile, and other stories for children. _ready december st._ sevastopol. london: walter scott, warwick lane, paternoster row. new booklets. _crown vo, in white embossed boards, gilt lettering, one shilling each._ by count leo tolstoÏ. where love is, there god is also. the two pilgrims. what men live by. published originally in russia, as tracts for the people, these little stories, which mr. walter scott will issue separately early in february, in "booklet" form, possess all the grace, naïveté, and power which characterise the work of count tolstoï, and while inculcating in the most penetrating way the christian ideas of love, humility, and charity, are perfect in their art form as stories pure and simple. _adapted for presentation at easter._ london: walter scott, warwick lane. windsor series of poetical anthologies. _printed on antique paper. crown vo. bound in blue cloth, each with suitable emblematic design on cover, price s. d. also in various calf and morocco bindings._ women's voices. an anthology of the most characteristic poems by english, scotch, and irish women. edited by mrs. william sharp. sonnets of this century. with an exhaustive essay on the sonnet. edited by wm. sharp. the children of the poets. an anthology from english and american writers of three centuries. edited by professor eric s. robertson. sacred song. a volume of religious verse. selected and arranged by samuel waddington. a century of australian song. selected and edited by douglas b. w. sladen, b.a., oxon. jacobite songs and ballads. selected and edited, with notes, by g. s. macquoid. irish minstrelsy. edited, with notes and introduction, by h. halliday sparling. the sonnets of europe. a volume of translations. selected and arranged by samuel waddington. early english and scottish poetry. selected and edited by h. macaulay fitzgibbon. ballads of the north countrie. edited, with introduction, by graham r. tomson. songs and poems of the sea. an anthology of poems descriptive of the sea. edited by mrs. william sharp. songs and poems of fairyland. an anthology of english fairy poetry, selected and arranged, with an introduction, by arthur edward waite. songs and poems of the great dominion. edited by w. d. lighthall, of montreal. london: walter scott, warwick lane, paternoster row. _recent volumes of verse._ edition de luxe. crown to, on antique paper, price s. d. sonnets of this century. by william sharp. crown vo, cloth, bevelled boards, price s. d. each. in fancy dress. "it is thyself." by mark andre raffalovich. crown vo, cloth, bevelled boards, price s. d. carols from the coal-fields: and other songs and ballads. by joseph skipsey. cloth gilt, price s. last year's leaves. by john jervis beresford, m.a. crown vo, cloth gilt, price s. d. ballads and other poems. by george roberts hedley. fourth edition, crown vo, cloth gilt, price s. d. tales and ballads of wearside. by john green. second edition. price s. romantic ballads and poems of phantasy. by william sharp. parchment limp, s. death's disguises and other sonnets. by frank t. marzials. london: walter scott, warwick lane, paternoster row. small crown vo. printed on antique laid paper. cloth elegant, gilt edges, price / . summer legends. by rudolph baumbach. translated by mrs. helen b. dole. this is a collection of charming fanciful stories translated from the german. in germany they have enjoyed remarkable popularity, a large number of editions having been sold. rudolph baumbach deals with a wonderland which is all his own, though he suggests hans andersen in his simplicity of treatment, and heine in his delicacy, grace, and humour. these are stories which will appeal vividly to the childish imagination, while the older reader will discern the satirical or humorous application that underlies them. london: walter scott, warwick lane. transcriber's notes: passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_. superscripted letters are shown in {brackets}. additional spacing after some of the quotes is intentional to indicate both the end of a quotation and the beginning of a new paragraph as presented in the original text. the original text includes a greek character which has been replaced with a transliteration. the original text includes blank spaces. these are represented by _____ in this text version. the unmatched quotation mark before footnote marker ten appears as in the original text. the following misprints have been corrected: "too too" corrected to "too" (page ) "upom" corrected to "upon" (page ) "too too" corrected to "too" (page ) "leircester" corrected to "leicester" (page ) generously made available by internet archive (https://archive.org) note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h.zip) images of the original pages are available through internet archive. see https://archive.org/details/indaysofqueeneli tapp [illustration: elizabeth, queen of england.] makers of england series in the days of queen elizabeth by eva march tappan, ph.d. author of "in the days of alfred the great" "in the days of william the conqueror" etc. illustrated from famous paintings boston: lothrop, lee & shepard co. copyright, , by lee and shepard published august, all rights reserved in the days of queen elizabeth norwood press j. s. cushing & co.--berwick & smith norwood, mass. u. s. a. preface of all the sovereigns that have worn the crown of england, queen elizabeth is the most puzzling, the most fascinating, the most blindly praised, and the most unjustly blamed. to make lists of her faults and virtues is easy. one may say with little fear of contradiction that her intellect was magnificent and her vanity almost incredibly childish; that she was at one time the most outspoken of women, at another the most untruthful; that on one occasion she would manifest a dignity that was truly sovereign, while on another the rudeness of her manners was unworthy of even the age in which she lived. sometimes she was the strongest of the strong, sometimes the weakest of the weak. at a distance of three hundred years it is not easy to balance these claims to censure and to admiration, but at least no one should forget that the little white hand of which she was so vain guided the ship of state with most consummate skill in its perilous passage through the troubled waters of the latter half of the sixteenth century. eva march tappan. _worcester, march, ._ contents chapter page i. the baby princess ii. the child elizabeth iii. a boy king iv. giving away a kingdom v. a princess in prison vi. from prison to throne vii. a sixteenth century coronation viii. a queen's troubles ix. elizabeth and philip x. entertaining a queen xi. elizabeth's suitors xii. the great sea-captains xiii. the new world xiv. the queen of scots xv. the spanish armada xvi. closing years list of illustrations. page. elizabeth, queen of england. (_from painting by an unknown artist._) _frontispiece._ lady jane grey and roger ascham. (_from painting by j. c. horsley._) kenilworth in elizabeth's time. (_from an old painting._) elizabeth signing the death warrant of mary stuart. (_from painting by liezen-mayer._) mary stuart receiving her death sentence. (_from painting by carl piloty._) last moment of mary, queen of scots. (_from painting by an unknown artist._) the spanish armada attacked by the english fleet. (_from pine's engraving of the tapestry formerly in the house of lords, but destroyed by fire in the eighteenth century._) last moments of elizabeth. (_from painting by delaroche._) in the days of queen elizabeth chapter i the baby princess two ladies of the train of the princess elizabeth were talking softly together in an upper room of hunsdon house. "never has such a thing happened in england before," said the first. "true," whispered the second, "and to think of a swordsman being sent for across the water to calais! that never happened before." "surely no good can come to the land when the head of her who has worn the english crown rolls in the dust at the stroke of a french executioner," murmured the first lady, looking half fearfully over her shoulder. "but if a queen is false to the king, if she plots against the peace of the throne, even against the king's very life, why should she not meet the same punishment that the wife of a tradesman would suffer if she strove to bring death to her husband? the court declared that queen anne was guilty." "yes, the court, the court," retorted the first, "and what a court! if king henry should say, 'cranmer, cut off your father's head,' and 'cromwell, cut off your mother's head,' they would bow humbly before him and answer, 'yes, sire,' provided only that they could have wealth in one hand and power in the other. a court, yes!" "oh, well, i'm to be in the train of the princess elizabeth, and i'm not the one to sit on the judges' bench and say whether the death that her mother died yesterday was just or unjust," said the second lady with a little yawn. "but bend your head a bit nearer," she went on, "and i'll tell you what the lord mayor of london whispered to a kinsman of my own. he said there was neither word nor sign of proof against her that was the queen, and that he who had but one eye could have seen that king henry wished to get rid of her. but isn't that your brother coming up the way?" "yes, it is ralph. he is much in the king's favor of late because he can play the lute so well and can troll a poem better than any other man about the court. he will tell us of the day in london." ralph had already dismounted when his sister came to the hall, too eager to welcome him to wait for any formal announcement of his arrival. "greeting, sister clarice," said he as he kissed her cheek lightly. "how peaceful it all is on this quiet hill with trees and flowers about, and breezes that bring the echoes of bird-notes rather than the noise and tumult of the city." "but i am sure that i heard one sound of the city yesterday, ralph. it was the firing of a cannon just at twelve. was not that the hour when the stroke of the french ruffian beheaded the queen? were there no murderers in england that one must needs be sent for across the water?" "i had hardly thought you could hear the sound so far," said her brother, "but it was as you say. the cannon was the signal that the deed was done." "and where was king henry? was he within the tower? did he look on to make sure that the swordsman had done his work?" "not he. no fear has king henry that his servants will not obey him. he was in epping forest on a hunt. i never saw him more full of jest, and the higher the sun rose, the merrier he became. we went out early in the morning, and the king bade us stop under an oak tree to picnic. the wine was poured out, and we stood with our cups raised to drink his health. it was an uproarious time, for while the foes of the boleyns rejoiced, their friends dared not be otherwise than wildly merry, lest the wrath of the king be visited upon them. he has the eye of an eagle to pierce the heart of him who thinks the royal way is not the way of right." "the wine would have choked me," said clarice, "but go on, ralph. what next?" "one of the party slipped on the root of the oak, and his glass fell on a rock at his feet. the jesting stopped for an instant, and just at that moment came the boom of a cannon from the tower. king henry had forbidden the hour of the execution to be told, but every one guessed that the cannon was the signal that the head of queen anne had been struck off by the foreign swordsman. the king turned white and then red. i was nearest him, and i saw him tremble. i followed his eye, and he looked over the shoulder of the master of the hunt far away to the eastward. there was london, and up the spire of st. paul's a flag was slowly rising. it looked very small from that distance, but it was another signal that the stroke of the executioner had been a true one." "it is an awful thing to take the life of one who has worn the crown," murmured clarice. "did the king speak?" "he half opened his lips and again closed them. then he gave a laugh that made me shiver, and he said, 'one would think that the royal pantry could afford no extra glass. that business is finished. unloose the dogs, and let us follow the boar.' greeting, lady margaret," said ralph to a lady who just then entered the room. he bowed before her with deep respect, and said in a low, earnest tone:-- "may you find comfort and courage in every trouble that comes to you." lady margaret's eyes filled with tears as she said:-- "i thank you. trouble has, indeed, come to me in these last few years. where was the king yesterday--at the hour of noon, i mean? had he the heart to stay in london?" "he had the heart to go on a hunt, but it was a short one, and almost as soon as the cannon was fired, he set off on the hardest gallop that ever took man over the road from epping forest to wiltshire." "to the home of sir john seymour?" "the same. know you not that this morning before the bells rang for noon jane seymour had taken the place of anne boleyn and become the wife of king henry?" "no, i knew it not," answered lady margaret, "but what matters a day sooner or later when a man goes from the murder of one wife to the wedding of another?" "true," said ralph. clarice was sobbing softly, and lady margaret went on, half to ralph and half to herself:-- "it was just two years ago yesterday when lady anne set out for london to be crowned. i never saw the thames so brilliant. every boat was decked with flags and streamers, edged with tiny bells that swung and tinkled in the breeze. the boats were so close together that it was hard to clear a way for the lord mayor's barge. all the greatest men of london were with him. they wore scarlet gowns and heavy golden chains. on one side of the lord mayor was a boat full of young men who had sworn to defend queen anne to the death. just ahead was a barge loaded with cannon, and their mouths pointed in every direction that the wind blows. there was a great dragon, too, so cunningly devised that it would twist and turn one way and then another, and wherever it turned, it spit red fire and green and blue into the river. there was another boat full of the fairest maidens in london town, and they all sang songs in praise of the queen." "they say that queen anne, too, could make songs," said ralph, "and that she made one in prison that begins:-- 'oh, death, rock me asleep. bring on my quiet rest.'" "when anne boleyn went to france with the sister of king henry, she was a merry, innocent child. at his door lies the sin of whatever of wrong she has done," said lady margaret solemnly, half turning away from clarice and her brother and looking absently out of the open window. the lawn lay before her, fresh and green. here and there were daisies, gleaming in the may sunshine. "i know the very place," said she with a shudder. "it is the green within the tower. the grass is fresh and bright there, too, but the daisies will be red to-day with the blood of our own crowned queen. it is terrible to think of the daisies." "pretty daisies," said a clear, childish voice under the window. "let us go out on the lawn," said clarice, "it stifles me here." "remember," bade lady margaret hastily, "to say 'lady,' not 'princess.'" the young man fell upon one knee before a tiny maiden, not yet three years old. the child gravely extended her hand for him to kiss. he kissed it and said:-- "good morrow, my lady elizabeth." "princess 'lizbeth," corrected the mite. "no," said lady margaret, "not 'princess' but 'lady.'" "princess 'lizbeth," insisted the child with a stamp of her baby foot on the soft turf and a positive little shake of her red gold curls. "princess brought you some daisies," and with a winning smile she held out the handful of flowers to lady margaret and put up her face to be kissed. "i'll give you one," said the child to the young man, and again she extended her hand to him. "princess 'lizbeth wants to go to hear the birds sing. take me," she bade the attendant. she made the quaintest little courtesy that can be imagined, and left the three standing under the great beech tree. "that is our lady elizabeth," said lady margaret, "the most wilful, winsome little lassie in all the world." "but why may she not be called 'princess' as has been the custom?" asked ralph. "it is but three days, indeed, since the king's order was given," answered lady margaret. "when archbishop cranmer decided that anne boleyn was not the lawful wife of henry, the king declared that princess elizabeth should no longer be the heir to the throne, and so should be called 'lady' instead of 'princess.' it is many months since he has done aught for her save to provide for her safe keeping here at hunsdon. the child lacks many things that every child of quality should have, let alone that she be the daughter of a king. i dare not tell the king her needs, lest he be angry, and both the little one and myself feel his wrath." the little daughter of the king seems to have been entirely neglected, and at last lady margaret ventured to write, not to the king, but to chancellor cromwell, to lay before him her difficulties. here is part of her letter:-- "now it is so, my lady elizabeth is put from that degree she was afore, and what degree she is at now, i know not but by hearsay. therefore i know not how to order her myself, nor none of hers that i have the rule of, that is, her women and grooms, beseeching you to be good lord to my good lady and to all hers, and that she may have some raiment." the letter goes on to say that she has neither gown, nor slip, nor petticoat, nor kerchiefs, nor neckerchiefs, nor nightcaps, "nor no manner of linen," and ends, "all these her grace must have. i have driven off as long as i can, that by my troth i can drive it off no longer. beseeching ye, mine own good lord, that ye will see that her grace may have that which is needful for her, as my trust is that ye will do." the little princess had a good friend in lady margaret bryan, the "lady mistress" whom queen anne had put over her when, as the custom was, the royal baby was taken from her mother to dwell in another house with her own retinue of attendants and ladies in waiting. in this same letter the kind lady mistress ventured to praise the neglected child. she wrote of her:-- "she is as toward a child and as gentle of condition as ever i knew any in my life. i trust the king's grace shall have great comfort in her grace." lady margaret told the chancellor that the little one was having "great pain with her great teeth." probably the last thing that king henry thought of was showing his daughter to the public or making her prominent in any way, but the lady mistress sturdily suggested that if he should wish it, the lady elizabeth would be so taught that she would be an honor to the king, but she must not be kept too long before the public, she must have her freedom again in a day or two. a small difficulty arose in the house itself. the steward of the castle wished the child to dine at the state table instead of at her own more simple board. "it is only fitting," said he, "for her to dine at the great table, since she is at the head of the house." "master steward," declared lady margaret, "at the state table there would be various meats and fruits and wines that would not be for her good. it would be a hard matter for me to keep them from her when she saw them at every meal." "teach her that she may not have all that she sees," said the steward. "the table of state is no place for the correcting of children," retorted lady margaret, and she wrote to the chancellor about this matter also. "i know well," said she, "if she [elizabeth] be at the table of state, i shall never bring her up to the king's grace's honor nor hers, nor to her health. wherefore i beseech you, my lord, that my lady may have a mess of meat to her own lodging, with a good dish or two that is meet for her grace to eat of." besides the lady elizabeth and her household, the lady mistress, the steward, the ladies of her train, and the servants, there was one other dweller in this royal nursery, and that was the lady mary, a half-sister of the little elizabeth. mary's mother had been treated very cruelly and unfairly by king henry, and had finally been put away from him that he might marry anne boleyn. as a child mary was shown more honor than had ever been given to an english princess before. the palace provided for her residence was carried on at an enormous expense. she had her own ladies in waiting, her chamberlain, treasurer, and chaplain, as if she were already queen. even greater than this was her glory when on one occasion her father and mother were absent in france, for she was taken to her father's palace, and there the royal baby of but three or four years represented all the majesty of the throne. the king's councilors reported to him that when some gentlemen of note went to pay their respects at the english court, they found this little child in the presence chamber with her guards and attendants, and many noble ladies most handsomely apparelled. the councilors said that she welcomed her guests and entertained them with all propriety, and that finally she condescended to play for them on the virginals, an instrument with keys like those of a piano. if half this story is true, it is no wonder that the delighted courtiers told the king they "greatly marvelled and rejoiced." the following christmas she spent with her father and mother. she had most valuable presents of all sorts of articles made of gold and silver; cups, saltcellars, flagons, and--strangest of all gifts for a little child--a pair of silver snuffers. one part of the christmas celebration must have pleased her, and that was the acting of several plays by a company of children who had been carefully trained to entertain the little princess. when mary was but six years old, it was arranged that she should marry the german emperor, charles v. he came to england for the betrothal, and remained several weeks. charles ruled over more territory than any other sovereign of the times, and he was a young man of great talent and ability. the child must be educated to become an empress. being a princess was no longer all play. a learned spaniard wrote a profound treatise on the proper method of training the little girl. he would allow her to read the writings of some of the latin poets and orators and philosophers, and she might read history, but no romances. a latin grammar was written expressly for her, and she must also study french and music. there seems to have been little thought of her recreation save that it was decreed that she might "use moderate exercise at seasons convenient." so it was that the pretty, merry little maiden was trained to become an empress. when she was ten years old, she sent charles an emerald ring, asking him whether his love was still true to her. he returned a tender message that he would wear the ring for her sake; and yet, the little girl to whom he had been betrothed never became the bride of the emperor. charles heard that king henry meant to put away his wife, and if that was done, it was probable that mary would no longer be "princess of wales," and would never inherit her father's kingdom. the emperor was angry, and the little girl in the great, luxurious palace was hurt and grieved. this was the beginning of the hard life that lay before her. king henry was determined to be free from his wife that he might make anne boleyn his queen. mary loved her mother with all her heart, but the king refused to allow them to see each other. the mother wrote most tenderly to her child, bidding her be cheerful and obey the king in everything that was not wrong. mary's seventeenth birthday came and went. the king had accomplished his wish to put away his wife, and had made anne boleyn his queen. one september day their child elizabeth was born. so far mary had lived in the greatest state, surrounded by attendants who delighted in showing deference to her wishes, and her only unhappiness had been caused by the separation from her mother and sympathy with her mother's sufferings. one morning the chamberlain, john hussey, came to her with downcast eyes. "your grace," said he, "it is but an hour ago that a message came from his majesty, the king, and----" his voice trembled, and he could say no more. "speak on, my good friend," said mary. "i can, indeed, hardly expect words of cheer from the court that is ruled by her who was once my mother's maid of honor, but tell me to what purport is the message?" "no choice have i but to speak boldly and far more harshly than is my wish," replied the chamberlain, "and i crave your pardon for saying what i would so gladly leave unsaid. i would that the king had named some other agent." "but what is the message, my good chamberlain? must i command it to be told to me? my mother's daughter knows no fear. i am strong to meet whatever is to come." "the king commands through his council," said the chamberlain in a choking voice, "that your grace shall no longer bear the title of 'princess,' for that belongs henceforth to the child of himself and queen anne. he bids that you shall order your servants to address you as 'lady mary,' and that you shall remove at once to hunsdon, the palace of the princess elizabeth, for she it is who is to be his heir and is to inherit the kingdom." "i thank you," said mary calmly, "for the courtesy with which you have delivered the message; but i am the daughter of the king, and without his own letter i refuse to believe that he would be minded to diminish the state and rank of his eldest child." a few days later there came a letter from an officer of the king's household bidding her remove to the palace of the child elizabeth. "i will not accept the letter as the word of my father," declared mary. "it names me as 'lady mary' and not as 'princess';" and she straightway wrote, not to the council, but directly to the king:-- "i will obey you as i ought, and go wherever you bid me, but i cannot believe that your grace knew of this letter, since therein i am addressed as 'lady mary.' to accept this title would be to declare that i am not your eldest child, and this my conscience will not permit." she signs herself, "your most humble daughter, mary, princess." king henry was angry, and when queen anne came to him in tears and told him a fortune-teller had predicted that mary should rule after her father, he declared that he would execute her rather than allow such a thing to happen. parliament did just what he commanded, and now he bade that an act be passed settling the crown upon the child of queen anne. mary's luxurious household of more than eightscore attendants was broken up, and she herself was sent to hunsdon. many of her attendants accompanied her, but they were bidden to look no longer upon her as their supreme mistress. they were to treat the child elizabeth as princess of wales and heir to the throne of england. chapter ii the child elizabeth it was a strange household at hunsdon, a baby ruler with crowds of attendants to do her honor and obey her slightest whim. over all was the strong hand of the king, and his imperious will to which every member of the house yielded save the one slender girl who paid no heed to his threats, but stood firmly for her mother's rights and her own. for more than two years all honor was shown to the baby elizabeth, but on the king's marriage to jane seymour, he commanded his obedient parliament to decree that elizabeth should never wear the crown, and that, if jane had no children, the king might will his kingdom to whom he would. to the little child the change in her position was as yet a small matter, but to the young girl of twenty-one years the future seemed very dark. her mother had died, praying in vain that the king would grant her but one hour with her beloved daughter. mary was fond of study and spent much of the time with her books. visitors were rare, for few ventured to brave the wrath of henry viii., but one morning it was announced that lady kingston awaited her grace. "i give you cordial greeting," said mary. "you were ever true to me, and in these days it is but seldom that i meet a faithful friend." "a message comes to your grace through me that will, i hope, give you some little comfort," said lady kingston. "from my father?" cried mary eagerly. "no, but from one whose jealous dislike may have done much to turn the king against you, from her who was anne boleyn. the day before her death," continued lady kingston, "she whispered to me, 'i have something to say to you alone.' she sent away her attendants and bade me follow her into the presence chamber of the tower. she locked and bolted the door with her own hand. then she commanded, 'sit you down in the royal seat.' i said, 'your majesty, in your presence it is my duty to stand, not to sit, much less to sit in the seat of the queen.' she shook her head and said sadly, 'i am no longer the queen. i am but a poor woman condemned to die to-morrow. i pray you be seated.' it seemed a strange wish, but she was so earnest that i obeyed. she fell upon her knees at my feet and said, 'go you to mary, my stepdaughter, fall down before her feet as i now fall before yours, and beg her humbly to pardon the wrong that i have done her. this is my message.'" mary was silent. then she said slowly:-- "save for her, my mother's life and my own would have been full of happiness, but i forgive her as i hope to be forgiven. the child whom she has left to suffer, it may be, much that i have suffered, shall be to me as a sister--and truly, she is a winsome little maiden." mary's face softened at the thought of the baby elizabeth. she kept her word, and it was but a few weeks before mary, who had once been bidden to look up to the child as her superior, was generously trying to arouse her father's interest in his forsaken little daughter. henry viii., cruel as he showed himself, was always eager to have people think well of him, and in his selfish, tyrannical fashion, he was really fond of his children. mary had been treated most harshly, but she longed to meet him. her mother was dead, she was alone. if he would permit her to come to him, it might be that he would show her the same kindness and affection as when she was a child. she wrote him submissive letters, and finally he consented to pardon her for daring to oppose his will. hardly was she assured of his forgiveness before she wrote:-- "my sister elizabeth is in good health, thanks to our lord, and such a child as i doubt not but your highness shall have cause to rejoice of in time coming." the months went by, and when elizabeth was about four years old, a message came from the king to say that a son was born to him, and that the two princesses were bidden to come to the palace to attend the christening. such a celebration as it was! the queen was wrapped in a mantle of crimson velvet edged with ermine. she was laid upon a kind of sofa on which were many cushions of damask with border of gold. over her was spread a robe of fine scarlet cloth with a lining of ermine. in the procession, the baby son was carried in the arms of a lady of high rank under a canopy borne by four nobles. then came other nobles, one bearing a great wax candle, some with towels about their necks, and some bringing bowls and cups, all of solid gold, as gifts for the child who was to inherit the throne of england. a long line of servants and attendants followed. the princess mary wore a robe of cloth of silver trimmed with pearls. every motion of hers was watched, for she was to be godmother to the little child. there was another young maiden who won even more attention than the baby prince, and this was the four-year-old princess elizabeth. she was dressed in a robe of state with as long a train as any of the ladies of the court. in her hand she carried a golden vase containing the chrism, or anointing oil, and she herself was borne in the arms of the queen's brother. she had been sound asleep when the time came to make ready for the ceremony, for the christening took place late in the evening, and the procession set out with the light of many torches flashing upon the jewels of the nobles and ladies of rank and upon the golden cups and bowls. along the wide hall and down the grand staircase went the glittering line. the baby was christened "edward," and then was proclaimed "the beloved son of our most dread and gracious lord, henry viii." on the return the little elizabeth walked beside mary, keeping fast hold of her sister's hand, while the long train was borne by a noble lady of the court. the trumpet sounded all the way back to the royal bedchamber where lay the queen, waiting to greet her son with her blessing. it was midnight, and elizabeth as well as her baby brother must have been glad to be allowed to rest. only a few days later came the death of the mother of the little prince. greatly as king henry disliked black, he wore it for four months, even on christmas day. elizabeth was probably at hunsdon, but mary spent christmas with her father. she did not forget the little sister, but sent her a box decorated with silver needlework made by her own hand. she gave the baby brother a cap which must have been very elaborate, for it cost enough to pay the wages of a working man for four months. to the baby's nurse she sent a bonnet that cost half as much as the cap. another gift, which she herself made, was a cushion covered with rich embroidery. this baby brother was a delight to both the princesses. mary went often to see him, and looked after him as if he had been her own child, and to elizabeth he was the most precious thing in all the world. "i pray you, take me to see my brother," she often pleaded. one day the older sister said to her, "elizabeth, is there aught that i can do to please you greatly?" "i would gladly go to see my brother," was the child's answer. "that cannot well be," said mary. "is there nothing better that you can wish?" "no, sister." "but there is surely one thing better. when it is two of the clock, stand you close by the west window of the hall, and what is to come will come." clocks were not very common in those days, but there was one in the hall at hunsdon, and the excited little girl watched the hands move slowly around until they marked the hour of two. what was to come? a little after two a single rider appeared. "make way for his grace, edward, prince of wales!" he cried. then came the trumpeters and, following them, the nobles. after the nobles came the royal baby for whom all this ceremonial had been arranged. he lay in the arms of his nurse, "mother jack," and was borne in a litter. the upright poles were heavily gilded, and the canopy was of the richest white silk edged with a golden fringe. clusters of white plumes were fixed at each corner. on the shoulders of eight men rested the shafts of the chair. all around it gathered noble lords and ladies, mounted on horses whose trappings were marked with the monogram of many a family of rank and power. every man wore a sword to defend the heir of england's king, if need should arise, and stalwart guards marched on either side. "it's my own little brother," cried elizabeth. "and he comes to abide with us for a while," said mary. "is not that better, my little sister, than going to him to pay a visit of a day?" "will lady margaret grant me leave to show him my birds and my rabbits? he shall play on my virginals, if he will; and, truly, i'll not mind the sharp prick of the needle, if i may but sew a dress for him. i would fain learn to make letters with the needle, sister mary, that i might sew one all myself on everything that he will wear. oh, it will be an 'e,' even as it is on whatever is mine." it is quite possible that the next few years were the happiest that elizabeth ever knew. she was four years older than edward, and she had been so carefully trained by lady margaret that king henry was glad that she should be the playmate of the sweet-tempered little fellow who was his only son and heir. lady margaret was troubled because edward's best coat was "only tinsel" instead of cloth of gold, and because he had "never a good jewel to set on his cap;" but this was nothing to the little prince so long as he had his sister. lady margaret wrote to the king that she wished he could have seen the prince, for "the minstrels played, and his grace danced and played so wantonly that he could not stand still." elizabeth taught him to speak, and for his sake she even conquered her dislike to the "prick of the needle," for when his second birthday came and the rich nobles of the kingdom sent him jewels and all sorts of beautiful things made of gold and silver, she gave him a tiny cambric shirt, every stitch of which had been made by the little fingers of his six-year-old sister. mary sent him a cloak of crimson satin. the sleeves were of tinsel. it was heavily embroidered with gold thread and with pansies made of pearls. it was about this time that king henry sent an officer of high rank expressly to bestow the royal blessing upon the two princesses. on his return he reported to the king the grateful message that mary had sent. "and how found you her grace, the lady elizabeth?" asked king henry. "truly, your majesty," replied the chancellor, "were the lady elizabeth not the offspring of your illustrious highness, i could in no way account for her charm of manner and of speech. 'i humbly thank his most excellent majesty,' she said, 'that he has graciously deigned to think upon me, who am verily his loving child and his true and faithful subject.'" "she is but six years old," mused henry. "were those her words?" "i would gladly have had pen and paper," answered the chancellor, "that no one of them should have been lost, but i give the message as it has remained in my memory. she asked after your majesty's welfare with as great a gravity as she had been forty years old." more than one trouble came to the older princess. soon after the king had sent his blessing to the two sisters, a councilor came to mary with a message of quite another character. "it is his majesty's pleasure," said he, "that your grace should receive the duke philip of germany as a suitor for your hand." this german duke was a protestant, and mary was a firm roman catholic, but she dared not refuse to obey the king's bidding. "i would gladly remain single," said she, "but i am bound to obey his majesty. i would, too, that the duke were of my own faith, but in so weighty a matter i can do naught save to commit myself to my merciful father and most sovereign lord, knowing that his goodness and wisdom will provide for me far better than i could make provision for myself." the duke sent her a beautiful diamond cross, but before a year had passed, she was bidden by the king to return the gift. henry had wedded a german wife, and had treated her so badly that mary's betrothal was broken. there were sad times in england in those days. when henry viii. wished to marry anne boleyn, he asked the pope to declare that his marriage to the mother of mary was not lawful. the pope refused. henry then asked the opinion of several universities in england, italy, and france, and it is probable that his question was accompanied by either bribes or threats. the universities declared the first marriage unlawful, but the pope would not yield. henry then declared that the english church should be free from the pope, and that the king himself was properly the supreme head of the church in his own kingdom. there were tyrants, and most cruel tyrants before the days of henry viii., but they were generally satisfied to rule men's deeds. henry was determined to rule his subjects' most secret thoughts. if he suspected that a man did not believe that his divorce was right, he would pursue the man and force him to express his opinion. if the man was too honest to tell a falsehood, he was imprisoned or executed, for henry said that it was treason to refuse to acknowledge that the king of england was at the head of the church of england. many of the noblest, truest men in the land were put to death for this reason. this was not all, for although henry would not acknowledge the authority of the pope, he nevertheless declared that he was a roman catholic, and that all protestants were heretics and deserved to be burned to death. the result of this strange reasoning was that if a man was a protestant, he ran the risk of being burned at the stake, while if he was a roman catholic, he was in danger of being hanged. mary was often at the court. she must have heard her father's brutal threats against all those who did not love his will. one after another of her childhood's friends was beheaded or burned at the stake; her old teacher, her mother's chaplain, and the beloved countess to whose care her mother had confided her as an infant. not a word or look of criticism might she venture, for the despot would hardly have hesitated to send his own daughter to the stake if she had dared to resist him in this matter. the case was quite different with elizabeth and edward. they knew little of burnings and executions. whatever of gentleness and kindness was in king henry was shown to the children, especially to his son. the little ones played and studied together. "my sweetest and dearest sister" was the little boy's name for elizabeth. she was a favorite wherever she went. the king married three times after the death of jane seymour, and each of these stepmothers was fond of the merry, pleasing little girl. the first of the three was the german princess. she was rather slow and dull, and henry took a great dislike to her. when the little elizabeth, then about seven years old, begged to be allowed to come to court to see the queen, king henry roared, "tell her that her own mother was so different from this woman that she ought not to wish to see her." this was the only time that he ever spoke of anne boleyn. elizabeth met the new stepmother after a short delay, and this lady was so charmed with the little maiden that she begged to see much of her, the only favor that she ever asked of the king. the next wife was a distant relative of anne boleyn, and when she dined in public, she gave the place opposite herself to the child. "she is of my own blood," said the queen, "and it is only right that she should be next to me." at henry's last marriage mary and the two children were present, and this new queen became like the others a warm friend of elizabeth, who was now fully ten years old. henry must have felt some affection for anne boleyn, for he was never displeased to hear the praises of her daughter. he seemed beginning to have a real fondness for the child, and one day he looked at her keenly and said:-- "there's more than one that would be glad to have you. would you be married, elizabeth, or would you stay with your books and birds and viols and lutes?" "i would fain do that which your majesty bids," answered the child. "i know well that what your majesty commands is ever the thing which is best." "she's a child of wisdom," declared henry with a smile of gratification, "and i'll do more for her than anyone can guess." then said he to elizabeth:-- "it shall be brought about that you shall become the bride of some great man. if any german emperor plays you false, he shall feel the weight of my hand. how would it please your grace to marry a prince of portugal?" he asked playfully, for he was in a rarely good humor, "or perhaps philip of spain? philip will be a king, and he would make you a great lady. would it please you to wed one that would make you a queen?" "far rather would i wed one that i could make a king," answered the child, drawing herself up to her full height. "what!" cried the king, his face changing in a moment, and his eyes flashing ominously. the girl seemed looking not at the king, but far away into some distant future. she did not see the warning glance of the queen. "i would fain be so beautiful and so great," said she, "that whoever came near me should admire me and should beg me to become his wife. i would say no to one and all, but by and by i would choose one for myself. him i would raise to be as great as i, and i would----" elizabeth of england, even as a child, rarely forgot herself, but she was absorbed in the picture that she was making, and she stopped only when she felt the silence and saw her father's wrathful gaze fixed upon her. his eyes were fairly blazing with anger, and his face was purple. "so that is what you plan, is it?" he roared. "and here you stand before me and tell your schemes to become queen and raise some miserable rascal to the throne. get out of my sight, ingrate that you are." quick-witted as elizabeth was, she did not at once see wherein she was in fault. she was so dazed by this sudden fury that she did not even think to throw herself at the feet of the king and beg to be forgiven, even though she knew not for what. the stepmother pleaded, "pardon the child, my king. she meant no wrong." "no wrong," thundered the king. "is it 'no wrong' to plan what she will do as soon as the breath is out of her father's body? i tell you, girl, that you may find another father and another throne, for never shall you sit upon mine. get to your litter, and do you never come before my eyes again." the little edward had slipped up softly behind his angry father and had laid his tiny hand upon the king's purple cheek. "your majesty is naughty," he declared gravely. "you have made my sweetest sister cry. i don't want my sister to cry." never had the little boy received a harsh word from his father, and he was perhaps the only one in the kingdom who had no fear of the king. "come," said he, "and tell her not to cry." he caught the king by the hand, but even for his son king henry's anger could not be suppressed. "you little know her," he said. "it is you that she would rob. she would seize upon the place that is your own and drive you from it. tell her to depart from the palace and never enter it," he commanded his chamberlain, and soon the little girl, not yet twelve years old, was sent away from the court in disgrace. "hold yourself with patience," whispered the queen to the child. "trust me, and believe that it shall not be long before you will again be sent for." chapter iii a boy king the queen did all in her power for the little offender, but it was a whole year before she was again allowed to come to court. there was war in france, and the king sailed away in his ship with its sails of cloth of gold, apparently forgetting all about the little daughter whom he had left without a word of farewell. the child dared not write him, but she wrote the queen a grateful little italian letter. "i feel bound not only to be obedient to you," she said, "but also to look up to you with filial love, and chiefly because i learn that you, most illustrious highness, never forget me in your letters to his majesty, the king." then she begged the queen when writing the king, always to speak of her. "commend me to him with my continual prayer that he will give me his kind blessing," pleaded the anxious child. after keeping his anger for a whole year, the king finally deigned to send his blessing to "all" his children. the poor little girl was comforted, and made so happy by this tardy forgiveness that she cast gratefully about her to see what she could do to show her gratitude to the kind stepmother who had done so much to appease his wrath. she knew of a little french book that was a favorite of the queen's, and this she translated into english and sent to her. the cover was embroidered in blue and silver, and there was a quaint little dedication saying that she knew nothing in it "was done as it should have been." it is no wonder that the grateful child became a great favorite with her kind-hearted stepmother. henry was successful in france; england had been well governed by the queen during his absence; he was on good terms with all his family; and although there had been a visitation of the plague, his children were safe. it was probably at this happy time that a large picture was painted of henry, his three children, and the mother of edward. the king sits on a kind of dais with jane seymour beside him. he is gorgeous in scarlet and gold brocade, and his two daughters are almost equally dazzling in their crimson velvet and cloth of gold. the precious little prince stands at his father's right hand, and the king's arm is thrown around the child's neck. both king and prince wear velvet caps, each with a long white plume. gold chains and rubies and pearls are everywhere. queen katherine does not appear in the picture, but she had a strong hold on the daily lives of the royal family. she saw to it that so far as lay in her power the neglected elder daughter should have the position that belonged to her. princess as she was, mary never had after her mother's divorce an allowance half large enough to do what was expected of her, but now she was helped in many ways by the thoughtful stepmother. the queen would send a handsome gown or a generous gift of money, or she would arrange to pension off some aged, helpless servant of mary's, and so lessen the demands upon the girl's slender purse. she was little older than the princess, but she showed a motherly watchfulness of mary's interests. no less thoughtful was she of the training of her younger stepchildren. it was the fashion for young people of rank to be highly educated, especially in the languages, and if half the reports of the knowledge acquired by the two children are true, they must have been wonderfully industrious students. one who knew them well declared that they called for their books as soon as it was light. first came the reading of the scriptures, then breakfast, and after that the study of various languages. when the long hours of work were over, the little prince was allowed to exercise in the open air, while elizabeth "betook herself to her lute or viol, and when wearied with these, employed her time in needle-work." four or five modern languages this industrious princess learned to speak and write. she had some knowledge of greek, and she spoke latin almost as easily as english. a little book in which she wrote her italian exercises is still in existence. they are well written, but there are mistakes enough to show that even a princess does not learn a language without hard work. both children had a great admiration for queen katherine, and whatever she did was right in their eyes. edward seems to have had as hard a time learning to write as any child of to-day, and he sent a letter to the queen about his troubles. "when i see your beautiful handwriting," says the discouraged little boy, "i am sick of writing. but then i think how kind your nature is, and that whatever proceeds from a good mind and intention will be acceptable, and so i write you this letter." the gentle boy, not yet nine years old, was soon to be put forward to represent the king. henry had grown so enormously stout that he could not climb the stairs. after a while he could no longer even walk about his room, and he had to be moved in a rolling chair. commissioners from the king of france were coming to england to arrange terms of peace. the king ordered his son to take his place. "your majesty," reported the officer in whose charge the child had been, "truly, never was there a prince of such courtesy and amiability. his grace rode on the charger most gallantly, and led the two thousand knights and nobles with as much of ease and stateliness of demeanor as if he had been forty years of age." "and did he speak as he was taught?" asked the king. "surely, your majesty, and with such grace and sovereignty in his manner that men were affected even to tears." "and what said the admiral?" "i verily believe, your highness, that he would have caught up the prince's grace and clasped him to his breast had it not been for the dignity of his grace's manner and bearing. he put his arm about the neck of his grace, but it was a kiss of affection and not of state that he gave." "and after that?" "after the speech of welcome, my lord prince again took the head of the cavalcade. never before the time of your majesty have they been handled by such a leader. he led the french away from the heath to meet your highness's gracious welcome at the palace." the boy was not spoiled by all this honor and praise, but went willingly away from the glories of the court to stay with his beloved sister elizabeth. less than a year were they together, and then it was thought best for them to be separated. edward was but a lonely little child in spite of his stateliness when on the great charger, and he grieved so for his sister that she wrote to him suggesting that they write frequent letters to each other. the boy caught eagerly at the idea. "nothing can now occur to me more grateful than your letters," he wrote in the prim, stilted fashion of the day, and he added, "it is a comfort to my regret that i hope shortly to see you again if no accident intervenes." he did see her again before many weeks had passed, for there was news to tell which the councilors wished both children to hear. king henry had been growing more and more feeble. for some time before his death, it was so difficult for him to sign his name that three men, acting together, were given the right to do it for him. two made an impression of his signature with a dry stamp, and the third traced the letters with ink. henry grew no less bitter in his enmity to all who opposed him, and one of his last acts was to order the execution of his aunt's husband. one winter day two men galloped swiftly over the road to the palace which was then the home of edward. "inform his highness that the duke of somerset and sir anthony brown await his pleasure," was the message brought to the prince. the duke of somerset was edward's mother's brother, and he went eagerly to meet his guests. "i rejoice that you bring me word of his majesty," said the boy. "is it not yet his will that i should come to him?" "your grace," answered the duke, "his majesty sent no such message, but he would that you go with us to the home of her grace, the lady elizabeth." the prince did not question a command that was so in accordance with his wishes, and they set off on horseback. when the children were together, the duke bowed low before the boy of ten years, his own nephew, and said:-- "your majesty, graciously permit your faithful servants to kiss your hand and to promise you their humblest obedience both now and ever. a grievous duty is it, indeed, to declare to you that our illustrious king, henry viii., no more governs this realm of england. there is comfort for his sorrowing subjects in the thought that he has left us so noble and gracious a prince to rule us in his stead." edward had known nothing but kindness from his father, and now that the king was dead, elizabeth no longer remembered what he had made her suffer. edward forgot that he was a king, and the children threw themselves into each other's arms and sobbed and cried until those who were about them wept for sympathy. now the king had died three days before, but lest there should be some insurrection or an attempt to put mary on the throne, the duke of somerset and others who meant to be the real rulers of the reign of edward kept the news of his death a secret until they could get the young king safely into their hands and could establish the government in his name. edward was conducted to the royal apartments in the tower of london with an honorable escort of troops and nobles. there was great blowing of trumpets and waving of banners, and the boy was proclaimed king of england, france, and ireland, and supreme head of the church in england and ireland. a few weeks later the coronation took place, and then there was a rejoicing indeed. the streets through which the young king rode were hung with tapestry and banners. here and there booths, or stages had been built, and in them all sorts of games and plays were carried on to amuse the people. a rope was stretched from the steeple of st. paul's church and fastened firmly to a great anchor lying on the ground. an acrobat contrived to creep halfway up this rope, "aided neither by hand nor by foot," the old account says. then he performed many feats in mid-air, "whereat," as the story puts it, "king and nobles had good pastime." there was no longer a cruel king on the throne, but a child who is described as a marvel of goodness and learning. he is praised not only for his ability to speak different languages, but for his knowledge of geography. one of the historians of the day said that he could recite all the harbors and creeks in england, france, and scotland, and could tell what kind of entrance there was in each for ships, and even which tides and winds were most favorable. it was claimed, too, that he knew the names of all the men of authority in his kingdom, where their homes were, and what their religion was. this matter of religion was dividing the kingdom. henry had called himself a catholic, but he would not admit the pope's authority. edward and elizabeth had been brought up in their father's belief. the duke of somerset was one of the men chosen to carry out henry's will, and he was so decided a protestant that he was almost as determined to make every one accept the protestant faith as henry had been to make all his people agree with himself. in spite of all king henry's declarations that neither mary nor elizabeth should ever wear the crown, he had finally willed that it should descend first to edward, then to mary and then to elizabeth. the catholics were eager to have mary come to the throne, because she was of their own faith; but the duke of somerset had been chosen protector, that is, he was really to govern the kingdom until edward was old enough to rule, and he meant to oblige the people to become protestants. there was even more scheming going on around the boy king, for his councilors were already planning for his marriage. a little five-year-old girl in scotland was the one whose hand they meant to secure for their sovereign. her name was mary, and she was the queen of scots. this plan had been one of king henry's favorite schemes, but it had never pleased the scotch. the protector led an army against them, a most remarkable fashion of winning a bride for the young king, but the scotch would not yield. "what greater honor do you expect for the queen?" demanded the english council. "how can scotland gain more sure protection than that of the king of england?" the scotch knew very well that if edward married mary, it would be for the purpose of gaining a surer control of scotland, and they refused in spite of the duke of somerset and all his army. they betrothed the little queen to the son of the french king, and sent her to france to be educated. "the scotch are a perverse and wilful people," then said the english. besides the difficulty in gaining a wife for the king and the religious persecutions, there was trouble from other causes, especially among the poor. part of this arose from what was called "enclosing." on every great estate there had always been land that the poor people living on the estate could use as a common pasture for their cows. the rich landowners were beginning to "enclose," or fence in these tracts of land and to use them either for private parks or for sheep pastures. the poor had no longer any way to feed their animals, and they were in great distress. somerset tried to forbid this enclosing, but the owners of land were too powerful for him, and the enclosing went on in spite of the strictest laws against it. indeed, the laws caused a new difficulty, for now that the poor people had a decree in their favor, they revolted in several districts, and tried to seize the land. a writer who lived in those times says, "the poor people swarmed in the realm." of course when there were revolts, somerset was obliged to suppress them, no matter how much he sympathized with the revolters, and often accused men were punished with little effort to make sure of their guilt. it is said that a miller who had been a revolter suspected that he was in danger, and said to his servant, "i must go away on business. if anyone asks for me say that you are the miller and have owned the mill these three years." the king's officer came as the miller feared. "are you the miller?" he demanded. "surely," replied the servant proudly. "the mill has been mine for three full years." "you have been a busy rebel," declared the officer, "and now you shall be hanged to the nearest tree." "indeed, i'm not the miller, but only his man," cried the frightened servant. "the man tells two tales, hang him up," bade the officer. a little later one who knew the miller said, "truly, he was not the miller, he was but the miller's man." "then has he proved a good servant," declared the officer contentedly, "for how could he have done his master better service than by hanging for him?" the nobles were angry at somerset's attempt to prevent enclosing, and they were indignant that he should have so much power. the result was that he was accused of treason and the duke of northumberland became protector. although all these acts were done in the name of edward, the boy king had really very little freedom. "he is not alone half a quarter of an hour," said one who knew of his life. when he first became king, he wrote to mary, "i will be to you a dearest brother and overflowing with all kindness;" but he was taught by somerset and others that it was a danger to the kingdom to allow his sister to remain a catholic. when he had been on the throne for about three years, she was summoned to court. "your highness," said the chamberlain to edward, "i have to announce the arrival of her grace, the princess mary." "give welcome to her and her train," said the young monarch, "and say that it is my will and that of my councilors to receive her straightway." this visit was not for the pleasure of meeting her brother, though they greeted each other most cordially. the royal council was sitting in another room, and there she was summoned. "your grace," said the councilors, "is it true that, contrary to the wishes of his majesty the king, mass is still said daily in your house?" "it is true," answered mary, "that the worship of god is carried on in my house in such wise as i do firmly believe is most pleasing to him." "there is then no hope of your grace's amendment shortly?" "none, my lord." "it is the will of his majesty, who is supreme head of the church in england, that the mass should be no longer celebrated in his realm. it becomes the duty of all that owe him allegiance to obey. it is his majesty's command that you obey as a subject, attempting not to rule as a sovereign." "i will neither change my faith nor conceal that which is my true opinion," declared the princess, "and in testimony of my belief i am ready to lay my head upon the block for the truth, though i am unworthy to suffer death in so good a cause." mary soon left the palace. letters bidding her give up her religion came from the king, but the elder sister replied:-- "they may be signed with your own name, but they cannot be really your own, for it is not possible that your highness can at these years be a judge in matters of religion, and by the doings of certain of your councilors i mean not to rule my conscience." with his councilors telling him how dangerous it was to the peace of the kingdom for mary to be allowed to practise a form of religion that was contrary to the law, the brother and sister can hardly have been very happy together, and their meetings grew further apart. elizabeth was living quietly in her own house, spending most of her time in study. the boy king was hardly more than a toy in the hands of his councilors. somerset was finally condemned to death, but when he wrote to elizabeth and begged her to appeal to the king and save his life, elizabeth was obliged to answer:-- "the king is surrounded by those who take good care to keep me away from him, and i can no more gain access to his majesty than you can." the one who was keeping elizabeth from her brother was the new protector, the duke of northumberland. edward became ill, and everyone knew that his life would be short. elizabeth tried to visit him, but was prevented. then she wrote him a letter, but it is not probable that he ever saw it. northumberland was in power, and he did not mean that either mary or elizabeth should wear the english crown; he had quite another plan in his mind. chapter iv giving away a kingdom edward was not fifteen when the duke of northumberland became protector. at eighteen the boy king was to be really king and to govern his kingdom as he chose, but until then, although everything was done in his name, it was the protector who would rule. northumberland thought that in those three years he could gain so great an influence over the young sovereign that even when the time came to give up the high office, he would still retain much of his power. edward had never been strong, and before many months had passed, it was clear that he would not live to be eighteen. northumberland had no mind to lose his power. what could he do? one morning in june he went to the chamber of the king. edward lay by the window looking out into the bright sunshine. "my humble greeting to your gracious majesty," said northumberland. "i have brought news that cannot fail to give to your highness an increase of health and strength." "i think that nothing can do that," said edward, "but good news will at least make the day less weary. what is it that you have to tell?" "that two of those followers of the pope who have most strongly opposed your majesty's efforts for the good of the land have at last accepted godly counsel." "i rejoice," said the king. "would that the princess mary were one of them. is it true, my lord, that no word of submission to him who is rightly the supreme head of the church in england has come from her grace?" "it is true, your highness." "then when i die--no, my lord, do not deny it. i know well that few days are left to me--my sister will be on the throne. she will bring back the falseness of the old religion. not the sovereign but the pope will rule in the land, and i can do nothing to prevent it. how little power a king has!" northumberland's heart beat fast. now was his opportunity. "has your majesty considered that the rightful heirs of king as well as of subject are those whom he himself shall name?" "do you mean, my lord, that it is my right to name her who shall follow me? that i could leave the crown to her grace, the princess elizabeth, if i would?" "our glorious ruler, henry viii., bequeathed his crown as he would have it to descend. surely, it would be in your majesty's power to leave it to the princess elizabeth's grace or to whomever of the descendants of the illustrious sovereign, king henry vii., your majesty might choose." "the princess elizabeth was taught the principles of the truth even as i myself was," mused the king. "true, your majesty," agreed the duke, "but she is only twenty years of age. it might easily come to pass that she would wed a foreign prince of the false faith, and that the land, now so favored with the light of truth, would be again plunged into darkness. if she were already wed, it would be safer, though many in the realm believe that neither of the daughters of king henry can rightfully inherit the crown. an heir upon whom all must unite would save strife and it may be bloodshed." "that might well be," said the king thoughtfully. then northumberland suggested boldly, though with some inward fear:-- "the sisters of your majesty's illustrious father, could you----" the duke hesitated. "the granddaughter of margaret tudor is the queen of scots, the little maiden who refused my hand," said the king with a faint smile, "but she is of the false faith. the granddaughter of mary tudor is my old playmate, the lady jane grey, or is she not now lady dudley, my lord? was it not a few days ago that she became the wife of your son? she is well-principled in the truth." "do not fancy, i beg your highness, that a thought of what your majesty had in mind moved me to look with favor upon the mutual affection of the young couple." "no," said the young king a little wearily. "arrange it in any way that you will to have the kingdom fall into the hands of her who will lead it more fully into the light, and bear it further from the idolatrous worship of the earlier days." northumberland had obtained his wish, but there must be lawyers to write a deed of gift of the crown. he went to three judges of the realm and gave them the king's command. "gladly would we see the faith of his majesty more fully established," they said, "but, my lord duke, in the time of king henry parliament decreed that whoever did aught to change the order of succession to the crown should suffer death as a traitor." northumberland persuaded and threatened, but the judges had no mind to run the risk of losing their heads for the sake of setting his daughter-in-law upon the throne of england. "if you had the written pardon of the king, would you do it?" demanded northumberland, and after much discussion the judges hesitatingly agreed. edward was now as eager as the protector to have it made sure that lady jane would ascend the throne, and he willingly signed a pardon to free them from all punishment, if they were ever accused of breaking the law of the land. the pardon was signed, then the deed of gift, bequeathing the crown to lady jane, was signed. the dying king rejoiced, but the bold schemer trembled. there were very good reasons why each of four women had a right to feel honestly that she alone ought to be queen of england. these four were mary, elizabeth, mary, the child queen of scots, who was descended from margaret, sister of henry viii., and last, lady jane, who was descended from his youngest sister mary. according to king henry's will, which parliament had confirmed, the crown was to go to lady jane, if henry's three children died without heirs. it seemed quite possible that she might some day be the ruler of england, and her parents set to work to prepare her to become a queen. now when less than a century ago a lady in england found that her little daughter victoria would probably be the sovereign of her country, she said, "i want you to be a good woman, and then i shall be sure that you will be a good queen." lady jane's parents thought more of training her to do everything according to the etiquette of the court, and they were so anxious that she should walk and talk and sit and eat and dance precisely as they thought a queen ought to perform those acts, that they were exceedingly severe with her. she was a gentle, loving girl, and she did her best to satisfy them, but she was upbraided and pinched and struck whenever she was in their presence. the one great pleasure in her life was the time that she spent with her teacher, whom she called "master aylmer," for he was so kind to her and so gentle in all his ways that she was happy when the hour of study had arrived. everyone knew that northumberland was the most powerful man in the kingdom, and when he said to lady jane's father, the marquis of dorset, "if you will give your daughter to my son guilford to wife, i will persuade the king to make you a duke," the marquis was delighted. lady jane was but sixteen and lord guilford dudley was only one year older. they were married at once with the most brilliant festivities. not many days after the wedding, king edward became very ill. "hold yourself in readiness for what may be demanded of you," said northumberland to lady jane. "should the king fail to recover, you are made by his majesty heir of his realm." the girl of sixteen had never thought of such a thing as becoming queen of england until many years should have passed, and probably not even then, and she was greatly troubled. she dared not disobey northumberland, and when a few days later he sent his daughter to bring her to the royal council, she did not venture to refuse. when the duke and the other members of the council entered the room, they fell on their knees before her and kissed her hand. "we make our humble submission to your majesty as our sovereign lady and rightful ruler of this realm of england," said they. lady jane was much abashed, and she said:-- "my lords, i can but thank you for the grace that you show to one who is so unworthy of such honor; but if i understand your words aright, you greet me as your sovereign lady and ruler. my lords, there is surely some grievous error. his majesty, king edward, is, happily, still on the throne, and even if it had pleased god to remove his grace from earth to heaven, no claim have i so long as the princesses mary and elizabeth live. will your lordships grant me permission to withdraw?" then spoke the duke of northumberland:-- "your majesty and members of the royal council, it is a painful duty that falls to my lot to announce the death of our beloved and illustrious king, edward vi. much reason have we to rejoice not only in his praiseworthy life and his countless acts of goodness and clemency, but especially in that he, being at the close of his days, thought most earnestly upon the welfare of his realm. in his last hour on earth he prayed that his kingdom might be defended from the popish faith, and he left it in the hands of her who he believed would be faithful to the trust, and would guard the land from falsehood and from error." all her life lady jane had known and loved the young king. tears came to her eyes. she looked pitifully about the room. several noble ladies had been brought into the council chamber, but not one had even a glance of sympathy for the young girl. the duchess of northumberland frowned at her, and her own mother whispered sternly, "demean yourself as is fitting for a queen." "his majesty gave command to his council," said the duke, "and they have no choice save to obey him. thus declares the will of the king, signed and sealed, and drawn up by three capable judges of the realm. it names as his heir and successor on the throne of england her gracious highness, lady jane, descendant of mary, who was the youngest and most beloved sister of his majesty, king henry viii." then all the lords of the council knelt at the feet of lady jane. "we render to your majesty only the honor that is due," said they, "for you are of true and direct lineage heir to the crown. with deliberate mind we have promised to his highness, king edward vi., that in your grace's cause we will spare neither goods nor lands nor the shedding of our blood." lady jane stood before them, white and trembling. then grief and pain overcame her, and with a sudden burst of tears she fell to the ground. when she was a little recovered, she said to them:-- "my lords, i can but grieve from my heart for the death of so noble a prince and one that was so dear to me. i am weak and feeble. i have little power to govern the land as he in his greatness of mind and of heart would have done, but if that which you say has been given me is rightfully and lawfully mine own, then will i turn to god in my insufficiency and humbly beseech his grace and spirit that i may rule the land to its advantage and to his glory and service." in the afternoon of the same day lady jane went in state to the tower of london, for it was an old custom that sovereigns should go forth from the tower on the day of their coronation. her relatives knelt before her and humbly promised to be obedient to her commands; and her own mother walked meekly behind her, bearing the daughter's train. in the evening she was proclaimed in london ruler of the kingdom. there was little rejoicing. the people as a whole were sullen and silent, for most of them understood that the affair was but a scheme of northumberland's to gain power for himself. [illustration: lady jane grey and roger ascham.--_from painting by j. c. horsley._] the duke knew that if mary and elizabeth were free after edward's death was known, a party would be formed in favor of one or the other, and therefore he had planned to get them both into his hands. he sent messengers to them to say that the king was very ill and begged that they would give him the happiness and comfort of their presence. elizabeth paid no heed to the message. either she was really ill, as she said, or she was wise enough to suspect that there was some trickery about this sudden demand for her society, when for so long a time she had not been allowed to see her brother. at any rate, she remained in her own house. mary returned word by a swift rider that she was made very happy by the thought that she could help to bring cheer and consolation to her brother, and she set out at once to go to him. when she was only a few miles from london, a man who had been her goldsmith came riding in hot haste. "your grace," he said, "i beg that you will go no farther. the king is not ill, he is dead. northumberland plans to set lady jane upon the throne. flee, i do pray you." mary hesitated. was the word of the goldsmith true? whom could she trust? should she go on to london and perhaps be thrown into the prison of the tower by northumberland? should she flee to norfolk and refuse, it might be, her brother's last tender wishes? was it a trap to make her declare herself queen and then behead her for treason? while she questioned, another rider came, a nobleman whom she trusted, and he told her that the king was indeed dead. mary turned toward norfolk. night came on. the princess herself and many of her retinue were exhausted. they asked for shelter at a country-seat. it was given them, but the protestants in the neighborhood had heard that edward was dead and that the catholic princess was among them. a mob set out in the morning to destroy the house that had sheltered her. mary had been warned of the danger and had ridden away. she glanced back from the top of a hill and saw the house in flames. "let it go," she cried. "i will build him a better one." as soon as she reached her own castle in norfolk, she sent a letter to the royal council saying:-- "we are greatly surprised that we have had from you no knowledge of the death of our brother, but we trust your love and your loyalty. whatever may have been said to us of any disloyal intentions on your part we do put far from us, and do agree to grant you pardon and receive you graciously into our service as true and faithful subjects." even though the councilors had failed to secure mary, they still believed that their side would win, and they sent her a rather arrogant letter. it said:-- "lady jane is our queen, but if you will show yourself quiet and obedient as you ought, you will find us all ready to do you any service that we with duty may." mary then rode to framlingham, a strongly fortified castle some twenty miles away. it was so near the sea that she could escape to the continent if flight should become necessary, but she could hardly have been in a safer place. the walls of the stronghold were eight feet thick; town and fortress were surrounded by three deep moats. here she flung out her banner and called upon all loyal subjects to come to the assistance of their rightful queen. so many thousands gathered that she ventured to set out for london, and as she drew near the city, she met such a welcome that she disbanded her army. now at edward's death when northumberland saw that his plan to capture elizabeth had failed, he sent a messenger to promise her land and money if she would but resign all title to the crown. with rare wisdom for so young a woman, she replied:-- "that is not for me to say. lady mary is by my father's will and by decree passed in open parliament the rightful queen of the realm. whatever my claim may be, i can make no challenge so long as my sister doth live." elizabeth then set out to meet mary, and they entered london together, followed by a long train of ladies and noblemen, and escorted by the city guard. northumberland too, had collected an army, but his men deserted by hundreds. in less than two months after he had triumphantly set his daughter-in-law upon the throne, he was executed, together with two of those who had most strongly supported him. lady jane and her husband were imprisoned. mary's advisers declared that there was no safety for her so long as lady jane lived, but mary refused to put her to death. as the day for the coronation drew near, there were great rejoicings. many of those that did not wish to have a catholic ruler were so glad to be free from northumberland's schemes and to feel that she who was lawfully their queen was now on the throne that they were ready to unite in the joy of the others. in the procession to the tower, queen mary rode in a litter, or chariot, drawn by six horses, glittering in their trappings of cloth of silver. she was robed in the richest of blue velvet, made even richer by bands of ermine. she wore a sort of head-dress, so heavy with gold and pearls and jewels that she often had to hold up her head with her hands. in a litter almost as splendid as her own rode elizabeth and her first stepmother, anne of cleves. noble ladies rode on horseback in all the splendors of crimson velvet. companies of guards followed in white and green, the royal colors. the next morning after all this magnificence, there was such a brilliant display as made the gorgeousness of the ride through the city seem simple and modest, for the queen was to be crowned in westminster abbey. when she was on the platform in full view of the people, the bishop of winchester demanded of them whether it was their will that the crown should be placed on the head of the most excellent princess, mary, eldest daughter of king henry viii. the people shouted, "yea, yea! queen mary, queen mary!" mary made a solemn promise to govern england aright and faithfully preserve the liberties of the people. then followed all kinds of ceremonies, changing of robes, and sounding of trumpets. she was girded with a sword, a ring was put upon her finger, and at last the crown was solemnly placed upon her head. this was by no means the end of it all, for many nobles came to kneel before her and promise to be true to her. each one of them kissed her cheek. in all this ceremonial as well as in the feasting and the entertainments that followed it, the princess elizabeth was in every way ranked next to the queen. elizabeth wore the coronet of a princess. "it is very heavy," she whispered to the french ambassador. "be patient," murmured he, "it will be parent to a better one." parliament was soon in session, and one of the important questions to be decided was what should be done with lady jane. "she attempted to seize the crown from mary, who is our rightful sovereign," declared one, "and she should be put to death as a traitor." "what she did was done at the bidding of the duke of northumberland," said another. "she was but a tool in his hands, and she should be freed." "that cannot well be," objected a third. "whoever commits a crime is guilty of that crime and must bear the punishment." "yes," agreed the first, "and moreover, some who would question elizabeth's right to the throne would perchance unite under the banner of jane. there will be neither rest nor safety in the kingdom so long as she is spared to lead any rebellious faction that may need a head." parliament decided that lady jane was guilty of treason, and she was sentenced to be either burned or beheaded as the queen should choose. everyone was sorry for her. even those that condemned her could hardly look upon the young girl without tears, and when she was taken back to her prison in the tower, crowds of weeping people followed her. "she is to be put to death 'at the queen's pleasure,'" said one royal attendant to another. "do you believe it will be soon?" "he who dwells in a palace should see but not speak," answered the other. "to you, however, i may venture to whisper that the death of lady jane will never be 'the queen's pleasure.'" chapter v a princess in prison mary did not forget to show gratitude to those who had aided her in gaining possession of her crown. to some she gave high positions, and for the one whose house had been burned she built a much finer residence. "and now, my well-beloved cousin and councilor," she said to the earl of sussex, "we would gladly show to you our hearty appreciation of your loyalty in a troublous time. ask what you will of us, and it shall be granted." the only way of heating houses in those days was by means of fireplaces, and therefore, even the royal palaces were full of chills and drafts. whenever the earl came to court, he took cold. a thought struck him and he said:-- "if your grace is really of intent to bestow upon me the gift that will give me most of comfort and peace of mind and body, i would beg humbly for the royal permission that i need no longer uncover my head before man or woman." mary was greatly amused. "either cap or coif or nightcap [skullcap] may you wear," said she, "and woe to the one that dares to dispute your privilege." the next morning a parchment bearing the royal arms was presented to the earl with all formality. it read:-- "know ye that we do give to our well-beloved and trusty councilor, henry, earl of sussex, license and pardon to wear his cap, coif, or nightcap, or any two of them, at his pleasure, as well in our presence as in the presence of any other person within this our realm." not all the questions of the day were settled as easily. one of the most important ones was who should succeed mary on the throne. if she married and had children, they would be her heirs, but if not, the princess elizabeth would probably follow her as ruler of england. now mary was a strong and sincere catholic, and her dearest wish was to lead england back to the old faith and have the pope acknowledged as the head of the english church. she hoped to be able to bring this to pass, but she was not well, she had little reason to look for a long life, and when elizabeth became queen, all mary's work would be undone, the land would be again protestant. elizabeth was to mary still the little sister whom she had so often led by the hand. would it not be possible to persuade her to become a catholic? elizabeth had loved edward, would she not go with mary to hear a mass for the repose of his soul? elizabeth refused. again mary asked, and again elizabeth said no. "she would not dare be so bold if stronger than herself were not behind her," declared mary's councilors. "there is danger to life and throne in this audacity." others too were to be feared, those protestants who did not believe in the right of elizabeth to the crown. they were not sorry to see disagreement between the two sisters, for if the younger should be shut out from the succession, lady jane, prisoner in the tower as she was, would be accepted as mary's heir. evidently elizabeth must be induced to become a catholic if it was possible. mary begged and then she threatened. she had sermons preached before elizabeth, and she sent the royal councilors to talk with her, but in vain. at last the princess was made to understand that she must yield or withdraw from court. more than this, it was said to her, "there are suspicions that you are bold in resisting the queen because you have support from without." elizabeth was alarmed, and she sent a message to the queen:-- "i pray you, let us meet, there is much that i would say." soon the meeting came to pass. mary entered the room attended by only one lady, who followed her at a greater distance than was customary. elizabeth threw herself at mary's feet and said with many tears:-- "most gracious queen and sister, i have ever looked up to you with love and respect, and since i have had the use of my reason, i have been interested in everything that concerns your greatness and glory. it grieves me to the heart to feel that for some reason unknown to myself i am no longer as dear to your majesty as i have believed myself to be." "my well-beloved sister," answered the queen, "gladly would i show to you all affection if i were but sure that your heart was turned toward me and toward that which is not only my dearest wish but is for the salvation of your own soul." "i have but followed the belief in which i was brought up," said elizabeth. "such books as my father approved have been my reading. i will study others if you will, and it may be that my mind will be opened to perceive truth in doctrines wherein i had not thought it to lie." "it will be a pleasure to my chaplain to choose for you those that are of such quality as to lead a truly inquiring heart into the way of right." "yet another kindness do i beg of you, my queen and sister," said elizabeth. "i have listened to those whom i was told to hear. will your grace send to me some well-taught preacher to instruct me in the way wherein you would have me to walk? never have i heard any learned doctor discourse in such wise as to show me where lay my error." mary agreed, and a few days later the two sisters attended mass together. elizabeth even wrote to the german emperor that she intended to have a catholic chapel opened in her own house, and asked his permission to purchase in flanders a cross, chalice, and such ornaments as would be needed. no one had much confidence in her sudden change of creed. those protestants who were discontented went on with their plots to make her queen, convinced none the less that once on the throne, she would restore the protestant form of worship. the german emperor, who was mary's chief adviser, urged that to insure the queen's safety elizabeth ought to be imprisoned, or at any rate, so strictly guarded that she could do no harm. there was reason for his fears. mary, queen of scots, would soon become the daughter-in-law of the french king, and while he was pretending to be a true friend to elizabeth, he was in reality doing all in his power to make trouble between her and mary. if elizabeth could be led into some plot that would anger mary and so could be shut out from the succession, his daughter-in-law might easily become queen of england as well as of scotland. vague rumors of discontent and plots came to the ears of mary, and for some time she refused elizabeth's request to be allowed to go to her own house. the german emperor was mary's cousin, charles v., to whom she had been betrothed when she was a child. he was seventeen years older than she, and was the most powerful sovereign in europe. to him she went for counsel concerning the difficult questions that pressed upon her. the most urgent one was that of her proposed marriage. she was to marry, that was settled, but the bridegroom had not yet been selected. no fewer than four foreign princes were suggested, but the english hoped most earnestly that she would marry an englishman. charles v. seemed to favor first one and then another, but he could always give good reasons why no one of them should be the chosen one. at last he named his own son philip. mary made many objections. "the emperor is also king of spain," said she to charles's ambassador, "and when philip succeeds him on the spanish throne, how can he come and rule in england?" "that matter would not be difficult to arrange," answered the ambassador. "the prince could rule in spain and dwell in england, even as his father is able to rule both spain and germany." "he is very young," said she. "he is a staid man," declared the ambassador. "he has often had to stand in responsible positions, and indeed in appearance he is already many years older than your majesty." "when i marry, i shall marry as a woman, not as a queen," said mary, "and i shall promise to obey my husband, but it will be my right to rule my kingdom. no foreigner may have part or lot in that. the english people would not bear it, nor would they endure to have places of honor or of power given to foreigners." still, she did not reject philip. it was soon whispered about that there was a possibility of a spanish marriage. the chancellor came to the queen and begged her to make no such alliance. "no other nation is so disliked as the spaniards," said he, "and philip's haughtiness and arrogance have disgusted his own subjects. philip will rule the low countries, and the king of france will never endure it to have the netherlands fall into the hands of england." in spite of her objections mary really favored the marriage with philip. he was her cousin, of her own faith, and of her mother's nation. with philip to support her, she could bring england back to the old faith. she allowed charles's ambassador to discuss the matter again. "your highness," said he, "never was a sovereign in a more difficult position. you stand alone without an honest adviser in the land. see how easily your councilors who were protestants one year ago have now become catholics. will they not as readily become protestants again, if they have good hope of farther advancement under the princess elizabeth? you are surrounded by enemies. there are those who do not love the true church, and there are the rebels who followed northumberland; lady jane and the princess elizabeth stand ready for their hand. then there are france and scotland; the scotch queen would willingly add england to her domain. in spain lies your only hope." "even if what you say is true," she responded, "i am not a young girl whose hand is to be disposed of at the will of her father, i must see the prince before i decide." "pardon, your majesty," said the ambassador, "but the emperor will never permit that his son and heir should be exhibited before the court as a candidate for your majesty's hand, and perchance be rejected before the eyes of europe. a man's face is a token of the man, shall a portrait of the prince be sent you?" the queen agreed, and the picture was sent. it portrayed a young man with blue eyes, yellow hair and beard, and a rather gloomy expression; but the face must have pleased the queen, for when parliament again begged her to marry none but an englishman, it was too late. two days earlier she had in the presence of the spanish ambassador taken a solemn oath that she would wed no other man than prince philip of spain. nothing was talked of in the kingdom but the spanish marriage. "it is a poor business," said one. "king henry is but seven years dead, and his kingdom will soon be only a province of spain." "not so fast," rejoined the other. "spain is the richest country in europe. i wish i had but the twentieth part of the gold that comes from the new world in one of those high-decked galleons of hers." "for the queen to marry philip will bring it no nearer to us," retorted the first. "why not, my friend? will not freedom to trade help to fill our empty treasury? spain is a strong ally. let france and scotland attack us, and it will be well to have a helper with ships and treasure." "ships and treasure will not give us freedom," declared the first. "better be poor than be ruled by spain. i'm as true a catholic as you, but no wish have i to see the torture chamber of spain brought into england. philip's own subjects detest him." mary's councilors soon ceased to oppose what she so plainly wanted, though it was whispered about that they were convinced by bribes rather than by arguments. an ambassador came from spain to bring the engagement ring and to draw up the marriage treaty. the english people were angry and indignant, and the children played a game called "english and spaniards." philip was one of the characters in this play, and there was always a pretence of hanging him. nevertheless, the treaty was drawn up. it was agreed that no spaniards should hold office in england. if the queen should have children, they must not be carried out of the land without the consent of the nobles, and they should inherit not only england but the lands of holland and flanders to which philip was heir. in spite of all these careful arrangements, the english became more and more enraged, and there were insurrections in various parts of the country. one was headed by the duke of suffolk, lady jane's father. mary had supposed that if suffolk was forgiven and his daughter allowed to live, he would be loyal from gratitude, but this was not the case. he went from one place to another, raising troops and proclaiming lady jane queen of the realm. another insurrection was headed by a young poet named wyatt. his forces came so near london that the queen was in great danger. lawyers wore armor under their robes when they pleaded in court, and clergymen wore armor under their vestments when they preached. the insurgents came nearer, and there was hot fighting. "flee, my queen, flee!" called one after another, but mary was perfectly calm and answered, "i warrant we shall hear better news anon." when it became clear that there would be bloodshed, mary had written to elizabeth, telling her of the danger and urging her to come at once where she would be protected. "assuring you that you will be most heartily welcome," the letter ends. elizabeth sent word that she was ill and not able to travel. many days passed, and they were days full of events. the duke of suffolk was captured. "you have pardoned him once," said mary's councilors, "and his gratitude is but another attempt to thrust you from the throne. this time there can be no pardon." mary agreed. "there is one thing more," said they. "there will be neither peace nor quiet nor safety in the land so long as lady jane lives." "i can never sign the death warrant of my cousin," declared mary, "not even to save my own life." "have you a right to shed the blood of your subjects?" they demanded. "the ground about us is wet with their blood. shall such scenes come to pass a second time?" mary yielded, and lady jane was beheaded. a question even more difficult than this had arisen. when wyatt was examined, he declared that the princess elizabeth had known of the plot. now mary sent, not an affectionate invitation, but a command for her sister's presence. two physicians accompanied the commissioners. they agreed that the princess was able to travel, and the company set out for the court. one hundred of her attendants escorted her, and one hundred more of mary's guards followed. elizabeth was greatly loved by the masses of the people. she was fine-looking, well educated, and witty, and they were proud of their princess. "draw aside the curtains," she commanded. "let the people see me if they will." the people saw her indeed. crowds lined the road as the procession moved slowly by. "alas, poor young lady," sobbed one kind-hearted woman. "i mind me well when her own mother went to the block." "she's over young to be facing the cruel axe," declared another. "she's but the age of my own girl, only one and twenty, if she _is_ a princess." "mayhap it will all be well," said a third. "see her sitting there in the fair white gown, and her face as white as the stuff itself. she's not the one to plot and plan to take the life of the queen." elizabeth came to the palace, but mary refused to meet her. "bear this ring to her majesty," commanded the princess. it was much the custom in those days for one friend to give another a ring whose sight should renew their friendship if misunderstanding had arisen between them, and elizabeth wore one that had been given her by mary long before. the pledge had lost its power, for mary sent only the message, "before we can meet, you must show your innocence of that of which you are accused." day after day it was debated what should be done with the princess. although just before wyatt's death he had taken back his words of accusation, the royal council still suspected her. charles v. was more than willing that she should be put to death, and the spanish ambassador told mary that until the punishment of the rebels had made the realm safe for philip, he could not land on english soil. "it is most important," said he, "that the trial and execution of the lady elizabeth should take place before the arrival of the prince." one morning ten of the royal commissioners demanded audience of elizabeth. "your grace," said the leader, "a grievous charge is made against you, that you were knowing to an evil and felonious attempt to overthrow the government and take the life of our most gracious queen. it is the pleasure of her highness that you be at once removed to the tower." "i am an innocent woman," elizabeth answered, "and i trust that her majesty will be far more gracious than to commit to the tower one who has never offended her in thought, word, or deed. i beg you intercede for me with the queen." the intercession was of no avail. elizabeth sent a letter to mary denying all charges and begging that they might meet, but the only reply was the order, "your grace must away to the tower." "i am content, inasmuch as it is the queen's pleasure," elizabeth replied, and the carefully guarded boat set off. it drew up, not at the door which led to the royal apartments of the tower, but at the one called the traitors' gate, where many a prisoner had been landed in the past troublous times. "i am no traitor," said she, "nor will i go in at the traitors' gate." "madam, there is no choice," answered sternly one of the commissioners, but he added kindly, "the rain falls in torrents, will your grace honor me by making use of my cloak?" elizabeth flung it down angrily, and put her foot on the step, covered with water as it was. "here lands as true a subject as ever landed at these steps," she declared solemnly. up the stairs she was taken, and to the room that was to become her prison. the doors were locked and bolted. she was not without friends even within the walls of the tower. both mary and elizabeth were fond of children, and elizabeth especially could always win their hearts. she had not been long a prisoner before one little girl, the child of an officer, began to watch for her when she walked in the garden. "lady," asked the child, "do you like to be in the tower?" "no, i do not," answered elizabeth, "but the doors are locked and i have no key, so i cannot go out." in a few days the little girl came to her with a beaming face. "i want to tell you something," she whispered. "i want to tell it right into your ear." she threw her arms around the princess's neck and whispered: "i've brought you some keys so you needn't always stay here. now you can open the gates and go out as you will, can't you?" and the child pulled from the bosom of her frock some little keys that she had found. a boy of four years was one of her pets, and used to bring her flowers every day. the council suspected that he was bringing messages to her from another prisoner in the tower and ordered his father to forbid his speaking to the princess. nevertheless, the little fellow watched at the bolted door for a chance to say good-by, and called softly, "lady, i can't bring you any flowers, and i can't come to see you any more." in those times executions followed accusations so easily that elizabeth was alarmed at every little commotion, and one day she asked anxiously whether the scaffold was still standing on which lady jane had been executed. the princess, was indeed, very near death at one time, for the queen's chancellor sent to the tower an order for her execution. mary was very ill and not expected to recover, and the chancellor may have thought that only the death of elizabeth could save england for the catholic church. the order was delivered to the keeper of the tower. "where is the signature of the queen?" he demanded. "the queen is too ill to sign the paper, but it is sent in her name." "then in her name will i wait until by the blessing of god her majesty shall be well again, and can speak for herself," returned the keeper. when mary had recovered, she was exceedingly angry that the life of elizabeth had been so nearly taken. it was soon decided that the princess should stay no longer in the tower, but, should be taken to the palace at woodstock. elizabeth expected to be put to death. "pray for me," she said to one of her servants, "for this night i think i must die." all along the way to woodstock the people flocked to gaze upon her. they filled her litter with cakes and flowers and sweet-smelling herbs. every one saluted her. "god save your grace!" cried the crowds, and in one little village the bells rang a hearty welcome as she passed through. nevertheless, she was a prisoner and as closely guarded as she had been in the tower. chapter vi from prison to throne while one sister was in prison, the sister on the throne had not found life altogether happy. the more she gazed upon philip's picture, the more she longed to meet him, but he made no haste in coming. two months had passed since mary put on the betrothal ring, and never yet had he even written to her. philip had begged his father to choose a young wife for him, but to the emperor the fact that mary was ten years older than his son was a small matter if only he could secure for philip a possibility of ruling england. the marriage was to take place at winchester, and as the time drew near, mary set out with her retinue. she was borne in the royal litter, and if all the vehicles were as gorgeous as the one provided for her maids of honor, the procession must have been a dazzling sight. this one was a "wagon of timber work with wheels, axletrees, and benches." it was painted red, lined with red buckram, and covered with red cloth. this covering was adorned with heavy fringe of red silk. not at all agreeable was philip's journey to winchester. when he landed in england, he found a great company of nobles waiting to do him honor, and he was escorted to a palace in which most beautiful rooms had been prepared for him. this was pleasant, but when he set off for winchester, the wind blew and the rain came down in floods, and the four or five thousand riders in the procession were thoroughly drenched. before they had ridden many minutes, a swift messenger drew rein in front of the prince, presented him a ring, and said:-- "her majesty the queen doth send your grace this ring as a token that she would pray you to advance no farther." philip did not understand english perfectly. "there is danger," said he to his officers. "little welcome have i from these english." it was explained to him that the queen's message only meant that she begged him not to expose himself to the storm, and he went on. that evening the prince, all in black velvet and diamonds, made his first call on the woman whom he was to marry two days later. they talked together in spanish for half an hour, and the next day they had another meeting, and philip--now in black velvet and silver--stood with the queen under the canopy of state. she kissed him in greeting, and they talked together before the hundreds of ladies and nobles in the great audience hall. on the following day came the marriage, and then there was such gleaming of pearls and blazing of rubies and flashing of diamonds as one might see in a splendid dream. "who giveth this woman to be married to this man?" asked the archbishop, and four great nobles of the kingdom came forward and answered, "we do give her in the name of the whole realm of england." a plain gold ring was put on the queen's finger, for "i will marry with a plain hoop of gold like any other maiden," she had said. the people shouted, "god save our queen! god send them joy!" and mary of england had become the wife of philip of spain. while the wedding rejoicings were going on, elizabeth was a prisoner at woodstock. what was to be done with her was the question. there was some reason to think that she had known of the plot to dethrone the queen, and in any case, if she was free, any leader of an insurrection could have an opportunity to try to win her support. mary did not wish to keep her in the tower, and she thought of sending her to some of her own spanish relatives on the continent, but the royal marriage helped to decide the question, for prince philip expressed himself very decidedly to his royal wife that it would be best to set elizabeth free. "i would do it most gladly," said mary, "could i be sure of her innocence." "does not your english law claim that one is innocent till he is proved guilty?" "true," replied mary, "but there is proof and there is no proof. my councilors declare that to set her free will be to say that she has been unjustly imprisoned." "can she not be induced to confess that she has done wrong and throw herself on your mercy?" "never," answered the queen quickly. "i have known her since she was a little child. when she storms and rages, she will yield, but when she quietly persists, she stands firm. i will see her. nothing do i long for more than to believe that she is guiltless." elizabeth was sent for, and late one evening she had an audience with the queen. the younger sister knelt with her eyes full of tears and sobbed:-- "i beg your majesty to believe in my truth and loyalty, no matter who shall say to the contrary." "then you will not confess," returned mary. "you persist in declaring that you are innocent." "if i am not innocent," said elizabeth solemnly, "never again will i ask favor or kindness from the hands of your grace." "god knows," murmured the queen half turning away. a minute later she said, "elizabeth, will you swear by all that you do hold sacred that you have no guilt in this matter?" "i will," answered elizabeth without a moment's hesitation. "then do i forgive you--be you innocent or be you guilty," she said to herself--"and in token of my pardon i restore to you the ring, pledge of my sisterly affection. may the time never come when you will have need to send it to me again." at christmas there was a grand round of festivities at court. the pope had sent a representative to receive from mary the humble submission of the kingdom, and the rejoicings were looked upon not only as celebrating this reconciliation but as in some measure continuing those of the queen's marriage. elizabeth was made prominent in everything. she sat at the queen's table and was treated as heir to the throne. nevertheless, mary did not fully trust her, and when the princess was about to return to her own home, the queen presented a nobleman and said that henceforth he would abide in elizabeth's house, charged with the duty of guarding her safety and comfort. this nobleman was a learned and upright man of most perfect courtesy, and his presence can hardly have failed to give her pleasure, even though elizabeth well knew that he was sent to make sure that she had no connection with any of the plots which were to be feared. it is no wonder that a close watch needed to be kept for conspiracies, for several were formed against the queen. a story was spread abroad that edward vi. was not dead, but was living in france and was about to return to regain his throne. there were rumors that certain men in the land had the power of magic, and had stuck pins into waxen images of the queen, thereby causing her intense suffering. the king of france was ready to encourage any rumor, however absurd, and to aid any conspiracy that would better the chances of mary of scotland to wear the crown of england. if elizabeth was dead or shut out of the succession, these chances would be greatly increased, and probably this is why philip had now become the friend of elizabeth, for if france and scotland and england were united, his own power and that of his father would be much less. several foreign husbands were proposed for the princess, one of them the son of philip by a former marriage, a boy of ten years. elizabeth refused them all, and the queen declared that she should not be forced to marry against her will. mary's reign was shamed and disgraced by the burning of a large number of persons, two hundred at least, because their religious belief differed from that which she thought right. she is called "bloody mary" because this took place in her reign, but just how far she was in fault no one knows. neither henry viii. nor edward nor mary ever showed the least regard for the physical sufferings of others, but mary had never manifested the least vindictiveness of disposition. indeed, she had often been more inclined than her councilors thought best to pardon and overlook deeds that most rulers of the time would have punished. moreover, during some of the worst persecutions mary was so ill that it was said "she lay for weeks without speaking." one of the reasons why the english had feared to have philip marry their queen, was because he was known to approve of torture, if by its means the sufferers could be induced to give up beliefs that he thought false. he now wrote to his sister, "we have made a law, i and the most illustrious queen, for the punishment of heretics and all enemies of holy church; or rather, we have revived the old ordinances of the realm, which will serve this purpose very well." it must not be forgotten, however, that this burning at the stake was done with the consent of parliament, and that, as philip said, it was in accordance with the old laws. a hard life was mary's. she had no child, and she was not sure of the faithfulness of her sister and heir. it was chiefly by her determination to marry philip that she had lost the love of her people, and after all that she had sacrificed for his sake and all her affection for him, he cared nothing whatever for her. an old ballad says that he liked "the baker's daughter in her russet gown better than queen mary without her crown." the crown of england was all that he cared for, and about a year after their marriage, he left very willingly for the continent. mary controlled her sorrow at the public farewell, but as soon as that was over, she went to a window from which she could see philip's barge, and there she sat with her head resting on her hands and wept bitterly till he was out of sight. there was good reason why he should go, for his father wished to give him the sovereignty of the low countries; and there were some difficult questions that arose and prevented his immediate return. as months passed, mary became more and more lonely. her thoughts turned toward elizabeth. another plot had been discovered. some of elizabeth's own attendants were involved in it, and declarations were made that it was not unknown to the princess herself. mary wrote her at once:-- "i pray that it may not seem to you amiss that it has been necessary to remove from your household certain dangerous persons, not the least of whose crimes it was that their confessions were but an attempt to involve your grace in their evil designs. rest assured that you are neither scorned nor hated, but rather loved and valued by me." with the letter went the gift of a valuable diamond. after being away for nineteen months, philip returned to england. mary was so happy that she was ready to grant whatever he asked, though it was so great a boon as the aid of england in a war with france. philip left in three or four months to carry on the war, and never again did his wife look upon the man whom she loved so well. the war went on, and calais, which had long been held by england, was taken by the french. the english were wrathful. five hundred years earlier the kings of england had ruled wide-spreading lands in france. one had lost, another had won, but never before had england been left without a foot of ground on the farther side of the channel. mary was crushed. "when i die," she said, "look upon my heart, and there you will see written the word 'calais.'" the summer of had come. mary's thoughts turned more and more toward her sister. she left her palace and went to visit elizabeth. she arranged a visit from elizabeth to herself which was conducted with the greatest state. the princess made the journey in the queen's own barge with its awning of green silk beautifully embroidered. the queen's ladies followed her in six boats whose gorgeousness was almost dazzling, for the ladies were dressed in scarlet damask, in blue satin, and in cloth of silver, with many feathers and jewels. in the royal garden a pavilion had been built. it was in the shape of a strong castle, only the material was not gray stone, but crimson velvet and cloth of gold. the court feasted, the minstrels played, and the long, bright day came to its close. mary had never been well, almost every autumn she had suffered severely from sickness, and now a fever seized upon her. there was little hope of her recovery, but philip sent her a ring and a message instead of coming to her. parliament and the will of henry viii. had decided that elizabeth should follow mary as queen, but philip begged mary to name her sister as her heir in order to make the succession especially sure, and this was done. mary grew weaker every day, the end must be near. the courtiers did not wait for it to come, crowds thronged the house of elizabeth, every one eager to be among the first to pay his respects to her who would soon become their sovereign, and to assure her that, however others might have felt, he had never been otherwise than faithful to her and her alone. among these visitors was count de feria, one of philip's train, who was in his master's confidence. "my lord sends your grace assurances of his most distinguished friendship," said the count. "he would have me say that his good will is as strong and his interest in your grace's welfare as sincere as it was when by his influence, so gladly exerted, her majesty was graciously pleased to release your grace from imprisonment. he would also have me say that he has ever to the utmost of his power urged upon her majesty that she should not fail to bequeath the crown to her only sister and rightful heir, and he rejoices that his words have had weight in her intentions." "most gracious thanks do i return to the king of spain," answered elizabeth, "and fully do i hold in my remembrance the favors shown to me in the time of my captivity. for all his efforts that i might be the heir of her majesty, my sister, i return due gratitude, though verily i have ever thought myself entitled to the crown by the will of my father, the decree of parliament, and the affection of the people." three or four days later mary sent elizabeth a casket containing jewels belonging to the crown, and with it another casket of jewels belonging to philip which he had given orders to have presented to her. elizabeth well knew that the end of her sister's life could not be long delayed, and soon the word came that mary was dead. "it may be a plot," thought the wary princess, "to induce me to claim the crown while the queen lives, and so give my enemies a hold upon me. sir nicholas," she bade a faithful nobleman who she well knew had ever been true to her cause, "go you to the palace to one of the ladies of the bedchamber, the one in whom i do put most trust, and beg her that, if the queen is really dead, she will send me the ring of black enamel that her majesty wore night and day, the one that king philip gave her on their marriage." sir nicholas set out on the short journey. the rumor had, indeed, preceded the death of the queen, but she died just as he reached the palace. before he returned, several of queen mary's councilors made a hurried journey to elizabeth's house at hatfield. "your highness," said they, "it is with the deepest sadness that we perform our duty to announce the death of her majesty, queen mary. to your grace, as our rightful sovereign, do we now proffer our homage, and promise to obey your highness as the true and lawful ruler into whose hands the government of the realm has fallen." elizabeth sank upon her knees and repeated in latin a sentence that was on the gold coins of the country, "it is the lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes." queen mary died in the twilight of a november morning, but her death was not known at once in the city. parliament was in session, and before noon the lord chancellor called the two houses together and said:-- "god this morning hath called to his mercy our late sovereign lady, queen mary; which hap, as it is most heavy and grievous to us, so have we no less cause, otherwise, to rejoice with praise to almighty god for leaving to us a true, lawful, and right inheritrix to the crown of this realm, which is the lady elizabeth, second daughter to our late sovereign of noble memory, henry viii." for an instant there was silence, then the house rang with the cry, "god save queen elizabeth! long may queen elizabeth reign over us!" the proclamation of her accession was now made in front of the palace of westminster with many soundings of trumpets, and later, in the city of london. "did anyone ever see such a time?" said a londoner to his friend at night. "no one would think that a queen had died since the day began; there has been nothing but bonfires and bell-ringing and feasting and shouting." "when people are glad, their joy will reveal itself," answered his friend. "there might well be reason for me to rejoice, but you are a catholic, why should you welcome the lady elizabeth?" "is she catholic or protestant?" asked the other with a smile. "who knows? there's one thing sure, she'll have a merry court, trade will be the gainer, and she'll marry no foreign prince." "perhaps having a new queen will also prevent another season of the plague and give us greater crops," laughed the first; and then he added more seriously, "catholic or protestant, i believe that there be few in the land who will not rejoice to see the death-fires no longer blaze at smithfield." a week later the queen rode from hatfield to london. hundreds of noble lords and ladies were in her retinue, and the number increased with every mile. the road was lined with people who shouted, "queen elizabeth! queen elizabeth! long may she reign! god save the queen!" children gazed at her eagerly, while their mothers wept tears of joy, and young men knelt and cried out their vows of loyalty and devotion. many of the bishops of the realm came in procession to greet her and begged to kiss her hand. "did you see that?" whispered a woman to her neighbor. "the queen wouldn't give her hand to the cruel bishop of london. she knows well it's because of him that more than one good man's been burned at the stake. oh, but she'll be a good queen, god bless her!" the lord mayor and the aldermen came in their scarlet robes to escort her to the palace, and a few days later she went in state to the tower of london. the streets were strewn with fine gravel, rich tapestries adorned the walls, banners waved, trumpets sounded, boys from st. paul's school made latin speeches in her praise, and great companies of children sang joyful songs of welcome. elizabeth looked very handsome as she rode into the city on horseback, wearing a habit of the richest purple velvet. she replied to everyone's greeting, and made little latin speeches in answer to those of the schoolboys. at last she came to the tower, and this time she entered, not at the traitors' gate, but through the royal entrance, and passed between long lines of soldiers, drawn up, not to keep watch over a prisoner, but to do honor to a queen. chapter vii a sixteenth century coronation there were several matters concerning which the english people were eagerly watching to see what the queen would do, but whether her subjects expected to be pleased or displeased with her deeds, they could hardly help looking forward with interest to the grand ceremonial of the coronation. astrology was in vogue, and every nobleman who wished to be in fashion had his horoscope drawn up. when a soldier was setting out for war or a captain was embarking on some dangerous voyage, he would go to a reader of the heavens to be told on which day he must start in order to have his expedition result prosperously. queen elizabeth was a firm believer in the foretelling of destiny by the stars, and she had especial confidence in an astrologer called dr. dee. to him, therefore, she went that he might name a fortunate day for the coronation. he named sunday, january , . it was the custom for the sovereigns to ride through the city of london in great state on their way to westminster, where they were crowned, and elizabeth's ride was one of the most brilliant ever known. there were trumpeters and heralds in glittering armor; there were ladies on horseback in habits of crimson velvet; there were nobles in silks and satins and laces, gleaming with gold and sparkling with jewels; there were long lines of guards in the green and white of the tudors; and in the midst of all the splendor was the queen in a gorgeous chariot lined with the richest crimson velvet. she bowed, she smiled, she waved her hand, she leaned to one side of her carriage and then to the other and listened intently to whatever any one wished to say to her, and whether it was the lord chancellor or the poorest woman in london, each one was sure of a pleasant word and a gracious smile from this new sovereign. gifts were showered upon her. the city of london gave her a crimson satin purse filled with gold and so large that she had to take both hands to lift it. elizabeth thanked the citizens and said:-- "to honor my passage through the town you have been at great expense of treasure, so will i spend not only treasure but the dearest drops of my blood, if need be, for the happiness of my people." "your grace," said a poor woman in humble garb, "i could bring you only this bit of rosemary, but there's many a blessing goes with it." "i thank you heartily," responded the queen. "it shall go with me to westminster," and it did. "i can remember fifty years ago when old king harry was crowned," a white-haired man called to her. the queen smiled upon him. "may you live to remember me as long," she responded. then she bade her chariot be stopped. "i wish to hear what the child is saying," she said, for a pretty little boy was reciting some verses in her praise. "turn to one side so i can see his face." over several of the streets great arches had been built with various exhibitions called pageants. one represented a cave, and from it time was leading forth his daughter truth. the young girl who took the part of truth held in her hand a most beautifully bound english bible. "who is that with the scythe and hourglass?" the queen asked. "time," was the answer. "it is time that has brought me here," she said as if to herself. the chariot moved slowly on, and when it was almost under the arch, "truth" let down the volume by a silken cord. elizabeth took the bible, kissed it and pressed it to her heart, then held it up before the people. "truly, i thank my city of london," said she. "no other gift could have pleased me as this does, and i promise you that every day i will read it most diligently." so it was that elizabeth made her journey through london. the whole scene was rather theatrical, but it pleased the people, and that was what she most wished to do. all around her were shouts of joy, silent tears of happiness, wild promises of service, and sober, heartfelt prayers. as she came to the gates of the city, she looked back and called, "farewell, my people, farewell. be well assured that i will be a good queen to you." then the cannon of the tower thundered, and elizabeth went on to westminster. there she was crowned, and sir edward dymock performed the office of champion, introduced by william the conqueror. at the coronation banquet he rode into the hall in full armor, threw down his gauntlet and proclaimed:-- "if there be any manner of man that will say and maintain that our sovereign lady, queen elizabeth, is not the rightful and undoubted inheritrix to the imperial crown of this realm of england, i say he lieth like a false traitor, and _that_ i am ready to maintain with him, and therefore i cast him my gage." after a few minutes a herald picked up the glove and presented it to sir edward. this ceremony was repeated at two other places in the hall. the queen then drank to the health of the champion in a golden cup which was presented to him as his reward. during the glories of the coronation, the people seemed to have almost forgotten for a moment the important question whether the queen would rule as a catholic or a protestant. there had been much discussion about the matter, and after the days of celebration there was even more. "she was brought up as a protestant," one man said, "and she will rule as a protestant." "oh, but has she not declared that she is a catholic, and has she not been to mass with queen mary? does she not go to mass now?" retorted another. "who wouldn't go to mass to gain a kingdom?" laughed a third lightly. "if queen mary had named the queen of scotland as her heir--yes, i know there was a decree of parliament, but another decree might have been passed as well as that--i don't say the catholics would have tried to make the scotch girl queen, but elizabeth was wise, she was wise." "it is two full months since queen mary died," said the second thoughtfully, "mass is said in the churches every day. her majesty will have no preaching without special permission, but----" "no wonder," broke in the third, "after the sermon that the bishop of winchester preached at queen mary's funeral. he praised mary to the skies, then said she had left a sister whom they were bound to obey, for 'a live dog is better than a dead lion.' a preacher will have to hide his thoughts in something deeper than latin to keep them from the queen. i don't wonder that she looks after the sermons." "i know that she has been to mass many times since mary died," admitted the first, "but don't you know what she did on christmas morning? she went to church with her ladies and she heard the gospel and the epistle, but before the mass she rose all of a sudden and left the chapel. no true catholic would stay away from mass on christmas day." "she might have been ill," suggested the second. "as ill as she was when queen mary sent for her to come and prove that she had nothing to do with wyatt's rebellion," said the third drily. "now, mark my words, elizabeth, queen of england, will never journey by a path because it is straight; she'll keep two roads open, and she'll walk in the one that has the best traveling." this uncertainty about elizabeth's religious ideas was one reason why she was welcomed to the throne so warmly. by birth and training she was a protestant, and therefore no protestant could consistently oppose her. in her later years she had declared herself a catholic, and the catholics had a reasonable hope that she would show favor to them. another good reason was that there was neither protestant nor catholic who could have been set up against her with strong probability of success. mary of scotland was the next heir, and she was a catholic, but no loyal englishman, no matter what was his creed, wished to see the queen of france raised to the throne of england. elizabeth was twenty-five when she became queen, and in her quiet years of study and observation she had formed two very definite ideas about ruling the kingdom. she meant to hold the power in her own hands over church as well as state, and she meant to use her mastery for the gain of the people. her father had claimed this authority and had exercised it; while edward reigned, certain noblemen had ruled; while mary reigned, the church had ruled. elizabeth wished to be supported by nobles and church if possible, but her chief dependence was upon the masses of the people. when she made her first speech to the judges of the realm, she said: "have a care over my people. they are _my_ people. every man oppresseth and despoileth them without mercy. they cannot revenge their quarrel nor help themselves. see unto them, see unto them, for they are my charge." when elizabeth was in earnest and really meant what she said, she generally used short, clear sentences whose meaning could not be mistaken; but when she had something to hide, she used long, intricate expressions, so confused that they would sometimes bear two opposite interpretations, and no one could declare positively what she really meant to say. this determination of hers to win the support of the people was chiefly why she did not hasten to make sudden changes in the church. she did not at once object to saying mass, but she ordered the gospel and the epistle to be read in english as in the protestant church. then before she went any further she waited to meet her parliament and see whether this change had aroused opposition. she had chosen for her chief adviser sir william cecil, afterwards called lord burleigh. he was a man of great ability and a protestant, though he had never shown any desire to become a martyr for his faith. he held a high position during edward's reign, but while mary was in power, although he went to mass as the law required, he had little to say about church matters. he lived quietly on his estate, interested in his fawns and calves, writing letters about the care of his fruit trees and about buying sheep; but during these quiet years, he was reading and thinking and planning, and gaining wisdom in all that pertained to ruling a land. when elizabeth made him her secretary, she bade him always tell her frankly what he believed was best, whether he thought it would please her or not. he wished to reestablish protestantism, and before elizabeth had been on the throne five months, a decree was passed that she and not the pope was supreme governor of the church in england. to dispute this decree was declared to be treason, but only clergymen and those who held office under the crown were obliged to take the oath. a man who refused was not beheaded as in henry's day, but he was put out of his office, and according to the ideas of the times, that was not a severe penalty for such an offence. the catholic form of worship was forbidden, and, while no one not in office was obliged to tell his belief, all subjects were commanded to attend the protestant service or pay a fine. elizabeth did not go as far as this without watching closely for hints of what the majority of her people were willing to permit. one hint came to her the morning after her coronation. she had freed a number of prisoners, as was the custom at the crowning of a sovereign, and after the act one of her courtiers knelt at her feet with a roll of parchment in his hand and said:-- "your majesty, will you graciously lend ear to an earnest request from many of your subjects?" "to do for my beloved people that which is for their good will ever be the ruling desire of my heart," replied the queen. "then do i humbly beg in the name of all these good subjects and true"--and he unrolled the parchment to show the long list of signatures--"i beg that your highness will release unto us yet four more prisoners." "and who may these prisoners be that have won so zealous an advocate?" asked the queen. "verily, your grace, their names be matthew, mark, luke, and john. they have been shut up in a language not understanded of the people, as if they were in prison. even to a prisoner speech with his friends is not often forbidden. will your majesty graciously command that the words of the four evangelists be put into english that these captives may be released from their dungeon?" this was really asking whether she would rule as a protestant, for the catholics opposed the circulation of the english bible. the queen showed no displeasure, but answered with a smile:-- "it has sometimes come to pass that men have learned to prefer their prison. perchance it would be better to inquire of these prisoners of ours whether they wish to come out from behind the bars." when parliament met, the question was brought up, and a translation of the bible was ordered to be made at once. this was issued as authorized by the queen. there was another matter that perhaps weighed more seriously upon the masses of the people than did the question which form of religion the queen would favor, and that was her marriage. the english longed to feel sure that the government would go on peacefully even if their queen should be taken from them. before henry's father came to the throne, there had been in england a terrible time of civil war because there were different claimants to the crown who were supported by different parties, and most people in the land would rather have a form of worship with which they did not agree than feel that the death of their sovereign would be followed by a return of those bloody days. if elizabeth married and had a child to inherit the crown, the land would settle down to quiet. this was the way king philip reasoned as well as the english. then he thought: "elizabeth is a wise, shrewd woman, and she can see that with france and scotland against her, her only hope is to ally herself with spain. the only way to be sure of spain's support is to marry me or some true friend of mine." as for her protestantism, he did not think that matter of any great importance, for he believed that she would rather be sure of her throne than of her church. when elizabeth became queen, she had sent, as was the custom, a letter to the various rulers of europe, formally announcing her accession. philip's plans were made before the letter reached him. he had concluded that his only safe course was to marry her himself. he wrote to his ambassador, count de feria, and explained why he had come to such a conclusion. it was a great sacrifice, he said, for it would not be easy to rule england in addition to his other domains, and elizabeth must not be so unreasonable as to expect him to spend much of his time with her. she must give up her protestant notions, of course, become a catholic, and agree to uphold the catholic faith in her country. to marry the sister of his dead wife was against the law of the church, but he was sure that he could induce the pope to grant special permission. philip's reply to elizabeth's announcement was an ardent letter begging her in most eloquent terms to become his wife. the queen met his request with the gravest courtesy, thanked him for the honor that he had done her, and told him how fully she realized of what advantage such a splendid alliance would be to her. philip wrote again and again; he told her how highly he thought of her abilities and merits, and what a charming, fascinating woman she was. elizabeth was shrewd enough to understand why this keen politician was so eager for the marriage, but she answered his letters with the utmost politeness, and when other excuses failed, she told him that she could not make any plans concerning marriage without consulting parliament, and that body was not yet in session. she mischievously allowed her ladies to see his glowing epistles, but perhaps she may be pardoned for this offence, inasmuch as count de feria had foolishly shown the king's letter, and elizabeth knew precisely what philip had said about the great sacrifice he was making in wedding her. philip was so sure she would marry him that he sent envoys to rome to get the pope's permission, but before they could return, a final letter came from the queen, refusing to take him for her husband. the spaniard was easily consoled, for within a month he married the daughter of the french king. how much attention the queen proposed to pay to the advice of parliament in this matter was seen a little later when the house of commons sent a delegation to her, begging that they might have the great honor of an interview with her majesty. elizabeth put on her royal robes and went to the house in all state. an address was made her. the speaker told her how they gloried in her eminence and rejoiced in having her for queen. then he laid before her the affliction it would be to the land if she should die and leave no child to inherit not only her crown but her goodness and her greatness. finally he begged in all humility that she would in her own good time choose among her many suitors the one most pleasing to herself. elizabeth was silent for a moment, and the house feared that she might be offended, then she smiled graciously and thanked them most heartily for their love of her and for their care of the kingdom. "i like your speech," she said, "because it does not attempt to bind my choice; but it would have been a great presumption if you had taken it upon yourselves to direct or limit me whom you are bound to obey." she told them that whatever husband she chose should be of such character that he would care for the kingdom even as she herself did. finally she said that if she did not marry, they ought not to feel anxious about the realm, but to trust in god, for in due time he would make it evident into whose hands he wished the kingdom to fall. then she left the house, smiling so pleasantly and bowing so graciously that few among them realized at once that she had neither agreed with them nor disagreed, and that she had promised them nothing at all. she had merely declared that she intended to have her own way and that they had nothing to say about the matter. king philip was by no means the only man who was eager for the hand of the english queen. there was philip's friend, the archduke charles, there were two french princes, the king of sweden, the king of denmark, the king of poland, the scotch earl arran, the english earl of arundel, and still others as the months passed. several of these ardent wooers sent envoys to england to plead their cause; the king of sweden sent his brother, and the king of denmark straightway despatched his nephew on the same errand. these agents were received with the highest honors, entertainments were arranged for their pleasure, and every courtesy was shown them. elizabeth was graciousness itself to each, and made each believe that she was especially inclined to favor his master, but that for reasons of state she could not give an answer at once. so she kept them waiting for her royal decision, playing one against another, and all this time england was growing stronger. whether she was in earnest when she declared that she did not wish to marry, no one knows, but many think that her final refusal to one suitor after another was because the only man for whom she cared was robert dudley, earl of leicester, son of the duke of northumberland. he was a man without special talent or ability, a handsome courtier with graceful manners and much ambition. he was married to amy robsart, a beautiful girl and a great heiress, but while he was at court, she was left in a lonely mansion in the care of one of leicester's dependents, a man who had the reputation of being ready to commit any crime for which he was paid. two years after elizabeth's accession, amy robsart was found dead at the foot of a staircase, and many believed that she had been murdered. they would have believed it still more firmly if they had known that a very short time later leicester was trying to persuade philip that he would protect the catholics if he could be aided to marry the queen, and to convince the french protestants that he would do the same for their church if he could have their help in winning the hand of elizabeth. as for the queen herself, she would at one time show the earl every sign of tenderness, and at another she would declare, "i'll marry no subject. marry a subject and make him king? never." chapter viii a queen's troubles never had a queen a greater variety of difficulties to meet. if she favored the catholics, the protestants would not support her; the puritans were beginning to be of some importance, and they were eager to have every trace of catholicism destroyed; but if she introduced protestant changes too rapidly, the catholics might revolt. she wished, it is probable, to refuse her numerous suitors, but she needed to keep on friendly terms with each as far as possible. the royal treasury was low, and among the nations of europe there was not one upon whose assistance england could count in case of need. such were elizabeth's troubles at the beginning of her reign, and as the months passed, the difficulties became even more complicated. scotland was ruled by mary's mother, who acted as regent for her daughter. she was french and a catholic, and as more and more of the scotch became protestants, they were determined to have freedom for protestant worship. persecution followed, imprisonment, torture, and burning at the stake. then came a fierce revolt. by the aid of france this was suppressed, but the protestants appealed to elizabeth. "no war, my lords, no war," declared she to her council. "a queen does not lend aid to rebels." "the rebels are in a fair way to become the government," suggested one councilor. "england cannot afford war," declared another. "we have no money to spend on fleets and armies." "the french are already in scotland," said one. "more will follow, and their next step will be across the border. if they are once in england, we shall have to raise armies whether we can or not." "true," agreed another, "and surely it is better to fight them in scotland than on our own soil." "if we attack the french, philip will aid them and try to put mary on our throne." "no, no," shouted three or four voices. "to unite france, scotland, and england under one ruler would weaken his own power. he'll not do that." "this is a question of religion as well as policy," said another. "shall not the government of the church of england aid the protestants of scotland?" this last argument did not count for very much with elizabeth, but there was another one that did. she left the council and thought over the matter carefully and anxiously. "if i can get power in scotland," she said to herself, "i can induce the scotch government to agree that mary shall never claim the title of queen of england." money was borrowed from antwerp, and england began to prepare for fighting. france became uneasy and sent word to elizabeth:-- "we do protest and remonstrate against the ruler of a neighboring kingdom giving aid to rebels and revolters." the french well knew how sorely aggrieved the english felt at the loss of calais, and as a bribe to the queen they offered to give her back the town and citadel if she would agree not to aid the scotch protestants. elizabeth knew then that the french feared her, and she replied:-- "so long as the queen of scots doth falsely claim to be also queen of this my realm, then so long must i guard myself in the way that seems to me wisest and best. to free my throne from the attacks of false claimants and so secure peace and safety for my people is worth far more to me than any little fishing village in a foreign country." the french were driven from scotland, and a treaty was made agreeing that mary should give up all claim to the throne of england. mary had empowered her agents to make whatever terms they thought best, but when she saw this provision, she refused to sign the treaty. one year later a beautiful young woman stood at the stern of a vessel, looking back with tearful eyes at the shore from which she had sailed. the twilight deepened, and night settled around her. she turned away. "adieu, my beloved france," she whispered, "farewell, farewell." thus it was that a queen returned to her kingdom, for the fair young woman was mary, queen of scots. her husband had died, and there was no longer any place in france for her. scotland asked her to return to the throne that had been her own ever since she was a few days old. she was only nineteen, and she was leaving the gay, merry court in which nearly all her life had been spent; she was leaving her friends and companions, and for what? scotland was the land of her birth, but it was a foreign country to her. it was not like her sunny france, it was a land of mist and of cold, of plain habits and stern morals. the queen was coming to her own, but her own was strange to her. mary had asked elizabeth's permission to shorten the voyage by passing through england. "that must not be," thought the english queen. "her presence here would be the signal for all the discontented catholics in the kingdom to follow her banner." permission was refused, unless mary would agree beforehand to give up all claim to the english crown. "i ask but elizabeth's friendship," said mary. "i do not trouble her state nor try to win over her subjects, though i do know there be some in her realm that are not unready to hear offers"--but she would not promise to give up her claim to the crown. she was fully as independent as elizabeth, and she added regretfully, "i grieve that i so far forgot myself as to ask a favor that i needed not. surely, i may go home into my own realm without her passport or license. i came hither safely, and i may have means to return." scotland rejoiced that the queen had come, and welcomed her with bonfires and music and speeches of welcome. the scotch supposed that they were pleasing her, but mary wrote to her friends:-- "in edinburgh when i would have slept, five or six hundred ragamuffins saluted me with wretched fiddles and little rebecks, and then they sang psalms loudly and discordantly; but one must have patience." no one can help feeling sympathy with the lonely girl of nineteen who had left all that she loved to come and rule over a country that seemed to her almost barbarous in contrast with her beloved france. she was a catholic; most of her people were protestants. she won many friends and admirers, but she never gained the confidence and steady affection of her people that made elizabeth strong. the queen and her subjects grew further apart. mary had been brought up to believe that the marriage of anne boleyn was not lawful, and that therefore she herself and not elizabeth was the rightful queen of england. the french king had taught her to sign herself "queen of scotland and england." now that she had returned to scotland, she dropped the latter part of the title, but demanded that elizabeth should declare her heir to the throne, as she certainly was by all laws of the hereditary descent of the crown. elizabeth firmly refused. it was probable that mary would marry, and it was a matter of importance to elizabeth that the husband should not be one who could strengthen the scotch claim to the throne. mary consulted elizabeth about one or two of her suitors, and suddenly the english queen surprised all europe by offering to mary the unwilling hand of her own favorite, the earl of leicester, and hinted, though in her usual equivocal fashion, that if mary would marry the earl, she would be recognized as the next heir to the crown. "i would marry robin myself," declared the queen to mary's commissioner, sir james melville, "save that i am determined to wed no man." elizabeth talked with sir james most familiarly, and this woman who was so shrewdly guiding her millions of englishmen and guarding her throne from mary of scotland, often seemed to think of nothing but whether she or her rival had the prettier face. "which is the fairer?" she demanded, "i or the queen of scotland?" "your majesty is the fairest queen in england, and ours is the fairest queen in scotland," replied sir james wisely. "that is not an answer," declared elizabeth. "which of us two is the fairer?" "your majesty is whiter, but our queen is very winsome." "which is of greater stature?" "our queen," replied sir james. "your queen is over high then," said elizabeth, "for i am neither too high nor too low. but tell me, how does she amuse herself?" "she hunts and reads and sometimes she plays on the lute and the virginals." "does she play well?" "reasonably well for a queen," declared sir james audaciously. "i wish i could see her," said elizabeth. "if your grace should command me, i could convey you to scotland in the dress of a page, and none be the wiser," suggested sir james gravely, and elizabeth did not seem at all displeased with the familiarity. when the commissioner was again in scotland, mary asked what he thought of elizabeth. "she has neither plain dealing nor upright meaning," said he, "and she is much afraid that your highness's princely qualities will drive her from her kingdom." leicester was refused. mary was now twenty-three, but she chose for her husband lord darnley, a handsome, spoiled child of nineteen. he was a catholic and after herself the next heir to the english throne. elizabeth was angry, but she was helpless. a year later sir james made a journey from scotland to london in four days, as rapid traveling as was possible at that time. he called upon lord burleigh and gave him an important message. it was evening, and the queen was dancing merrily with her ladies and nobles when cecil whispered a word in her ear. no more mirth did she show. she sat down, resting her head on her hand. the ladies pressed around her. suddenly she burst out, "the queen of scots has a fair young son, and i am but a barren stock." when elizabeth found that it was impossible to have her own way, she usually accepted the situation gracefully. sir james came to see her in the morning. she met him with a "volt," a bit of an old italian dance, and declared the news was so welcome that it had cured her of a fifteen-days' illness. she agreed to be godmother to mary's son, and as a christening gift she sent a font of pure gold. the next news from scotland was that lord darnley had been murdered, and that there was reason for believing the earl of bothwell, a bold, reckless adventurer, to have been the murderer. mary had soon tired of the silly, arbitrary boy and had kept her dislike no secret. two months later she married bothwell, and there were so many reasons for thinking that she had helped to plan the murder that the scotch nobles took up arms against her, and imprisoned her in lochleven castle, until she could be tried. she was forced to sign a paper giving up all claim to the scotch throne, and her baby son james, only one year old, was crowned king of scotland. elizabeth raged that mere subjects should venture to accuse a queen as if she were an ordinary person. "how dare they call their sovereign to account?" demanded the angry ruler of england. she declared that mary's throne should be restored to her and that the rebels should be punished. indeed, in her wrath she made all sorts of wild vows and threats which she had no power to keep. this support, however, encouraged mary's friends to attempt her rescue. she escaped from lochleven; her followers fought an unsuccessful battle; she rode on horseback, sixty miles in a single day; she was taken in a fishing boat to the english side of solway frith; and then the deposed queen was safe in england, in the realm of the sovereign from whom she believed she might expect assistance. elizabeth and her council considered the matter long and earnestly. "let us return her to scotland." "then she will be put to death, and the catholics of scotland and england will be aroused against queen elizabeth." "shall we place her back upon the scotch throne?" "we could not without war with scotland and probably with france." "shall we invite her to remain in england as the guest of the queen?" "and offer her as a head for every conspiracy that may be formed against her majesty? no." "there is something else. we have a right to know whether we are protecting an innocent young woman who had fled to us for help, or a criminal who has aided in the murder of her husband." so the question was discussed, and it was finally decided that mary should be kept as a prisoner and tried before special commissioners appointed for the purpose. at the end of this investigation elizabeth declared that she had been proved neither innocent nor guilty. that question was dropped, but in spite of her angry protest and her demands to be set free, the queen of scotland was kept in england for eighteen years, treated in many respects with the deference due to a sovereign, but guarded as closely as any prisoner. in the midst of these complications that required the keenest acumen of the most vigorous intellect, elizabeth did not lay aside her whims and vanities. one of her favorite customs was that of wearing an "impress," a device somewhat like a coat of arms, which was changed as often as the wearer chose. each "impress" had a motto, and the queen used a different one almost every day. one of her mottoes was, "i see and am silent;" another was, "always the same." at one time she devoted herself to the works of the early christian writers, but she found leisure to complain of the poor portraits that people were making of her. they were not nearly so handsome as she thought they ought to be, and she actually had a proclamation drawn up forbidding all persons to attempt her picture until "some special cunning painter" should produce a satisfactory likeness. her "loving subjects" were then to be permitted to "follow the said pattern." for even the most "cunning artist" to satisfy both her majesty and himself must have been a difficult matter, for she positively forbade having any shade given to her features. "by nature there is no shade in a face," said the queen, "it is only an accident." another of her foibles was that of wearing the dress of different countries on different days, one day italian, the next day french, and so on. it seems not to have been easy to have these gowns made in england, and elizabeth sent to the continent for a dressmaker. the secretary of state had been the one ordered to draw up the proclamation restraining all save the "cunning artist" yet to be discovered from making her picture, and now we find him ordering the english ambassador to france to "cause" his wife to find the queen "a tailor that hath skill to make her apparel both after the french and the italian manner." this command was given only a few days after the murder of lord darnley which aroused all england. elizabeth always enjoyed going about among her subjects, and one of her early visits was to the university of cambridge. she entered the town on horseback in a habit of black velvet. her hat was heaped up with feathers, and under it she wore a sort of net, or head-dress, that was all ablaze with precious stones. the beadles of the university gave her their staffs, signifying that all power was in her hands. she could not hold them all, and she gave them back, saying jestingly, "see that you minister justice uprightly, or i will take them into mine hands again." according to ancient custom at a royal visit, she was presented with two pairs of gloves, two sugarloaves, and some confectionery. long orations were made to her. she was praised as showing forth all the virtues, and although she sometimes interrupted the orators by saying, "that is not true," she commended them at the end so warmly that they had no fear of having offended her. she did not hesitate to break in upon any speaker, and the next day, when the minister was preaching, she sent a noble lord to tell him to put his cap on. another high official was despatched to him before he left the pulpit to inform him that the queen liked his sermon. this was on sunday morning. that evening the chapel was made into a theatre, and an old latin play was acted for her amusement. elizabeth went from college to college, and at each she listened to an oration in her praise and received the usual gift of gloves, sugarloaves, and confectionery. cambridge had long expected the honor of this visit, and the members of the various learned societies had made preparations for it by composing poems of welcome and praise in greek, hebrew, and several other languages. copies of these verses had been richly bound, and the volume was presented to her as a memorial of her welcome. all the sermons and speeches and plays were in latin, and near the close of the queen's stay, a humble petition was made to her that she would speak to her hosts in that language. "i am but a poor scholar," said she, "but if i might speak my mind in english, i would not stick at the matter." then answered the chancellor of the university:-- "your highness, in the university nothing english may be said in public." "then speak you for me," bade the queen. "the chancellor is the queen's mouth." "true, your majesty," he responded, "but i am merely the chancellor of the university; i have not the honor to be the chancellor of your grace." after a little more urging, the queen delivered an excellent latin speech, which she had evidently composed beforehand, and gave the authorities to understand that she should make the university a generous gift either during her life or at her death. this manner of arousing the expectations of her subjects was one of her ways of securing their faithfulness. she used to keep long lists of men of ability and worth, and a man, knowing that his name was on that list, would not fail to be true to her, expecting every day a pension or some other reward of his devotion. robert dudley was high steward of cambridge, and elizabeth seems to have exhausted her generous intentions toward the university by presenting him with kenilworth castle and manor and other lands. then it was that she made him lord leicester, and when in the ceremony he was kneeling gravely before her with bowed head, this queen of magnificence and barbarism, of subtlety of intellect and coarseness of manner, thought it a brilliant jest to stretch out the royal forefinger to tickle the back of his neck and arouse him from his unwonted seriousness. chapter ix elizabeth and philip however fond elizabeth was of leicester, she would never allow him to presume upon her favor. a friend of his one day demanded to see the queen, and the usher, or "gentleman of the black rod," as he was called, refused to permit him to enter. leicester threatened the usher with the loss of his position, but that gentleman went straightway to the queen, fell at her feet, and told the whole story. "your grace," said he, "i have but obeyed your commands, and all that i crave is to know the pleasure of your majesty. shall i obey yourself or my lord leicester?" leicester had also attempted to tell his side of the story, but a wave of the queen's hand had silenced him. now she turned upon him haughtily and said:-- "i have wished you well, my lord, but know you that my favor is not so locked up in you that others can have no share. i will have here but one mistress and no master." leicester tried to take revenge on the queen's vanity by asking her for an appointment in france. "do you really wish to go?" she demanded. "it is one of the things that i most desire," answered the earl. elizabeth pondered a moment, she glanced at leicester, and then turned to the spanish ambassador, who stood near, and said laughingly:-- "i can't live without seeing him. why, he is my lap-dog, and wherever i go, people expect that he will follow." leicester did not go to france. elizabeth's old suitor, king philip, was giving her more trouble than leicester. the low countries, as holland and belgium were then called, formed part of his domain. most of the inhabitants of these lands were protestants, and they were making a determined resistance to the rule of the spanish king. elizabeth believed that if philip was successful he might attack england. the course decided upon by the english council was to send money secretly to the revolters in the low countries. this would not make open war with spain, but would enable the king's opponents to oppose him more strongly, and would keep him too busy to think of invading england. even before elizabeth came to the throne, the english channel and the neighboring seas were swarming with bold sailors who attacked any vessel that they believed might be carrying gold or any other cargo of value. to-day this would be called piracy, it was then looked upon as brave seamanship. these pirates cared little for the nationality of a vessel, but spain had more ships at sea than any other country, and these ships were loaded with gold from america or with valuable goods from india, therefore, spain was the greatest sufferer; and as the english sailors were generally more bold and more successful than others in making these attacks, the wrath of spain toward england grew more and more bitter. whenever a spanish ship captured an english ship, the sailors were hanged, or imprisoned, or perhaps tortured, or even burned at the stake as heretics. "it is only fair," said elizabeth, "to get our reprisal in whatever way we can;" and whoever had taken a spanish vessel, be he english or belonging to some other nation, was allowed to bring his prize into an english port and there dispose of it. the slave-trade, too, was looked upon as an honorable business and a valuable source of wealth for england. spain forbade all nations to trade with her american colonies, but these bold englishmen kidnapped negroes on the african coast, carried them to america, and found ready purchasers in the spanish colonists of the west indies. one of these english fleets was attacked by the spanish in the gulf of mexico, and three of the vessels were captured. elizabeth raged and declared that she would have vengeance. it is possible that her indignation was no less from the fact that two of the vessels of this fleet belonged to the queen herself. it was not long before the opportunity for revenge appeared. four spanish vessels loaded with money for the payment of philip's army were chased by french pirates and took refuge in an english harbor. under the pretence of securing the safety of this money, it was quietly transferred to the royal treasury. the spanish ambassador protested, but there was much delay before he was permitted to see the queen. he presented a letter from duke alva, who commanded the spanish forces in the low countries, claiming the treasure. "i am not wholly without reason," declared elizabeth coolly, "for believing that this gold does not belong to the king of spain." "this is the duke's own writing, your highness," said the ambassador. "not willingly or with intent to deal unjustly would i seize upon aught that with propriety belongs to his majesty," said the queen, "but certain rumors have reached me that divers persons of genoa are sending this money to the low countries to make profit by loaning it to the duke." "your majesty, i give you most solemn assurance that such is not the case," declared the helpless ambassador. "a few days will determine whether your informants or mine be correct," said the queen haughtily. "if the king of spain can prove that the gold is his, i will restore it to him. otherwise, i will pay the usual rate of interest to its true owners, and keep it for good service in my own kingdom." elizabeth was right in her belief that philip would not wish to have another war on his hands, and so would made no attack upon her kingdom. he seized englishmen and english property in antwerp, but this was small loss to england, for elizabeth retaliated by imprisoning the spaniards who were doing business in her kingdom and whose possessions were of far more value than those of the english in antwerp. duke alva was annoyed and delayed in his plans by the loss of the money, but the fighting went on most bitterly. in france there was a kind of peace between the court and the huguenots, as the french protestants were called, but on neither side was there forgiveness or forgetfulness. the leader of the huguenots was wounded in paris by an assassin. catherine de medicis, mother of the french king, alarmed her son by declaring that the huguenots would take a fearful vengeance for this attack, and induced him to consent to a terrible slaughter in which thousands of protestants were slain. this was the massacre of st. bartholomew's day. the english were then thoroughly aroused. thousands were ready to take up arms and avenge the wicked murders. to the french ambassador fell the unwelcome task of telling the dreadful story to the queen of england. he asked for an audience, but she refused it. for three days she hesitated; at length he was admitted. the queen and all her attendants were dressed in the deepest mourning. the unhappy ambassador entered the room and advanced through the lines of lords and ladies. little return was made to his respectful salutations, there was dead silence. finally the queen with grave, stern face, came a few steps toward him, greeted him with politeness, and motioned him to follow her to one side. "i have no wish to show discourtesy to your sovereign," she said, "but it was impossible that i should bring my mind sooner to speak of a matter so grievous to me and to my realm." the ambassador bowed silently, and the queen went on. "can it be that this strange news of the prince whom i have so loved and honored has been correctly reported to me?" "in truth," answered the ambassador gravely, "it is for this very thing that i am come to lament with your majesty over the sad accident." "an accident?" questioned elizabeth. "surely, your majesty, for is not that an accident which is forced upon a sovereign by no will of his own, but by the plots and treasons of those whom he would gladly have befriended?" "how may that be?" asked elizabeth. "the evening before the sad event the king was horrified to learn that in revenge for the attempt at assassination, a terrible deed had been planned. it was no less than the imprisonment of himself and his family and the murder of the catholic leaders." "how was this known?" "one whose conscience could no longer bear the burden revealed the wicked plot. the words and looks of several of the conspirators gave gloomy confirmation to the story." "why not imprison the traitors? is there no dungeon in france and no executioner?" "your majesty, not all rulers have your keen judgment and your control of even the strongest sentiments of your heart. the king has not yet learned to govern his feelings by moderation. he had but a few short hours to decide what was best. many were urging him on to inflict the most severe penalties, and at last he yielded, and allowed that to be done which he will ever regret. especially does he lament that with a populace so wildly excited and so indignant at the plot against the king, it is all but impossible that some who are innocent should not have perished with the guilty. this is his chief cause of grief." the ambassador had made as smooth a story as possible, but how would the queen receive it? she was silent for several minutes, then she said:-- "although i could not accept his majesty, the king of france, for a husband, yet shall i always revere him as if i were his wife, and ever feel jealous for his honor. i will believe that from some strange accident, which time will perhaps more fully explain, these murders have come to pass. i recommend the protestants among his people as especially entitled to his highness's loving care and protection." when this speech was reported to catherine de medicis, she smiled grimly and said, "the queen of england can hardly ask greater protection than she herself grants; namely, to force no man's conscience, but to permit no other worship in the land than that which the ruler himself practises." four years had passed since mary of scotland fled to england. nothing had been satisfactorily determined in regard to her guilt or innocence. an important part of the testimony against her was a casket of her letters to bothwell. elizabeth's commissioners believed these letters to be the work of mary's hand, but the english queen refused to permit them to be made public. whether they were true or were forgeries, she would not allow a queen, a member of her own family, to be declared guilty of murder. mary was put under the care of the earl of shrewsbury. the sovereign claimed the right to give prisoners of state or guests of the nation to her nobles for watch or entertainment or both. "i am about to trust you as i would trust few men," the queen said to the earl when she informed him of his new task. he was obliged to accept the charge meekly, but it must have been a heavy burden. if his family moved from one of his manors to another, mary must go with them. she must have the attendance and treatment due to her rank, but she must be closely watched to prevent, if possible, the sending of letters and messages to any that might conspire to rescue her. guests of the family must be kept from meeting her. it is no wonder that the earl's health gave out. he went away for medical treatment, and at once there came a letter from cecil:-- "the queen has heard that you are gone from home. she says she can scarce believe it, but she bids me know from you what order you left for attendance upon the queen of scots. she would not that you should be long away from her, for she feels it only in accordance with her honor that the said queen be honorably attended, and for this she cares as much as for any question of surety." the earl did not recover at once, and the queen sent another trusty servant to take charge of mary. the caring for the prisoner and her retinue was no small matter, for there were so many in her train that her unwilling host felt greatly relieved when elizabeth commanded that their number be reduced to thirty. soon after mary's coming to england there was an uprising in the north among the nobles who wished to oblige elizabeth to acknowledge mary as her heir. they planned for the scotch queen to marry an english duke of great power and wealth. this conspiracy was discovered, mary was kept for a while in closer confinement, and after some time the duke was beheaded. elizabeth long refused to sign the warrant, and she would pay no attention whatever to the counsels of the royal advisers in regard to the execution of mary, though one called her "that dangerous woman," another, "a desperate person." the archbishop of york advised elizabeth to "cut off the scottish queen's head forthwith;" cecil was decidedly in favor of this plan, for he believed that it was the only way to secure peace to the kingdom, that so long as mary lived there would be plots, and that, however closely she was watched, she would find means to communicate with plotters. the rebellion in the north was the only revolt of any importance while elizabeth was on the throne. it was punished most severely by a vast number of executions. not long after the revolt, the pope excommunicated elizabeth. he pronounced upon her a solemn curse whether she ate or drank, went in or went out; whatever she did, she was accursed, and her subjects were no longer called upon to obey her. neither philip nor the king of france ventured to have this decree published in his kingdom, and in england it seems to have produced no effect whatever. the government was every day becoming stronger. the man who disobeyed did not often escape punishment, and englishmen in general preferred to be excommunicated by the pope in italy than to be executed by elizabeth in england. the queen gained steadily in power and in the affections of her subjects. some of this increase of power was because by good management england had grown richer, some of it because by her shrewd treatment of france and spain she had won the deference of both. her means of gaining power were not always to be commended; she was not above maintaining nominally peaceful relations with a king while she was aiding his revolting subjects; and she would favor first one proposed marriage and then another, as it might suit her purposes to win the good will of the country to which the respective wooers belonged. when she was once accused of deriding and mocking whoever sought her hand, she replied with an air of injured innocence that she never "mocked or trifled" with any of those who would have had her in marriage, that she had given them her answer as promptly as the "troubles and hindrances that were happening in the world" would permit. dishonorable as her behavior sometimes was, it is only fair to elizabeth to remember that in her times fair dealing among nations was the exception rather than the rule; the country that could gain the advantage over another country was looked upon as having shown the greater ability. part of elizabeth's gain in power was due to the improved condition of england. the country was at peace, taxes were not large; ways of living were becoming more comfortable; all subjects were required to attend the protestant church, but fines and loss of office were small matters when compared with the axe and the stake; bold sailors were taking english ships to distant harbors; a great exchange had been built in london where merchants from any part of the world might come to buy and sell; and the thing that made all these advantages possible was the fact that the government was firm and sure. that the queen was the vainest woman who ever lived, that she would say one thing one day and quite another thing the next morning was perhaps not known outside of her court, and in any case, her subjects would have forgiven her faults, for they felt that she was ever a friend to them, that she believed in them and trusted them. at one time a gun went off by accident and the bullet came very near the queen. elizabeth straightway issued a proclamation, "i will believe nothing against my subjects," said she, "that loving parents would not believe of their children." elizabeth refused positively to stand at the head of any one party; she was determined to be, as she said, "a good queen" to all her subjects. it must be admitted that she was sometimes unjust to the "great folk," but nothing else aroused her wrath so surely and so dangerously as a wrong done to her people, to the masses of her subjects, with whom she felt sympathy and to whom she turned for support. it was an ancient custom in the land that whenever the sovereign went from one part of the kingdom to another, the people of whatever district he might chance to be in should furnish him with food for his attendants, often numbered by hundreds. "purveyors," or officers whose business it was to attend to the providing of food, went ahead of the royal party and took what they chose to declare would be needed. sometimes they paid for it--whatever price they chose--sometimes they did not, but in any case the purveyor was sorely tempted to seize larger quantities of supplies than would be needed and sell them elsewhere. when elizabeth discovered that one of her officers had been behaving in this manner, she was most indignant. "my people shall suffer by no such abuses," she declared. one article that the cheating purveyor had seized and sold for the advantage of his own pocket was a quantity of smelts. "take him to the pillory," bade the angry queen. "hang the smelts about his neck, and see you to it that there shall he sit for three full days. let him who steals from my people keep in his account that he has to reckon not with them but with me; they are _my_ people, and i am their queen." this proud sovereign who ruled her haughty nobles with so high a hand enjoyed showing to her subjects how humble she could be. when she was tormenting the king of spain by every means in her power, she kept on one maundy thursday the old custom of feet-washing. elizabeth was thirty-nine years of age, and therefore the poor women who were seated before her for the ceremony were thirty-nine in number. the queen's ladies brought silver basins filled with warm water delicately perfumed with flowers and sweet-smelling herbs. cushions were placed, and on these the queen kneeled as she washed one foot of each of the poor women, marked it with a cross and kissed it. it takes a little from the humility of the act to read that just before the queen's performance of this duty the feet of the thirty-nine poor women were most carefully scrubbed and perfumed by three separate officials. there must have been some competition to be among the chosen thirty-nine, if any one guessed what would happen, for before the queen bade them farewell, she presented each one with a pair of shoes, cloth for a gown, the towel and apron used in the ceremony, a purse of white leather containing thirty-nine pence, and a red purse containing twenty shillings. besides these gifts, each one received bread, fish, and wine. it is no wonder that elizabeth was popular among her subjects, and that she rejoiced in their good will, but some of the consequences of their devotion were not agreeable. it was the custom to wear ornaments called aglets, which were somewhat like large loops. these were made of gold and often set with precious stones. they were sewed upon various parts of her robes of state, and they had a fashion of disappearing when the queen was dining in public, for her subjects who were near enough to secure one as a souvenir of their beloved queen seem to have taken advantage of their opportunity. the persons who had charge of her wardrobe made in their books many such entries as these:-- "lost from her majesty's back the th of january, at westminster, one aglet of gold, enamelled blue, set upon a gown of purple velvet." another one is:-- "one pearl and a tassel of gold being lost from her majesty's back, off the french gown of black satin, the th day of july, at greenwich." chapter x entertaining a queen many a monarch has liked to wander about his domains in disguise and hear what his subjects had to say about him when they did not suspect that he was near. elizabeth thoroughly enjoyed journeying about her kingdom, but she did not wish to be disguised, she preferred that everyone should know where she was and should be able to sing her praises in such wise that she need not lose the pleasure of hearing them. these journeys of hers were called progresses, and while on a progress she was always entertained by some wealthy subject. whenever there was a rumor that the queen meant to leave town, every nobleman who owned a beautiful country seat would tremble, for while a royal visit was an honor, it was also a vast expense and responsibility. the queen would set out with a great retinue, but for what place no one was told until a few days before the journey began. if there was the least reason to think that she would go to a certain district, the noblemen of that district hastened to engage provisions of all sorts. the luckless favorite was at last told that the great honor of entertaining his sovereign was to be bestowed upon him. he had to appear exceedingly grateful and to make humble speeches of thankfulness, even though he was wondering between the words where he could buy meat and fish and fruit and other food for a great company. as soon as the queen's messengers were out of sight, then was there a hurrying and a scurrying. in one case many of the nobles in a certain district were so afraid of being victims that they engaged all the provisions in the vicinity, and the unfortunate man who was first chosen had to send post-haste to flanders to buy food for his unwelcome guests. one man provided for a royal visit of three days wheat, rye, oats, butter, partridges, trout, lobsters, beer, ale, wine, sugarloaves, turkeys, pheasants, salmon, deer, sheep, oysters, plums, preserved lemons, sweetmeats, cinnamon water, beef, ling, sturgeons, pigeons, etc. these eatables had to be obtained in large quantities; for instance, this three-days' host bought fifty-two dozen chickens for one item, and twenty bushels of salt for another. nor was this all. damask, knives, and pewter dishes must be hired; carpenters and bricklayers must be engaged to make all sorts of changes in the house and grounds that might suit the whim of a queen who did not hesitate to express her opinions if she was displeased. moreover, when this queen was entertained, she expected to find entertainment; dancers must be hired, and perhaps a whole company of actors must be engaged to present a play for her pleasure. it is not at all wonderful that even the richest of elizabeth's subjects dreaded a visit from their queen. the archbishop of canterbury wrote a most pitiful letter about the difficulty of finding bedrooms for so great a party. he explained what he had planned, and ended, "here is as much as i am able to do in this house." one man who had been notified that the queen would soon honor his castle wrote to cecil, "i trust you will provide that her majesty's stay be not above two nights and a day," and he added anxiously, "i pray god that the room and lodgings may be to her content." this man, like the rest of elizabeth's hosts, was not anxious without good reason, for the queen often manifested but slight gratitude for the efforts of her entertainers, while she seldom hesitated to express her disapproval if anything occurred that did not please her. at one house she discovered by chance an image of the virgin mary, and within a fortnight her host was in prison on the charge of being a catholic. to another house she made an unexpected visit when the owner was away from home. the unfortunate lord had a fine deer park in which he took great pride, but on his return he found that large numbers of the deer had been slaughtered to amuse the queen and her retinue. he was so indignant that he "disparked" the ground. it seems that it was not safe for a man to do what he would with his own, for not many weeks later a friend of his at court wrote to him:-- "her majesty has been informed that you were not pleased at the good sport she had in your park. have a wary watch over your words and deeds. it was leicester who brought her to your castle. he has taken no small liking to it, and it might easily be that he would claim to have good title to the same." the most brilliant of elizabeth's entertainments was given her by robert dudley at kenilworth castle not long after he became lord leicester. for nineteen days he was her host, but he could well afford to make the outlay, for the queen's recent gifts to him were valued at £ , , an amount that was worth as much then as a million and a quarter dollars to-day. on this visit elizabeth was received at a neighboring town and was feasted in a great tent. then after a day's hunting she and her train arrived at the fine old castle with its manor lands of hill and dale, forest and pasture. it was already eight in the evening, but there were all sorts of sights for her to see before she entered the castle. first came forth ten sibyls in white silk, gleaming in the soft twilight. one of them made a speech of welcome, and the company passed into the tilt-yard. there stood a tall porter, big of limb and stern of countenance. he brandished a heavy club as he strutted to and fro, apparently talking to himself. he did not know, he declared, what all this chattering, riding, and trudging up and down was for, but he did not like it, and there was no one great enough to deserve it. suddenly he saw the queen, and was so overcome by her beauty--so he said in his speech--that he could only fall down on his knees before her and beg her pardon. he gave her his keys and called his six trumpeters to announce the arrival of so wondrous a being. on two sides of the castle there was a beautiful pool, and as the queen stepped upon the bridge that crossed an arm of the mere, a sudden light gleamed far out on the lake, and over the quiet water came a little floating island, all ablaze with torches. on the island was the fair lady of the lake, and with her were two attendant nymphs. the lady recited a pretty poem to the purport that ever since king arthur's days she had been hidden, not daring to come forth, but now a royal guest had come for whom she could feel as deep a love as for arthur himself. she ended:-- "pass on, madame, you need no longer stand, the lake, the lodge, the lord are yours for to command." with all her quickness of wit, elizabeth could think of no better reply than, "we had thought the lake had been ours; and do you call it yours now? well, we will herein commune more with you hereafter." then came a great flourish of shawms, cornets, and other musical instruments, and the queen passed on. she was as eager as a child to see what was to be the next sight, for nothing gave her more pleasure than these displays. everyone was interested in mythology in those days, and no entertainment was regarded as complete without some reference to the gods and goddesses; cooks often represented in their pastry scenes from the stories of the early deities. elizabeth's way now led over a bridge that crossed the lower court and extended to the entrance of the castle. on either hand were seven pairs of wooden pillars, each pair loaded with the gift of some god. on the first pair were the tokens of sylvanus, god of the woodfowl; these were great cages containing various kinds of birds, alive and fluttering in the glare of the torches. then came pomona's treasures, two large silver bowls full of the fairest apples, pears, cherries and nuts. white and red grapes represented the welcome of bacchus, while on the fifth pair of pillars were the gifts of neptune, herring, oysters, and mullets, for the god of the sea as well as the deities of the woods and the fields had been summoned to give greeting to elizabeth. mars was not forgotten; well polished bows and arrows, gleaming swords and spears shone in the flaring lights. the last pillars bore the offering of apollo, the cornet, flute, and harp, the lute, viol, and shawm. at the end of this bridge was an arch whereon was written a lengthy welcome in latin. the letters were white, but wherever the queen's name appeared, it shone out in yellow gold. leicester had no idea of trusting the flickering light of torches to reveal all these elaborate preparations for the queen's reception, and beside the arch stood a poet with a wreath of bays on his head. his part was to explain to her what each offering signified and to read the inscription over the gateway. it is to be hoped that the lights shone upon him well and clearly, for he was attired in all the splendor of a long robe of blue silk with sleeves flowing widely to reveal glimpses of his gorgeous crimson doublet. as the queen alighted from her horse and entered the castle, every clock in the building was stopped, perhaps to suggest that she would never grow old, that even time had no power over her. she was escorted to her rooms, and then came the welcome of jupiter, king of the gods. this was peal after peal of the guns of the castle and a display of fireworks. for two long hours this greeting of jupiter's blazed and roared, but it was none too long to please the woman for whom it had been planned. the next day was sunday, and the queen went to church, but in the afternoon came music and dancing, and at night more fireworks, stars and streams and hail of fire and burning darts flashing through the darkness. this was only the beginning of the festivities. the next afternoon there was a hunt, and many a deer was slain to amuse the royal guest. a "savage man," covered with moss and ivy, came out of the forest as she was riding back to the castle and made her a long speech, declaring that never before had he seen so glorious a sight. he called nymphs and fauns and dryads and satyrs to his aid, but no one could tell the meaning of the vision. at last he held a conversation with echo, and learned how mighty a queen was before him. then he made another speech about her wondrous beauty, her grace and manner, and the rare qualities of her mind. finally, to show his submission, he broke his stick into pieces. unfortunately, this action startled the queen's horse. there was confusion for a moment, and all flocked around in utter dismay lest some harm had befallen her. "no hurt, no hurt," said elizabeth graciously, and the officer who wrote the account of the visit says, "these words were the best part of the play." there was a mock fight; some italians gave an exhibition of "leaps, springs, and windings," and so agile were they that the chronicler says it could hardly be distinguished whether they were "man or spirit." there was a bridal procession of a rustic couple who were delighted to have the opportunity to appear before the queen. the groom was "lame of a leg broken in his youth at football," but he made up for the loss by wearing a mighty pair of harvest gloves to show that he was a good husbandman, while on his back was slung a pen and inkhorn to indicate that he was "bookish." on his head was a straw hat with a crown made steeple-shape. he and his bride were escorted by the young folk of the parish, each man wearing a bit of green broom fastened to his left arm, and carrying an alder pole in his right hand by way of spear. one wore a hat, another a cap; one rejoiced in a coat or a jerkin, while another had only doublet and hose; one had boots without spurs, and another had spurs without boots, while a third had neither; but it was a merry time, for were they not all come to display themselves before the glorious queen? so the days went on. there was another scene on the lake when a dolphin, eighty feet long, came swimming up to meet elizabeth. on his back was the god arion, who had come from regions far away that he might sing to her, and within the machine were six players with their instruments. there was a show of bear-baiting, wherein thirteen bears tied to stakes, were attacked by a company of dogs trained for the purpose. to see them clawing and tumbling and growling and scratching and biting, to note the bears' watchfulness for their enemies and the dogs' keenness in getting the better of the bears, was what the letter-writing official called "a very pleasant sport." this seems to have been the general opinion of the cruel amusement, for a bear-baiting was often arranged as a treat for the entertainment of foreign ambassadors and other national guests of rank and dignity. the day's pastime was often closed by thundering peals of guns and by fireworks that would "mount in the air and burn in the water." often the whole castle was illuminated by candle, fire, and torchlight, as if the god of the sun himself--so said one who was there--was resting in its chambers instead of taking his nightly course to the antipodes. there was surely no lack of amusements, and indeed several spectacles had been planned for which there was no time. one man who was to represent a minstrel of the olden days was sorely grieved because he could not have the honor of singing before the queen. he found what comfort he might, however, in showing his skill to a company of the courtiers. one of them described his appearance, and a reader cannot help feeling sorry that queen elizabeth lost the sight. the "ancient minstrel" wore a long, flowing robe of green, gathered at the throat and fastened with a clasp. the wide sleeves were slit from shoulder to hand, and under them was a closely fitting undersleeve of white cotton. he wore a black worsted doublet, confined at the waist by a wide red girdle. his shoes were "not new indeed, but shining," though perhaps not quite so brilliantly as was his hair, for that had been smoothed with a sponge "dipped in a little bear's grease" till it gleamed like a duck's wing. he wore a shirt whose bosom was ruffled, and starched "after the new trink," till every ruffle stood up stiff and "glittering." a handkerchief was thrust into his bosom, but enough of it was displayed to show that it was edged with bright blue lace and marked with a heart. around his neck was a broad red ribbon which held his harp, while on a green lacing hung the tuning key. it was really a pity that the queen lost all this display. the chief reason for elizabeth's pleasure in these progresses was probably her delight in all pageants and thorough enjoyment of her popularity among the people. at such times she was nearer to them than at any others. the humblest servant in the castle where she was making her stay, the simplest peasant of the countryside, had as free access to her majesty as the greatest of her nobles. anyone might bring her a petition, anyone might offer her a gift; and no matter of how slight value the present might be, its donor was never disappointed in the gracious thanks that he hoped to receive from his sovereign. often sufferers from scrofula were brought before her with the prayer that she would but lay her hand upon them, for england had believed for six hundred years that the touch of the royal hand would cure this disease. it was said that on elizabeth's visit to kenilworth she healed nine. this was only one of the many superstitions of the elizabethan times. a bit of the wood of which the gallows was made would cure the ague; wearing a topaz stone would bring an insane man to his right mind; a verse of the bible written on parchment and worn about the neck would drive away evil spirits; to carry fern-seed in the pocket would enable a man to "go invisible." powdered diamonds would heal one disease; wiping the face with a red cloth another; while pills made of the powdered skull of a man that had been hanged were a sure remedy for a third. not only the ignorant but most of the most learned men of the day believed firmly in astrology, and the home of the queen's astrologer, dr. dee, was often crowded with nobles who were eager to know the fates foretold to them by the heavens. there was so firm a belief in witchcraft that one of the queen's bishops preached before her on the subject, telling her what sufferings her subjects were enduring from witches. "they pine away even unto the death," said he, and he begged her majesty to make a law providing for the punishment of sorcerers. this was done, or rather, an old law was revived. when elizabeth had a toothache, many of her advisers declared that the pain had been produced by magic, and it was suggested that the treatment of waxen images of the queen at the hands of some who were ill-disposed toward her was the reason for her sufferings. the royal physicians could not agree upon the cause of the trouble or upon a remedy, and the matter was ended by the council of state taking charge of the affair and ordering a prescription from a foreign physician. at the time of queen elizabeth's progress to kenilworth, a banquet was arranged for her. one of her courtiers says that it was neither well served nor nicely set down, that it was "disorderly wasted and coarsely consumed," that it was carried on "more curtly than courteously;" but he adds, "if it might please and be liked and do that it came for, then was all well enough." [illustration: kenilworth in elizabeth's time.--_from an old print._] the elizabethan life was a strange mingling of magnificence and discomfort. there were most palatial mansions with noble towers and gateways and terraces, with lawns and gardens and fountains and parks and wide-spreading acres of hill and dale, of field and forest, but according to modern ideas there was little comfort in all this splendor. the only way to warm these lordly castles was by an occasional fireplace, and the rooms were full of drafts that even the heavy tapestry hung on the walls would not prevent. cleanliness was almost unknown. floors were strewn with rushes, and when a room was to be put in order, fresh rushes were brought in, but no one thought it at all necessary to carry away the old ones. a room was almost never swept unless space was needed for dancing; then a circle in the middle was cleared of rushes, dirt, dust, crumbs and bones from the dining table and all sorts of rubbish that had accumulated since the time of the last merrymaking. one letter-writer of the day declared that the rushes on floors not needed for dancing were sometimes left for twenty years without being swept away. whoever could afford it owned several country houses, and when one became absolutely unendurable, even according to sixteenth century notions, he would move to another to let the first house "sweeten," as was said. the list of different kinds of food purchased for the queen's progress gives an idea of what the rich folk ate, that is, what they ate in the summer. in the winter they had little besides salt meat, various kinds of bread, and the most remarkable pies that one ever heard of. they were made of everything from artichokes to herring. one pastry is described as made of fish and flavored with pepper, ginger, and cloves. the artichoke pies were made of a combination of artichokes, marrow, ginger, raisins and dates. few vegetables were used. potatoes had been brought from america, but they were regarded as a luxury. they were roasted in the embers or else boiled and eaten with pepper, oil, and vinegar. there was neither tea nor coffee; beer or wine was drunk at every meal. people ate with knives and fingers, for forks did not appear until near the end of elizabeth's life. one that was richly jeweled was presented to her and was kept in a glass case as a curiosity. the homes of the poor were indeed bare and comfortless. the floors were of clay or beaten earth. a clumsy table, some wooden stools, a wooden trencher to hold the food, a pile of straw to sleep on, salt fish and rye or barley bread--these were all the comforts that a poor man could expect to have in his home. the house itself was built of boughs of trees interwoven with willow twigs and daubed with clay. the fire was made against a rock set into one of the walls, and the smoke found its way out as best it could. before the reign of elizabeth was over, chimneys had become more common, and many men whose fathers had lived in huts of mud and had eaten from wooden trenchers were building for themselves houses of oak with the comfort of a chimney and perhaps the elegance of a pewter porringer or two among their wooden dishes. at best the luxuries were not very luxurious, but a writer of the time lamented that men were no longer as brave and strong as they used to be, and thought their weakness was due to these dainty and enfeebling fashions. chapter xi elizabeth's suitors never before did the hand of a woman and its possible bestowal in marriage play so important a part in the affairs of europe as did that of elizabeth. she contrived to delay and postpone giving an answer to philip till his minister wrote home wrathfully, "the english queen is possessed of ten thousand devils," but at the death of philip's third wife, ten years later, she was not at all displeased when the spanish ambassador suggested pointedly that philip was "still young enough to take a fourth wife." when france was showing too much favor to scotland to suit english notions, she was fully capable of discussing the possibility of a scotch husband, and when there was a whisper that one foreign ruler meditated the rescue of the captive mary and a marriage with her, elizabeth at once sent an agent to him to suggest a marriage with herself. whenever her fears of spain increased, she began to think of a french alliance. there was always a french suitor ready, for catherine de medicis was trying her best to persuade elizabeth to choose one of the french princes for a husband. the english queen kept one suitor waiting in uncertainty for seven years, another for eleven. she had all sorts of absurd names for her admirers; one was her "lap-dog," one her "tame cat," one her "sheep," another her "frog." occasionally she found a wooer who was not so ready as the others to await her royal pleasure. three years after all negotiations with the archduke charles, brother of the german emperor, had been broken off, she was talking familiarly with some of the ladies of the bedchamber, and she said with some indignation:-- "the king of france is to marry one daughter of the emperor, and the king of spain is to marry another." "there's many a noble marriage, your majesty," said one of her ladies. "would that there was one more," she added slily. "these royal brides have near of kin to promote their interests," replied elizabeth. "what can a woman alone do for herself, whether she is on a throne or on a wooden stool?" "your grace has full many a faithful servant," answered the lady, "who would be ready to give life and limb to do your will." "and yet with all these honorable marriages a-making, not one man in the council had the wit to remind the rest that the emperor has a brother," said the queen and turned away abruptly. the lady understood what was expected of her, and she sent at once for the earl of leicester. "would you do aught to gratify her majesty?" she asked. "is there aught that i would not do to gratify her majesty--or yourself?" he added with a gallant bow. the lady repeated the conversation. the next day a humble petition came from the council:-- "far be it from the intentions of your majesty's servants to suggest anything displeasing to your grace, but if it be in accordance with your will, it would be highly gratifying to your councilors, should you grant this their humble petition that your highness will consider the matter of the archduke charles and the suit that he so recently made." elizabeth replied:-- "of my own will the thought of marriage has ever been far from me, but i cannot refuse the request of my councilors in whose judgment i have so much confidence." an ambassador was sent at once to the german emperor with the message:-- "the queen of england regrets deeply that her frequent illnesses, the wars in france and flanders, and difficult matters in her own government have prevented her from returning a final answer to the suit of his imperial majesty's brother. if he is pleased to come to england, he will be most welcome, and she doubts not that her subjects can be persuaded to permit him the free exercise of his own religion." "it is a pleasure," returned the emperor, "to send to her majesty, the queen of england, assurances of my warmest regard. most highly do i esteem the honor of receiving a message from a sovereign of such beauty of face and greatness of mind;" and then he continued, not without a little enjoyment it may be, "my brother is most grateful for her majesty's good intentions toward him, but he would say that after a delay of three years he had supposed that she did not wish to accept his suit, and he is now engaged to a princess of his own faith, but he earnestly hopes that the queen will ever regard him as a brother." the youthful envoy was presented with a silver vessel and treated with all courtesy, but these attentions to her ambassador did not soothe the rage of elizabeth. "if i were a man," she stormed, "and the emperor had offered me such an insult, i would have called him out to single combat." the last of elizabeth's wooers was the duke of alençon. catherine de medicis had tried hard to win the hand of the queen for an older son who was not at all eager for the honor. when this plan failed, catherine wrote to her minister in england: "would she have my son alençon? he is turned of sixteen, though but little for his age." she went on to say that "this youth had the understanding, visage, and demeanor of one much older than he is." elizabeth was thirty-eight, and when the scheme was first proposed to cecil, he exclaimed, "why, it would look like a mother with her son." elizabeth never refused a suitor at once, and she demanded full information about the duke of alençon. "how tall is he?" she asked. the duke was really so stunted as to be almost dwarfed; he had an enormous nose, a wide mouth, and a face scarred by the smallpox. "i have waited a long time," said the queen, "and if i should now marry a man so much younger than myself and so badly marked with the pox, indeed i know not what they would say." "the duke is growing older every day," replied the french ambassador, "and in london there is a learned physician who declares that in two or three days he can remove all traces of the disease. the duke's heart is full of love and admiration for your majesty. if i might venture, but no----" and he thrust back into his pocket a paper that he had partly drawn forth. "what is that?" demanded elizabeth. "pardon, your majesty, but it is a paper that i have no right to show. this is but the private letter of the duke, and was not meant to fall under the eyes of your grace." finally he was prevailed upon to give her the paper, which proved to be a note--written expressly for the purpose--from alençon to a friend in france. she read and reread. "that is a fair penmanship," said she. "that is marvelously well done." "and the matter of the letter," asked the ambassador, "is not that, too, well done? it is but the outpourings of an honest heart and of its longings to win your grace for himself." "it is very fairly written," said elizabeth, and she ended the audience, but she did not return the note. the duke wrote many letters to the queen, and they do have an air of sincerity and earnestness that is different from the writings of some of elizabeth's suitors. catherine sent word that the learned doctor from london was doing much to improve the appearance of her son's face, but she wished to be sure that the medicines were harmless. "he can easily practise on a page," she wrote, "and if it does well, he can use his remedies on my son." the french ambassador hastened to tell the good news to elizabeth, but this disappointing sovereign replied coolly, "i am really surprised that so loving a mother did not attempt sooner to remove so great a disfigurement." one june day a young man with two servants appeared at elizabeth's gates and demanded to see the queen. it was alençon himself, and she was delighted. of all her wooers not one before had ever dared to come to england and run the risk of a refusal, but "monsieur," as the english called him, had shown himself so bold that the queen was charmed. he was homely, there was no denying it, but he was brave and gallant, quick and sprightly, and one of the best flatterers that had ever been at the english court. his reception and entertainment were most cordial, and he went home in full expectation of marrying the queen. not long after this visit elizabeth called her council to consider the marriage. cecil in his usual methodical fashion drew up a paper with the advantages on the left and the disadvantages on the right. finally the council reported to the sovereign that they would try to "conform themselves" to whatever she wished. then the queen was angry, for she had expected them to urge her to marry. she cried and she stormed. she told her councilors that they cared nothing at all for her safety and the welfare of the kingdom. they bore her wrath with the utmost humility, but they did not change their report. neither did the queen change her mind, and the marriage treaty was drawn up. the councilors did not despair even then, and one evening a well-arranged scene took place after the queen had retired to her chamber. her ladies fell on their knees around her. they sobbed and groaned. "oh, your majesty," said one, "such a step cannot bring you happiness." "the duke is so young," lamented another. "he knows not how to conceive of your greatness. he will despise you and scorn you because he cannot appreciate such rare excellence of mind. only a king should be your husband." "your majesty, do not forget queen mary," one wailed. "think of her misery, and do not bring another foreigner into the land." "how can a queen be governor of the protestant church and promise to obey a catholic spouse?" asked one. elizabeth turned sharply away without a word, but in the morning she sent for the duke. "your grace," said he with great concern, "it grieves me to the heart to see you pale and tearful." "good reason have i for pallor," said she, "for two more nights like the last would bring me to the grave. the woman who lives in a cottage may wed whom she will; the queen of england must wed to please her subjects." the duke dashed away to his own apartment. "england may well be an island," he exclaimed, "for the women are as changeable as the waves that encircle it." the queen had given him a ring, and now he threw it into the farthest corner of the room. he would have left england at once, but elizabeth would not permit him to go, and when after three months he declared that he would stay no longer, she persisted in going to canterbury with him, much against his will. he left her weeping, and while he was crossing the channel, she was writing a poem beginning:-- "i grieve yet dare not show my discontent; i love, and yet am forced to seem to hate." "monsieur" was the last of elizabeth's suitors. eleven years had passed since his marriage with the queen had first been discussed. she was now fifty years of age; the country settled into the belief that she would never marry, and most people expected that the next ruler of england would be the son of mary, the prisoner. no one knows whether elizabeth was in earnest or not in any of the plans for her marriage. leicester said: "should she decide to marry, i am all but convinced that she would choose no other than myself,--at least, she has done me the honor to say as much--but i know not what to hope or what to fear." in the early part of her reign her subjects were nearly equally divided into catholics and protestants. it was her policy to be a protestant, but to do nothing that would arouse the catholics against her, as a protestant marriage would surely have done. if on the other hand she had chosen a catholic, then the ruling power of the country would have been enraged. she declared over and over that she would never marry one of her own subjects, and she had not forgotten the indignation of the english when mary persisted in marrying a foreigner. two things were worth more to this queen than all else in the world; one was the love of her subjects, the other was her own power. any marriage that she might make would deprive her in some degree of one or the other. her word could not always be trusted, but there is certainly some reason for believing that she was truthful in declaring that she did not mean to marry, and that if she changed her mind, it would be only to obey the demand of the country. at the same time she enjoyed fancying herself in love with one or another. she demanded the utmost adoration from her courtiers. few men could be comfortable at her court who did not bow down to her as the wisest, wittiest, most brilliant, most beautiful of women. when half of europe was raving over the beauty of mary, queen of scots, elizabeth did her best to oblige mary's ambassador to admit that she herself was far more lovely. she often spoke of herself as the "old woman," but woe to the courtier who did not hasten to assure her that such beauty as hers could never change, that each day only made her more radiant. she was always indignant when any of her courtiers ventured to marry, but perhaps this wrath was not so very illogical, for when they had assured her hundreds of times that all other beauty paled before hers, that nothing in the world save the radiance of her smile could cheer their lives, how could she help being enraged when they proved by marriage that her favor alone would not raise them to the heights of happiness? at last even her favorite leicester married. then elizabeth raged. she sent him to prison, and would have committed him to the tower, had not one of her most trusted councilors opposed her lawless proceedings so strongly. the older elizabeth grew, the more gorgeous became her raiment. when she was living quietly at hatfield house with mary wearing the crown, she dressed with exceeding plainness and simplicity. it was her best policy then to attract as little notice as possible; but when she was once safely on the throne, she showed herself a true daughter of henry viii. in her love of magnificence. she thoroughly enjoyed riding through streets hung with tapestry; she liked to see flags and streamers fluttering from the windows of the houses; processions, pageants, shows of all kinds were her delight. as she proved at kenilworth, she could partake of a public banquet, ride on a hunt for half a day, listen to addresses of welcome and explanation of spectacles produced in her honor; and after so well-filled a day she could hear the thunder of guns and watch the flashing of fireworks for two hours longer without the least sign of weariness. it is true that when she was alone with her ladies, she was satisfied with a comparatively simple dress, but when she was in public and felt herself part of the magnificence, nothing could be too sumptuous. cloth of silver, cloth of gold, the richest of italian velvet, the heaviest of silk, these were her robes, and there were fully two thousand of them. nor were they plain in their richness; some were covered with pictures of eyes and ears to suggest that whatever was said or done in the land would come to the knowledge of the queen. some were covered with embroidered illustrations of tales from mythology, or various devices that were full of some hidden significance. aglets of all kinds adorned her gowns, as did buttons and clasps made of gold and enameled or set lavishly with diamonds or pearls or rubies. her various kinds of head-dresses were marvels, for they were so a-glitter with precious stones. while mary of scotland was a captive, she sent elizabeth a new year's gift of a net-work head-dress which she herself had made. a little later the french ambassador brought the queen three embroidered nightcaps, also made by the fair hands of mary. "in faith, i thank the queen of scots," said elizabeth, "but my council be now but scarce recovered from their commotion and jealousy because you brought me a new year's gift from the same lady." the disappointed ambassador went home with the nightcaps, but at the next call his luck was better. elizabeth had determined to accept the pretty present, whether the act pleased her council or not. "tell the queen of scots," said she, "that i am older than she is. when people arrive at my age, they take all they can get with both hands, and only give with their little finger." this was indeed true, for elizabeth's hand was always open to a gift, especially to one of personal adornment. when her godson would win a favor from her, he presented her with a "heart of gold, garnished with sparks of rubies." her silk-woman brought her one new year's day a pair of black silk stockings, a rare luxury even for a queen, since spain was the home of silk stockings, and from the land of elizabeth's rejected suitor and her country's enemy but few pairs made their way to england. "where did you get the stockings?" asked elizabeth with delight. "your majesty," she answered, "i once saw a pair brought from spain, and i made these expressly for your grace." "can you get me more?" asked the queen eagerly. "this very day," replied the silk-woman joyfully, "i will set up another pair, and knit more for your grace." "i'll wear no more stockings made of cloth," declared the queen. "these are pleasant and delicate. i mind me well that my father had two pairs, and by great chance there came a pair from spain while my brother edward was king. no more cloth hose for me, good mistress montague." one of the queen's bold sea-captains presented her with a fan made of red and white feathers, "enameled with a half-moon of mother-of-pearl, within that a half-moon garnished with sparks of diamonds and a few seed pearls." a fan was once given to her by leicester which was even more dazzling. it was made of white feathers; its handle was of gold; rubies, diamonds, and two superb emeralds were on one side; rubies, diamonds, and pearls were on the other. leicester's coat of arms was a bear and ragged staff; therefore, there was a lion rampant with a white bear lying muzzled at its feet. a pair of gloves was in those days a fitting offering "to set before the queen." handkerchiefs, a kind of nightdress that must have served as a wrapper, for it was of white linen embroidered with black and trimmed with lace and spangles, preserved ginger, lemons, pies, a purse of gold coins from a wealthy city or a piece of confectionery from her cook,--whatever came was welcome. to live in splendor was the queen's paradise. her books were bound in velvet, their clasps were of gold or of silver, and wherever there was space, the glitter of some precious stone flashed forth. handsome furniture, fine tapestries, golden plate were her joy. the trappings of her horses were superb; the harness was of gold and silk, the saddle was of black velvet embroidered with pearls and gold thread. it was valued at seven thousand dollars. preparing her dinner table was an elaborate ceremonial. each article of table use must be brought in by a servant preceded by an usher, and before it could be laid on the table, the servant must kneel three times. after it was put in place, the servant knelt once, and then the little procession returned for another article. when it was time for the food to be brought in, there was much more ceremony. silken-clad lady "tasters," tall yeomen of the guard, and eight maids of honor appeared. drums and trumpets sounded, and then the food--rather cold, one would fancy--was borne in state to the chamber of the queen. with all this love of magnificence elizabeth had a thrifty notion of the value of economy in the adornments of others, and several times during her reign she had laws passed forbidding expensive attire. one of her proclamations stated that it caused "great inconvenience" to spend so much for dress, and that men were arraying their wives and children at so much "superfluous charge and expense" that they were no longer able to practise hospitality as they ought. "the lowest ought not to expect to dress as richly as their betters," declared the queen. "it is their pride that makes them rob and steal by the highway." she even told her subjects just what materials they would be allowed to wear. save for a few exceptions, ambassadors or commanders or knights of the garter, no one but an earl was allowed to wear purple silk or cloth of gold or of silver "tissued." no one below the rank of baron might dare to adorn himself with gold or silver lace, or wear a sword or rapier or dagger. the wife of a knight was permitted to appear in a velvet gown, cloak, or other upper garment, and she might embroider them with silk if she chose, but the wife of even a knight's eldest son could wear velvet only as a kirtle or petticoat. her upper garment might be of satin, but she was forbidden to embroider it. elizabeth was not afraid to rebuke her ladies in waiting if their dress was too expensive to please her. one of them bought a velvet suit elaborately trimmed with gold and pearls. elizabeth bore its appearance several times, then she had it brought to her secretly and put it on. out among her ladies she went, wearing the elaborate gown, which was much too short for her. the owner of the velvet and pearls was aghast, but the queen smiled upon her and asked:-- "think you not, mistress mary, that my gown is too short? does it not become me ill?" "yes, your majesty," faltered the poor lady. "you are right," said the queen, "but mark you well that if it is too short for me, it is too fine for you." the gown never again appeared before the eyes of the queen. chapter xii the great sea-captains as matters are looked at in these times, elizabeth's relations to spain were exceedingly strange. to-day if two countries are not at war, they are at peace, but in the sixteenth century it was not at all uncommon for two rulers to annoy each other as much as possible without any formal war, and more than once a third country joined one side or the other because in so doing there was an opportunity for gain. philip would have been glad to conquer england, but as long as elizabeth maintained peace with france, there was little hope for him. moreover, the netherlands were keeping his hands full, and what was most exasperating, elizabeth was helping the revolters. there was one more thing to be considered, if philip did conquer england, there was no hope of his being able to claim the throne as long as mary was alive. so it was that this ruler of half europe, was really at the mercy of that exasperating monarch, elizabeth of england, and she hectored and tormented him to her heart's content. early in her reign most of her advisers would have been glad to go to war with philip, but elizabeth delayed. she hated war. every year of peace enriched and strengthened her kingdom, and moreover, even without fighting philip, she was gaining much of the wealth and power that a spanish conquest would have brought her. this gain came about through the exploits of her sea-captains. as has been said before, it was regarded as an honorable occupation to get some negroes on the african coast, carry them to the spanish colonies in america, and sell them for a goodly amount of spanish gold. this was precisely what sir john hawkins did, but when he had leisurely made his way back to england, he found himself in trouble. elizabeth sent for him. "they tell me you are no better than a pirate," she said, bluntly, although her look was not so stern as cecil would have wished. "your majesty," replied hawkins, "i am but a plain, simple sailor." "and so my plain, simple sailors are bringing me into a war with king philip?" asked elizabeth. hawkins was no more afraid of the queen of england than of the king of spain, and he told his own grievances as frankly as if she had been one of his men. "your majesty," said he, "i took the blacks from the savage countries of africa, and surely there was no harm in that. i carried them to saint domingo, and i sold them to the planters. the governor of the island was willing, and the planters were glad to get them. i paid the harbor dues, and i left one hundred negroes with him to pay a larger duty if the king asked more of an englishman than he did of a spaniard. i bought hides with the money and sent them in a spanish vessel to be sold in spain. the king seized them, and he won't pay me a penny for them." "well, my plain, simple sailor," asked the queen, "is it your will that i and my council should go to spain and get your hides?" "your majesty," he answered, "give me a good vessel under me and plenty of sea-room, and i'll trouble no council to care for me and my right." elizabeth was in a rarely good-natured mood. she patted the captain on his broad shoulder. "i'd gladly know what the king of spain would do with such a saucy fellow as you," she said. "you'd better go home and think no more about the new world. one side of the atlantic is enough for a man." the captain withdrew, but elizabeth bade an attendant call him back. "let me understand when it is your will to go on another trip," she said, "for no one could expect a pirate to obey his queen, and then, too, i have a vessel that might be the better for a voyage or two, even in the hands of a simple sailor like yourself." cecil objected and the spanish ambassador raged, but it was not long before hawkins set out on another voyage, this time in a great ship of the queen's, and she as well as many of her council took shares in the enterprise. "see you to it that you do no wrong to the king of spain," were the queen's orders, but she lent the commander one hundred good soldiers. when hawkins came back in all the glory of a successful voyage and with bags of spanish coins for queen and councilors, he was invited to dine with his sovereign. the spanish ambassador was also dining at court, but he could have had little pleasure in his dinner, for he was thinking of what he should have to write to the king of spain. what philip said when the letters reached him no one knows, but whenever he came to the name of hawkins, he wrote on the margin "beware, beware!" on one of hawkins's voyages went a kinsman of his own named francis drake. he was a young man of medium height, with broad shoulders, reddish beard, and keen, kindly eyes. the voyage on which he went was unsuccessful, for a spanish ship set upon the englishmen and robbed them. worse than that, there were not provisions enough to last on the trip home, and one hundred of his comrades volunteered to take their chances on the land that the rest of the company might be sure of safety. drake made up his mind that the king of spain should pay for his own lost investment and his kinsman's captured hides to say nothing of reprisal for the suffering and perhaps death of the hundred brave men who had sacrificed themselves for their comrades. he did very little talking about his plans, but there were sailors enough in plymouth who were ready to go anywhere with him, and he had friends who were willing to invest in any undertaking that he would lead. he set sail for america. he was not going out vaguely into the west, hoping that somewhere he might pick up something worth bringing home, he had a very definite plan. he sailed straight for panama and landed. there he waited. while he was waiting, he climbed a tall tree one day, and far to the westward the pacific ocean spread out before him. "if the almighty god will give me life," said he, "i'll sail a ship in those waters before many years." after a while he and his men heard bits of spanish song, the tinkling of bells on the necks of mules, and the sound of the feet of the animals striking upon the well-trodden path. then the english dashed out, for this was king philip's treasure train that once a year paced leisurely up the path with the output of the mines, with gold, silver, emeralds, and diamonds. there were more than the ship could carry, says the old story. the ship could easily come again, the ocean was free; so they buried the great bars of silver and steered for england. when drake arrived, he made no boast of what he had done, he divided the treasure and did no talking. he read books on geography, he studied charts and globes, he questioned seamen who had been on the farther side of the ocean, and he had more than one interview with the queen and different members of her council. to agree as a council to support drake would be to declare war against spain, and it would not answer to have the names of the councilors who invested in the enterprise made public, but many a one among them, and even the queen herself was ready to fill a coffer or two with good spanish gold. the preparations were so unusual that the voyage could not be kept secret. "i pray your majesty," wrote the spanish ambassador to philip, "i pray you order your planters in the new world to hang every englishman upon whom they can lay hands, and bid your sailors sink every ship that comes in their sight." the two vessels, one of one hundred and twenty tons and one of eighty tons, with three little sloops, were made ready. everything about them was put in the best order possible for fighting or for sailing. luxuries were not forgotten, for this keen young sailor did not scorn the elegancies of life. there was handsome furniture finely carved. there was a beautiful silver service for his table, every piece engraved with the arms of his family. his cooking utensils were of silver. he had a liberal supply of perfumes, many of them the gift of the queen. expert musicians were on board, for this luxurious captain must dine and sup to the sound of music. with his men he was ever kindly, even affectionate, and he was not afraid to share their work if there was need, but they knew him for one that could command, and they never failed in their respect. nine or ten men formed his council. he decided all questions himself, but he ever listened attentively to what they had to say. they dined at his table, but not one of them ventured to be seated in his presence or to wear a hat without the invitation of their commander. november , , the little fleet set sail at five o'clock in the afternoon--on a one day's voyage it proved, for the _golden hind_, drake's own ship, was injured in the "forcible storm and tempests" that arose, and he had to go back to land. three years later many a man in england was troubled about the deeds of this commander who was so fond of perfumes and music and silver plate, for there were stories abroad of what he had done on the other side of the sea. philip was furious; the spanish ambassador raged, and more than one who had invested in drake's venture every shilling that he could raise would have rejoiced to lose his money if he could have been sure that drake would never return. in the midst of the anxiety and uncertainty, some eager to have him come in safely and others trembling at the thought of his arrival, there was a mighty roaring of the signal guns at plymouth harbor, for drake had returned, and he had been around the world. on a little hill, somewhat withdrawn from the crowd that stood shouting and cheering to see the ship come in, stood two men, the elder grave and troubled, the younger eager and excited. "i verily believe," said the elder, "that you would willingly be among those doltish screamers on the shore yonder." "it's not so bad a thing, is it, for a man to know that his money has come back to him doubled ten, twelve, perhaps a hundred times? it's little wonder that they scream." "that goes as it may," returned the elder, "but the gold in that vessel is devil's gold. if half the tales be true, francis drake is no better than a pirate. has he not burned settlements, stolen treasure, and sunk galleons?" "well, what of it, if they be those of spain?" asked the young man indifferently, shading his eyes to see the ships more clearly. "nothing of it if a man cares for naught but gold, nothing of it to him whose empty moneybags are a sorer grief to him than the ill that is sure to come to england from this wild and savage piracy." "you mean that old leaden foot will bestir himself?" "philip is slow, but he will strike at last." "let him. one englishman can meet two spaniards any day." "he boasts best who boasts last," said the elder. "remember that every spaniard has his hands full of gold from the american mines." "and it is you yourself who are blaming captain drake for taking it from them," laughed the young fellow gaily. "goodby, uncle, i'm going down among the wicked folk to see the ships come to shore." for once the stories were not equal to the reality. in the holds of drake's vessels were such masses of treasure that men hardly ventured even to estimate it. vast quantities were carried to the tower of london. drake made most costly gifts to the nobles, but some of them refused to accept anything from the "master thief of the unknown world," as they called him. "he is nothing but a robber," declared they, "and he will bring war upon us." "is it robbery, demanded others, to take from spain what spain has stolen from us? how else can a man get his rights? has not philip taken our ships, hindered our commerce, captured our sailors, and tortured them to make them give up the true faith? have we not a clear right to take reprisal when and where we can?" "it is a lawful prize," reasoned others, "and if war is to come, this spanish gold will save taxes and fight many a battle for us." the spanish ambassador went straight to the queen and said gravely, "i present from my master, the king of spain, a request that the pirate drake be surrendered to him." "the king of spain is generous with his presents," answered elizabeth flippantly. "for this one i return him all due thanks." "your majesty," said the ambassador, "this man drake has sunk our ships, stolen our treasure, and interfered with our possessions in the new world." "if you can prove his misdeeds to my satisfaction," rejoined the queen with a little yawn, "this wonderful treasure of yours shall be restored, though one might think it was but fair payment for the rebellions that spain has caused in ireland--or does my good friend philip claim ireland too for his own? as for his possessions in the new world, i don't know what right the pope has to give away continents. the sea and the air are free to all, and neither pope nor spain can keep my brave captains from sailing the ocean, i doubt whether i could keep them from it myself. shall we talk of other matters? you have an excellent taste in music, and here is a rare bit of song that has but newly come to me:-- "'the little pretty nightingale among the leaves green--'" "your majesty," broke in the exasperated ambassador, "if i report this scene to king philip, matters will come to the cannon." "you really shouldn't say such things," said elizabeth with a coquettish glance at the enraged spaniard, and she added quietly, "if you do, i shall have to throw you into one of my dungeons." elizabeth made drake a knight, she wore his jewels in her crown, and she dined with him on board the _golden hind_. she often had him at court, and never wearied of hearing the story of his adventures. [illustration: elizabeth signing the death warrant of mary stuart.--_from painting by liezen-mayer._] "tell me of the savages," she commanded, and drake began:-- "we saw them moving about under the trees, and when we came near, they paddled out to meet us. they made a long speech with many gestures, and it seemed as if they couldn't do us reverence enough. the next day they came again, and this time they brought a great ragged bunch of crow's feathers. the man who stood at the king's right hand knelt before me and touched the ground with his forehead three times. then he gave me the feathers. i noticed that the king's guards all wore such bunches on their heads, so i stuck them in my red cap as well as ever i could, and the savages all danced around me and made the most unearthly screeching that i ever heard. then they began to show us their wounds and sores, and made signs that we should blow on them to heal them. i gave them plasters and lotions. they ought to do some good, for they were mixed on a day that dr. dee said would make any medicine of worth." "tell me about the _cacafuego_," bade the queen, and drake said:-- "we took a spanish ship, and one of the sailors said, 'let me go free and i will tell you such news as you never heard before.' i promised, and he said, 'there's a ship not far ahead of you, her name is the _cacafuego_, and if you can catch her, you'll have such a prize as you never saw in a dream--and i'll get my revenge on her captain for this,' he muttered, and then he put his hand on a great red scar on his forehead. we chased her to payta, but she had gone to panama, and when we came to panama, she was somewhere else. 'i'll give a gold chain to the first man that sees her,' i said, and, your majesty, if i had even given an order to drop anchor, i verily believe every man of them would have climbed the masthead. well, about three o'clock one afternoon my page john caught sight of her, and we pursued. oh, but it was glorious! i wish you had been there!" said the sturdy sailor, forgetting for a moment that he was addressing the sovereign of england. "so do i," declared elizabeth, and she too forgot that she was a queen, she forgot everything but the wild adventures that the man before her had met. drake went on:-- "we fired across her bow, but she wouldn't stop. then we shot three pieces of ordnance and struck down her mizzen mast, and we boarded her. a man could wade up to his waist in the treasure in her hold. there were thirteen chests full of spanish reals, there were six and twenty tons of silver, and fourscore pounds of gold, and there were jewels and precious stones. your majesty can see them in the tower, but oh, how they glittered and flashed and sparkled in the dark hold of the vessel when we broke open the caskets and turned the light of the lanterns on them, and how the dons swore at us! it's many a month that they should do penance for that day's work." "i really wonder that you didn't excommunicate them as you did your own chaplain," said elizabeth. "they were only swearing, and he was a coward," explained drake. "a man who'll go about among the sailors before a fight and tell them he is not sure that it is the will of god to give them the victory ought to be excommunicated, he ought to be hanged." "tell me again just what you said," demanded the queen, "that i may see what penalty you deserve for daring to show dishonor to one of my chaplains." "i chained him by the leg to the forehatch," replied drake, "and i said, 'francis fletcher, i do here excommunicate thee out of the church of god, and i renounce thee to the devil and all his angels;' and then i tied a riband around his arm, and i said, 'if so be that you dare to unbind this riband, you'll swing from that yardarm as sure as my name is francis drake.'" "and what was it you wrote on the riband?" asked the queen, though well knowing the answer. "i wrote 'francis fletcher, the falsest knave that liveth.' i don't see how i could have done less." "neither do i," agreed elizabeth heartily, "and it would but ill become me to differ with a man who has just given me a new albion. where say you that my new domain lies?" "on the western shores of north america," answered drake, "and perchance, your majesty, this new domain may stretch into asia itself, for the western land reaches much farther west than i had thought, and it may be that in the far north the new world touches the old." "then i am perhaps queen of the indies," said elizabeth with a smile. "now go, my brave sailor, but see to it that you come soon to court again, for there is much more that i would know of this wicked journey of yours." so it was that these bold buccaneers went on their voyages, not so much for adventure or discovery as for the sake of gold. the easiest way to get gold was to take it from the spanish settlements in america, but when drake sailed, the spaniards on the eastern coast of america were becoming wary. too many of their treasure ships had been attacked and too many of their settlements robbed for them to live as carelessly as had been the case in the earlier days. spanish ships on the atlantic were manned with men who could fight, and spanish settlements on the eastern coast of america were guarded and fortified. on the pacific shore matters were different. spanish gold from the fabulously rich mines of peru was carried leisurely up the coast in vessels manned chiefly by negro slaves. at panama it was unloaded and taken across the isthmus. then it was carefully guarded, and vessels well supplied with spanish troops bore it across the ocean to the treasure vaults of philip. it did not occur to the spaniards that even an english corsair would venture to round cape horn, and when drake appeared among the unprotected ships and the unfortified settlements, he found an easy prey. it was less dangerous for him to cross the pacific and double the cape of good hope than to return to england among the spanish vessels on the atlantic; and that is why drake was the first englishman to sail around the world. these english buccaneers sailed under a sort of roving commission from the queen. they were to give her a share of their profits, but they knew well that if they could not extricate themselves from any trouble that they might fall into with philip, she would make no effort to defend them, but would declare that they had had orders to do no harm to her "good friend, the king of spain." still, the prizes of success were so enormous and the charm of adventure so enticing that there was no lack of bold leaders to rob the coffers of spain, to fill the treasury of elizabeth, and to prepare experienced seamen for the great struggle that awaited england when philip "of the leaden foot" should at last arise and show his might. chapter xiii the new world to most of the sailors of elizabeth's time the chief inducement to make a voyage to the westward lay in the possibility of winning spanish gold in one way or another, but a few sailed with quite a different object. a little more than a century before drake's famous voyage around the world, columbus had crossed the atlantic, hoping to find a shorter passage to india. in the days of elizabeth it was well known that a continent blocked the way to asia, but mariners had no idea that north america was nearly as broad as it has proved to be, and they were ever hoping to find a passage through it to the wonderful countries of spices and gems and perfumes. interest in the new world was increasing. every year new maps, books of travel, and descriptions of various parts of the earth, especially of america, were published, some of the descriptions real and some almost wholly imaginative; but whatever they were, they always found readers. one man who watched eagerly for whatever came from the press about the new world was a sea-captain named martin frobisher. he read all these books, he studied globes and charts, and at last he felt sure that he knew the way to fame and wealth, but he was a poor man and he could not carry out his plans alone. he sought an audience with the queen. "i've heard of you before, my gallant captain," said elizabeth graciously. "didn't you care for the building of one of my ships that were sent against the irish rebels?" "i did, your majesty, and if only that ship belonged to me, i would put her to a noble use." "and what might that be?" asked the queen. "your majesty, men have sailed to the northeast, to the south, and to the west, but no man has yet gone to the north of the new world. there lies the way to india, and to find that way is the only thing in all the world that is yet left undone whereby a man may become both rich and notable." "and so you plan to go to the northwest?" asked elizabeth. "he who has little gold must have few plans, but it might well be that as the southern land tapers to a point, so the northern land narrows, and then with an open sea and a short voyage to cathay, what would the wealth of the spanish mines be to us? we could buy and sell in every clime. give us the riches of india, and we could fit out a fleet that would drive king philip from the shores of the new world, from the waters of the atlantic, from----" "perchance from the face of the earth, my captain?" interrupted elizabeth. "i promise you that i will think of this scheme of yours." elizabeth did think of it, but to her mind there was a far greater charm in a wild voyage of buccaneering than in the possibilities of slow gain by trading with people across two oceans, and she gave frobisher no help. he won a friend, however, in the earl of warwick, and the fleet of three daring little vessels set out for the north. elizabeth did not help to pay the costs of the voyage, but she stood on the shore and waved her royal hand to the commander as he dropped slowly down the thames. frobisher came home with great joy. he had entered the strait that is called after him, and he had seen, as he believed, america lying on his left hand and asia on his right. that was surely the way to india. it is no wonder that crowds went to visit his tiny barque. "can you not give me a memento of the voyage?" asked a lady. "next year i will bring you a memento from china," answered frobisher. "shall it be silks or jewels or perfumes?" "beggars should not be choosers," said the lady with a smile, "but give me a bit of this strange black stone as a pledge that you will not forget me next year when you are even more famous than you are to-day." "one of the sailors brought that aboard," said frobisher. "it looks like sea-coal, but it is as heavy as iron." this little gift put frobisher at the head of a fleet of fifteen vessels, but he was no longer free to win glory as an explorer. the bit of black stone was dropped into the fire to see whether it would burn, and then vinegar was poured upon it. it glittered, and an italian chemist declared that it was rich in gold. after this there was no difficulty in raising funds for a voyage to the marvelous country of the north where gold lay about on the surface of the ground. the ships sailed, but they met icebergs, fog, and storm. frobisher hesitated. he believed that he could force his way to the pacific, but his orders were to make sure of the gold, and he loaded his ships with what proved to be only worthless earth. in later years he won honors and wealth, but his dream of finding the northwest passage was never realized. thus far most people had thought of america as a place where a man might be fortunate enough to find a gold mine, but where he was quite as likely to be killed by the indians or captured by the spaniards. others looked upon it as a troublesome mass of land that blocked the way to the riches of commerce with india. to one young courtier this strange new world was something more than the home of possible gold mines, and in his mind it was certainly not an obstacle to wealth and success. this young man was named walter raleigh. he had shown his scholarship at oxford and his bravery in a campaign in ireland. it came to pass that he and the lord deputy of ireland disagreed. "i wish to defend myself before the royal council," said raleigh. this defence was managed so skilfully that the queen listened with the closest attention. "bring that young raleigh to me," she commanded when the council dissolved. raleigh knelt before her and kissed her hand. "young man," said she, "you seem to have been in no way worsted by those mighty councilors of mine." "your majesty," answered raleigh with the look of admiration that was so dear to elizabeth, "could one fail to be aroused to the best that is in him when he has the honor of speaking in the glorious presence of his sovereign?" "what can you do?" asked the queen bluntly, but most graciously, for this kind of flattery was ever a delight to her. "shall i bring from ireland the bodies of those who have dared to rebel against your majesty's wise and gentle rule?" asked raleigh, "that they may testify of me?" "you can fight. can you do aught beside?" "truly, yes, i can count myself the happiest and most favored of mortals in that upon me is turned the kindly thought of her who surpasseth all other women as far as the glowing sun doth surpass the beams of the farthing rushlight." raleigh was wise enough to keep the favor that he had won. elizabeth could rebuke a maid of honor for wearing too expensive a gown, but of her courtiers she demanded the most handsome attire that their purses could provide. this new favorite had only a shallow purse, but he willingly spent every penny that he could raise on brilliant apparel, and he neglected no opportunity to make himself of use to the queen. one morning the rain was falling fast, and one of the ladies in waiting said:-- "surely your majesty will remain indoors to-day." "my servants may dread the raindrops," answered elizabeth, "but a queen should fear nothing." "with two thousand gowns she may well afford to spoil one for every shower," said one lady to another. this was before the days of umbrellas, but there was nothing to do save to hope for sunshine. the hour for the walk came, and the queen went forth. the sun had come out. "someone has been praying for clear skies," said she, "and verily i wish he had broadened his prayer a bit and prayed also for dry ground." "it must have been young raleigh," said one of the ladies to another a little pointedly. "he loves to dwell in the sunshine as the moth loves the beam of the candle." "there isn't another man in england who can tell just what to do in any difficulty as well as he," declared another lady. "then i would that he were here now," whispered the first. "the queen will go straight across that miry place, and if she is ill, we shall have to bear the blame." "there he comes as if he had been sent for by courier," said the second, for raleigh was approaching. he was decked out in the bravest attire and was daintily picking his way along the muddy road. "it's but this day week that he had a new scarlet cloak," said a lady in the train, "and see the gorgeousness of the blue plush that he wears this morning! i'll warrant he put his last shilling into it." the queen hesitated a moment, but there was no hesitation in raleigh. quick as thought, he slipped off the shining blue plush mantle and spread it on the ground before elizabeth. "she who is to her devoted people the glory of the sunlight must never fail to see under her feet the reflection of that clear sky which her shining has bestowed upon her fortunate subjects." so said the courtier, and he well knew that in the glance of approval given him by elizabeth lay the promise of many cloaks. he rose rapidly in the queen's favor. she gave him whatever he asked, and he did not hesitate to ask for what he wanted. elizabeth had a fashion of rewarding a favorite by giving him a "monopoly," as it was called, that is, the sole right to sell some one thing. one man had the right to sell gunpowder, another salt, while yet another was the only man in england who was allowed to collect and export old shoes. to raleigh she gave the privilege of exporting woolen cloth, and at another time the sole right to sell wine in the kingdom. he was no longer a poor young courtier, straining every resource to dress as handsomely as the taste of the queen demanded. now he wore silver armor that sparkled with rubies and pearls and diamonds. even his shoes were so encrusted with jewels that they were said to be worth more than six thousand gold pieces. money flowed freely into his coffers. besides elizabeth's other gifts, he could ask for his monopolies whatever price he chose, and whoever wished to buy must pay it. there were rumors that this brilliant young favorite had higher aspirations, even to the hand of the queen herself. the story is told that one day when raleigh was standing by a window, tracing idly scrolls and letters on the pane with a diamond, he heard the queen coming up softly behind him. he went on as if he did not know of her presence and wrote on the glass:-- "fain would i climb, but that i fear to fall." elizabeth drew a diamond ring from her finger and put an ending to the couplet:-- "if thy heart fail thee, do not climb at all." with such encouragement, it is no wonder that raleigh felt sure of her interest in whatever he wished to attempt. he had a great undertaking in mind, and between his compliments to elizabeth his thoughts often turned to the westward, to the wonderful new world. it was not hard to persuade the queen to give him a grant of land in america, and he sent out two barques to explore the coast north of florida. when the skippers returned, raleigh brought them before the queen. "is this new country so much better than our own old england?" she asked. "nothing could be better than the land which has the happiness to be ruled directly by your majesty," answered raleigh, "but, truly, the new world is a goodly place." "how does it differ from our land?" asked the queen of one of the skippers, and he answered:-- "your majesty, as we drew near the shore, there was no smell of wharfs or fishing, but a fragrance as if we were in the midst of some delicate garden." "we have perfumes in england," said the queen. "did you discover anything better than pleasant odors?" she asked of the second skipper. "yes, your majesty, we found what is not in all england, for when we landed, the low, sandy shore was so overgrown with grapes that the very beating and surge of the sea overflowed them; the vines ran over hills and plains, they climbed every little shrub, and they made their way to the tops of the cedars. i do think that in all the world the like abundance is not to be found." "perfumes and grapes," said the queen. "raleigh, my man, that is a good beginning. send your skippers away, and tell me what is your request, for i know you have one. when will you ever cease begging, walter?" "when you cease to be so kind a benefactress," was the courtier's shrewd and graceful reply. the skippers were sent away, and the queen said:-- "now tell me about this land of grapes. fruit and perfumes are well enough, but they do little to fill an empty treasury. what else lies within your patent?" "there are beasts of all kinds that roam the forests, there are birds and fish, there are the highest and reddest cedars of the world, coral of red and white, pearls, fruits, vegetables, natives that are gentle and kindly and void of all guile and treason." "what do you call this paradise of yours?" "the natives call it wingina." "i'll give you a better name. it was visited while a virgin queen was on the throne, so call it virginia, and i'll be its godmother." "o, madam," said raleigh with enthusiasm, "never had a sovereign such a chance to add to the glory of her renown. america is not only a country in which one may make a fortune, it is a fortune in itself. why should it not become a second home of the english nation?" the queen's eyes kindled. "how could that be?" she asked. "your majesty," he answered, eagerly, "the soil of virginia is the richest in the world. the natives sow their corn in may and they reap it in july; they sow it again in june and july, and they reap it but two months after the planting. our men put peas into the ground, and in ten days they were fourteen inches high. beans and wheat and oats may be had for the asking." "and supposing my good friend philip should fall upon these amazingly fertile lands, he might put the colonists to the sword even before their peas were above the ground." "might we not also fancy a strong band of colonists building vessels of the goodly trees of the virginia forests and sailing out boldly into the atlantic to capture the treasure ships of spain? might not the colonists steer to the northward and free our newfoundland fishing grounds from the hateful presence of the spaniard?" "'walter, thou reasonest well,'" laughed the queen, "but one little thing you've mayhap forgot. tell me, walter, my man, where shall we find these worthy colonists who are to raise corn in two months and fight king philip while it is growing?" "your majesty," answered the courtier gravely, "those who are driven from england will be our colonists." "driven from england," repeated the queen, "what mean you by that?" "our farmers have long been raising sheep instead of grain," said he. "one man can easily care for many sheep. those men that are driven from their old farm work can find naught else to do. they must starve or steal, and, madam, it grieves me sorely to see that twenty or even thirty are often hanged before the hour of noon for stealing a shilling or perchance but a morsel of bread." "they who steal must be punished," said the queen, "but it would please me well if there were some other remedy than hanging." "the corn of virginia will be a remedy, my queen, and there is yet another benefit that would come to england from colonies across the atlantic. we wish to spread our commerce to foreign lands, but if we have a second england on the other side of the sea, will not our own countrymen of america buy and sell with us? cannot laws be made that they shall trade with no others, if, indeed, they should be so disloyal as to think of such a thing? why need we care for trade with a nation across the pacific when we can trade with our own people in virginia?" "walter, you are wonderfully in earnest about this scheme of yours. it would ill become me to question the fairness or worthiness of my godchild, and i will think of what you say, i will think of it." elizabeth thought of the plan, indeed the air was so full of talk about the proposed virginian colony that she could have hardly helped thinking about it. in virginia there was fertile soil, a good hope of finding gems and gold, and little probability of trouble with the indians. her councilors discussed the plan. said one to another:-- "think you that the queen will aid young raleigh?" "'sir walter' you must say now that he has become a knight," rejoined the second. "yes, i do believe that she will. has she not followed his every whim till leicester has fairly turned green with jealousy? she has just given him the wine monopoly, and that is worth thousands of pounds in a single year. if she gives him that, would she withhold aid for the bringing up of this 'godchild' of hers?" "you're a shrewd man, i admit," said the first, "but i've watched this queen of ours since she was no higher than my table, and i've never yet seen her affection for any one get the better of her. she's a woman, but she's also a queen, and she's more queen than woman." "i'm not the man to hold an opinion and fear to back it up," rejoined the other. "i've a fair bit of land down in devon, and i'll wager it against that house of yours in london that she'll help 'educate the godchild.'" the land was lost, for elizabeth could not bear to part with her gold pieces unless she could be sure of a generous return. raleigh did not give up his plan, however, and soon a company of colonists was sent to roanoke island, off the coast of what is now north carolina. the colony failed because the new settlers were too eager to search for gold to spend their time planting corn and beans, or even peas that would grow fourteen inches in ten days. "they are lazy and homesick, and they talk too much," reported the governor, and when a fleet of drake's came to shore, they all went aboard and sailed for home. these homesick colonists carried tobacco with them to england, and smoking soon became the fashionable amusement. sir walter was enthusiastic in its praise. "one would think that this wonderful plant of yours was your own child," said the queen to him as he sat puffing out the smoke from his silver pipe, "you claim for it so many virtues." "you say well, madam," declared sir walter. "it is verily a wonderful plant." "and i suppose you would even say that you could tell the weight of that smoke of yours. there's no boundary to your impudence." "indeed i can, your majesty," returned sir walter calmly. "i'll wager this pin against your buckle that you cannot," retorted the queen. "i'll take the wager," said he, "and with the more joy since the experiment will secure me the delight of your presence." he weighed some tobacco and put it into his pipe. then after he had smoked it he weighed the ashes. "the difference is the weight of the smoke," said he, and elizabeth paid the bet. "many a man have i known who has turned his gold into smoke," she declared merrily, "but you are surely the first who has turned his smoke into gold. you're a marvelous man, sir walter." chapter xiv the queen of scots the councilor's words that elizabeth was more queen than woman were shown to be true whenever matters came to the proof. she gave her favorite leicester everything that he asked save her own royal hand, but on occasion she could be as severe with leicester as if he had been her enemy. it was the custom for the general of an english army to serve without salary and to contribute generously to his own expenses and those of his troops. the general, then, must be a rich man, and in order to have the most perfect control over his soldiers he must be a man who was known to be in the confidence of the queen. no one was better qualified in these important respects to lead an army than leicester, and he was put at the head of the forces that were sent to the aid of the dutch states then revolting against philip. their leader had been assassinated, and they asked to be annexed to england. elizabeth saw clearly that to grant their request would bring on war with spain at once, and she refused. when leicester was appointed commander, she gave him the most positive orders to accept no such position for her as ruler of the low countries. news soon came that leicester had been made governor general. "your majesty," said her informer, "it is said that lord leicester is shown great honor in the low countries." "that is well," said the queen. "the commander of an army should ever be treated with deference." "the dutch states prove by the respect given to lord leicester what honor they would show to your majesty if you were with them." [illustration: mary stuart receiving her death sentence.--_from painting by carl piloty_.] "in what fashion do they show their respect?" asked the queen so gently that leicester's enemy took courage and ventured to go a step further. "he is called governor-general, and they say that men kneel before him to kiss his hand, and that he has already a court as brilliant as that of england." "is that true?" asked elizabeth with a feigned indifference. "do you know more of this court of his?" "little now, but there will be more and greater news, for it is said that lady leicester is about to go to holland and that with her will go such a train of ladies and gentlemen and such rich coaches, litters, and sidesaddles, that your majesty has none such in england." then elizabeth's wrath broke forth. "i will let the upstart know," said she, "how easily the hand that has exalted him can beat him down." she wrote an angry letter to her absent favorite which said:-- "i have raised you from the dust and shown you favor above all others, and i should never have imagined you would dare to break my express commandment to accept any such title." it was a hard position for burleigh, since he himself and the rest of the council had wished leicester to accept the title and so force the queen to become sovereign of the dutch states, whether she would or not. the queen's rage was visited upon even her old friend and adviser, and to burleigh himself she declared, "you are nothing but a presumptuous fellow." the great test of elizabeth's character was soon to come, for the year was at hand. would she be woman or queen? a stern question must be decided. jesting with raleigh, exasperating king philip, storming at leicester and then forgiving him, amusing herself with leicester's handsome stepson, the earl of essex, bedecking herself in gorgeous attire that flashed with jewels and gold, dreaming over new routes to india and new english nations in virginia--all these had to be put away for the time. what should be the fate of the queen of scots could no longer be left undecided. mary had been a captive in england for nearly eighteen years, and those years had been almost as full of peril to elizabeth as to her prisoner. if mary was dead, the catholics who were plotting against elizabeth would have no object in trying to take her life, for mary's son james was the next heir to the throne, and he was as strong a protestant as elizabeth. on the other hand, if elizabeth were no longer alive, mary would become queen of england, and protestants would be obliged to be loyal to her as their lawful sovereign. they would be the more content knowing that her protestant son would succeed her. thus, if either mary or elizabeth were dead, england would be free from the plots and conspiracies that had been revealed, one after another, during the captivity of mary. at the discovery of each of these plots, mary's imprisonment became more rigorous. it was claimed that she was at the bottom of every conspiracy. "the queen of scots and her friends will yet have my life," said elizabeth, and she added jestingly to her councilors, "i'll come back after i am dead and see her make your heads fly." walsingham, one of elizabeth's ministers, had been most watchful of these plots. his spies were ever on the lookout, and in the summer of he found sure proof of a conspiracy to take the life of the queen. was mary connected with this plot? sworn testimony declared that she was. her papers were seized, and among them were found letters from many leading nobles of england expressing sympathy in her troubles. mary was at once removed to fotheringay castle, where she was much more closely guarded than ever before. thirty-six commissioners were appointed to try her on the charge of plotting against the life of the english queen. she was cited to appear before them. "that will i never do," she declared. "i have a right to be tried by my peers. i am a queen, and only sovereigns are my peers, but i will defend myself before the queen of england and her council or even before the english parliament." then a letter was given her from elizabeth which read;-- "you have attempted to take my life and to bring my kingdom to destruction by bloodshed. i have never proceeded so harshly against you, but have protected and maintained you like myself. it is my will that you answer the nobles and peers of the kingdom as if i were myself present. act plainly, without reserve, and you will sooner be able to obtain favor from me." "is it wise to make these refusals?" asked one of her friends. "you are in the power of the english queen, is it not better to rouse her no further by hopeless demands?" "true, it is hopeless," answered mary, "it is all hopeless. i am a sovereign kept here unlawfully as a prisoner by the royal cousin to whom i fled for help in my trouble. her laws have not protected me, why then must i be sentenced under them?" "the court is convened," said the commissioners, "and if you refuse to appear, you will be at once declared guilty without a trial. queen elizabeth has said many times that nothing would please her so much as to have proof of your innocence. is it wise to refuse to give proof?" finally mary yielded. her trial would not be legal to-day, for she was allowed no counsel, she was not even permitted to see her own papers or to hear and question those persons who testified against her, but it was according to the laws of the time, and she was tried with no greater severity than was shown to all prisoners accused of treason. "your letters prove that you have allowed your correspondents to address you as queen of england," declared the crown lawyers, "that you have tried to induce king philip to invade our country, and that you have been knowing to the late plot to assassinate the lawful queen of the realm." "with the plot against the life of my cousin elizabeth i had nothing to do," declared mary. "that i have sought to gain my freedom by the aid of my friends i do not deny. my lords, i am unjustly and cruelly deprived of my liberty. do you blame me for trying by every means in my power to recover it? could anyone do otherwise?" so the charges and the denials went on, and when the trial was over, the judges left fotheringay castle. again they met, and everyone voted that mary was guilty of high treason in plotting against the life of the english queen. she was sentenced to death. this was the report made to parliament, and that body solemnly agreed to the verdict. it was proclaimed in london, and the whole city gave itself up to rejoicing. bells were rung, bonfires blazed in every square, shouts of joy and psalms of thanksgiving resounded throughout the town. "think you that the queen will ever carry out the sentence?" asked one londoner of another. "it is many years," was the reply, "that the hand of elizabeth alone has saved the life of the scotch queen. parliament decreed her death fifteen years ago and they say that elizabeth was the angriest woman in england. 'would you have me put to death the bird that, to escape the hawk, has fled to me for protection? i'll never sign such a bill,' and she never did." "the constant dropping of water will wear away stone," said the first, "and yet i hear that she has sent a message to parliament commanding them to find some other way." "until the axe falls, nothing will persuade me that the child of henry viii. will consent to see the blood of one of her own proud race flow at the hand of the executioner," declared the second, "and what is more, she will not do a deed that will arouse the scorn and hatred of europe. mary's head is safe." "not so fast, my friend. who are the supporters of mary? who is the 'europe' whose scorn will check the pen of elizabeth when she is about to sign the death warrant?" "philip, the pope, the king of france, and mary's own son james. they are a powerful company." "are they? philip is really almost at war with us now, but it is not in mary's interest. the pope cares nothing about putting a catholic woman of forty-four on the throne when in a few years she will be succeeded by a protestant son. the king of france can do nothing for her but plead, for if he strikes one blow at england, it is a blow in favor of spain." "her own son----" "has made a treaty with elizabeth. he will do anything to make sure of the english throne, and indeed, can he be blamed for lack of affection when he knows that his mother planned to leave her claim not to him but to philip?" elizabeth was most unwilling that mary should be put to death. her ministers were eager for the execution, for it was their business to secure the peace of england and the welfare of their queen. they believed that only mary's death would bring this about. then, too, as elizabeth had said jestingly, if mary were once on the throne, she would "make their heads fly." surely they had a right to care for their own safety, they reasoned. elizabeth could not bear the thought that a princess of the tudor blood should die on the scaffold. she was always careless of her personal danger, and she knew that the death of mary would be ascribed to her own fear or jealousy. it is no wonder that she hesitated. "what shall we do," queried the ministers. "elizabeth must be induced to sign the death warrant, of course, but who will order it carried out?" "the queen will never do such a thing," said one. "we must do it ourselves," said another. "there are ten of us, and ten cannot well be made to suffer for carrying out a written order of the queen's." for many weeks elizabeth hesitated. she often sat buried in deep thought. "shall i bear with her or smite her?" the ladies of the bedchamber heard her say to herself. at last she bade the secretary davison bring her the warrant. "what have you in your hand?" she asked as he entered the room. "sundry papers that await your majesty's signature," answered davison. elizabeth took up her pen and signed the warrant. then she pushed it away from her and it fell upon the floor. "are you not heartily sorry to see this done?" she asked. "i should be far from rejoicing in any one's calamity," replied davison, "but the life of the queen of scots is so great a threat to the life of your majesty that not to sign the paper would be a wrong to your whole realm as much as to yourself." "i have done all that either law or reason could require of me," said the queen, "and now let me hear nothing further." davison reported the scene to the council. "she means the deed to be done," said one, "but she has given no orders to carry out the warrant." "that is her way of dealing with her sea-captains," said another. "does she not provide them with ships and guns and soldiers, and does she not most willingly take a share of spanish gold? but if a commander gets into trouble with spain, she will say, 'did i not give orders to do no harm to my good friend philip?'" "then must all ten of us give the final order," said another. this was done. the warrant and the letter commanding the execution were sent. about a week after the signing of the warrant, bonfires blazed and bells rang. "the bells ring as merrily as if there were some good news," said the queen. "why is it?" "it is because of the death of the queen of scots," was the answer. elizabeth said not a word. a day or two later she was told that mary had been executed at fotheringay castle. she turned pale, she burst into tears, she stormed at her councilors. "never shall your crime be pardoned," she raged. "you well knew that i did not mean my kinswoman to be put to death. you have dared to usurp my authority, and you are worse traitors than my poor cousin. as for you, burleigh, do you never dare show yourself in my presence again. i have made you and i can unmake you. that fellow davison knew that i did not mean the warrant to be carried out. take him to the tower." "he is very ill, your majesty," said one. "then take his illness with him, for into the tower he goes." "your majesty," pleaded the councilors, "if your secretary davison is imprisoned, the lords of your council will be regarded as plotters and murderers." "what is that to me?" cried elizabeth. "they who murder must expect to be called murderers." davison was imprisoned for some time and was fined so heavily that he was reduced to poverty. elizabeth sent a copy of his sentence to king james and also a letter telling him that the execution of his mother was a "miserable accident." james was easily comforted. he had been taught to look upon her as a shame and disgrace to himself. if she had not been the murderer of his father, she had, at least, married the murderer, and within three months after the commission of the crime. he was lawful heir to the throne of england, but he knew that she had done all that lay in her power to deprive him of his birthright. he wrote an earnest letter to elizabeth in the attempt to save his mother's life, but it was soon followed by a sort of apology and an intimation that all would be well if she would formally recognize him as her successor. it is probable that there will always be two opinions in regard to the justice of mary's execution. "she fled to england for refuge," says one, "and should have been set free." "to set her free would have been to deliver her up to the foes who would have taken her life," says the other, "or else to the friends who would have made war against england." "a prisoner cannot be blamed for seeking liberty." "but one may be justly punished for plotting treason." "mary was not a subject of the queen of england." "he who commits treason is punished whether he is a subject or not." "the testimony against her was false." "it was sworn to by solemn oath. there was no other means of discovering the truth." as to elizabeth's real share in the execution of mary there is quite as much difference of opinion. "because of her fear and jealousy she put to death the cousin to whom she had given every reason to expect protection," say the partisans of mary. "it shows little of either fear or jealousy to let her live for fifteen years," retort the supporters of elizabeth. "at least she signed the warrant with her own hand." "even a tudor queen was not free to follow her own will. the english council had urged the deed for many years." "secretary davison declared that she wished the warrant carried out." "davison told four different stories, and no one of them agreed with elizabeth's version of the scene. who shall tell where truth lies?" "the warrant would have been worthless without her name." "walsingham's private secretary confessed many years afterwards that he forged the name at his master's command." [illustration: last moment of mary, queen of scots.--_from painting by an unknown artist._] "then why did she not deny the signature?" "to whom? to james she did deny it as far as she dared. she wrote him that the execution was a 'miserable accident.' to her council she made no denial because the forger was the tool of the council, and had but carried out their will. elizabeth could storm at her councilors, but, tudor as she was, she had not the power to oppose their united determination." so the discussion has gone on for three hundred years. the surest way for a wrongdoer to have his crimes forgotten and forgiven is to meet with dignity and resignation the death that his deeds have made his lawful punishment. whether mary deserved this penalty or not, her calmness on the scaffold and her gentle submission to the death from which there was no escape have won friends and admirers for her even among the sternest critics of her life and her acts. when the time was come for her execution, she went quietly to the hall of fotheringay castle, supported by two attendants, while a third bore her train. with a calm and cheerful face she stepped upon the low platform where lay the block. platform, railing, block, and a low stool were heavily draped with black. she seated herself on the stool. on her right sat the two nobles to whom the charge of her execution had been committed, on her left stood the sheriff, and in front of her the two executioners, while around the railing stood many knights and other gentlemen who had come to see her die. her robes belonged to the executioners, and when they began to remove her gown, as the custom was, she smiled and said she had never before been disrobed by such grooms. she had begged that some of her women might be with her to the last, and when they could no longer control themselves but began to weep and lament, she kissed them and said gently, "do not weep, my friends, i have promised that you will not. rejoice, for you will soon see an end of all your mistress's troubles." she repeated a latin prayer, and then an english prayer for the church, for her son james, and for queen elizabeth, "that she might prosper and serve god aright." her women pinned a linen cloth over her face. she knelt down upon the cushion and laid her head upon the block. "into thy hands, o lord, i commend my spirit," she cried, and so died mary stuart, queen of scotland and heir to the throne of england. chapter xv the spanish armada an englishman living in lisbon hastened home to england and demanded audience with the queen. "your majesty," said he, "king philip is making great preparations for some warlike enterprise. in the lisbon harbor are twenty galleons and forty other vessels. men from italy and germany are coming in by hundreds. what can this mean but an attack upon england?" two months later came a message to the queen from her spies in spain:-- "soldiers are coming every day, and vast quantities of wine, grain, biscuit, bacon, oil, vinegar, barley meal, and salted meats are being laid in besides powder and cannon." a ship that had recently sailed from lisbon was captured, and both captain and men were tortured on the rack that more might be learned of the doings of philip. all told the same story, that he was planning an invasion of england. in those days honor between sovereigns was a thing almost unknown. no one blamed the government of one country for trying to get the better of that of another. while philip was making ready for war, he and elizabeth were engaged in arranging for a treaty of peace and friendship. each knew that the other was treacherous, but each meant to get the better of the bargain. on the arrival of this news from spain, elizabeth sent for drake. "sir francis," said she, "how would it please you to make a voyage to spain?" drake guessed in a moment what she wished of him and answered most heartily:-- "there's nothing in all the world that would do me greater good." "ships and stores and soldiers are assembling off cadiz and lisbon. it would be a goodly sight, perhaps as fine as anything you saw in your voyage around the world." "with how many ships may i go?" asked drake. "i can give you four, and the merchants will add to the fleet." they did add twenty-six vessels of all kinds and sizes, for they well knew that, though drake would probably sail with the usual orders to "do no harm to my good friend, the king of spain," the chances were that every vessel would come back with a valuable cargo. drake made a rapid voyage, and on his return he at once brought his report to the queen. "well, my sailor lad," was her greeting, "have you another wild tale of adventure to tell me? have you made me queen of a new land or have you excommunicated your chaplain?" "i've not excommunicated my chaplain," returned drake, "but it'll take many a blessing from the pope to make up to the spaniards for that merry time off cadiz. i've not discovered a new country, but your majesty is queen of what is stowed away in my ships, and perchance that is of more worth than some of the raw lands that lie to the westward." elizabeth's eyes shone. "i know you've been in many a gallant fight," said she, "and now tell me just what you have done." "the spanish fleet was off cadiz ready to sail for lisbon, so there was nothing else to do but to attack it. we took eighty or more of their vessels, laden with stores to the gunwale, and we captured two galleons." "so that's the way you do no harm to my friend philip," said the queen. "brave sailor laddie that you are, what did you do next?" "my men were a bit weary of the sea," answered drake, "and----" "yes, it must have been a dull and wearisome voyage," said elizabeth with a smile. "and what did you do to amuse them?" "there was little to do, but we took three castles and burned some fishing boats and nets. i hadn't time for much, for there was news of a carrack coming from india, and it was only courtesy to sail out and give her a greeting." "surely," said the queen. "my sailors are always ready to show that kind of courtesy to an enemy in loneliness on the ocean." "that's the whole story," said drake, "save that the carrack was full of the richest treasure that ever sailed the seas, and i brought it home." "that is more of your courtesy," said elizabeth. "you would save the busy king from the care of it, i suppose." "yes, your majesty. he'll be busy enough for one while. we've singed his whiskers for him." the stories were true. philip was at last determined to attack england. mary was dead, and he claimed the crown by virtue of his connection with the royal house of lancaster and by the will of the queen of scots. there was another side to his plan, elizabeth had torn her country from its allegiance to the pope, and this invasion was a crusade. if he conquered england, the country would be brought back to the roman church, and so would holland; it was a holy war. a spanish cardinal wrote, "spain does not war against englishmen, but against elizabeth. it is not england but her wretched queen who has overthrown the holy church and persecuted the pious catholics. let the english people rise and welcome their deliverer." this letter was circulated throughout england, but it produced no effect save to increase the loyalty of the english catholics. they were the more indignant because the author of the letter was an englishman who had abandoned his country and become a subject of spain. "it is only the blast of a beggarly traitor," declared elizabeth. the "singeing of his whiskers" kept philip waiting for a year. to sail out into the atlantic with the probability of meeting the autumn gales far away from any friendly harbor would have been a reckless thing to do, and it was not easy to bring together at short notice stores enough to take the place of those that had been destroyed. philip waited. he even gave the queen a final chance to avoid the attack, for he sent her a latin verse to the effect that she might even yet escape his conquest by agreeing to return the treasure taken by drake, to render no more aid to the low countries, and to bring her kingdom back to the church of rome. elizabeth replied, "my good king, i'll obey you when the greek kalends come around," and as the greeks had no kalends, there was little hope of peace. while the shipbuilders of spain were working night and day, and while men and provisions and powder and cannon were being brought together, england, too, was preparing for the encounter. there was no ally on the continent to lend aid, the king of scots might be faithful and he might not, according to what he regarded as for his interests. the fortifications of the kingdom were weak. at portsmouth the guns could not be fired when the queen was crowned because the tower was so old and ready to crumble, and for thirty years little had been done to put it in order. this very weakness, however, of the resources of the government was england's strength, for every englishman saw that if his country was to be saved from becoming a province of spain, he and every other man must do his best to defend it. the council sent a message to london:-- "what number of ships and men is it your wish to contribute to the defence of the land?" "how many may properly be required of us?" asked the londoners. "fifteen ships and five thousand men," was the answer. now in all london there were hardly more than seventeen thousand men, but the city straightway wrote to the council:-- "ten thousand men and thirty ships we will gladly provide, and the ships shall be amply furnished." so it was throughout the kingdom. every town sent a generous number of men and generous gifts of money. every little village on the coast hastened to refit its fishing vessels and offer boats and sailors to the government. the wildest stories were rife of what the spaniards would do if they were once in control of the country. it was said that they had already lists of the stately castles of the realm and the homes of rich london merchants, marked with the names of the spanish nobles to whom they were to be given. most of the english were to be hanged, so the rumor went, but all children under seven years of age were to be branded on the face and kept as slaves. philip had not expected to conquer england without other aid than that of the soldiers whom he was to carry with him. he had a large band of allies, on english soil, so he thought, waiting for his coming and ready to welcome him. these were the catholics of england. the pope had excommunicated elizabeth and had pronounced the curse of the church upon all catholics that should support her. "these are not common days," said one of her advisers, "and in such times there must often be resort to means that would be most cruel and unjust in other years." "what do you mean?" demanded the queen. "your majesty has of course not failed to consider the support that the spanish king may find if he succeeds in landing upon our shores." "who will support him, you or i?" "it would be but natural for those of his own church to welcome him." "they'll welcome him with powder and cannon." "your majesty, when your illustrious father, king henry viii., was about to depart for the french wars, did he not bring to the block his own cousin and others who were most devoted to the old faith, lest they should raise an insurrection while he was on the continent?" "and you would cut off the heads of my faithful subjects? they shall attend my church, and if they will not, they shall be fined or imprisoned. my agents are zealous, and it may be that they have sometimes gone beyond my orders, but i tell you that i rule men and women, not their thoughts, and if a man obeys me, his head stays on his shoulders, mark that. i'll tell you one thing more, the lord high-admiral of my fleet is to be howard of effingham. what think you of that, my man?" "but, your majesty, he is a strong supporter of the old faith." "so will he be of the new queen," replied elizabeth calmly. howard became admiral, and drake vice-admiral, while frobisher and hawkins served as captains and raleigh sailed out in his own vessel as a volunteer. howard knew almost nothing of naval command, but around him were officers of experience, and he was not so exalted by his new dignity that he scorned to learn of them. the sailors watched him closely, and when they saw him put his own hands to the towing rope, they shouted "hurrah for the admiral!" nobles and commoners were mingled, and not one among them seemed to have any thought of rank or dignity. it was for england that they were working, and the honor lay in helping to save the country. the english vessels came together. there were all sorts of craft, ranging from a ship not much smaller than the galleons of the spaniards to what were hardly more than mere fishing boats. they were miserably supplied with food and powder, for it was very hard for elizabeth to make up her mind to meet the vast expenses of war. almost every letter of the admiral's contained a request for absolute necessities that were given out most grudgingly. beef was too dear, thought the queen, and she changed the sailors' rations to a scanty supply of fish, oil, and peas. the wages were in arrears, there was not powder enough, food was carried to the ships in small quantities, though howard declared indignantly, "king harry never made a less supply than six weeks." at the least rumor that the spaniards were not coming, elizabeth would give orders to reduce the english fleet. the invincible armada had left spain, and howard wrote, "beseech burleigh to hasten provisions. if the wind holds out for six days, spain will be knocking at our doors." one evening in july a game of bowls was going on at the pelican inn in plymouth. "your turn, frobisher," said hawkins, "and then sir walter's." "that's well done, sir walter. yours next, sir francis," said howard. drake stooped for the ball, and was about to send it, when an old sailor rushed into the room and cried:-- "admiral, admiral, they're coming! i saw them off the lizard, and there are hundreds of them." "what do you say, admiral," asked drake with his hand still on the ball, "won't there be time to finish the game and then go out and give the dons a thrashing?" [illustration: the spanish armada attacked by the english fleet. _from pine's engraving of the tapestry, formerly in the house of lords, but destroyed by fire in the eighteenth century._] the spanish ships slowly made their way into the channel. they were so large and so high at stem and stern that they looked like great floating castles, but they were so clumsy and difficult to manage that the nimble little english boats had a great advantage. the spanish fleet formed in a wide crescent, the two points seven miles apart, and the english boats went out to meet them. the galleons were high and the english vessels so low that it was difficult to train the spanish guns upon them, moreover, the spaniards were not good marksmen. they would have had a better chance, however, if the english had only been willing to stand still and be fired at, but the spanish were much surprised and disgusted when the saucy little english craft slipped up under their very bows, fired a shot or two and were away firing at the next ship before the spanish guns could be trained upon them. some of the little boats sailed the whole length of the crescent, firing at every vessel and coming off without a scar. this kind of encounter was kept up for more than a week, for the english hesitated to attempt a regular engagement. the spanish suffered severely. masts were shattered, the rigging was cut up, great, ragged holes were torn in the hulls, and large numbers of sailors were slain, but even worse was to follow. the spaniards were anchored off calais. at two o'clock one morning a strange, shapeless object was seen floating toward them. then came another and another until there were eight. fire blazed up from the floating monsters. there were explosions and suffocating gases. the flames rose higher, wind and waves were bringing these malignant creatures, that seemed half alive, into the midst of the spanish fleet. this attack by fire-boats was a new way of fighting. the spaniards were perplexed and horrified. their only thought was to escape anywhere, no matter where, if only they could get free from these terrors. in their haste anchor chains fouled, some ships collided, others burned or ran aground. the land forces were encamped at tilbury. "i am commander in chief of my troops," declared elizabeth, "and i shall go to pay them a visit." "is it safe to commit yourself to armed multitudes? among so many there may well be treachery," suggested her councilors. "let tyrants fear," returned elizabeth. "i am true to my people, and they are my faithful and loving subjects. i should rather die than live in fear and distrust of them. i shall go to visit my loyal soldiers." it must have been a brilliant sight, the long lines of soldiers in battle array, and the queen riding in front of the lines on her great charger. before her went leicester and another noble bearing the sword of state. behind her followed a page carrying her helmet with its white plumes. she was magnificently dressed, but over her dress was a corslet of polished steel. back and forth before the lines she rode, while the soldiers shouted, "queen elizabeth! queen elizabeth! god save the queen! the lord keep her!" she raised her hand, and there was silence to hear her words. "i have the body of a weak, feeble woman," she said, "but i have the heart of a king, of a king of england, and i think it foul scorn that any prince of europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm. rather than that any dishonor should come by me, i will take up arms, i will be your general myself, and the rewarder of every deed of bravery. you deserve already rewards and crowns, and they shall be paid. it will not be long before we have a famous victory over these enemies of my god, of my kingdom, and of my people." while elizabeth was still at tilbury, two messengers came with a thrilling report. "a fierce battle has been fought off gravelines. drake was in command." "my noble sailor laddie," said the queen proudly. "tell me of it. i would know the deeds of every one of my brave captains." "it is your majesty who struck the fatal blow," said the messenger, "for the fire-ships were your own thought, and it was they that thrust the spaniards from our coast and drove them out to sea. sir francis and his fleet led the attack. six hours it lasted, till every shot, large and small, had been fired. then came the admiral, and he, too, fired every shot. there was no more powder, but he put on a bold front and gave them chase. they could not go south, and they went north." "there's no fear in howard," said elizabeth. "i know my man. where are the spaniards now?" "many of them have gone to whatever place the mercy of the lord may consign them," was the reply. "and where are those that still depend upon the mercies of wind and wave?" asked the queen. "only wind and wave can tell?" answered the messenger. "the ships sailed far to the northward. the admiral pursued until his provisions failed, but there was small need of searching for the enemy. the boisterous northern seas will do the work of many a cannon." the words of the messenger proved to be true. the spanish ships ran aground on the unknown coasts, they were shattered by storms, the sailors were stricken by pestilence, they were driven ashore only to be thrust back into the waves, for king james had no idea of doing aught against the sovereign whose crown he hoped would before many years rest upon his own head, and the lord lieutenant of ireland was little inclined to show mercy to the enemies of his country. of the great fleet that left spain, so strong that it ventured to call itself invincible, more than half the ships were left on the rocks or at the bottom of the sea. chapter xvi closing years after the defeat of the armada not only was there a general rejoicing, but the whole land felt a new sense of freedom. until elizabeth had been obliged to steer the ship of state with the utmost wariness. she must keep on good terms with scotland, lest that country should turn to france for friendship. she must make sure that france would not oppose her, lest philip should join the ruler of the land across the channel. she must help the low countries sufficiently to strengthen their opposition to the spanish king and so keep him from england, but she must not give them so much aid that they would become a burden upon her in their dependence, and she must not accept the protectorate, that would perhaps involve her realm in a long and bloody war with spain. for thirty years this keen, shrewd scheming went on. england was gaining every day in power and wealth, and when at last "old leadenfoot" began to bestir himself, the country was ready to meet him. the armada had come and gone, and england was free. philip might talk as boastfully as he would about sending another fleet to make another attack, but no one forgot that he had sent a fleet and it had failed. england was "mistress of the seas" in the sense that she was no longer in fear of any other nation. if a spanish vessel encountered an english vessel, they would be likely to fight, but the englishmen expected to win, and that expectation of victory was in itself a mark of greatness. if england chose to plant colonies in the new world, there was little fear that spain would trouble them to any great extent. this new sense of freedom showed itself not only in what was done but in what was written, and often the same man that had written an undying poem could fight a battle or lead a voyage of discovery or plan what was best for the nation when there were difficult questions of state to decide. shakespeare himself, the greatest writer of all, was not only a poet but a keen, thrifty man of business. the people of england had become accustomed to seeing great deeds done before their eyes, and that is one reason why few stories were written but many plays, for it seemed much more "real" to see a tale acted on the stage than to hear an account of it. it was a great pity that this freedom could not have extended to religious matters, but it was some years after queen elizabeth's death before many people realized that it was possible for two persons to have entirely different ideas of religion and yet be honest and sincere and live peacefully together. toward the close of elizabeth's reign there were persecutions of those refusing to attend the church of england that were far more severe than the mild system of fines with which she began her rule. the fines were increased, and puritans as well as catholics were sometimes ruined by the large sums of money that they were obliged to pay if they persisted in refusing to attend the services of the church of england. they were often imprisoned, and in the elizabethan days imprisonment was no light penalty. not only were the jails damp, unhealthy, filthy places, but prisoners were obliged to pay many exorbitant charges, so that if a man escaped with his life and health, he had to leave large sums of money behind him. one jail bill of that day has a weekly item of five dollars and a half for food, and as money would purchase about five times as much then as now, this charge was equivalent to more than twenty-seven dollars to-day. this was not all by any means, for a prisoner had to pay the rent of his wretched dungeon. if he was doomed to wear fetters, he must pay extra for them, and, most absurd charge of all, he was forced to pay an entrance fee on being sent to the horrible place. besides being imprisoned, dissenters, as those were called who would not attend the church of england, were sometimes whipped or tortured or even hanged. the only excuse for such treatment is that neither the queen nor her council was in fault for not being a century in advance of their times. indeed, it was more than two centuries after the death of the queen before england would allow a catholic to become a member of parliament. as elizabeth drew older, she dressed with increasing magnificence. her hands were loaded with rings, and her robes were made of the richest material that could be obtained. a german traveler who saw her on her way to her private chapel describes her as wearing a dress of heavy white silk, made with a very long train and bordered with pearls as large as beans. she wore a deep collar made of gold and jewels. this same traveler says that every corner of her palace shone with gold and silver and crystal and precious stones, and yet her floors were strewn with rushes that were probably as dirty as those in the homes of her subjects. the end of the century drew near, and it brought sorrow to the queen in the death of her old adviser, lord burleigh. leicester had died soon after the defeat of the armada, and elizabeth never parted with a paper upon which she had written sadly, "his last letter." in burleigh's old age he became quite infirm, and while elizabeth's other ministers addressed her kneeling, burleigh was always made to seat himself comfortably before she would discuss any question with him. "i am too old and too feeble to serve you well," he would say, but she refused to let him resign his office. in the days of his strength, she would storm at him in a tornado of rage when his judgment differed from hers, but as he became weak and ill, she was the tenderest of friends. "the door is low, your majesty," said the servant as she entered the sickroom of the councilor. "then i will stoop," said she, "for your master's sake, though never for the king of spain." she often went to sit by his bedside, and the haughty sovereign whose wrath burst forth so furiously at a word of opposition became the most gentle of nurses. as she sat beside him, she would allow no hand but her own to give him nourishment. "she never speaks of him without tears," said one who was with her after his death. the loss of another of her friends brought her even greater grief than that of burleigh, for this time the life of her favorite lay in her own power, but as the faithful sovereign she felt herself obliged to sacrifice it. from the time that leicester had presented to her his brilliant, fascinating stepson, the earl of essex, the young man had been a prime favorite with the queen. at their first meeting he was seventeen and the queen fifty-six, and she treated him like a petted child who can do no wrong. she forbade him to take any part in the fighting in portugal, but he slipped away from court without her knowledge, and was the first to leave the boats on the portuguese coast. he returned with some fear of being punished for his disobedience, but the queen forgot the wrongdoing, and was only anxious to make up for his disappointment because a position that he had wished for had been given to some one else. when essex married, elizabeth was as indignant as usual at each new proof that with all the adoration that her courtiers continually declared of herself, she was not the whole world to them. when essex was fighting in holland, a request was sent to the queen for more troops. the ambassador said:-- "your majesty, my master has consulted the earl of essex, and he favors the request." elizabeth had not yet granted essex her forgiveness, and she blazed forth:-- "the earl of essex, indeed! he would have it thought that he rules my realm." in spite of her anger with him, she was so anxious when she knew how carelessly he risked his life that she wrote ordering him to return to england at once, and when, much against his will, he obeyed her command, she spent a week in feasting and merriment. over and over they quarreled. essex would perhaps favor one candidate for a position, and the queen another. there would be hot words between them, and they would part, both in a fury. then essex would pretend to be ill, and the repentant queen would go to see the spoiled child, and pardon his petulance unasked. "he is not to blame, he takes it from his mother," she would say, and as she especially disliked his mother, she admitted this as sufficient excuse for overlooking his impertinence. the great storm came when the queen named a lord lieutenant for ireland, and essex opposed. elizabeth made one of her severe speeches, and the young man retorted by shrugging his shoulders and turning his back on her. the queen replied by soundly boxing his ears. essex grasped his sword. "i wouldn't have pardoned that blow even from king henry himself. what else could one expect from an old king in petticoats!" he cried and dashed away from court. his friends urged him to return and try to regain the affection of the queen by a humble apology, but for many weeks he refused. "i am the queen's servant," said he, "but i am not her slave." however, he finally sued for pardon and was again forgiven. [illustration: last moments of elizabeth.--_from painting by delaroche._] so long as the offences of essex were against elizabeth as a woman, she was ready to forgive, but at last he committed a crime against her government, and the woman was forgotten in the sovereign. all through the reign there was trouble with ireland. the irish hated the english and would follow anyone who would lead them against english rule. there were continual rebellions. essex's enemies brought it about that the favorite should be sent to command what he called "the cursedest of all islands." before long, rumors of his mismanagement began to reach the ears of the queen. "he is ever forcing his soldiers to make wearisome and useless marches and countermarches," said the reports. "he wastes money and supplies, and he exhausts his troops by irregular skirmishes that amount to nothing. he has made a foolish peace with the leader of the irish rebels instead of suppressing them by force of arms. he is trying to make himself king of the irish, and he will then raise an irish army to come over and dethrone the queen." elizabeth sent letters full of reproof to essex, but the young fellow only said to himself, "they are not her letters. she has written the words, but it is burleigh who has guided her pen." he abandoned his command and went straight to england, sure that the queen would pardon any misdeed on the part of her favorite. early one morning the young man arrived in london. he must see the queen before his enemies could have word of her and induce her to forbid him to appear at court, and he galloped wildly on to the palace. he looked into the audience chamber, she was not there; into the privy chamber, she was not there. then he burst into her dressing room where the queen sat with her women brushing her hair. he was muddy with his mad gallop to the palace, his clothes were disordered and travelstained, but when he threw himself at her feet and pleaded, "don't judge me by the tales of my enemies," the queen was so kind to him that he thought himself forgiven. later, however, she saw that he had committed many acts of disobedience which in a military commander were unpardonable. he was tried by the privy council, and for a few weeks was confined to his own house. elizabeth deprived him of several valuable monopolies and even after his release forbade him to appear at court. in any other commander the penalty of such crimes would have been far more severe, but instead of thinking upon the mercy that had been shown him, essex meditated upon what he thought his wrongs. he became more and more embittered, and at last he tried to arouse a rebellion against the queen. there was a fierce struggle in elizabeth's mind between her love for the young man and her duty to punish the treason. at last she signed the death warrant, recalled it, then signed another, and essex was executed in the tower of london. the seventeenth century began, and the health of the queen was clearly failing. a woman of less strength of character would have posed as an invalid, but elizabeth seemed to feel that sickness was unworthy of a queen, and she concealed her increasing weakness as far as possible. she often had to be lifted upon her horse, but she would not give up riding. she even went to visit one of her councilors. cornets saluted her, drums and trumpets sounded as she entered the courtyard. she watched the dancing of the ladies of the house and the feats of horsemanship and swordplay of the young men, but she was exhausted, and in spite of her good courage, she could not go up the stairs without a staff. yet in the early part of she went a-maying in the old fashion of celebrating the coming of spring. with all her glory and her greatness, the last days of this woman on a throne were more lonely than those of a woman in a cottage. essex had been a great favorite among the people, and they had never forgiven his death. when the queen showed herself among them, she was no longer received with all the old tokens of loyalty and affection, and no one could have been more keen than she to note the least change in the manner of her subjects. she knew that james would be her heir, but she had not forgotten the long lines of greedy courtiers who had sought her when her sister mary was near her end, and she refused to name him definitely as the one whom she wished to succeed her. this refusal made little difference, however, in the increasing devotion of those around her to the scotch king, who would so soon be the ruler of england. one after another wearied of attendance; some made excuses to leave her, others left without excuse. the son of burleigh, who had taken his father's place, sent almost daily epistles to scotland. harington, who used to write her merry, jesting letters, signed "your majesty's saucy godson," had sent valuable gifts to the king of scots, and a petition that he might not be forgotten when james should come into his kingdom. her own councilors were sending messengers to james hoping to win his favor. two of her relatives stood by her bedside, but their watchfulness arose not from affection but that they might be the first to tell james that the crown was his at last. the queen became more and more feeble. she was sad and melancholy. often she sat for hours alone in the dark weeping. she felt her loneliness most keenly. "whom can i trust? whom can i trust?" her attendants heard her murmur. a kinsman who went to see her said that she drew heavy sighs continually, "and i never knew her to sigh" he declared, "save at the death of the queen of scots." she lay on cushions piled up on the floor. "madam," urged the son of burleigh, "will you not be moved to your bed?" "if i go to my bed, i shall never leave it," she answered. "but you must in order to content your loving subjects," he urged. then the queen showed once more her proud tudor blood. "'must' is no word to use to princes," said she, "and, little man, if your father had lived, even he would not have dared to say so much." she passed away quietly in a gentle sleep. according to a strange custom of the times an image of her was made in wax, decked in the royal robes, and laid upon her coffin. she was buried in westminster abbey, and as the sad procession went through the streets, the early love of her subjects returned in full measure. an old chronicler says:-- "and when they beheld her statue, or effigy, lying on the coffin, set forth in royal robes, having a crown upon the head thereof, and a ball and sceptre in either hand, there was such a general sighing, groaning, and weeping, as the like hath not been seen or known in the memory of man; neither doth any history mention any people, time, or state, to make like lamentation for the death of their sovereign." * * * * * * transcribers' note: punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unpaired quotation marks retained. ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained. page : missing closing quotation mark added after "has been mine for three full years." page : "and so would made" may be a misprint for "make". page : missing opening quotation mark added before "this youth had". page : closing quotation mark added after "tasters,". page : missing opening quotation mark added before "how would it please". a gentleman player works of robert neilson stephens [illustration] an enemy to the king (twentieth thousand) the continental dragoon (seventeenth thousand) the road to paris (sixteenth thousand) a gentleman player (sixth thousand) [illustration] l. c. page and company, publishers (incorporated) summer st., boston, mass. [illustration: queen elizabeth and harry marryott.] (_see page ._) a gentleman player his adventures on a secret mission for queen elizabeth by robert neilson stephens author of "an enemy to the king," "the continental dragoon," "the road to paris," etc. "and each man in his time plays many parts." --_as you like it._ [illustration] boston l. c. page and company (incorporated) _copyright, _ by l. c. page and company (incorporated) colonial press: electrotyped and printed by c. h. simonds & co. boston, mass., u. s. a. contents. chapter page i. the first performance of "hamlet" ii. at the taverns iii. queen and woman iv. the unexpected v. the player proves himself a gentleman vi. and the gentleman proves himself a player vii. mistress anne hazlehurst viii. "a devil of a woman" ix. the first day of the flight x. the locked door xi. wine and song xii. the constable of clown xiii. the prisoner in the coach xiv. how the page walked in his sleep xv. treachery xvi. foxby hall xvii. a woman's victory xviii. the horsemen arrive xix. the horsemen depart xx. roger barnet sits down to smoke some tobacco xxi. roger barnet continues to smoke tobacco xxii. speech without words xxiii. the london road xxiv. how a new incident was added to an old play xxv. sir harry and lady marryott notes list of illustrations. page queen elizabeth and harry marryott _frontispiece_ "she gave no outward sign of anger" "the brazen notes clove the air" "rumney ... backed quickly to the window, and mounted the ledge" a gentleman player. chapter i. the first performance of "hamlet." "who ever loved that loved not at first sight?"--_quoted in "as you like it," from marlowe's "hero and leander."_ at three o'clock in the afternoon of the cold first monday in march, , a red flag rose, and a trumpet sounded thrice, from a little gabled turret protruding up out of a large wooden building in a field in that part of southwark known as the bankside and bordering on the thames west of london bridge. this rude edifice, or enclosure, was round (not like its successor, hexagonal) in shape; was in great part roofless; was built on a brick and stone foundation, and was encircled by a ditch for drainage. it was, in fact, the globe theatre; and the flag and trumpet meant that the "lord chamberlain's servants" were about to begin their performance, which, as the bill outside the door told in rough letters, was to be that of a new "tragicall historie of hamlet prince of denmark," written by william shakespeare. london folk knew this master shakespeare well as one of the aforesaid "servants," as the maker of most of the plays enacted now by those servants, and, which was deemed far more to his honor, as the poet of "venus and adonis" and "the rape of lucrece." many who read the playbill guessed rightly that the new "tragicall historie" was based in part upon another author's old play, which they had seen performed many times in the past.[ ] the audience, in all colours and qualities of doublet and hose, ruff and cloak, feathered hat and plain cap and scholar's coif, had awaited noisily the parting of the worsted curtains of the stage projecting from one side of the circular interior of the barnlike playhouse. around the other sides were wooden galleries, and under these was a raised platform divided into boxes called "rooms," whose fronts were hung with painted cloth. the stage and the actors' tiring-room behind it were under a roof of thatch. the boxes had the galleries for cover. but the great central o-shaped space, known as the "yard," where self-esteeming citizens, and assertive scholars, and black-robed lawyers, and burly soldiers, and people of countless occupations, and people of no occupation at all, stood and crowded and surged and talked and chaffed, and bought fruit and wine and beer from the clamorous venders, had no ceiling but the sky. it had no floor but the bare ground, and no seats whatever. the crowd in this so-called "yard" was expectant. the silk and velvet gentry sitting in the boxes, some of whom smoked pipes and ogled the few citizenesses in the better gallery, were for the most part prepared to be, or to seem, bored. the solid citizens in gallery and yard were manifestly there to get the worth of their eightpence or sixpence apiece, in solid entertainment. the apple-chewing, nut-cracking, fighting apprentices and riff-raff in the topmost gallery were turbulently ready for fun and tumult, whether in the play or of their own making. in the yard a few self-reliant women, not of the better order, and some of them smoking like men, struggled to hold their own amidst the hustling throng. two or three ladies, disdaining custom and opinion, or careless or ignorant thereof, were present, sitting in boxes; but they wore masks. now and then, before the performance began, some young foppish nobleman, scented, feathered, bejewelled, armed with gilt-hilted rapier in velvet sheath, and sporting huge rosettes on his shoes, would haughtily, or disdainfully, or flippantly, make his way to the lords' room, which was the box immediately overlooking the stage; or would pass to a place on the rush-covered stage itself, he or his page bearing thither a three-legged stool, hired of a theatre boy for sixpence. there, on similar stools at the sides of the stage, he would find others of his kind, some idly chatting, some playing cards; and could hear, through the rear curtains of arras screening the partition behind the stage, the talk and movements of the players in their tiring-room, hurrying the final preparations for the performance. one of these gallants, having lighted his pipe, said, lispingly, to another, and with a kind of snigger in the expression of his mouth: "'twill be a long time ere my lord of southampton shall again sit here seeing his friend will's plays." southampton, indeed, was in the tower for complicity in the insurrection of his friend, the earl of essex, who had died on the block in february, and whose lesser fellow conspirators were now having their trials. "a long time ere any of us may see will's plays here, after this week," answered the other lord, dropping the rush with which he had been tickling a third lord's ear. "don't you know, the chamberlain's actors are ordered to travel, for having played 'richard the second' for the essex men when the conspiracy was hatching?"[ ] "why, i've been buried in love,--a pox on the sweet passion!--dallying at the feet of a gentlewoman in blackfriars, the past month; and a murrain take me if i know what's afoot of late!" "what i've told you; and that is why we've had so many different plays all in a fortnight, and two new ones of will shakespeare's. the players must needs have new pieces ready for the country towns, especially for the universities. these chamberlain's actors were parlously thick with the essex plotters; 'tis well they have friends at court, of other leanings, like wat raleigh,--else they might find themselves ordered to a tower instead of to a tour!" ignoring the pun, and glancing up at the black drapery with which the stage was partly hung, the first exquisite remarked: "will shakespeare must be in right mood for tragedy nowadays,--his friend southampton in prison, and essex a head shorter, and himself ordered to the country. burn me if i know how a high-hearted knave like shakespeare, that gentlemen admit to their company, and that has had the court talking of his poems, can endure to be a dog of an actor, and to scribble plays for that stinking rabble out yonder to gape at!" whatever were will shakespeare's own views on that subject, he had at that moment other matters in mind. in the bare tiring-room beyond the curtained partition at the rear of the stage, he moved calmly about among the actors, some of whom were not yet wholly dressed in the armor or robes or other costume required, some of whom were already disguised in false beard or hair, some already painted as to the face, some walking to and fro, repeating their lines in undertones, with preoccupied and anxious air; and so well did master shakespeare overcome the agitations of an author who was to receive five pounds for his new play, and of a stage-manager on whom its success largely depended, that he seemed the least excited person in the room. he had put on the armor for the part of the ghost, but his flowing hair--auburn, like his small pointed beard--was not yet confined by the helmet he should soon don. his soft light brown eyes moved in swift but careful survey of the whole company; and then, seeing that the actors for the opening scene were ready, and that the others were in sufficient preparation for their proper entrances, he gave the signal for the flag and trumpet aloft. at sight of the flag, late comers who had not yet reached the playhouse mended their speed,--whether they were noblemen conveyed by boat from the great riverside mansions of the strand; gentlemen riding horseback, or in coaches, or borne in wherries from city water-gates; or citizens, law scholars, soldiers, sailors, rascals, and plain people, arriving by ferry or afoot by london bridge or from the immediate neighborhood. at sound of the trumpet, the crowd in the theatre uttered the grateful "ah!" and other exclamations natural to the moment. from the tiring-room the subordinate actor who played the first sentinel had already passed to his post on the stage, by way of the door in the partition and of an interstice in the rear curtains; other actors stood ready to follow speedily; the front curtains were drawn apart, and the first performance of mr. william shakespeare's earliest stage version of "hamlet"--a version something between the garbled form now seen in the "first quarto" and the slightly altered form extant in the "second quarto"--was begun. in the tiring-room,--where the actors awaiting their entrance cues could presently hear their fellows spouting on the stage without, and the "groundlings" in the yard making loud comments or suggestions, and the lords laughing lightly at their own affected chaff,--the pale yellow light of the chill march afternoon fell from high-placed narrow windows. it touched the face of one tall, slender young player, whose mustaches required a close inspection to detect that they were false,--for at that time, when the use of dye was general, it was common for natural beards to look artificial. the hair of this youth's head also was brown, but it was his own. his blue eyes and rather sharp features had a look half conciliating, half defiant, and he was manifestly trying to conceal, by standing perfectly still instead of fidgeting or pacing the floor, a severe case of that perturbation which to this day afflicts the chief persons concerned in a first performance of a play. he was approached by a graceful young person in woman's clothes,--with stomacher, puffed sleeves, farthingale, high-heeled shoes,--who had been gliding about, now with every step and attitude of the gentle damsel he seemed to be, now lapsing into the gait and manner of the pert boy he was, and who said to the inwardly excited but motionless player:[ ] "marry, hal, take it not as 'twere thy funeral! faith, thou'rt ten times shakier o' the knees than master shakespeare himself, and he writ the play. see how he claps his head-piece on, to go and play the ghost, as if he were but putting on his hat to go to the tavern for a cup of claret." hal looked as if he would deny the imputed shakiness; but seeing that the clever boy "ophelia" was not to be fooled, he gave a quick sigh, and replied: "'tis my first time in so prominent a part. i feel as if i were the sign in front of the theatre,--a fellow with the world on his back. may i be racked if i don't half wish they'd given this 'laertes' to gil crowe to play, after all!" "tut, master marryott! an thou pluck'st up no more courage, thou shalt ever be a mere journeyman. god knows thou art bold enough in a tavern or a brawl! look at mr. burbage,--he has forgot himself and us and all the world, and thinks he is really hamlet the dane." hal marryott, knowing already what he should see, glanced at burbage, who paced, not excitedly but as in deep meditation, near the entrance to the stage. a short, stout, handsome man, with a thoughtful face, a fine brow, a princely port; like shakespeare, he was calm, but while shakespeare had an eye for everything but apparently the part himself was to play, burbage was absorbed entirely in his own part and unconscious of all else, as if in the tiring-room he was already hamlet from the moment of putting on that prince's clothes.[ ] "what a plague are you looking at, gil crowe?" suddenly demanded hal marryott of another actor, who was gazing at him with a malicious smile evidently caused by hal's ill-concealed disquietude. "an it be my shoes, i'll own you could have made as good if you'd stuck to your proper trade!" "certes," replied crowe, who wore the dress of rosencrantz, and whose coarse face bore marks of dissipation, "i'm less like to deny having been a shoemaker, which is true, than some are to boast of having been gentlemen, which may be doubtful." young marryott's eyes flashed hot indignation. before he could control himself to retort, an actor in a rich robe and a false white beard,[ ] who had overheard master crowe's innuendo, strode up and said: "faith, crowe, you wrong the lad there. who hath ever heard him flaunt his birth before us? well you know it, if he doth at times assert his gentle blood, 'tis when forced to it; and then 'tis by act and manner, not by speech. go your ways, crowe; thou'st been overfree with the pottle-pot again, i'm afeard!" "nay," put in the impudent ophelia, his elbows thrust out, his hands upon his hips, "master crowe had picked out the part of laertes for himself; and because master shakespeare chose hal to play it. hal is a boaster and not truly gentle born." "you squeaking brat," said crowe, "but for spoiling thy face for the play, i'd put thee in thy place. i might have played laertes, but that--" here he paused, whereupon the white-bearded corambis (such was the name of polonius in the first version) finished for him: "but that y'are not to be trusted with important parts, lest the play be essentially spoiled an you be too drunk to act." "why, as for that," replied crowe, "beshrew me but our gentleman here will stay as late at the tavern, and be roaring as loud for more sack when daylight comes, as any one." for this home thrust marryott had no reply. crowe thereupon walked away, the corambis joined another group, and the ophelia sauntered across the room to view the costly raiment that a tiring man was helping mr. william sly to put on for the part of the foppish courtier, later christened osric. left to his thoughts, the laertes, nervously twirling his false mustaches, followed the ex-shoemaker with his eyes, and meditated on the latter's insolence. the more he reviewed it, and his own failure to rebuke it properly, the more wrathful he inwardly became. his anger served as a relief from the agitation he had formerly undergone. so deeply buried was he in his new feelings, that he heeded not the progress of affairs on the stage; and thus he was startled when he felt his arm caught by shakespeare, who was pointing to the entrance, and saying: "what ails thee, harry? they wait for thee on the stage." roused as from sleep, and seeing that burbage and the others had indeed gone forth from the tiring-room, hal ran to the entrance and out upon the stage, his mind in a whirl, taking his place before king claudius with such abruptness that burbage, surprised from his mood of melancholy self-absorption, sent him a sharp glance of reproof. this but increased his abashment, and he stared up at the placard that proclaimed the stage to be a room in the palace at elsinore, in a kind of panic. the audience moved and murmured, restlessly, during the king's long speech, and hal, imagining that his own embarrassment was perceptible to all, made an involuntary step backward toward the side of the stage. he thus trod on the toe of one of the noble spectators, who was making a note in his tables, and who retaliated with an ejaculation and a kick. feeling that some means must be taken to attain composure, the more as his heart seemed to beat faster and his stomach to grow weaker, hal remembered that he had previously found distraction in his wrath toward gilbert crowe. he therefore brought back to mind the brief passage in the tiring-room. so deeply did he lose himself in this recollection, gazing the while at the juniper burning on the stage to sweeten the air, that it was like a blow in the face when he suddenly became aware of a prolonged silence, and of the united gaze of all the actors upon himself. "what wouldst thou have, laertes?" the king was repeating for the third time. hal, aware now that his cue had been given more than once, opened his lips to reply, but his first line had fled completely from his mind. in his blank confusion he flashed a look of dismay toward the entrance. his eyes caught those of shakespeare, who had parted the arras curtains sufficiently to be visible to the players. rather in astonishment than in reproach, the poet, serving on occasion as prompter, uttered half audibly the forgotten words, and hal, caught back as from the brink of a bottomless pit, spoke out with new-found vigor: "dread my lord. your leave and favor to return to france," and the ensuing lines. but his delivery did not quiet down the audience,--which, indeed, though it had hushed for a moment at the play's opening, and again at the appearance of the ghost, was not completely stilled, until at last, upon the king's turning to hamlet, the "wondrous tongue" of burbage spoke. when hal presently made exit to the tiring-room, after the king and courtiers, he craved the pardon of master shakespeare, but the latter merely said: "tut, hal, it hath happened to all of us in our time." the derisive smile of crowe did not sweeten harry's musings while he waited for his next going on. indeed, he continued to brood bitterly on the exhibition he had made of himself, and the stay he had caused in the play. his chagrin was none the less for that it was his friend and benefactor shakespeare that had nominated him for the part of laertes, and whose play he had brought to a momentary halt. in deep dejection, when the time came, he returned to the stage with the boy-ophelia for his scene with her and corambis. this passed so smoothly as to give hal new heart, until it was near its very end; and then, having replied to corambis's excellent advice with the words. "most humbly do i take my leave, my lord," hal happened to let his glance wander past the old man, and across a surging mass of heads in a part of the yard, to a certain face in one of the boxes; and that face had in it something to make his gaze remain delightedly upon it and his lips part in admiration. yes, the face was a lady's. hal had never seen it before; of that he was instantly sure, for had he seen it he could not have forgotten it. he would not have seen it now but that its youthful possessor had removed her mask, which had become irksome to her skin. she seemed above all concern as to what might be thought of her for showing her face in a bankside theatre. a proud and wilful face was hers, as if with the finest feminine beauty she had something of the uncurbed spirit and rashness of a fiery young gentleman. her hair and eyes were dark, her skin fair and clear and smooth, her forehead not too high, her chin masterful but most exquisitely shaped, her cheeks rich with natural color. in fine, she was of pronounced beauty, else master marryott had not forgot himself to look at her. upon her head was a small gray velvet hat, peaked, but not very high, and with narrow brim turned up at the sides. her chin was elevated a little from contact with a white cambric ruff. her gown was of murrey cloth with velvet stripes, and it tightly encased her figure, which was of a well-made and graceful litheness. the slashed sleeves, although puffed out, did not make too deep a secret of her shapely, muscular arms. she might have been in her twenty-second year. with this fine young creature, and farther back in the box, sat a richly dressed old gentleman, comfortably asleep, and a masked lady, who shrank as far as possible into the shadow of the box corner. standing in the yard, but close to the front of the box, was a slim, dark-faced youth in the green attire then worn by the menservants of ladies. not all these details, but only the lady, held the ravished laertes's attention while he recited: "farewell, ophelia; and remember well what i have said to you." so heedless and mechanical was his utterance of these lines, in contrast with his previous lifelike manner, that the nearest auditors laughed. the corambis and ophelia, seeking the cause of his sudden lapse, followed his gaze with wondering side-glances, while ophelia replied, in the boy's musical soprano: "'tis in my memory lock'd and you yourself shall keep the key of it." "farewell," said laertes, this time with due expression, but rather to the lady in the distant box than to ophelia and corambis. reluctantly he backed toward the rear curtains, and was so slow in making his exit, that corambis, whose next line required to be spoken in laertes's absence, gave him a look of ireful impatience and a muttered "shog, for god's sake," which set the young lords at the stage-side tittering. at sight of shakespeare, who was whispering to the horatio and the marcellus, near the entrance. master marryott had another twinge of self-reproach, but this swiftly yielded to visions of the charming face. these drove away also all heed of the presence of crowe. hal would have liked to mount the steps to the balcony at the rear of the stage, in which the unemployed actors might sit when it was not in other use, and whence he might view the lady at leisure; but the balcony was soon to be in service as a platform of the castle, in the scene between hamlet and the ghost. his imagination crossing all barriers, and making him already the accepted wooer of the new beauty. hal noted not how the play went on without, even when a breathless hush presently told of some unusual interest on the part of the audience; and he was then but distantly sensible of shakespeare's grave, musical voice in the ghost's long recitals, and of the awestricken, though barely whispered, exclamations of burbage. in the second act hal had to remove his mustaches, change his cloak, and go on as an attendant in the presence-chamber scene. his first glance was for the lady. alas, the face was in eclipse, the black velvet mask had been replaced! returning to the tiring-room, he had now to don the beard of an elderly lord, in which part he was to help fill the stage in the play scene. as he marched on in the king's train, for this scene, to the blare of trumpet and the music of instruments in a box aloft,--violins, shawms, sackbuts, and dulcimers,--he saw that the lady was still masked. his presence on the stage this time gave him no opportunity to watch her; he had to direct his eyes, now at the king and queen on their chairs at one side of the stage, and now at the platform of the mimic players. when he made his exit with the royal party, he saw on every face a kind of elation. "they are hit, and no question," said master taylor. "ay," quoth master condell, "that shout of the groundlings, when the king fled, could have been heard as far as the bear-garden." "but the stillness of both lords and groundlings before that," said master heminge,--"never was such stillness when tom kyd's hamlet was played." "we shall see how they take the rest of it," said shakespeare, softly,--though he could not quite conceal a kind of serene satisfaction that had stolen upon his face. hal marryott doffed his beard, and resumed his laertes cloak, resolved to have some part in the general success. his next scene, that in which laertes calls the king to account for his father's death, and beholds his sister's madness, held the opportunity of doing so,--of justifying shakespeare's selection for the part, of winning the young lady's applause, of hastening his own advancement to that fortune which would put him in proper state to approach a wealthy gentlewoman. perhaps she was one of those who were privileged to attend the christmas court performances. could he first win her admiration in some fine part at whitehall, the next time the chamberlain's men should play there; then--by getting as much wealth as mr. alleyn and other players had acquired--leave the stage, and strut in the jewels and velvet suitable to his birth, to what woman might he not aspire? he had all planned in a minute, with the happy facility of youth in such matters. so he stood in a remote corner of the tiring-room, getting into the feeling of his next scene, repeating the lines to himself, assuming a burbage-like self-absorption to repel those of his fellow players who, otherwise, would now and then have engaged him in talk. much conversation was going on in undertone among the groups standing about, or sitting on the tables, chairs, stools, and chests that awaited their time of service on the stage,--for, although scenery was merely suggested by word or symbol, furniture and properties, like costume and makeup, were then used in the theatres. in due time, hal placed himself at the entrance, working up his mood to a fine heat for the occasion; heard the cue, "the doors are broke;" and rushed on, crying "where is this king?" with a fury that made the groundlings gape, and even startled the lolling lords into attention. having ordered back his danes, and turned again to the king, he cast one swift glance toward the lady's box, to see how she had taken his fiery entrance; and perceived--no one. the box was empty. he felt as if something had given way beneath him. in a twinkling his manner toward the king fell into the most perfunctory monotone. so he played the scene out, looking again and again to ascertain if his eyes had not deceived him; but neither was she there, nor the other lady, nor the gentleman, nor the page in green who had stood before the box. the theatre was dark and dull without her; though as much light came in as ever, through the gallery windows and the open top of the playhouse. with a most blank and insipid feeling did hal finish this scene, and the longer and less interesting one that came almost immediately after. he carried this feeling back to the dressing-room, and dropped upon a stool in utter listlessness. "hath life then lost all taste and motive?" it was the voice of shakespeare, who had read hal's mood. the question came with an expression half amused, half sympathetic. at this, in place of which he had deserved a chiding, hal was freshly stricken, and more deeply than before, with a sense of the injury he did his benefactor by his lifeless acting. so his answer was strangely wide from the question. "forgive me," he said. "i swear i'll make amends in the rest of the play." and he rose, resolved to do so. perhaps, after all, the lady and her companions had but gone to another box, or would return to the theatre before the play was over. and, moreover, what a fool should he be, to throw away this chance of advancement that might equip him for some possible future meeting with her! and what malicious triumph was glowing darkly on the countenance of gilbert crowe! there remained to hal two opportunities to retrieve himself. the first was the encounter with hamlet in the graveyard. choosing to believe that his enchantress was indeed looking on from some to-him-unknown part of the house, he put into this short scene so excellent a frenzy that, on coming off the stage, he was greeted with a quiet "sir, that was well played," from burbage himself, who had made exit a moment earlier. "bravely ranted," said the corambis; and the ophelia, now out of his woman's clothes and half into a plain doublet, observed, with a jerk of his head toward master crowe: "thou'st turned gil's face sour of a sudden." but master marryott, disdaining to take gratification in gil's discomfiture, found it instead in a single approbative look from shakespeare; and then, choosing his foil, began making passes at the empty air, in practice for the fencing match. it was partly for his skill with the foils that hal had got shakespeare's vote for the character of laertes. being a gentleman by birth, though now alone in the world and of fallen fortunes, he had early taken kindly to that gentleman among weapons, the rapier, that had come to drive those common swaggerers, the sword and buckler, out of general service. at home in oxfordshire, in the lifetime of his parents, and before the memorable lawsuit with the berkshire branch of the family had taken the ancestral roof from over his head, and driven him to london to seek what he might find, he had practised daily with the blade, under whatever tuition came his way. in london he had picked up what was to be learned from exiled frenchmen, soldiers who had fought in flanders and spain, and other students of the steel, who abounded in the taverns. with his favorite weapon he was as skilful as if he had taken at least a provost's degree in the art of fence. the bout in "hamlet" was, of course, prearranged in every thrust and parry, but, even so, there was need of a trained fencer's grace and precision in it. good fencing was in itself a show worth seeing, in a time when every man knew how to wield one weapon or another.[ ] the audience was wrought up to that pitch of interest which every fifth act ought to witness, when the final scene came on. each man--especially among the apprentices, the soldiers, and the lords--constituted himself an umpire of the contest, and favored the fighters with comments and suggestions. the sympathy, of course, was with hamlet, but no one could be blind to the facile play of the laertes, who indeed had the skill to cover up his antagonist's deficiency with the weapon, and to make him appear really the victor. the courteous manner in which hal confessed himself hit put the spectators into suitable mind for the better perceiving of his merit. there could be little doubt as to the outcome, had the fight been real, for burbage was puffing in a way that made the queen's observation, "he's fat and scant of breath," most apt. during the sword-work, the lords and soldiers aired italian fencing terms then current, in praising the good defence that "the mad girl's brother" made; and when he seemed to wound hamlet, there burst out a burly voice from the midst of the yard, with: "i knew that thrust was coming, master marryott! tis i--kit bottle!" when laertes confessed his treachery and begged hamlet's forgiveness, so well had hal fenced and so well acted, he won such esteem of the audience as to die in the best odor. and when, at last, the rushes covering the stage boards were in turn covered with dead bodies, when the curtains closed, and the audience could be heard bustling noisily out of the theatre, hal partook of the general jubilant relief, and hoped the beautiful young lady had indeed seen the last act from somewhere in the house. the actors arose from the dead, looked as if they had jointly and severally thrown off a great burden, and hastened to substitute their plainer clothes for their rich costumes. "come with us to the falcon for a cup or two, and then to the mermaid to supper," said shakespeare to hal, as the latter was emerging from the theatre a few minutes later, dressed now in somewhat worn brown silk and velvet. with the poet were masters heminge, sly, condell, and laurence fletcher, manager for the company of players. the six walked off together, across the trodden field and along the street or roadway, drawing their short cloaks tight around them for the wind. the falcon tavern was at the western end of the bankside, separated from the river by a little garden with an arbor of vines. as the players were about to enter, the door opened, and a group of gentlemen could be seen coming from within, to take boat for the city or westminster. "stand close," said fletcher, quickly, to the actors. "we may hear an opinion of the play. my lord edgebury is the best judge of these matters in england." the players moved aside, and pretended to be reading one of their own bills, as the nobles passed. "it holdeth attention," my lord was saying to his companions, "but--fustian, fustian! noise for the rabble in the yard. 'twill last a week, perchance, for its allegory upon timely matters. but i give it no longer. 'twill not live." "gramercy!" quoth sly to the players, with a comical smile. "he is more liberal than gil crowe, who gives it but three afternoons. come into the tavern, lads, and a plague on all such prophets!" my lord edgebury and gil crowe, ye are not dead yet. at all first nights do ye abound; in many leather-covered study-chairs do ye sit, busy with wet blankets and cold water. on this occasion, though no one knew it at the time, you were a trifle out of your reckoning,--three hundred years, at least, as far as we may be sure now; not much, as planets and historians count, but quite a while as time goes with children. chapter ii. at the taverns. "we have heard the chimes at midnight, master shallow."--_henry iv., part ii._ that this narrative--which is to be an account of things done, not an antiquarian "picture" of a past age--need not at every step be learnedly arrested by some description of a costume, street, house, aspect of society, feature of the time, or other such matter, let the reader be reminded at the outset that the year was of elizabeth's reign the forty-second; that england was still in the first thrill of the greatest rejuvenescence the world ever knew; that new comforts, and new luxuries, and new thoughts, and new possibilities, and new means of pleasure, had given englishmen a mad and boisterous zest for life; that gentlemen strutted in curiously shaped beards, and brilliant doublets, and silken trunk-hose, and ruffs, and laced velvet cloaks, and feathered hats; that ladies wore stiff bodices and vast sleeves, and robes open in front to show their petticoats, and farthingales to make those petticoats stand out; that many of these ladies painted their faces and used false hair; that the attire of both sexes shone with jewels and gold and silver; that london folk were, in brief, the most richly dressed in the world; that most ordinary london houses were of wood and plaster, and gabled, and built so that the projecting upper stories darkened the narrow streets below; that the many-colored moving spectacle in those streets was diversified by curious and admiring foreigners from everywhere; that although coaches were yet of recent introduction, the stone paving sounded with them as well as with the carts and drays of traffic; that gray churches, and desolated convents, and episcopal palaces, and gentlemen's inns, and turreted mansions of nobility, abounded in city and suburbs; that the catholics were still occasional sufferers from such persecution as they in their time had dealt to the protestants; that there were still some very proud and masterful great lords, although they now came to court, and had fine mansions in the strand or other suburbs, and no longer fostered civil or private war in their great stone castles in the country; that bully 'prentices, in woollen caps and leather or canvas doublets, were as quick to resent real or fancied offence, with their knives, as gentlemen were with silver-gilt-hilted rapiers; that the taverns resounded with the fanciful oaths of heavily bearded soldiers who had fought in flanders and spain; that there were eager ears for every amazing lie of seafaring adventurers who had served under drake or raleigh against the spanish; that tobacco was still a novelty, much relished and much affected; that ghosts and witches were believed in by all classes but perhaps a few "atheists" like kit marlowe and sir walter raleigh; that untamed england was still "merry" with its jousts, its public spectacles, its rustic festivals, its holiday feasts, and its brawls, although puritanism had already begun to show its spoil-sport face; and, to come to this particular first monday in march, that the common london talk, when it was not of the private affairs of the talkers, had gone, for its theme, from the recent trial and death of the brave but restless earl of essex, to the proceedings now pending against certain of his lesser satellites in the drury house conspiracy. before entering the falcon, hal marryott sent a last sweeping look in all directions, half daring to hope that the lady in gray and murrey had not yet left the vicinity of the theatre. but the audience had gone its countless ways; at the falcon river-stairs the watermen's cries and the noise of much embarking had subsided; and the only women in sight were of the bankside itself, and of a far different class from that of her whom he sought. he sighed and followed his companions into the tavern. they were passing through the common hall, on their way to a room where they could be served privately, when they were greeted by a tall, burly, black-bearded, bold-featured, weather-browned, middle-aged fellow in a greasy leather jerkin, an old worn-out red velvet doublet, and patched brown silk trunk-hose, and with a sorry-feathered remnant of a big-brimmed felt hat, a long sword and a dagger, these weapons hanging at his girdle. his shoes barely deserved the name, and his brown cloth cloak was a rag. his face had been glum and uneasy, but at sight of the players he instantly threw on the air of a dashing, bold rascal with whom all went merrily. "'the actors are come hither, my lord,'" he cried, with a flourish, quoting from the play of the afternoon. "a good piece of work, master shakespeare. excellent! more than excellent!" "despite thyself, for doing thy best to spoil it,--bawling out in the fencing match, kit bottle," put in will sly. "captain bottle, an it please you, master sly," said the other, instantly taking on dignity; "at least when i carried sir philip sidney off the field at zutphen, and led my company after my lord essex into cadiz." "and how goes the world with thee, captain kit?" inquired mr. shakespeare, with something of a kindly sadness in his tone. "bravely, bravely as ever, master will," replied kit. "still marching to this music!" and he shook a pouch at his belt, causing a clinking sound to come forth. as the players passed on to their room, kit plucked the sleeve of hal marryott, who was the last. when the two were alone in a corner, the soldier, having dropped his buoyant manner, whispered: "hast a loose shilling or two about thy clothes, lad? just till to-morrow, i swear on the cross of my sword. i have moneys coming; that is, with a few testers to start dicing withal, i shall have the coin flowing me-ward. tut, boy, i can't lie to thee; i haven't tasted meat or malt since yesterday." "but what a devil--why, the pieces thou wert jingling?" said hal, astonished. "pox, hal, think'st thou i would bare my poverty to a gang of players--nay, no offence to thee, lad!" the soldier took from the pouch two or three links of a worthless iron chain. "when thou hast no coin, lad, let thy purse jingle loudest. 'twill serve many a purpose." "but if you could not buy a dinner," said hal, smiling, "how did you buy your way into the playhouse?" "why, body of me," replied bottle, struggling for a moment with a slight embarrassment, "the mind, look you, the mind calls for food, no less than the belly. could i satisfy both with a sixpence? no. what should it be, then? beef and beer for the belly? or a sight of the new play, to feed the mind withal? thou know'st kit bottle, lad. though he hath followed the wars, and cut his scores of spanish throats, and hath no disdain of beef and beer, neither, yet as the mind is the better part--" moved at thought of the hungry old soldier's last sixpence having gone for the play, to the slighting of his stomach, hal instantly pulled out what remained of his salary for the previous week, about five shillings in amount, and handed over two shillings sixpence, saying: "i can but halve with thee, kit. the other half is owed." "nay, lad," said kit, after a swift glance around to see if the transaction was observed by the host or the drawers, "i'll never rob thee, persuade me as thou wilt. two shillings i'll take, not a farthing more. thou'rt a heart of gold, lad. to-morrow i'll pay thee, an i have to pawn my sword! to-morrow, as i'm a soldier! trust old kit!" and the captain, self-styled, in great haste now that he had got the coin, strode rapidly from the place. hal marryott proceeded to the room where his fellow actors were. his cup of canary was already waiting for him on the table around which the players sat. "what, hal," cried sly, "is it some state affair that bottle hath let thee into?" "i like the old swaggerer," said hal, evading the question. "he hath taught me the best of what swordsmanship i know. he is no counterfeit soldier, 'tis certain; and he hath a pride not found in common rogues." "i think he is in hard ways," put in laurence fletcher, the manager, "for all his jingle of coin. i saw him to-day lurking about the door of the theatre, now and again casting a wishful glance within, and then scanning the people as they came up, as if to find some friend who would pay for him. so at last i bade him come in free for the nonce. you should have seen how he took it." "i warrant his face turned from winter to summer, in a breath," said mr. shakespeare. "would the transformation were as easily wrought in any man!" a winter indeed seemed to have settled upon his own heart, for this was the time, not only when his friends of the essex faction were suffering, but also when the affair of the "dark lady," in which both southampton and the earl of pembroke were involved with himself, had reached its crisis. hal smiled inwardly to think how bottle had seized the occasion to touch a player's feelings by appearing to have spent his last sixpence for the play; and forgave the lie, in admiration of the pride with which the ragged warrior had concealed his poverty from the others. as hal replaced his remaining three shillings in his pocket, his fingers met something hairy therein, which he had felt also in taking the coin out. he drew it forth to see what it was, and recognized the beard he had worn as the elderly lord. he then remembered to have picked it up from the stage, where it had accidentally fallen, and to have thrust it into his pocket in his haste to leave the theatre and see if the girl in murrey was still about. he now put it back into his pocket. after the wine had gone round three times, the players left the falcon, to walk from the region of playhouses and bear-gardens to the city, preferring to use their legs rather than go by water from the falcon stairs. they went eastward past taverns, dwelling-houses, the town palace of the bishop of winchester, and the fine church of st. mary overie, to the street then called long southwark; turned leftward to london bridge, and crossed between the tall houses of rich merchants, mercers, and haberdashers, that of old were built thereon. the river's roar, through the arches beneath, required the players to shout when they talked, in crossing. continuing northward and up-hill, past the taverns and fish-market of new fish street, their intention being to go at once to the mermaid, they heeded master condell's suggestion that they tarry on the way for another drink or two; and so turned into eastcheap, the street of butchers' shops, and thence into the boar's head tavern, on the south side of the way. on entering a public parlor, the first person they saw was captain bottle, sitting at a table. on the stool opposite him was a young man in a gay satin doublet and red velvet cloak, and with an affected air of self-importance and worldly experience. this person and the captain were engaged in throwing dice, in the intervals of eating. "what, old rook--captain, i mean," called out mr. sly; "must ever be shaking thine elbow, e'en 'twixt the dishes at thy supper?" "an innocent game, sir," said kit, promptly, concealing his annoyance from his companion. "no money risked, worth speaking of. god's body, doth a sixpence or two signify?" and he continued throwing the dice, manifestly wishing the actors would go about their business. "'tis true, when captain bottle plays, it cannot be called gaming," said master condell. "he means," explained bottle to his companion, in a confidential tone, "that i am clumsy with the dice. a mere child, beshrew me else! a babe in swaddling clothes! 'tis by the most marvellous chance i've been winning from you, these few minutes. 'twill come your way soon, and you'll turn my pockets inside out. pray wait for me a moment, while i speak to these gentlemen. we have business afoot together." kit thereupon rose, strode over to the players, drew them around him, and said, in a low tone: "what, boys, will ye spoil old kit's labor? will ye scare that birdling away? will ye keep money from the needy? this gull is clad in coin, he is lined with it, he spits it, he sweats it! he is some country beau, the dandy of some market town, the son of some rustical justice, the cock of some village. he comes up to london once a year, sees a little of the outside of our life here, thinks he plays the mad rascal in a tavern or two, and goes home to swagger it more than ever in his village, with stories of the wickedness he hath done in london. an i get not his money, others will, and worse men,--and, perchance, leave him in a worse condition." "we shall leave him to thy mercy, and welcome. kit," said mr. shakespeare. "he shall never know thy tricks from us. come our ways, lads. these village coxcombs ought to pay something for their egregious vanity and ignorance. this fellow will have the less means of strutting it in the eyes of the louts, when kit hath had his way." the poet was doubtless thinking of the original of his justice shallow.[ ] so the players went on to another room, hal remaining to say in kit's ear: "i knew fellows like this ere i came from the country, and how they prated of london, and of their wildness here. gull such, if thou must be a cheater." "cheater," echoed kit. "nay, speak not the word as if it smelt so bad. should a man resign his faculties and fall back on chance? do we leave things to chance in war? do we not use our skill there, and every advantage god hath given us? is not a game a kind of mimic war, and shall not a man use skill and stratagem in games? go to, lad. am i a common coney-catcher? do i cheat with a gang? do i consort with gull-gropers? an this rustic hath any trick worth two of mine, is he not welcome to play it?"[ ] whereupon kit, making no allusion to the borrowed two shillings, although he had already won several times two shillings from the country fopling, returned to the latter and the dice, while hal joined his own party. the sight of savory pastry and the smell of fish a-cooking had made some of the players willing to stay and sup at the boar's head; but shakespeare reminded them that mr. burbage was to meet them at the mermaid later. so they rose presently to set forth, all of them, and especially hal marryott, the warmer in head and heart for the wine they had taken. hal had become animated and talkative. a fuller and keener sense of things possessed him,--of the day's success, of his own share therein, of the merits of his companions and himself, and of the charms of the lady in murrey and gray. so rich and vivid became his impression of the unknown beauty, that there began to be a seeming as if she were present in spirit. it was as if her immaterial presence pervaded the atmosphere, as if she overheard the talk that now rattled from him, as if her fine eyes were looking from gothic church windows and the overhanging gables of merchants' houses, while he walked on with the players in the gathering dusk of evening. the party went westward, out of eastcheap, past london stone in candlewick street, through budge row and watling street, and northward into bread street. the last was lined with inns and taverns, and into one of the latter, on the west side of the street, near "golden cheapside," the actors finally strode. its broad, plastered, pictured front was framed and intersected by heavy timbers curiously carved, and the great sign that hung before it was the figure of a mermaid in the waves. the tavern stood a little space back from the street, toward which its ground-floor casements projected far out; and, in addition to its porched front entrance, it had passageways at side and rear, respectively from cheapside and friday street.[ ] the long room to which the players ascended had a blaze already in the fireplace (chimneys having become common during the later tudor reigns), a great square oak table, a few armchairs, some benches, and several stools. the tapestry on the walls was new, for the defeat of the spanish armada, which it portrayed, had occurred but a dozen years before. ere the actors were seated, lighted candles had been brought, and master heminge had stepped into the kitchen to order a supper little in accord with the season (it was now lent) or with the statutes, but obtainable by the privileged,--ribs of beef, capon, sauces, gravies, custard, and other trifles, with a bit of fish for the scrupulous. for players are hungriest after a performance, and there have ever been stomachs least fishily inclined on fish-days, as there are always throats most thirsty for drink where none is allowed; and the hostess of the mermaid was evidently of a mind with dame quickly, who argued, "what's a joint of mutton or two in a whole lent?"[ ] after their walk in the raw air, and regardless of the customary order at meals, the players made a unanimous call for mulled sack. the drawer, who had come at their bidding without once crying "anon," used good haste to serve it. "times have changed," said mr. shakespeare, having hung up cloak, hat, and short rapier, and leaning back in his chair, with a relish of its comfort after a day of exertion and tension. "'tis not so long since there were ever a dozen merry fellows to sup with us when we came from the play." "'tis strange we see nothing of raleigh," said sly, standing by the carved chimneypiece, and stretching his hands out over the fire. "nay, 'twould be stranger an he came to meet us now," said laurence fletcher, "after his show of joy at the earl's beheading." the allusion was to raleigh's having witnessed from a window in the tower the death of his great rival, essex. "nay," said shakespeare, "though he was a foe to essex, who was of our patrons, sir walter is no enemy to us. i dare swear he hath stood our advocate at court in our present disfavor. but while our friends of one side are now in prison or seclusion, those of the other side stand aloof from us. and for our player-fellowship, as rivalry among the great hath made bitter haters, so hath competition among actors and scribblers spoilt good comradeship." "thou'rt thinking how brawny ben used to sit with us at this table," said sly. "and wishing he sat here again," said shakespeare. "tut," said condell, "he is happier at the devil tavern, where his heavy wisdom hath no fear of being put out of countenance by thy sharper wit. will." "a pox on ben jonson for a surly, envious dog!" exclaimed laurence fletcher. "i marvel to hear thee speak kindly of him, will. after thy soliciting us to play his comedy, for him to make a mock of thee and our other writers, in the silly pedantic stuff those brats squeak out at the blackfriars!" master fletcher was, evidently, easily heated on the subject of the satirical pieces written by jonson for the chapel royal boys to play at the blackfriars theatre, in which the globe plays were ridiculed.[ ] "a pox on him, i say, and his tedious 'humors!'" whereupon master fletcher turned his attention to the beef, which had just arrived. "nay," said shakespeare, "his merit hath had too slow a greeting, and too scant applause. so the wit in him hath soured a little,--as wine too long kept exposed, for want of being in request." "well," cried hal marryott, warmed by copious draughts of the hot sugared sack, "may i never drink again but of hell flame, nor eat but at the devil's own table, if aught ever sour _me_ to such ingratitude for thy beneficence, master shakespeare!" "go to, harry! i have not benefited thee, nor ben jonson neither." "never, indeed! god wot!" exclaimed hal, spearing with his knife-point a slice of beef, to convey it from his platter to his mouth (forks were not known in england till ten years later). "to open thy door to a gentleman just thrown out of an ale-house, to feed him when he hath not money to pay for a radish, to lodge him when he hath not right of tenure to a dung-hill,--these are no benefits, forsooth." "was that thy condition, then, when he took thee as coadjutor?" fletcher asked, a little surprised. "that and worse," answered hal. "hath mr. shakespeare never told you?" "never but thou wert a gentleman desirous of turning player. let's hear it, an thou wilt." "ay, let us!" cried heminge and condell; and sly added: "for a player to turn gentleman is nothing wonderful now, but that a gentleman should turn player hath puzzled me."[ ] "why," quoth harry, now vivacious with wine, and quite ready to do most of the talking, "you shall see how a gentleman might easily have turned far worse than player. 'twas when i was newly come to london, in , not three years ago. ye've all heard me tell of the loss of mine estate in oxfordshire, through the deviltry of the law and of my kinsman. when my cousin took possession, he would have got me provided for at one of the universities, to be rid of me; but i had no mind to be made a poor scholar of; for, look you, my bringing up in my father's house had been fit for a nobleman's son. i knew my latin and my lute, could hunt and hawk with any, and if i had no practice at tilt and tourney, i made up for that lack by my skill with the rapier. well, just when i should have gone to italy. germany, and france, for my education, my father died, and my mother; and i was turned out of house, wherefore i say, a curse on all bribe-taking judges and unnatural kin! i told my cousin what he might do with the dirty scholarship he offered me, and a pox on it! and swore i would hang for a thief ere i would take anything of his giving. all that i had in the world was a horse, the clothes on my body,--for i would not go back to his house for others, having once left it,--my rapier and dagger, and a little purse of crowns and angels. there was but one friend whom i thought it would avail me to seek, and to his house i rode, in hertfordshire. he was a catholic knight, whose father had sheltered my grandfather, a protestant, in the days of queen mary, and now went i to him, to make myself yet more his debtor in gratitude. though he had lived most time in france, since the babington conspiracy, he now happened to be at home; yet he could do nothing for me, his estate being sadly diminished, and he about to sail again for the country where catholics are safer. but he gave me a letter to my lord of essex, by whom, as by my father, he was no less loved for being a catholic. when i read the letter, i thought my fortune made. to london i rode, seeing myself already high in the great earl's service. at the bell, in carter lane, i lodged, and so gleesome a thing it was to me to be in london, so many were the joys to be bought here, so gay the taverns, so irresistible the wenches, that ere ever i found time to present my letter to the earl i had spent my angels and crowns, besides the money i had got for my horse in smithfield. but i was easy in mind. my lord would assuredly take me into his house forthwith, on reading my friend's letter. the next morning, as i started for essex house, a gentleman i had met in the taverns asked me if i had heard the news. i had not; so he told me. my lord of essex had yesterday turned his back on the queen, and clapped his hand upon his sword,--you remember the time, masters--" "ay," said sly. "the queen boxed his ears for it. the dispute was over the governorship of ireland." "my lord was in disgrace," hal went on, "and like to be charged with high treason. so little i knew of court matters, i thought this meant his downfall, and that the letter, if seen, might work only to my prejudice and my friend's. so i burned it at the tavern fire, and wondered what a murrain to do. i went to lodge in honey lane, pawned my weapons, then my cloak, and finally the rest of my clothes, having bought rags in houndsditch in the meantime. rather than go back to oxfordshire i would have died in the street, and was like to do so, at last; for my host, having asked for his money one night when i was drunk and touchy, got such an answer that he and his drawer cudgelled me and threw me out. so bruised i was, that i could scarce move; but i got up, and walked to the conduit in cheapside. there i lay down, full of aches; and then was it that mr. shakespeare, returning late from the tavern, happened to step on me as i lay blocking the way. what it was that moved him to stop and examine me, i know not. but, having done so, he led me to his lodgings in st. helen's; whence, for one in my condition, it was truly no downward step to the playhouse stage,--and thankful was i when he offered me that step!" "i perceived from the manner of thy groan, when i trod on thee, 'twas no common vagabond under foot," said shakespeare. later in the evening, mr. burbage came in, not to eat, for he had already supped at his house in holywell street, shoreditch, but to join a little in the drinking. the room was now full of tobacco smoke, for most of the players had set their pipes a-going. mr. shakespeare did not smoke; but hal marryott, as a youth who could let no material joy go by untasted, was as keen a judge of trinidado or nicotian as any sea-dog from "the americas." "'tis how many hundred years, will, since this prince hamlet lived?" said heminge, the talk having led thereto; and he went on, not waiting for answer, "yet to-day we players bring him back to life, and make him to be remembered." "ay," replied shakespeare, "many a dead and rotten king oweth a resurrection and posthumous fame to some ragged scholar or some poor player." "and we players," said burbage, with a kind of sigh, "who make dead men remembered, are by the very nature of our craft doomed to be forgot. who shall know our very names, three poor hundred years hence?" "why," said condell, "our names might live by the printing of them in the books of the plays we act in; a printed book will last you a long time." "not such books as these thievish printers make of our plays," said sly, himself a writer of plays. "marry, i should not wish long life to their blundering, distorted versions of any play i had a hand in making," said shakespeare. "but consider," said condell; "were a decent printing made of all thy plays, will, all in one book, from the true manuscripts we have at the theatre, and our names put in the book, dick's name at the head, then might not our names live for our having acted in thy plays?" mr. burbage smiled amusedly, but said nothing, and shakespeare answered: "'twould be a dead kind of life for them, methinks; buried in dusty, unsold volumes in the book-sellers' shops in paul's churchyard." "nay, i would venture something," said master heminge, thoughtfully, "that a book of _thy_ plays were sure to be opened." "ay, that some shopman's 'prentice might tear out the leaves, to wrap fardels withal," said shakespeare. "three hundred years, dick said. 'tis true, books of the ancients have endured to this day; but if the world grows in learning as it hath in our own time, each age making its own books, and better and wiser ones, what readers shall there be, think you, in the year of our lord , for the rude stage-plays of will shakespeare, or even for his poems, that be writ with more care?" "'twould be strange, indeed," said burbage, "that a player should be remembered after his death, merely for his having acted in some certain play or set of plays." he did not add, but did he think, that will shakespeare's plays were more like to be remembered, if at all, for mr. burbage's having acted in them?[ ] "why art thou silent, lad," said shakespeare to hal marryott, by way of changing the subject, "and thy gaze lost in thy clouds of smoke, as if thou sawest visions there?" "i' faith, i do see a vision there," said harry, now in the enraptured stage of wine, and eager to unbosom himself. "would i were a poet, like thee, that i might describe it. ye gods, what a face! the eyes have burned into my heart. cupid hath made swift work of me!" "why, this must be since yesterday," said sly. "since four o' the clock to-day," cried hal. "then thou canst no more than have seen her," remarked fletcher. "to see her was to worship her. drink with me to her eyes, an ye love me, masters!" "to her nose also, and mouth and cheeks and ears, an thou wilt," said sly, suiting action to word. "don't think this is love in thee, lad," said fletcher. "love is of slower growth." "then all our plays are wrong," said sly. "why, certes, it may be love," said shakespeare. "love is a flame of this fashion: the first sight of a face will kindle it in shape of a spark. an there be no further matter to fan and feed the spark withal, 'twill soon die, having never been aught but a spark, keen though its scorch for a time; a mere seedling of love, a babe smothered at birth. but an there be closer commerce, to give fuel and breeze to the spark, it shall grow into flame, a flame, look you, that with proper feeding shall endure forever, like sacred fires judiciously replenished and maintained; but too much fuel, or too little, or a change in the wind, will smother it, or starve it, or violently put it out. harry hath the spark well lighted, as his raving showeth, and whether it shall soon burn out, or wax into a blaze, lies with future circumstance." harry declared that, if not otherwise fed, it would devour himself. thereupon master sly suggested drowning it in sack; and one would have thought hal was trying to do so. but the more he drank, the more was he engulfed in ideas of her who had charmed him. still having a kind of delusion that she was in a manner present, he discoursed as if for her to overhear. ere he knew it, the other players were speaking of bed. mr. burbage had already slipped out to fulfil some mysterious engagement for the night within the city, which matter, whatever it was, had been the cause of his coming after supper from his home beyond the bars of bishopsgate street without the walls. master heminge's apprentices (for master heminge was a grocer as well as an actor) had come to escort him and master condell to their houses in aldermanbury; and sturdy varlets were below to serve others of the company in like duty. at this late hour such guards against robbers were necessary in london streets. but harry, who then lodged in the same house with mr. shakespeare, in st. helen's, bishopsgate,[ ] was not yet for going home. he would make the cannikin clink for some hours more. knowing the lad's ways, and his ability to take care of himself, mr. shakespeare left him to his desires; and at last harry had no other companion than will sly, who still had head and stomach for another good-night flagon or two. when sly in turn was shaky on his legs and half asleep, harry accompanied him and his man to their door, reluctantly saw it close upon them, and then, solitary in night-wrapped london, looked up and down the narrow street, considering which way to roam in search of congenial souls, minded, like himself, to revel out the merry hours of darkness. he loathed the thought of going to bed yet, and would travel far to find a fellow wassailer. his three shillings--though that sum then would buy more than a pound buys to-day--had gone at the mermaid. he bethought himself of the taverns at which he might have credit. the list not offering much encouragement, he at last started off at random, leaving events to chance. plunging and swaying, rather than walking, he traversed a few streets, aimlessly turning what corners presented themselves. the creaking of the signs overhead in the wind mingled with the more mysterious sounds of the night. once he heard a sudden rush of feet from a narrow lane, and instantly backed against a doorway, whipping out rapier and dagger. two gaunt, ill-looking rascals, disclosed by a lantern hanging from an upper window, stood back and inspected him a moment; then, probably considering him not worth the risk, vanished into the darkness whence they had emerged. more roaming brought hal into paternoster row, and thence into ave maria lane, giving him an occasional glimpse at the left, between houses, of the huge bulk of st. paul's blotting darkly a darkness of another tone. at ludgate, boldly passing himself off upon the blinking watchman as a belated page of sir robert cecil's, he got himself let through, when he ought to have been taken before the constable as a night-walker; and so down the hill he went into fleet street. the taverns were now closed for the night to all outward appearance, the bells of bow and other churches having rung the curfew some hours since,--at nine o'clock. but hal knew that merriment was awake behind more than one cross-barred door-post or red lattice; and he tried several doors, but in vain. at last he found himself under the sign of the devil, on the south side of the street, close to temple bar. there was likelihood that ben jonson might be there, for ben also was a fellow of late hours. hal's heart suddenly warmed toward master jonson; he forgot the satire on the globe plays, the apparent ingratitude to shakespeare, and thought only of the convivial companion. much knocking on the door brought a servant of the tavern, by whom hal, learning that master jonson was indeed above, sent up his name. he was at length admitted, and found his way to a large room in which he beheld the huge form and corrugated countenance of him he sought. master jonson filled a great chair at one side of a square table, and was discoursing to a group of variously attired gentlemen. temple students, and others, this audience being in all different stages of wine. he greeted master hal in a somewhat severe yet paternal manner, beckoned him to his chair-side, and inquired in an undertone how mr. shakespeare fared. manifestly the "war of the theatres," as it was called, had not destroyed the private esteem between the two dramatists. hal's presence caused the talk to fall, in time, upon the new "hamlet," which some of the then present members of the tribe of ben had seen. one young gentleman of the temple, in the insolent stage of inebriety, spoke sneeringly of the play; whereupon hal answered hotly. both flashed out rapiers at the same instant, and as the table was between them hal leaped upon it, to reach more quickly his opponent. only the prompt action of master jonson, who mounted the table, making it groan beneath his weight, and thrust himself between the two, cut short the brawl. but now, each antagonist deeming himself the aggrieved person, and the templar being upheld by several of the company, and a great noise of tongues arising, and the host running in to suppress the tumult, it was considered advisable to escort master marryott from the place. he was therefore hustled out by master jonson, the host, and a tapster; and so found himself eventually in the street, the door barred against him. he then perceived that he was without his rapier. it had been wrested from him at the first interference with the quarrel. wishing to recover it, and in a wrathful spirit, he pounded on the door with his dagger hilt, and called out loudly for the return of his weapon; but his efforts being misinterpreted, he was left to pound and shout in vain. baffled and enraged, he started back toward ludgate, with some wild thought of enlisting a band of ruffians to storm the tavern. but the wine had now got so complete possession of him that, when a figure emerging from water lane bumped heavily against him, all memory of the recent incident was knocked out of his mind. "what in the fiend's name--"grumbled the newcomer; then suddenly changed his tone. "why, od's-body, 'tis master marryott! well met, boy! here be thy two shillings, and never say kit bottle payeth not his debts. i've just been helping my friend to his lodging here at the sign of the hanging sword. 'twas the least i could do for him. art for a merry night of it, my bawcock? come with me to turnbull street. there be a house there, where i warrant a welcome to any friend of kit bottle's. i've been out of favor there of late, but now my pockets sing this tune" (he rattled the coin in them), "and arms will be open for us." rejoiced at this encounter, hal took the captain's arm, and strode with him through shoe lane, across holborn bridge, through cow lane, past the pens of smithfield, and so--undeterred by sleeping watchmen or by the post-and-chain bar--into turnbull street.[ ] kit knocked several times at the door of one of the forward-leaning houses, before he got a response. then a second-story casement was opened, and a hoarse female voice asked who was below. "what, canst not see 'tis old kit, by the flame of his nose?" replied the captain. the woman told him to wait a minute, and withdrew from the window. "see, lad," whispered bottle, "'tis late hours when kit bottle can't find open doors. to say true, i was afeard my welcome here might be a little halting; but it seems old scores are forgot. we shall be merry here, hal!" a sudden splash at their very feet made them start back and look up at the window. a pair of hands, holding an upturned pail, was swiftly drawn back, and the casement was then immediately closed. bottle smothered an oath. "wert caught in any of that shower, lad?" he asked hal. "'scaped by an inch," said hal, with a hiccough. "marry, is this thy welcome?" kit's wrath against the inmates of the house now exploded. calling them "scullions," "scavengers," and names still less flattering, he began kicking and hammering on the door as if to break it down. moved by the spirit of violence, hal joined him in this demonstration. the upper windows opened, and voices began screaming "murder!" and "thieves!" in a short time several denizens of the neighborhood--which was a neighborhood of nocturnal habits--appeared in the street. seeing how matters stood, they fell upon kit and hal, mauling the pair with fists, and tearing off their outer garments. soon a cry went up, "the watch!" whereupon hal, with memories of restraint and inconvenience to which he had once before been put, called upon kit to follow, and made a dash toward the end of the street. he speedily was out of pursuit, and the sound of bottle's voice growling out objurgations, close behind him, satisfied him that the old soldier was at his heels. hal, therefore, ran on, making no impediment of the bars, and passed the pens without slack of speed. stopping in cow lane he looked back, and to his surprise saw that he was now quite alone. he went immediately back over his tracks in search of bottle, but found no one. turnbull street had subsided into its former outward appearance of desertion. thinking that bottle might have passed him in the darkness, hal returned southward. when he arrived in fleet street he retained but a confused, whirling recollection of what had occurred. yet his mood was still for company and carouse. with great joy, therefore, he observed that a humble little ale-house to which he sometimes resorted, near fleet bridge, was opening for the day, as dawn was appearing. he went in and ordered wine. the tapster, who knew him, remarked with astonishment that he was without hat or cloak; and the morning being very cold, and hal unlikely to meet any person of quality at that hour, the fellow offered him a surcoat and cap, such as were worn by apprentices, to protect him from chill on the way homeward. hal, who was now half comatose, passively let himself be thus fortified against the weather. with the sum repaid him by bottle he was able to buy good cheer; his only lack was of company to share it with. he could not hope at this hour to fall in with another late-hour man; it was now time for the early rising folk to be abroad. in from the street came half a dozen hardy looking fellows, calling for beer to be quickly drawn, as they had far to go to their work. their dress was of leather and coarse cloth, and the tools they carried were those of carpenters. but to hal, who now saw things vaguely, they were but fellow mortals, and thirsty. he welcomed them with a flourish and an imperative invitation to drink. this they readily accepted, grinning the while with boorish amusement. when they perforce departed, hal, unwilling to lose new-found company so soon, attached himself to them; and was several times hindered from dragging them into taverns as they passed, by their promise, given with winks invisible to him, that they would drink on arriving at their destination. so he went, upheld between a pair of them, and heeding not the way they took. though it was now daylight, he was past recognizing landmarks. he had the dimmest sense of passing a succession of walled and turreted mansions at his left hand; then of catching glimpses of more open and park-like spaces at his right hand; of going, in a grave kind of semi-stupor, through two gateways and as many courtyards; of being passed on, with the companions to whom he clung, by dull warders, and by a busy, inattentive, pompous man of authority to whom his comrades reported in a body; of traversing with them, at last, a passage and a kind of postern, and emerging in a great garden. here the carpenters seemed to become sensible of having committed a serious breach in sportively letting him be admitted as one of their own band. they held a brief consultation, looking around in a half frightened way to see if they were observed. they finally led him into an alley, formed by hedgerows, deposited him gently on the ground, and hastened off to another part of the garden. once recumbent, he turned upon his side and went instantly to sleep. when he awoke, several hours later, without the least knowledge what garden was this to which his eyes opened, or the least recollection how he had come into it, he saw, looking down at him in mild surprise, a slight, yellow-haired, pale-faced, high-browed, dark-eyed, elderly lady, with a finely curved nose, a resolute mouth, and a sharp chin, and wearing a tight-bodied, wide-skirted costume of silvered white velvet and red silk, with a gold-laced, ermine-trimmed mantle, and a narrow, peaked velvet hat. hal, in his first bewilderment, wondered where it was that he had previously seen this lady. "madam," he said, in a voice husky with cold, "i seem to be an intruder. by your favor, what place is this?" the lady looked at him sharply for a moment, then answered, simply: "'tis the garden of whitehall palace. who are you?" hal suppressed a startled exclamation. he remembered now where he had seen the lady: 'twas at the christmas court performances. he flung into a kneeling posture, at her small, beribboned, cloth-shod feet. "i am your majesty's most loyal, most worshipful subject," he said. "and what the devil are you doing here?" asked queen elizabeth. chapter iii. queen and woman. "and commanded by such poor passion as the maid that milks." --_antony and cleopatra._ though queen elizabeth often swore at her ladies and her favorite lords, it is not to be supposed that she would ordinarily address a stranger in such terms as she used but now toward master marryott.[ ] nor was it the surprise of finding asleep in her garden a youth, wearing an apprentice's surcoat over a gentleman's velvet doublet,--for hal had moved in his sleep so as to disclose part of the doublet,--and silken hose, that evoked so curt an expression. neither was it the possibility that the intruder might be another capt. thomas leigh, who had been found lurking in the palace, near the door of the privy chamber, a day or two after the essex rising, and had been subsequently put to death. had a thought of assassination taken any root in the queen's mind at sight of the slumbering youth, she would, doubtless, have behaved as on a certain occasion at the time of the babington conspiracy; when, walking in her garden, and being suddenly approached by one of the conspirators, and finding none of her guards within sight, she held the intruder in so intrepid a look that he shrank back--and the captain of her guard did not soon forget the rating she afterward gave him for that she had been left thus exposed. but on the present occasion she herself had petulantly ordered back the little train of gentlemen and ladies in waiting, guards, and pages, who would have followed her into the alley where she now was. they stood in separate groups, beyond the tall hedge, out of view but not out of call, and wondering what had put her majesty this morning into such a choleric desire for solitude. for that is what she was in, and what made her words to hal so unlike those commonly used by stage royalty at the theatre. what the devil _was_ he doing there? hal asked himself, as he gazed helplessly up at the queen. "i know not," he faltered. "i mean, i have no memory of coming hither. but 'tis not the first time, your majesty, i have waked up in a strange place and wondered at being there. i--i drank late last night." he put his hand to his aching head, in a manner that unconsciously confirmed his confession; and then he looked at his coarse surcoat with an amazement that the queen could not doubt. "what is your name?" asked the queen, who seemed to have her own reason for interrogating him quietly herself, instead of calling a guard and turning him over to some officer for examination. "harry marryott, an it please your majesty. a player in the lord chamberlain's company, though a gentleman by birth." elizabeth frowned slightly at the mention of the lord chamberlain's company; but a moment after, strange to say, there came into her face the sign of a sudden secret hope and pleasure. "being one of those players," said she, "you are well-wisher to the foolish men who partook in the late treason?" she watched narrowly for his answer. "not well-wisher to their treason, madam, i swear!" "but to themselves?" "as to men who have been our friends, we wish some of them whatever good may consist with your majesty's own welfare, which is the welfare of england, the happiness of your subjects. but that wish makes no diminution of our loyalty, which for myself i would give my life for a chance of proving." he found it not difficult to talk to this queen, so human was she, so outright, direct, and to the point. "why," she replied, in a manner half careless, half significant, as if she were trying her way to some particular issue, "who knows but you may yet have that chance, and at the same time fulfil a kind wish toward one of those misguided plotters. an you were to be trusted--but nay, your presence here needs some accounting for. dig your memory, man; knock your brains, and recall how you came hither. tis worth while, youth, for you doubtless know what is supposed of men found unaccountably near our person, and what end is made of them." hal was horrified and heartstricken. "madam," he murmured, "if my queen, who is the source and the object of all chivalrous thoughts in every gentleman's breast in england, one moment hold it possible that i am here for any purpose against her, let me die! call guards, your majesty, and have me slain!" "nay," said elizabeth, convinced and really touched by his feeling, "i spoke not of what i thought, but of what others might infer. now that i perceive your quality, it hath come to me that you might serve me in a business that needs such a man,--a man not known at court, and whom it would appear impossible i could have given audience to. indeed, i was pondering on the difficulty of finding such a man in the time afforded, and in no very sweet humor either, when the sight of you broke in upon my thoughts." "to serve your majesty in any business would be my supremest joy," said hal, eagerly--and truly. his feeling in this was that of all young english gentlemen of his time. "but this tells me not how came you into my private garden," said her majesty. "i remember some dispute at the devil tavern," replied harry, searching his memory. "and roaming the streets with one captain bottle, and being chased out of some neighborhood or other--and there i lose myself. it seems as if i went lugging forward through the streets, holding to an arm on either side, and then plunged quite out of this world, into cloud, or blackness, or nothing. why, it is strange--meseems yonder workman, at the end of this alley, had some part in my goings last night." the workman was a carpenter, engaged in erecting a wooden framework for an arched hedge that was to meet at right angles the alley in which the queen and harry were. the man's work had brought him but now into their sight. the queen, who on occasion could be the most ceremonial monarch in christendom, could, when necessary, be the most matter-of-fact. she now gave a "hem" not loud enough for her unseen attendants to hear, but sufficient to attract the carpenter's attention. he stood as if petrified, recognizing the queen, then fell upon knees that the presence of majesty had caused to quake. elizabeth motioned him to her, and he approached, walking on his knees, in expectation of being instantly turned over to a yeoman of the guard. hal himself remained in similar posture, which was the attitude elizabeth required of all who addressed her. "what know you of this young gentleman?" she asked the carpenter, in a tone that commanded like quietness in his manner of replying. the fellow cringed and shook, begged huskily for mercy, and said that he had meant no harm; explained incoherently that the young gentleman, having fallen in with the carpenters when in his cups, had come with them to whitehall in the belief that they were leading him to a drinking-place; that they had been curious to see his surprise when the porters, guards, or palace officers should confront him; that these functionaries had inattentively let him pass as one of the carpenters; that the carpenters had feared to disclaim him after having missed the proper moment for doing so. the fellow then began whimpering about his wife and eight children, who would starve if he were hanged or imprisoned. the queen cut him short by ordering that he and his comrades should say nothing of this young man's presence, as they valued their lives; hinted at dire penalties in case of any similar misdemeanor in future, and sent him back to his work. "god's death!" she then said to hal. "watchful porters and officers! i'll find those to blame, and they shall smart for their want of eyes. a glance at your hose and shoes, muddy though they be, would have made you out no workman. yet perchance i shall have cause not to be sorry for their laxity this once. if it be that you are the man to serve me, i shall think you god-sent to my hand, for god he knows 'twas little like i should find in mine own palace a man not known there, and whom it should not seem possible i might ever have talked withal! even had i sent for such an one, or had him brought to the palace for secret audience, there had needs been more trace left of my meeting him than there need be of my meeting you." hal perceived not why so absolute a monarch need conduct any matter darkly, or hide traces of her hand in it; but he said nothing, save that, if it might fall his happy lot to serve her, the gift from god would be to himself. as for the queen, she had already made up her mind that he should serve her. it must be he, or no one. she had come to the garden from her privy council, with a certain secret act in her mind, an act possible to her if the right agent could be found; but in despair of finding in the given time such an agent,--one through whom her own instigation of the act could never be traced by the smallest circumstance. here, as if indeed dropped from heaven, was a possible agent having that most needed, least expected, qualification. there need not remain the slightest credible evidence of his present interview with her. this qualification found so unexpectedly, without being sought, she was willing to risk that the young player possessed the other requisites, uncommon though they were. she believed he was loyal and chivalrous; therefore he would be as likely to keep her secret, at any hazard to himself, as to serve her with all zeal and with as much skill as he could command. by seeming to hold back her decision as to whether he might do her errand, she but gave that errand the more importance, and whetted his ambition to serve her in it. "there is much to be said," replied the queen, "and small time to say it in. 'tis already some minutes since i left my people without the hedge and came into this alley. they will presently think i am long meditating alone. they must not know i have seen you, or that you were here. so we must needs speak swiftly and quietly. as for those carpenters, who are all that know of your presence here. i have thrown that fellow into so great a fear, he and his mates will keep silence. now heed. my privy council hath evidence of a certain gentleman's part in the conspiracy of your friends who abetted the lord essex. 'tis evidence positive enough, and plenty enough, to take off his head, or twenty heads an he had them. he hath not the slightest knowledge that he is betrayed. 'tis very like he sits at home, in the country, thinking himself secure, while the warrant is being writ for his arrest. the pursuivant to execute the warrant is to set out with men this afternoon. so much delay have i contrived to cause." "delay, your majesty?" echoed hal, thinking he might have wrongly heard. "delay," repeated elizabeth, using for her extraordinary disclosures a quite ordinary tone. "i have delayed this messenger of the council for time to plan how the gentleman may escape before the arrest can be made." she waited a moment, till hal's look passed back from surprise to careful attention. "you wonder that a queen, who may command all, should use secret means in such a matter. you wonder that i did not put my prohibition, at the outset, on proceedings against this gentleman. or that i do not now order them stopped, by my sovereign right. or that i do not openly pardon him, now or later. you do not see, young sir, that sometimes a monarch, though all-powerful, may have reason to sanction or even command a thing, yet have deep-hidden reason why the thing should be undone." hal bowed. he had little knowledge, or curiosity, regarding the mysteries of state affairs, and easily believed that the general weal might be promoted by the queen's outwardly authorizing a subject's arrest, and then secretly compassing his escape. and yet he might have known that a tudor's motives in interfering with the natural course of justice were more likely to be private than public, and that a tudor's circumstances must be unusual indeed to call for clandestine means, rather than an arbitrary mandate, for such interference. it was not till long afterward that, by putting two and two together, he formed the theory which it is perhaps as well to set forth now, at the opening of our history. the essex conspiracy was not against the person or supremacy of the queen, but against her existing government, which the plotters hoped to set aside by making her temporarily a prisoner and forcing her decrees. they avowed the greatest devotion to her majesty's self. as a woman, she had little or no reason for bitter feelings against them. but the safety of the realm required that the principals should suffer. yet she might have pardoned her beloved essex, had she received the ring he sent her in claim of the promise of which it was the pledge.[ ] but thinking him too proud even to ask the mercy he might have had of her, she let him die. as for his chief satellites, there were some for whom she cared nothing, some against whom there were old scores, and who might as well be dead or imprisoned as not, even were public policy out of the question. southampton, for one, had offended her by marrying, and had later been a cause of sharp passages between her and essex. but as to this mysterious gentleman, of whom she spoke to master marryott? he was one of those who had contrived to get safe away from london, and who felicitated themselves that there existed no trace of their connection with the plot, but against whom evidence had eventually arisen in private testimony before the council. of these men, it was decided by the council to make at least one capital example, and this particular gentleman was chosen, for his being a catholic as well as a conspirator. now the fact seems to have been that elizabeth, the woman, had softer recollections of this gentleman than elizabeth, the queen, was fain to acknowledge to third parties. he was not alone in this circumstance, but he differed from essex and other favored gentlemen in several particulars. being a catholic, he was not of the court. once, many years before this march day, the queen, while hunting, sought refuge at his house from a sudden storm. she prolonged her stay on pretexts, and then kept him in attendance during one of her journeyings. her association with him was conducted with unusual concealment. it was not violently broken off, nor carried on to satiety and natural death. it was merely interrupted and never resumed. thus it remained sweet in her memory, took on the soft, idealizing tones that time gives, and was now cherished in her heart as an experience apart from, and more precious than, all other such. it was the one serene, perfect love-poem of her life. the others had been stormy, and mixed with a great deal of prose. this one might have been written by mr. edmund spenser. and it was the dearer to her for its being a secret. no one had ever known of it but a tight-mouthed old manservant and a faithful maid of honor, the former now infirm, the latter dead. she could not endure to mar this, her pet romance, by letting its hero die when it was in her power to save him. she had never put forth her hand, nor had he asked her to do so, to shield him from the smaller persecutions to which his religion had exposed him from neighbors and judges and county officers, and which had forced him to live most of the time an exile in france. but death was another matter, a catastrophe she liked not to think of as overtaking him through operations she could control; and this was none the less true though she had no hope of ever meeting him again. moreover, this lover had upon her affection one claim that others had forfeited: he had never married.[ ] that alone entitled him at this time, in her eyes, to a consideration not merited by essex or southampton. and, again, her fortitude had been so drawn upon in consigning essex to the block, that she had not sufficient left to tolerate the sacrifice of this other sharer of her heart. now that fortitude had been greatly, though tacitly, admired by the lords to whom she wished to appear the embodiment of regal firmness, and she could not bring herself to confess to them that it was exhausted, or unequal to the next demand upon it. more than ever, in these later days, she desired to appear strong against her inner feelings, or indeed to appear quite above such inner feelings as she had too often shown toward her favorite gentlemen. that she, the virgin queen, leader of her people, conqueress of the great armada, had entertained such feelings in the past, and been so foolish as to disclose them, was the greater reason why she now, when about to leave her final impression upon history, should seem proof against them. to refuse her sanction to the council's decision concerning this gentleman, when there was twofold political reason for that decision, and no political reason to interpose against it, would open the doors upon her secret. and she was as loath to expose her tenderly recollected love to be even suspected or guessed at, such was the ideal and sacred character it had taken in years of covert memory, as she was to be thought still prone to her old weakness. as for awaiting events and eventually saving the man by a pardon, such a course, in view of her having sanctioned the council's choice of him as an example, would disclose her as false to the council, and capricious beyond precedent, and would betray her secret as well.[ ] so here was one case in which she dared not arbitrarily oppose the council's proceeding, though her old lover's arrest meant his conviction, as sure as verdict was ever decided ere judge and jury sat,--as verdicts usually were in the treason trials of that blessed reign. for her peace as a woman, she must prevent that arrest. for her reputation as a queen, she must seem to favor it, and the prevention must be secret. one weakness, the vanity of strength and resolution, required that the indulgence of another weakness, undue tenderness of heart toward a particular object, should be covert. the queen's right hand must not know what the woman's left hand did. to get time for a plan, as she told hal, she had requested that the pursuivant's men, while in quest of the gentleman, might bear letters to certain justices in his neighborhood; the preparation of these letters would delay, for a few hours, the departure of the warrant. for her purpose she needed a man of courage, adroitness, and celerity; one who would be loyal to the secret reposed in him alone; one so out of court circles, so far from access to or by herself, that if he ever should betray her part in his mission none would believe him; a man who would take it on faith, as hal really did, that deep state reasons dictated the nullification, secretly, of a proceeding granted openly,--for this strong queen would not have even the necessary confidant, any more than the lords of the council, suspect this weak woman. "the man who is my servant in this," went on the queen, "must seem to act entirely for himself, not for me. there must be no evidence of his having served me; so he will never receive the credit of this mission for his sovereign, save in that sovereign's thoughts alone." "where else should he seek it, your majesty?" replied hal, brought to this degree of unselfish chivalry by the influence of her presence. "where else, truly?" echoed the queen, with a faint smile. "and he must never look to me for protection, should he find himself in danger of prison or death, in consequence of this service. indeed, if pressure move him to say 'twas i commissioned him, i shall declare it a lie of malice or of deep design, meant to injure me." "your majesty shall not be put to that shift, an i be your happy choice for the business," said hal, thrilling more and more devotedly to the task as it appeared the more perilous and rewardless. "you will be required to go from london," continued the queen, forgetting her pretence that he was not yet certainly her choice for the errand, "and to give your friends good reason for your absence." "'twill be easy," replied the player. "our company goes travelling next week. i can find necessity for preceding them. one master crowe can play my parts till i fall in with them again." "even this gentleman," resumed the queen, after a moment's thought, and a consultation with pride and prudence, "must not know whom you obey in saving him. your knowledge of his danger must seem to have come through spy work, or treachery in the palace, and your zeal for his safety must appear to spring from your friendship for the essex party. the gentleman's mansion is near welwyn, in hertfordshire. he is a knight, one sir valentine fleetwood." hal suppressed a cry. "why, then," he said, "i can truly appear to act for myself in saving him. he is my friend, my benefactor; his father saved my grandfather's life in the days of papistry. i shall not be put to the invention of false reasons for saving sir valentine. there is reason enough in friendship and gratitude. i knew not he was back in england." "that is well," said elizabeth, checking a too hearty manifestation of her pleasure at the coincidence. "now hear what you shall do. the pursuivant who is to apprehend him will ride forth this afternoon at about three o' the clock, with a body of men. you must set out earlier, arrive at fleetwood house before them, warn sir valentine that they are coming, persuade him to fly, whether he will or no, and in every possible manner aid and hasten his safe departure from the country." hal bowed. his look betrayed some disappointment, as if the business were neither as difficult nor as dangerous as he had looked for. the queen smiled. "you think it a tame and simple matter," she said. "a mere business of fast riding 'twixt london and welwyn, and thence to a seaport. but allow for the unexpected, young sir, which usually befalleth! suppose impediments hinder you, as they hinder many on shorter journeys. or suppose sir valentine be not at home when you arrive, and require seeking lest he by chance fall in with the pursuivant ere you meet him. suppose he be not of a mind to fly the country, but doubt your warning, or choose to stay and risk trial rather than invite outlawry and confiscation. suppose, in aiding him, you encounter the pursuivant and his men.[ ] 'twill be your duty to resist them to the utmost, even with your life. and should you be overcome and taken, you know what are the penalties of resisting officers on the queen's business, and of giving aid to her enemies. this business will make you as much a traitor, by statute, as sir valentine himself. remember, if you be taken i shall not interfere in your behalf. it shall be that i know naught of you, and that i hold your act an impudent treason against myself, and call for your lawful death. so think not 'tis some holiday riding i send you on; and go not lightly as 'twere a-maying. be ready for grave dangers and obstructions. look to't ye be not taken! perchance your own safety may yet lie in other countries for a time, ere all is done. look for the unexpected, i tell you." "i shall be heedful, your majesty. i crave your pardon,--'tis shame i must confess it,--there will be horses to obtain, and other matters; i lack means--" "by god's light, 'tis well i came by a purse-full this morning, and forgetfully bore it with me, having much on my mind," said elizabeth, detaching a purse from her girdle and handing it to hal. "i'm not wont of late to go so strong in purse.[ ] pour these yellow pieces into your pocket--no need to count--and leave but two or three to make some noise withal." when hal had obeyed her, she took back the purse and replaced it at her girdle. "use what you need in the necessary costs; supply sir valentine an he require money, and let the rest be payment to yourself. nay, 'twill be small enough, god's name! yet i see no more reward for you--until all be smoothly done, and time hath passed, and you may find new access to me in other circumstance. then i shall remember, and find way of favoring you." hal thereupon had vague, distant visions of himself as a gentleman pensioner, and as a knight, and as otherwise great; but he said only: "the trust you place in me is bounteous reward, your majesty!" to which her majesty replied: "bid yon carpenter lead you from the garden by private ways, that you may pass out as you entered, in the guise of a workman. lose no time, thenceforth,--and god bless thee, lad!" hal was in the seventh heaven. she had actually thee'd him! and now she held out her hand, which he, on his knees, touched with reverential lips. it was a shapely, beautiful hand, even to the last of the queen's days; and a shapely, beautiful thing it was to remain in hal's mental vision to the last of his. in a kind of dream he stepped back, bowing, to the alley's end. when he raised his eyes, the queen had turned, and was speeding toward the other end of the alley. a march wind was following her, between the high hedgerows, disturbing two or three tiny twigs that had lain in the frozen path.[ ] at that moment hal counted his life a small thing save where it might serve her; while she, who had read him through in five minutes, was thanking her stars for the miraculous timely advent of an agent so peculiarly suited to so peculiar a service,--a youth of some worldly experience, yet with all those chivalrous illusions which make him the greedier of a task as it is the more dangerous, the more zealous in it as it offers the less material reward. the romantic sophistries that youth cherishes may be turned to great use by those who know how to employ them. indeed, may not the virtue of loyalty and blind devotion have been an invention of ingenious rulers, for their own convenience? may not that of woman-worship be an invention of subtly clever women themselves, when women were wisely content with being worshipped, and were not ambitious of being elbowed and pushed about in the world's business; when they were satisfied to be the divinities, not the competitors, of men? elizabeth knew that this player's head, heart, and hand were now all hers for the service engaged; and that by entrusting him with a large amount in gold, in advance, she but increased his sense of obligation to perform her errand without failing in a single point. as he passed charing cross and proceeded eastward through the strand, hal became aware of the pains caused by his sleeping outdoors in march weather, and of the headache from last night's wine. in his interview with the queen, he had been unconscious of these. but he foresaw sufficient bodily activity to rid himself of them, with the aid of a copious warming draught and of a breakfast. he obtained the warming draught at the first tavern within temple bar, which was none other than the devil. a drawer recognized him, despite the 'prentice's coat and cap,--no one who knew master marryott could be much surprised at his having got into any possible strange attire in some nocturnal prank,--and notified the landlord, who thereupon restored to hal the rapier taken away the previous night. from the devil tavern, hal went to three or four shops farther in fleet street, and when he emerged from the last of these he wore a dull green cloth cloak, brown-lined, over his brown velvet doublet; a featherless brown hat of ample brim on his head, and high riding-boots to cover the nether part of his brown silk trunk-hose. he had already looked his errand in the face, and made some plan for dealing with it. as he would be no match for a band of highway robbers, should he fall in with such between london and welwyn, he must have at least one stout attendant. fortunately. paul's walk, the place in which to obtain either man or woman for any service or purpose whatever, lay in his way to his lodging, where he must go before leaving london. he hastened through ludgate, with never a glance at the prisoners whining through the iron grates their appeals for charity; and into paul's churchyard, and strode through the southern entrance of the mighty cathedral, making at once for the middle aisle. it was the fashionable hour for the paul's walkers,--about noon,--and the hubbub of a vast crowd went up to the lofty arches overhead. the great minster walk, with its column on which advertisements were hung, its column around which serving-men stood waiting to be hired, its other particular spots given over by custom to particular purposes, was to london at midday what the interior of the exchange was by candle-light,--a veritable place of lounging, gossiping, promenading, trading, begging, pimping, pocket-picking, purse-cutting, everything. hal threaded a swift way through the moving, chattering, multi-colored crowd, with an alert eye for the manner of man he wanted. suddenly he felt a pull at his elbow; and turned instantly to behold a dismal attempt at gaiety on the large-boned red face of captain bottle. beneath his forced grin, old kit was in sadly sorry countenance, which made his attire look more poor and ragged than usual. "what, old heart!" cried kit. "thou'rt alive, eh? bones of mary, i thought thee swallowed up by some black night-walking dragon in cow lane this morning!" "we were together last night, i think," said hal, not with positive certainty. "together, i' faith, till by my cursing and hard breathing i killed in mine ears the sound of thy steps, so i could not follow thee. ah, hal, there was the foul fiend's hand in the separating of us! for, being alone, and sitting down to rest me in the street, without newgate, what should happen but i should fall asleep, and my purse be cut ere i waked? old kit hath not e'en a piece of metal left, to mimic the sound of coin withal!" old kit's look was so blue at this that hal knew he was truly penniless, though whether the loss of his money had been as he related it, was a question for which hal had no answer. the captain's eyes were already inclining toward that part of hal's costume where his money was commonly bestowed. "this evil town is plainly too much for thy rustical innocence, kit," said hal. "you need a country change. come with me for a few days. don't stare. i have private business, and require a man like thee. there's meat, drink, and beds in it, while it lasts; some fighting maybe, and perchance a residue of money when costs are paid. if there be, we shall divide equally. wilt follow me?" "to the other side of the round world, boy! and though old kit be something of a liar and guzzler, and a little of a cheater and boaster, thou'lt find him as faithful as a dog, and as companionable a rascal as ever lived!" "then take this money, and buy me two horses in smithfield, all equipped; and meet me with them at two o'clock, in st. john's street, close without the bar. but first get thyself dinner, and a warm cloak to thy back. haste, old dog o' war! there will be swift going for us, maybe, ere many suns set!" the two left st. paul's together by the north door. bottle going on northward toward the newgate,[ ] hal turning eastward toward st. helen's, where he would refresh himself with a bath and food, and tell mr. shakespeare of news given him by a court scrivener in drunken confidence; of an imperative obligation to go and warn a friend in danger; of money won in dicing; of a willingness to resign his parts to gil crowe, and of his intention to rejoin the players at the first opportunity, wherever they might be. as he turned out bishopsgate street, he thought how clear his way lay before him, and smiled with benignant superiority to his simple task. and then suddenly, causing his smile to fade a little, came back to him the words of the queen, "allow for the unexpected, young sir, which usually befalleth!" chapter iv. the unexpected. "the affair cries haste. and speed must answer it."--_othello_. at two o'clock that afternoon,--it was tuesday, the third day of march,--master marryott and capt. christopher bottle rode northward from smithfield bars, in somewhat different aspect and mood from those in which they had gone through their adventure in the same neighborhood the previous night. they were well mounted; for kit bottle was not the man to be gulled by the jinglers of the smithfield horse-market, and knew, too well for his own good reputation, how to detect every trick by which the jockeys palmed off their jades on buyers who judged only by appearances. they were fitly armed, too; for hal, before rejoining the captain, had procured pistols as reinforcements to his rapier and dagger, and kit had so far exceeded instructions as to do likewise. the captain as yet knew not what hal's mission was, and he was too true a soldier to exhibit any curiosity, if he felt any. but there was always a possibility of use for weapons, in travelling in those days; even on the much-frequented road from london to st. albans ("as common as the way between st. albans and london," said poins, of doll tearsheet), in which thoroughfare, until he should turn out beyond barnet. hal's course lay. it was a highway that, not far out of london, became like all other roads of the time narrow and rutty, often a mere ditch below the level of the fields, woods, or commons, at either side; rarely flanked, as in later times, by hedges, walls, or fences of any kind; passing by fewer houses, and through smaller villages, than it is now easy to imagine its doing. on this, as on every english road, most passenger travel was by horseback or afoot, although the great, had their coaches, crude and slow-moving. most transportation of goods was by pack-horse, the carriers going in numerous company for safety; though huge, lumbering, covered stage-wagons had already appeared on certain chief highways, with a record of something like two miles an hour. the royal post for the bearing of letters was in a primitive and uncertain state. travelling by post was unknown, in the later sense of the term: such as it was, it was a luxury of the great, who had obvious means of arranging for relays of horses; and of state messengers, who might press horses for the queen's service. when ordinary men were in haste, and needed fresh horses, they might buy them, or trade for them, or hire them from carriers, or from stable-keepers where such existed. but the two animals obtained by bottle in smithfield, though neither as shapely nor as small as spanish jennets, were quite sufficient for the immediate purpose,--the bearing of their riders, without stop, to welwyn. islington and highgate were passed without incident, and hal, while soothed in his anxiety to perform his mission without a hitch, began to think again that the business was too easy to be interesting. as a young gentleman of twenty-two who had read "the faerie queen" for the romance and not for the allegory, he would have liked some opportunity to play the fighting knight in service of his queen. on finchley common he looked well about, half in dread, half in hope; whereupon captain bottle, as taking up a subject apropos, began to discourse upon highway robbers. from considering the possibilities of a present encounter with them, he fell to discussing their profession in a business light. "an there must be vile laws to ruin gentlemen withal, and hard peace to take the bread out of true soldiers' mouths, beshrew me but bold robbing on the highway is choicer business than a parson's, or a lawyer's, or a lackey's in some great house, or even coney-catching in the taverns! when i was put to it to get my beef and clary one way or another, i stayed in london, thinking to keep up my purse by teaching fence; but 'tis an overcrowded vocation, and the rogues that can chatter the most italian take all the cream. so old kit must needs betake himself to a gentlemanly kind of gull-catching, never using the false dice till the true went against him, look you; nor bullying a winner out of the stakes when they could be had peaceably; and always working alone, disdaining to fellow with rascally gangs. but often i have sighed that i did not as rumney did,--he that was mine ancient in the campaigns in spain and ireland. when the nation waxed womanish, and would have no more of war, rumney, for love of the country, took to the highways, and i have heard he hath thrived well about sherwood forest and toward yorkshire. 'twas my choice of a town life hindered me being his captain on the road as i had been in the wars. i hear he calleth himself captain now! though he puts his head oftener into the noose than i, and runs more risk of sword and pistol, his work is the worthier of a soldier and gentleman for that. yet i do not call rumney gentleman, neither! a marvellous scurvy rogue! but no coward. would that thy business might take us so far as we should fall in with the rascal! i should well like to drink a gallon of sack with the rascally cur, in memory of old times, or to stab him in the paunch for a trick he did me about a woman in the low countries!" finchley common was crossed without threat of danger, the only rogues met being of the swindling, begging, feigning, pilfering order, all promptly recognized and classified by the experienced captain. nor did whetston or barnet or hatfield, or the intervening country, yield any event, save that a clock struck six, and the day--gray enough at best--was on the wane when they passed through hatfield. they had made but five miles an hour, the road, though frozen, being uneven and difficult, and hal assuming that the pursuivant, ignorant of a plan to forewarn sir valentine, would not greatly hasten. he relied on the hour's start he had taken out of london, and he saved his horses to meet any demand for speed that might suddenly arise. at the worst, if the officer and his men came up behind him, he could increase his pace and outride them to welwyn. and thus it was that he let no northbound riders pass him, and that when such riders, of whatever aspect, appeared in the distant rear, he spurred forward sufficiently to leave them out of sight. on the hill, two or three miles beyond hatfield, he stopped and looked back over the lower country, but could make out no group of horsemen in the gathering darkness. his destination was now near at hand, and he was still unsettled between opposite feelings,--satisfaction that his errand seemed certain of accomplishment, regret that there seemed no prospect of narrow work by which he might a little distinguish himself in his own eyes. the last few miles he rode in silence, bottle having ceased prattling and become meditative under the influence of nightfall. it was seven o'clock when they rode across the brook into close view of welwyn church at the left of the road, and a few minutes later when they drew up before the wall in front of fleetwood house,--of which hal knew the location, through visits in former years,--and began to pound on the barred gate with their weapons, and to call "ho, within!" the mansion beyond the wall was a timbered one, its gables backed by trees. it had no park, and its wall enclosed also a small orchard at the rear, and a smaller courtyard at the front. at one side of the gate was a porter's lodge, but this was at present vacant, or surely the knocking on the wooden gate would have brought forth its occupant. it seemed as if the house was deserted, and hal had a sudden inward sense of unexpected obstacle, perhaps insuperable, in his way. his heart beat a little more rapidly, until kit, having ridden to where he could see the side of the house, reported a light in the side window of a rear chamber. hal thereupon increased his hallooing, with some thought of what might occur if the pursuivants should come up ere he got admission. at length there appeared a moving nebula of light amidst the darkness over the yard; it approached the gate; steps were heard on the walk within; finally a little wicket was opened in the gate, and a long, bearded, sour face was visible in the light of a lanthorn held up by its owner. "who is it disturbeth the night in this manner?" asked a nasal voice, in a tone of complaint and reproof. "'tis i, master underhill," spoke hal, from his horse, "master harry marryott, sir valentine's friend. i must see sir valentine without a moment's delay," and he started to dismount. "i know not if thou canst see sir valentine without delay, or at all whatsoever," replied the man of dismal countenance. his face had the crow's feet and the imprinted frown of his fifty years, and there was some gray on his bare head. "not see him!" blurted out hal. "what the devil--open me the gate this instant or i'll teach thee a lesson! dost hear, anthony?" "yield not to thy wrath nor call upon the foul fiend, master marryott," said anthony, severely. "i shall go decently and in order, and learn if thou mayst be admitted." and he leisurely closed the wicket to return to the house. hal could scarce contain himself for anger. being now afoot he called after the man, and hammered on the gate, but with no effect of recalling or hastening him. "a snivelling puritan, or i'm a counterfeit soldier!" observed kit bottle, in a tone of contempt and detestation.[ ] "ay," said hal, "and all the worse whiner because, out of inherited ties, he serveth a catholic master. the old groaner,--that he should put me to this delay when sir valentine's life is at stake!" this was hal's first intimation to kit of the real nature of his business. the captain received it without comment, merely asking if he should dismount. "no," said hal, tying his own horse to the gate; "but when i am admitted, ride you back to the village, and listen for the sound of hoofs from the direction of london; if you hear such, come swiftly back, hallooing at the top of thy voice, and get off thy horse, and hold him ready for another to mount in thy stead. a hundred curses on that tony underhill! he hath been sir valentine's steward so long, he dareth any impertinence. and yet he never stayed me at the gate before! and his grave look when he said he knew not if i might see sir valentine! 'twas a more solemn face than even he is wont to wear. holy mary! can it be that they are here already,--that they have come before me?" "an it be men in quest of sir valentine, you mean," said kit, who was of quick divination, "where be their horses? they would scarce stable them, and make a visit. nor would all be so quiet and dark." "and yet he looked as something were amiss," replied hal, but partly reassured. the faint mist of light appeared again, the deliberate steps were heard, and this time the gate was unbarred and slowly drawn a little space open. in the lanthorn's light was seen the spare, tall figure that went with the long, gloomy face. "i will conduct thee to sir valentine," said anthony. hal stepped forward with an exclamation of relief and pleasure, and kit bottle instantly started his horse back toward the village. hal followed the puritan steward through a porched doorway, across a hall, up a staircase that ascended athwart the rear, and thence along a corridor, to the last door on the side toward the back of the house. anthony softly opened this door. hal entered a chamber lighted by two candles on a table, and containing in one corner a large high-posted bed. on the table, among other things, lay an ivory crucifix. a plainly dressed gentleman sat on a chair between the table and the bed. to this gentleman, without casting a look at his face, hal bowed respectfully, and began, "i thank god, sir valentine--" "nay, sir," answered the gentleman, quietly, as if to prevent some mistake; and hal, looking up, perceived that this was not sir valentine, but a pale, watchful-looking man, with fiery eyes; while a voice, strangely weakened, came from the bed: "thou'rt welcome, harry." "what!" cried hal, striding to the bed. "sir valentine, goest thou to bed so early?" "ay," replied sir valentine, motionless on his back, "and have been abed these two days, with promise from my good physician here of getting up some six days hence or so." "thou'lt not move for another week, at least, sir valentine," said the physician, the gentleman whom hal first addressed. "'tis a sword wound got in a quarrel, harry," explained sir valentine, feebly, and paused, out of breath, looking for a reply. but hal stood startled and speechless. not move for a week, and the state officer likely to arrive in an hour! "and in every possible manner aid and hasten his departure from the country," her majesty had said; and hal had taken her money, and by his promise, by her trust in him, by every consideration that went to the making of a gentleman, a man of honor, or an honest servant, stood bound to carry out her wish. the errand was not to be so simple, after all. chapter v. the player proves himself a gentleman. "warrants and pursuivants! away! warrants and pursuivants!"--_the wise woman of hogsdon._ sir valentine fleetwood was a thin man, with regular features and sunken cheeks, his usually sallow face now flushed with fever. his full round beard was gray, but there were yet streaks of black in his flowing hair. "sir valentine," hal began, suppressing his excitement, "there is private news i must make known to you instantly." and he cast a look at the doctor, who frowned, and at anthony, who remained motionless near the door, with his lanthorn still in hand, as if expecting that he should soon have to escort hal out again. "sir valentine is not in a condition to hear--" broke in the doctor, in a voice of no loudness, but of much latent authority. "but this is of the gravest import--" interrupted hal, and was himself interrupted by sir valentine, who had gathered breath for speech. "nay, harry, it may wait. i am in no mind for business." "but it requireth immediate action," said hal, who would have told the news itself, but that he desired first the absence of the doctor and the steward. "then 'twill serve nothing to be told," said sir valentine, lapsing into his former weakness, and with a slight shade of annoyance upon his face. "as thou see'st, boy, i am in no state for action. a plague upon the leg, i can't stir it half an inch." "but--" cried harry. the physician rose, and anthony, with an outraged look, took a deprecatory step toward harry. "no more, young sir!" quoth the physician, imperatively. "sir valentine's life--" "but that is what i have come to speak of," replied hal, in some dudgeon. "zounds, sir, do you know what you hinder? there are concerns you wot not of!" "tut, master marryott," said sir valentine. "as for my life, 'tis best in the doctor's hands; and for concerns, i have none now but my recovery. not for myself, the blessed mary knoweth! but for others' sakes, in another land. oh, to think i should be drawn into an unwilling quarrel, and get this plagued hurt! and mine opponent--hast heard yet how mr. hazlehurst fares, anthony?" "no, your honor," said the puritan; but he let his glance fall to the floor as he spoke, and seemed to suffer an inward groan as of self-reproach. sir valentine could not see him for the bed-curtains. "tis a lesson to shun disputes, boy," said sir valentine, to hal. "here were my old neighbor's son, young mr. hazlehurst, and myself, bare acquaintances, 'tis true, but wishing each other no harm. and two days ago, meeting where the roads crossed, and a foolish question of right of way occurring, he must sputter out hot words at me, and i must chide him as becometh an elder man; and ere i think of consequences, his sword is out, and i have much to do to defend myself! and the end is, each is carried off by servants, with blood flowing; my wound in the groin, his somewhere in the breast. i would fain know how he lies toward recovery! you should have taken pains to inquire, anthony." "sir valentine," said the physician, "thou art talking too much. master marryott, you see how things stand. if you bear sir valentine friendship, you have no choice but to go away, sith you have paid your respects. he would have it that you be admitted. pray, abuse not his courtesy." "but, sir, that which i must tell him concerns--" "i'll hear naught that concerns myself," said sir valentine, with the childish stubbornness of illness. "tell me of thine own self, harry. 'tis years since i saw thee last, and in that time i've had no word of thee. didst go to london, and stay there? my letter, it seems, availed thee nothing. how livest thou? what is thy place in the world?" hal decided to throw the physician and anthony off guard by coming at his news indirectly. so he answered sir valentine: "i am a stage player." sir valentine opened eyes and mouth in amazement; he gasped and stared. "a stage player!" he echoed, horrified. "thy father's son a stage player! a marryott a stage player! sir, sir, you have fallen low! blessed mary, what are the times? a gentleman turn stage player!" old anthony had drawn back from hal, vastly scandalized, his eyes raised heavenward as if for divine protection from contamination; and the physician gazed, in a kind of passionless curiosity. "a stage player," said hal, firmly, having taken his resolution, "may prove himself still a gentleman. he may have a gentleman's sense of old friendship shown, and a gentleman's honesty to repay it, as i have when i come to save thee from the privy council's men riding hither to arrest thee for high treason! and a gentleman's authority, as i have when i bid this doctor and this anthony to aid thy escape, and betray or hinder it not, on pain of deeper wounds than thine!" and hal, having drawn his sword, stood with his back to the doorway. sir valentine himself was the first to speak; he did so with quiet gravity: "art quite sure of this, harry?" "quite, sir valentine. we stage players consort with possessors of state secrets, now and then. the warrant for thy apprehension was signed this day. a council's pursuivant was to leave london at three o'clock, with men to assure thy seizure. i, bearing in mind my family's debt to thine, and mine own to thee, started at two, to give thee warning. more than that, i swear to save thee. this arrest, look you, means thy death; from what i heard, i perceive thy doom is prearranged; thy trial is to be a pretence." "i can believe that!" said sir valentine, with a grim smile. "'tis not my fault that these two have been let into the secret," said hal, indicating the physician and anthony. "and it shall not be to sir valentine's disadvantage, sir, speaking for myself," said the physician. "his honor knows whether i may be trusted," said anthony, swelling with haughty consciousness of his fidelity, as if to outdo the physician, toward whom his looks were always oblique and of a covert antipathy. "i know ye are my friends," said sir valentine. "i could have spoken for you. but what is to be done? 'tis true i cannot move. think it no whimsy of the doctor's, harry. blessed mary, send heaven to my help! think not, harry, 'tis for myself i moan. thou knowest not how my matters stand abroad. there are those awaiting me in france, dependent on me--" "and to france we must send you safe, sir valentine!" said harry. "you could not be supported on horseback, i suppose?" the physician looked amazed at the very suggestion, and sir valentine smiled gloomily and shook his head. "or in a coach, an one were to be had?" hal went on. "'twould be the death of him in two miles," said the physician. "moreover, where is a coach to be got in time?" "is there no hiding-place near, to which you might be carried?" asked hal, of sir valentine, knowing how most catholic houses were provided in those days. sir valentine exchanged looks with the physician and anthony, then glanced toward the wall of the chamber, and answered: "there is a space 'twixt yon panelling and the outer woodwork of the house. it hath air through hidden openings to the cracked plaster without; and is close to the chimney, for warmth. in a hasty search it would be passed over,--there is good proof of that. but this pursuivant, not finding me, would sound every foot of wall in the house. he would, eventually, detect the hollowness of the panelling there, and the looseness of the boards that hide the entrance. or, if he did not that, he and his men would rouse the county, and occupy the house in expectation of my secret return; they would learn of my quarrel and wound, and would know i must be hid somewhere near. while they remained in the house, searching the neighborhood with sheriff's and magistrate's men, keeping watch on every one, how should i be supplied and cared for in that hole? it would soon become, not my hiding-place, but my grave,--for which 'tis truly of the right dimensions!" "but if, not finding you in the first search, they should suppose you gone elsewhere?" said hal, for sheer need of offering some hope, however wild. "why, they would still make the house the centre of their search, as i said." "but if they were made to believe you had fled afar?" "they would soon learn of my wound. it hath been bruited about the neighborhood. they would know it made far flight impossible." "but can they learn how bad thy wound is? might it not be a harmless scratch?" "it might, for all the neighborhood knoweth of it," put in anthony; and the physician nodded. "then, if they had reason to think you far fled?" pursued hal. "why," replied sir valentine, "some of them would go to make far hunt; others would wait for my possible return, and to search the house for papers. and the constables and officers of the shire would be put on the watch for me." "need the search for papers lead to the discovery of yon hiding-place?" "no. the searchers would find papers in my study to reward a search, though none to harm any but myself. the other gentlemen concerned are beyond earthly harm." "but," quoth hal, the vaguest outlines of a plan beginning to take shape before him, "were the pursuivant, on arriving at your gate, to be checked by certain news that you had fled in a particular direction, would he not hasten off forthwith on your track, with all his men? would he take time for present search or occupancy of your house, or demand upon constable's or sheriff's men? and if your track were kept ever in view before him, would he not continue upon it to the end? and suppose some of his men were left posted in thy house. these would be few, three or four at most, seeing that the main force were close upon thy trail. these three or four would not look for thy return; they would look for thy taking by their comrades first. they would keep no vigil, and being without their leader,--who would head the pursuing party,--they would rest content with small search for papers; they would rather be industrious in searching thy wine-cellar and pantry. thus you could be covertly attended from this chamber, by nurse or doctor, acquainted with the house. and when you were able to move, these men, being small in force, might be overpowered; or, being careless, they might be eluded. and thus you might pass out of the house by night, and into a coach got ready by the doctor, and so to the sea; and the men in thy house none the wiser, and those upon thy false track still chasing farther away." "harry, harry," said sir valentine, in a kindly but hopeless tone, "thou speak'st dreams, boy!" "ne'ertheless," said hal, "is't not as i say, an the false chase were once contrived?" "why," put in the physician, "that is true enough. send me away the pursuivant and most of his men, and let those who stay think sir valentine thus pursued, and i'll warrant the looking to sir valentine's wants, and his removal in nine days or so. nine days he will need, not an hour less; and yet another day, to make sure; that is ten. but should the pursuers on the false chase discover their mistake, and return ere ten days be gone, all were lost. e'en suppose they could be tricked by some misguidance at the gate, which is not conceivable, they'd not go long on their vain hunt without tangible track to follow. why, master marryott, they'd come speeding back in two hours!" "but if a man rode ahead, and left tangible track, by being seen and noted in the taverns and highways? he need but keep up the chase, by not being caught; the pursuivant may be trusted to pick up all traces left of his travels. these messengers of the council are skilled in tracing men, when there are men to leave traces." "what wild prating is this?" cried sir valentine, somewhat impatiently. "i know thou mean'st kindly, harry, but thy plan is made of moonshine. let a man, or a hundred men, ride forth and leave traces, what shall make these officers think the man is i?" "they shall see him leave thy gate in flight when they come up. and, as for his leading them a chase, he will be on one of thy horses, an there be time to make one ready, otherwise on mine,--in either case, on a fresher horse than theirs. so he shall outride them at the first dash, and then, one way and another, lead them farther and farther, day after day." "but, man, man! wilder and wilder!" exclaimed sir valentine, as if he thought himself trifled with. "know you not their leader will be one that is well acquainted with my face?" "so much the better," cried hal; "for then he will take oath it is you he sees departing!" "i he sees departing?" echoed sir valentine, and began to look at hal apprehensively, as if in suspicion of madness, a suspicion in which the physician and anthony seemed to join. "i departing, when i am in yon narrow hole between timbers? i departing, when i am hurt beyond power of motion, as their leader will doubtless learn at the village ale-house, on inquiring if i be at home." "yes, sir," said hal, "he shall think it is you, and the more so if he have heard of your wound. for, in the lanthorn's light, as he comes in seeing distance, he shall perceive that you sit your horse as a lame man doth. and that thy head is stiffly perched, thy shoulders drawn back, in the manner peculiar to them. and that thy left elbow is thrust out as is its wont. and that thy hat, as usual, shades thy brow thus. but more than all else, sir, that thy face is of little breadth, thy beard gray and round, as they have been these many years." and hal, having realized in attitude each previous point in his description, took from his pocket the false beard that had lain there since the first performance of "hamlet," and tying it on his face, which he had thinned by drawing in his cheeks, stood transformed into the living semblance of sir valentine fleetwood. chapter vi. and the gentleman proves himself a player. "let the world think me a bad counterfeit, if i cannot give him the slip at an instant."--_every man in his humor._ there was a moment's silence in the chamber. then-- "play-acting!" muttered anthony, with a dark frown, followed by an upturning of the eyes. "thou'lt pass, my son!" said the physician, his eyes alight with approval and new-found hope. "truly, i think he will, sir valentine,--with a touch of the scissors to shape his beard more like!" and he took up from the table a pair of scissors, doubtless used in cutting bandages for the wounded man, and striding toward master marryott, applied them with careful dexterity. "behold," said he, when he had finished. "thou'lt surely fool them in the lanthorn's light and the haste. by close work thou mightst truly lead them off in the night, but in daylight the falseness of thy beard may easily be seen, for the strings 'tis tied withal." "but the officers shall not see my face after the starting. i'll not stay near enough to them for that. 'tis by word of innkeepers and townspeople and country-folk, of my passage through the country, that i shall be traced. and mark: save to officers that keep note of catholics, sir valentine is scarce known ten miles hence, so much hath he lived abroad. and i'm not known out of london and oxfordshire. so who's to set the pursuers right?" "but what then?" said the physician. "those same innkeepers and such can but report the passage of a man with a false beard, at best. more like, they will cause thy detention as a questionable person, till the council's men come up to thee. either way, the pursuivant will see the trick, and speed hotfoot back to this house." "why, look you," said hal, "early in the morning i will hastily enter some inn, my face muffled as for cold. there, in a private chamber, i will take off the beard, and come forth as if i had but shaved. and so report will remain of me, that i came bearded and departed shaven; and the men in pursuit will take this very shaving as a means of disguise. they'll be the more convinced i'm the man." "ay, but there you risk their losing trace of you; for the absence of the beard will show your youth, and make you at odds with their description of you." "why, the loss of a beard will sometimes give an elder man a look of youth. and the same companion shall ride with me,--he that now keeps watch without. by the description of him as my attendant, 'twill be known i am the gentleman that rode from fleetwood house. and to make my trace the more certain, let a second accompany me,--one of sir valentine's servants that live here constantly and are better known than their master is. and he shall also guide me on the roads hereabouts, in my first dash from the gates; for, look you, there will be fleet riding for an hour or two!" "thou hearest, sir valentine," said the physician, turning to the wounded gentleman. "ay," replied the knight, "and being weak of breath, have waited for a breach to put my word in. 'tis all madness, this ye talk of! e'en were't possible. i should let no man risk life for me as this young gentleman offereth. why, lad, they'd catch thee, of a surety--" "i make question of that, sir valentine," quoth hal. "some time or other, they would," said the knight. "and thou knowest the penalty of aiding the escape of one accused of treason! the act itself is treason." "and what if i have already incurred penalties as grievous, on mine own account? and what if i have some running away to do, for myself? may not one flight suffice for both? while i lead these men on a false chase from thee, i but put distance 'twixt myself and danger," said hal, with less regard for truth than for leading sir valentine into his plans. "what, harry?" cried sir valentine. "is it true? but still, thou'rt yet in good way to make thine own escape. to wait for these officers, and to keep them at thy tail, will doubly imperil thee. thou shalt not multiply thine own danger for me,--by mary, thou shalt not!" "but i mean not to be caught, sir valentine. have i no skill, no hardihood? shall youth serve nothing, and strong arms, and hard legs? i will elude them, i swear! but first i will keep them on my tail time enough for thy removal. ten days, the doctor said. an i lead off these fellows a five days' ride from fleetwood house, straight north toward scotland, and then drop them, 'twill take five days for them to ride back. and there, of but five days' work on my part, come the ten days' delay thou needest!" "but thou canst not do it, harry," persisted sir valentine, while the physician silently paced the floor in thought, and the puritan looked on with outward indifference. "why, bethink you! to escape thy pursuers, and yet not to let them lose trace of thee; to outride them ever, yet never ride too far away from them; to elude them, yet not to drop them; this for five days, and then to break off the track and leave them baffled, at the last! tis impossible!" "'tis a glorious kind of sport, sir valentine!" cried hal, his eyes aglow. "'tis a game worth playing! nay, 'tis a stage play, wherein i undertake to act the part of sir valentine fleetwood in flight and disguise! ods-body, i shall prove i am a player! thou shalt not refuse, sir valentine! do as thou wilt, i am for the gate, and when the officers come up, the devil seize me an i do not lead them off again!" "sir valentine doth not refuse," cried the physician, who had manifestly made up his mind. "thou need'st fresh horses? anthony shall fetch them to the gate. and one of sir valentine's known servants, to show the road and leave the better trace? anthony shall go. continual residence here, in his master's absence, hath made him as well known for sir valentine's man as sir valentine is little known for anthony's master. on your way to the stable. anthony, send mary hither, and john. they shall help me house sir valentine yonder, with store of food and drink. straight north toward scotland, sayest thou, master marryott? the right road for thy wild-goose chase. we shall do our part, my son. only gain us the ten days." and the physician strode to the side of the chamber, put aside some faded hangings, and began to loosen a section of the panelling. anthony, frowning haughtily at the physician's giving him orders, looked inquiringly at sir valentine. "but, my good father," began the knight, addressing the physician. hal shot a glance of discovery at the latter. my father! this "doctor" was a doctor of other than the body, then! hal had wondered to see a physician of such mien and manner in this country place, and had thought he might have been summoned from london. but now all was clear. he was a popish priest, disguised in ordinary habit, to escape the severity of the elizabethan statutes; though, doubtless, he knew enough of surgery and medicine for the treatment of sir valentine's wound. "there is no time for talk, my son," said this doctor, interrupting sir valentine. "remember those in france. and let anthony do as i said." "thou hast heard, anthony," said the knight, compliantly, after a moment's reflection. "lead out the horses--" "three, sir valentine," put in hal, to whom time was beginning to appear extremely precious, "as anthony is to go with us. i shall leave my two for thy use." "and take money, anthony," went on sir valentine, while the priest continued to open the way to the secret closet. "i have money, sir," said hal. "but anthony shall take some,--the half of what is in the chest, anthony. the rest will serve me to france, an this plan indeed be not madness." "you have sure ways of going to france, i doubt not," said hal to sir valentine. "ay," said the knight, with a smiling side glance at the busy priest, "we have made that voyage when ports were e'en closer watched than now. and hear this, anthony, before you go,--anthony will show thee, harry, how to make for france on thine own account, if indeed thou dost ride free of these messengers. and he will tell thee where in paris i am to be found. when we meet there,--the saints intercede that we may!--i shall have a way of thanking thee, perchance. go, anthony!" the servant left the room, with a glumness belonging rather to a general habit of surly disapproval than to any particular objection to the task before him. "this house and land," sir valentine went on, "will be confiscate, of course, and myself outlawed. but thou see'st how this estate hath fallen, harry. i keep here but two servants besides anthony, where once i kept twenty. but in all these years i have built up some means of living, across the narrow seas; and thou shalt not want in france. harry!" "think not of me, but of thyself, sir valentine. i'd best leave thee now, and hasten anthony with the horses. i can find him by his lanthorn's light. we have lost much time." but sir valentine would embrace him ere he left, as well as a man so wounded might; and the knight, touched with gratitude, wept as the youth bent over him. hal then turned to take swift leave of the priest, who had now caused a dark hole to gape in the wooden panelling. the latter, at this, took up a cloak from a chair, detached hal's own shorter cloak, and put the other over the youth's shoulders, saying: "'tis sir valentine's own cloak, and more befitting the part thou hast to play, master actor! take my blessing, and the saints watch over thee!" with no more ado, hal hastened from the room, and down to the hall, where anthony, bearing the lanthorn, was ordering the two other servants to their master's chamber. hal held his cloak over his face till they were gone up the stairs; then he bade anthony show him quickly to the stables, adding: "as for the money, if you must obey orders, you may get it while i am saddling the horses." the steward gave a grunt, and led the way out to the stables, where he indicated the three best horses. he then returned to the house, leaving the lanthorn; but presently reappeared, in time to help hal with the horses, and to receive at the same time the player's explicit directions for the conduct of matters on the arrival of the officers. the two men then led the horses to the front gate, where anthony tied a pair of them, that he might take hal's london horse to the stable. master marryott mounted and rode toward the village to acquaint captain bottle with what was to be done. on perceiving kit's stalwart figure, black against the dim night, hal called out to him to follow back to the mansion. while the two were covering the distance thereto, hal briefly put the soldier in possession of what it was needful for the latter to know. anthony had now returned from the stable, and the lanthorn revealed hal's transformation, which the captain viewed with critical approval while transferring himself from his tired horse to one of the fresh ones. "and the puritan rides with us?" queried bottle, while anthony was gone with the second horse to the stable. "sad company, sad company! an the dull rogue sermon me upon the sins of the flesh, i'll knock in his teeth to shut up his throat withal! well, well! this mixing in matters of state maketh strange bedfellows. i mind me once--lend ear. hal! hoofs yonder, or i'm an owl else!" hal listened. yes, horses were crossing the wooden bridge of the brook on the londonward side of the village. "should these be the men?" whispered hal in a low voice. "they come slowly." "who else should be on the road at this hour?" replied kit. "they know not any reason for haste." "a red murrain on that puritan, then!" said hal. "what holds him so long at the stable? all is lost, without his lanthorn. i'll ride in and fetch him." "nay, they must use time enough in coming hither. hark! they have halted in the village. mayhap they must needs ask the way to fleetwood house." "'tis well, then. they will learn of sir valentine's hurt." there was then a very trying time of silence and waiting, during which hal's heart beat somewhat as it had beaten in the tiring-room before the performance of "hamlet." "hear them again," he said at last, through his teeth. "and that rascal puritan--" "save thy breath! here he comes." anthony indeed now appeared with the light, crossing the yard with longer strides than he had previously taken; he, too, had heard the approaching horses. "into thy saddle, dog!" muttered hal. "and a plague on thee for thy slowness! now do as i bid, or i'll give thee a bellyful of steel!" the steward having got on horseback, hal led the way back into the yard. the three then wheeled about, and stood just within the now wide-open gate. anthony at hal's right and bearing the lanthorn in his left hand, kit at hal's left. hal measured with his ears the constantly decreasing distance of the hoof-beats on the hard road, as they advanced at a steady walking pace. through the silence came the sound of a far-off clock striking eight, and then of the approaching horsemen talking to one another in low tones. at last hal said, "now!" and rode forth into the road, which was here of exceptional width. the three, riding abreast, turned toward london, as if intending to ride southward. had they continued, they would soon have met the approaching horsemen face to face. but suddenly hal, as if he now for the first time discovered the presence of newcomers, stopped short, as did also his two attendants. anthony, in pretence of enabling the make-believe sir valentine to perceive who the horsemen were, held the lanthorn up, a little to the right and rear of hal's body, so that it revealed his attitude and left his face in shadow. leaning forward, as in pain, yet with head stiffly set, shoulders forced back, hat low on brow, left elbow thrust out, and beard well outlined against the light, hal peered anxiously into the gloom. out of that gloom there came, after a startled exclamation and a hush of low voices, the clear greeting: "give you good even, sir valentine!" hal uttered a swift order to his men. anthony instantly wheeled around, to take the lead, and rode northward. hal did likewise, and was immediately followed by captain bottle. as soon as hal made sure that kit had turned, he called to the steward ahead to make speed; and a moment later the three were galloping over the frozen road at the devil's gait. "halt! in the queen's name!" rang out of the darkness behind, in the voice that had been heard before. "go to hell, roger barnet!" shouted back kit bottle, to hal's astonishment. "you know him?" queried hal, as the horses flew onward. "yes, and a taker of traitors he is, sure enough!" growled kit through the night. "a very hell-hound, at a man's heels! hear him cursing, back yonder, for his pistol will not go off! they have whipped up; the whole pack is on the scent!" "good!" cried hal. "sir valentine and the priest will have plain sailing. the chase is begun, old kit! five days of this, and the hounds must neither lose nor catch us! ods-body, the puritan's lanthorn is out! i hope he knows the road in the dark!" chapter vii. mistress anne hazlehurst. "i have got the start; but ere the goal, 'twill ask both brain and art." --_the english traveller._ manifestly the puritan knew the road, and manifestly it was known to the horses, also; for without decrease of swiftness the few black objects at the roadside--indistinct blurs against the less black stretches of night-sky--seemed to race back toward the men in pursuit. soon the riders had a wood at their right, a park at their left. then there was perforce a slowing up, for a hill had to be ascended. but by this time the enemy was left almost out of ear-shot. hal, knowing his party to be the more freshly mounted, took heed to make no further gain at present. while in the vicinity of fleetwood house, the chase must be so close that the officers would not for a moment drop it to consider some other course of action. as long as they were at his heels, and saw imminent possibility of taking him, it was not probable that they would separate for the purpose of searching sir valentine's house, or of causing proclamation to be sent broadcast by which port wardens might be put on guard, or of taking time to seek the aid of shire officers, justices, and constables. it was not for himself that hal had most to fear a hue and cry of the country, for by keeping ahead of the officers by whom that hue and cry must be evoked, he should keep ahead of the hue and cry itself; but such a raising of the country would direct to fleetwood house an attention which might hinder sir valentine's eventual removal. once the pursuers were drawn into another county, hal might gain over them sufficient time for his own rest and refreshment, and for his necessary changes of horse. when committed to the hunt by several hours' hard riding, the officers, for their own reputation, would be less likely to abandon it for a return to fleetwood house; and though, as the hunt should develop into a long and toilsome business, they would surely take time to enlist local authorities in it, those authorities would not be of hertfordshire, and their eyes would be turned toward hal himself, not toward fleetwood house. "tell me more of this barnet," said hal to captain bottle, as the three fugitives rode up a second hill. the sound of the pursuers, galloping across the level stretch between the two heights, came with faint distinctness to the ears of the pursued, in intervals of the noise made by their own horses,--noise of breathing, snorting, treading the rough earth, and clashing against the loose stones that lay in the ditch-like road. "why, he is a chaser of men by choice," answered kit. "i knew him years agone, in sir francis walsingham's day. beshrew me if he is ever happy without a warrant in his pouch. i'm a bottle-ale rascal an he hath not carried the signature of the secretary of state over more miles than any other man! a silent, unsocial rogue! when i knew him first, he was one of walsingham's men; and so was i, i' faith! we chased down some of the babington conspirators together,--that was fifteen years ago. for, look you, this raising of the country against a traitor is well enough, when he is a gentleman of note, that openly gathers his followers and fortifies his house and has not to be hunted out like a hare. but when traitors are subtle fellows that flee and disguise themselves, these loutish constables' knaves, that watch for hunted men in front of ale-houses, are sad servants of the state, god wot!--and i have seen with these eyes a letter to that effect, from lord burleigh to sir francis, when this same barnet and i were a-hunting the babington rascals."[ ] "then this barnet is like to keep on our track?" interrogated hal. "yea, that he is! 'tis meat and drink to the rogue, this man-hunting! he takes a pride in it, and used to boast he had never yet lost his game. and never did he, to my knowledge, but once, and that was my doing, which was the cause of our falling out. when sir francis walsingham died, we remained in service as pursuivants--to attend the orders of the council and the high commission. that was a fat trade! great takings, rare purse-filling! old kit had no need of playing coney-catcher in those days! we would be sent to bring people up to london, to prison, and 'twas our right to charge them what we pleased for service and accommodation; and when they could not pay, it went hard with them. well, roger barnet and i disagreed once about dividing the money we meant to squeeze out of a gloucestershire gentleman, that some lord his neighbor had got a council's order against, for having troubled his lordship with a lawful suit in the courts. rather than take the worse of it from roger barnet, i got up when he was asleep, at the inn we were staying overnight, and set the gentleman free. roger would have killed me the next day, had he been as good a swordsman as he is a man-hunter. but, as it was, he had to be content with my losing so fat a service. for he was in favor with mr. beal, the clerk of the council, and might have made things hard for me but that i took forthwith to the wars." "god look to it he may not have chance of making things hard for thee in this business!" said hal. "why, one thing is sure," replied kit, "he will stick to our heels the longer for my being of the party. 'twould warm his heart to pay off old scores. he'll perchance think 'twas i that got word of sir valentine's danger and brought warning. and, certes, he finds me aiding an accused traitor, which brings me, too, under the treason statutes. 'twould be a sweet morsel to roger barnet to carry me back prisoner to london! an thy plan be to keep roger on our track, 'tis well i made myself known by word of mouth, as i did. though, for that matter, i say it again, roger is not the dog to quit any scent, let him once lay his nose to the earth." ahead rode the puritan, in a silence as of sullenness, his figure more clearly drawn against the night as hal's eyes were the better accustomed to the darkness. hal now spoke so that both anthony and kit might hear, saying: "my men, ye are to plant it in your minds that i am sir valentine fleetwood, none other; but ye will seem to wish to hide from people that i am he. hence ye will call me by some other name, it matters not what; and the better 'twill be an ye blunder in that name, and disagree in it from time to time. the more then will it appear that i, sir valentine, am trying to pass myself off as another. but sometimes seem to forget, and call me sir valentine, and then hastily correct yourselves as if ye had spoke incautiously." "the lie be on your own head, though my mouth be forced to speak it," replied anthony underhill, dismally. "willingly," said hal; and kit bottle put in: "an the weight be too heavy on thy head, master marryott, let old kit bear some of it. ods-body, some folk be overfearful of damnation!" anthony muttered something about scoffers, and rode on without further speech. so they traversed a hamlet, then a plain, then more hills and another sleeping village. varying their pace as the exigencies of the road required, they were imitated in this--as they could hear--by barnet's party. the narrowness of the highway, which hereabouts ran for a good distance between lines of wooden fence, compelled them to ride in single file. they had been on the road an hour, perhaps, and made about five miles, so that they were probably a mile from stevenage, when anthony called back to hal: "there be riders in front, sir, coming toward us." "so my ears tell me," said hal, after a moment's listening. "who the devil can be abroad at this hour? i hope we suffer no delay in passing them." barnet's men were now a half mile behind, evidently nursing the powers of their horses for a timely dash. a stoppage of any kind might nip hal's fine project in the bud. hence it was with anxiety that he strained his eyes forward. the newcomers were approaching at a fast walk. one of them, the foremost, was carrying a light. as they drew nearer, riding one behind another, they took a side of the road, the more speedily to pass. but the leader, as he came opposite anthony underhill, and saw the puritan's face in the feeble light, instantly pulled up, and called out to one behind in a kind of surprise: "here's sir valentine's steward, anthony underhill!" "give ye good even, dickon, and let us pass," said anthony, sourly; for the other had quickly turned his horse crosswise so as to block most of the narrow road. "is that thy master i see yonder?" he asked, holding his light toward hal, who had promptly ridden up abreast of anthony. "what is that to you, fellow?" cried hal. "'tis something to me!" called out a voice behind the fellow,--a voice that startled hal, for it was a woman's. "are you sir valentine?" "who wishes to know?" inquired hal, putting some courtesy into the speech. "i do--anne hazlehurst!" was the quick answer. and the light-bearer having made room for her, she rode forward. hazlehurst! where, hal asked himself, had he recently heard that name? "well, are you sir valentine?" she demanded, impatiently. "i do not deny it," said hal. "then here's for you,--slayer of my brother!" she cried, and struck him full in the face with the flat of a sword she had held beneath her cloak. in doing this she thrust her hooded head more into the lanthorn's light, and hal recalled two things at the same instant,--the name hazlehurst as that of the gentleman with whom sir valentine had fought, and the woman's face as that with which he, master marryott, had fallen in love at the theatre during the play of "hamlet." chapter viii. "a devil of a woman." "from all such devils, good lord, deliver us!"--_the taming of the shrew._ "and now, my men, upon him!" cried mistress hazlehurst, backing to make room in which her followers might obey. these followers tried to push forward; the horses crowded one another, and there ensued much huddling and confusion. but the lantern-bearer, holding his light and his bridle in one hand, caught mr. marryott's bridle with the other. hal struck this hand down with one of his pistols, which were not prepared for firing. he then drew his sword, with a gesture that threw hesitation into the ranks of his opposers. "madam," he cried, in no very gentle tone, "may i know what is your purpose in this?" "'tis to prevent your flight," she called back, promptly. "the officers of justice are slow; i shall see that you forestall them not." for a moment hal, thinking only of the officers behind him, wondered if she could have heard of the council's intention, and whether it was to the royal messengers that she alluded. "what have officers of justice to do with me?" he asked. "to call you to account for the killing of my brother!" sir valentine's fight, in which wounds had been given on both sides, again recurred to hal's mind. "your brother is dead, then?" he inquired. "i am but now from his funeral!" was her answer. in that case, hal deduced, her brother must have died two days before, that is to say, on the very day of the fight. the news must have come belated to the sister, for she had been at the performance of "hamlet," yesterday. and here was explanation of her departure from the theatre in the midst of the play. the summons to her dead brother's side had followed her to the playhouse, and there overtaken her. afterward, hal found these inferences to be correct. for a second or two of mutual inaction, he marvelled at the strange ways of circumstance which had brought this woman, whom he had yesterday admired in the crowded london playhouse, to confront him in such odd relations on this lonely, night-hidden road in hertfordshire. but a sound that a turn of the wind brought--the sound of roger barnet's men riding nearer--sharpened him to the necessity of immediate action against this sudden hindrance. yet he felt loath to go from this woman. go he must, however, though even at the possible cost of violence to her people. the puritan retained his place at marryott's side. kit bottle was close behind, and with horse already half turned so that he might face barnet's men should they come up too soon; he had drawn his sword, and was quietly making ready his pistols. "madam," said hal, decisively, "i did not kill your brother. now, by your favor, i will pass, for i am in some haste." "what!" she cried. "did you lie just now, when you said you were sir valentine fleetwood?" now, hal might tell her that he was not sir valentine; but, doubtless, she would not believe him; and thus the situation would not be changed. and, on the other hand, if she should believe him, so much the worse,--she would then bend her energies toward the hindrance of the real sir valentine; would ride on toward fleetwood house, be met and questioned by roger barnet, and set him right, or at least cause him to send a party back to fleetwood house to investigate. so hal's purpose would be speedily frustrated. his only course was to let her think him really the man he was impersonating; indeed that course would make but another step in the continued deception of roger barnet, and hal was bound to take such steps--not avoid them--for the next five days. "mistress hazlehurst," replied hal, taking a kind of furtive joy in using her name upon his lips for the first time, "i do not deny that i am sir valentine fleetwood; but i did not kill your brother. i wish you heaven's blessing and a good night, for i am going on!" with that he started his horse forward. "take him!" she shouted to her men. "ye shall pay for it an he escape!" the threat had effect. the attendants crowded upon hal, some with swords drawn, some with clubs upraised; so that his horse, after a few steps, reared wildly upon its haunches, and sought a way out of the press. "back, dogs!" commanded marryott, striking right and left with sword and pistol. there were cries of pain from men and horses; the men wielded their weapons as best they could; but a way was somehow opened. mistress hazlehurst herself was forced against the fence at the roadside, one of her followers--a slender, agile youth--skilfully interposing his horse and body between her and the crush. she would have pressed into the midst of the blows and of the rearing beasts, had not this servant restrained her horse by means which she, in her excitement, did not perceive. but she continued calling out orders, in a loud, wrathful voice. as hal opened way, anthony and bottle followed close, preventing the enemy from closing in upon his rear. the puritan used a short sword with a business-like deliberation and care, and with no word or other vocal sign than a kind of solemnly approbative grunt as he thrust. bottle, who rode last, handled his long rapier with great swiftness and potency, in all directions, swearing all the while; and finally let off his two pistols, one after the other, at two men who hung with persistence upon hal's flanks, while hal was forcing the last opposition in front. one of these two fell wounded or dead, the other was thrown by his maddened horse; and finally the three fugitives were free of the mass of men and beasts that had barred the way. one of the horses was clattering down the road ahead, without a rider. hal informed himself by a single glance that anthony and kit were free and able, and then, with an "on we go!" he spurred after the riderless horse toward stevenage. "after him, you knaves!" screamed mistress hazlehurst, in a transport of baffled rage; but her servants, some unhorsed, some with broken heads or pierced bodies, one with a pistol wound in his side, and the rest endeavoring to get the horses under control, were quite heedless of her cries. "a sad plight to leave a lady in!" said hal, who had heard her futile order. he and his two men were now riding at a gallop, to regain lost advantage. "a devil of a woman!" quoth captain bottle, in a tone of mere comment, void of any feeling save, perhaps, a little admiration. "why did she not know me, either as sir valentine, or as not being sir valentine?" asked hal, calling ahead to anthony, who had resumed his place in front. "she hath dwelt most time in london with a city kinswoman," was the answer, "and sir valentine hath lived usually in france since she was born." "'tis well master barnet knew sir valentine better, or knew him well enough to take me for him in my disguise," said hal. "trust roger barnet to know every papist in the kingdom," called out kit bottle, "and to know every one else that's like to give occasion for his services. it is a pride of his to know the english papists whereever they be. roger is often on the continent, look you. he is the privy council's longest finger!" "tell me of this mistress hazlehurst," said hal to the puritan, to whose side he now rode up. "is't true she is the sister of the gentleman sir valentine fought?" "his only sister," returned anthony. "his only close kin. she is now heiress to the hazlehurst estate, and just old enough to be free of wardship." "a strong love she must have borne her brother, to fly straight from his funeral to see him avenged!" "nay, i know not any great love betwixt 'em. they could not live in the same house, or in the same county, for their wrangles--being both of an ungodly violence. 'twas her brother's unrighteous proneness to anger that forced the brawl on sir valentine. 'twas that heathenish quarrelsomeness, some say, that kept mr. hazlehurst a bachelor. 'tis a wonder the evil spirit of wrath in him brought him not sooner to his death. he fought many duels,--not hereabouts, where men were careful against provoking him, but in france, where he lived much. 'twas there, indeed, that he and sir valentine best knew each other." "and yet this sister must have loved him. women are not commonly so active toward punishing a brother's slayer," insisted hal. "why," replied anthony, "methinks this woman is a hothead that must needs do with her own hands what, if she were another woman, she would only wish done. 'tis a pride of family that moveth her to look to the avenging of her brother's death. a blow at him she conceiveth to be a blow at herself, the two being of same name and blood. this sister and brother have ever been more quick, one to resent an affront against the other from a third person, than they have been slow to affront each other. i am not wont to speak in the language of the lost, or to apply the name of the arch-enemy to them that bear god's image; but, indeed, as far as a headstrong will and violent ways are diabolical, yon profane man spoke aptly when he named mistress anne a devil of a woman!" "all's one for that," said hal, curtly. "but, certes, as far as a matchless face and a voice of music are angelical, i speak as aptly when i name this mistress anne an angel of a woman! it went against me to leave her in the road thus, in a huddle of bleeding servants and runaway horses." "tis a huddle that will block the way for roger barnet a while," put in captain bottle. "doubtless he and his men have ridden up to her by now," replied marryott. "i'd fain see what is occurring betwixt them." then lapsing into silence. hal and his two attendants rode on, passing through slumbering stevenage, and continuing uninterruptedly northward. barnet's party had indeed come up to mistress hazlehurst's, and the scene now occurring between them was one destined to have a strange conclusion. anne's followers,--raw serving men without the skill or decision to have used rightly their numerical superiority over the three fugitives,--all were more or less hurt, except two,--the slight one who had personally shielded her, and the lantern-bearer, who had been taken out of the fray by the intractability of his horse. not only was her escort useless for any immediate pursuit of the supposed sir valentine, but the condition of its members required of her, as their mistress and leader, an instant looking to. the necessity of this forbade her own mad impulse to ride unaided after the man who had escaped her, and whom she was the more passionately enraged against because of his victory over her and of his treatment of her servants. nothing could have been more vexatious than the situation into which she had been brought; and she was bitterly chafing at her defeat, while forcing herself to consider steps for the proper care of her injured servants, when barnet's troop came clattering up the road. mistress hazlehurst's horses, except the runaway, had now been got under command; some of her men, merely bruised in body or head, stood holding them; others, worse hurt, lay groaning at the roadside, whither she had ordered their comrades to drag them. anne herself sat her horse in the middle of the road, the little fellow, still mounted, at her left hand. such was the group that caused barnet and his men to pull up their horses to an abrupt halt. peering forward, with eyes now habituated to the darkness, the royal pursuivant swiftly inspected the figures before him, perceived that sir valentine and his two attendants were not of them, wondered what a woman was doing at the head of such a party, dismissed that question as none of his business, and called out: "madam, a gentleman hath passed you, with two men. did he keep the road to stevenage, or turn out yonder?" "sir valentine fleetwood, mean you?" asked anne, with sudden eagerness. "the same. way to pass, please you. and answer." roger barnet was a man of middle height; bodily, of a good thickness and great solidity; a man with a bold, square face, a frown, cold eyes, a short black beard; a keeper of his own counsel, a man of the fewest possible words, and those gruffly spoken. anne, because her mind was working upon other matter, took no offence at his sharp, discourteous, mandatory style of addressing her. without heeding his demand for way, she said: "sir valentine hath indeed passed! see how he dealt with my servants when i tried to stay him! are you magistrate's men?" "i am a messenger of the queen," said barnet, deigning an answer because, on looking more closely at her horses, a certain idea had come to him. "in pursuit of sir valentine?" she asked. "with a warrant for his apprehension," was the reply. "what! for my brother's death? hath her majesty heard--" "for high treason; and if these be your horses, in the queen's name--" but mistress hazlehurst cut short his speech, in turn. "high treason!" she cried, with jubilation; and this thought flashed through her mind: that if taken for high treason, her enemy, a catholic of long residence in france, was a doomed man; whereas a judicial investigation of his quarrel with her brother might absolve sir valentine from guilt or blame. true, the state's revenge for an offence against itself would not, as such, be her revenge for an offence against her family, and would not in itself afford her the triumph she craved; but sir valentine was in a way to escape the state's revenge; she might be an instrument to effect his capture; in being that, she would find her own revenge. she could then truly say to her enemy, "but for me you might be free; of my work, done in retaliation for killing my brother, shall come your death; and so our blood, as much as the crown, is avenged." all this, never expressed in detail, but conceived in entirety during the time of a breath, was in her mind as she went on: "god's light, he shall be caught, then! he went toward stevenage. i will ride with you!" "nay, madam, there are enough of us. but your horses are fresher than ours. i take some of yours, in the queen's name, and leave mine in your charge." and he forthwith dismounted, ordering his men to do likewise. but ere he made another movement, his hand happening to seek his pouch, he uttered an oath, and exclaimed: "the queen's letters! there's delay! they must be delivered to-night. madam, know you where sir william crashaw's house is? and mr. richard brewby's?" "both are down the first road to the right." "then down the first road to the right i must go, and let sir valentine fleetwood gain time while i am about it. which is your best horse, mistress? and one of your men shall guide me to those gentlemen's houses." and, resigning his horse to a follower, he strode into the midst of the hazlehurst group. "but why lose this time, sir?" said anne. "let my man himself bear these letters." "when i am charged with letters," replied roger barnet, "they pass not from me save into the hands for which they are intended. i shall carry these letters, and catch this traitor. by your leave, i take this horse--and this--and this. get off, fellow! hudsdon, bring my saddle, and saddle me this beast. change horses, the rest of you." "but will you not send men after this traitor, while you bear the letters?" queried anne, making no protest against the pressing of her horses into the queen's service,--a procedure in which no attempt was made to include the horse she herself was on. barnet gave a grunt of laughter, to which he added the words, "my men go with me!" perhaps he dared not trust his men out of his sight, perhaps he wished no one but himself to have the credit of taking the fugitive, perhaps he needed the protection of his complete force against possible attack. "but, man," cried anne, sharply, "you will lose track of sir valentine! you will take two hours, carrying those letters!" "why, mistress," replied barnet, as the change of horses from one party to the other went rapidly on, "will not people in farmhouses and villages hear his three horses pass?" though he assumed a voice of confidence, there was yet in it a tone betraying that he shared her fears. "he ought to be followed while he is yet scarce out of hearing," said anne, "and overtaken, and hindered one way or another till you catch up." barnet cast a gloomy look at her, as if pained at the mention of a course so excellent, but in the present case so impossible. "my horse is the best in the county," she went on. "i can catch him,--hang me if i cannot! i can delay him, too, if there be any way under heaven to do so! dickon, look to thy wounded fellows! see them taken home, and show this gentleman the way to sir william crashaw's and mr. brewby's. come, francis!"--this to the small attendant who kept always near her--"god be praised, you are well-mounted, too!" and she turned her horse's head toward stevenage. "but, mistress anne," cried dickon, in dismay, "you will be robbed--killed! ride not without company!" "let go, dickon, and do as i bid! i shall ride so fast, the fiend himself cannot catch me, till i fall in with that traitor; and then i shall have him and his men for company till this officer come up to him. master messenger, for mine own reasons i promise to impede sir valentine; to be a burden, a weight, and a chain upon him, holding him back by all means i can devise, till you bear your letters and o'ertake him. dickon, heed my orders! follow me. francis! ods-daggers, must i be a milksop, and afraid o' nights, because i wasn't born to wear hose instead of petticoats?" and having by this time got her horse clear of the group in the road, she made off toward stevenage, followed by her mounted page. francis. "it may turn out well for us that sir valentine fleetwood happened to kill her brother," was the only comment of roger barnet, as he mounted the horse his man hudsdon had newly saddled. he had seen much and many, in his time, and was not surprised at anything, especially if it bore the shape of a woman. chapter ix. the first day of the flight. "that wench is stark mad, or wonderful froward."--_the taming of the shrew._ the object of this double chase, master marryott, rode on with his two men, through the night, beyond stevenage, at what pace it seemed best to maintain. the slowness, incredible to a bicyclist or horseman who to-day follows the same route, was all the greater for the darkness; but slowness had good cause without darkness. english horse-breeding had not yet shown or sought great results in speed. an elizabethan steed would make a strange showing on a twentieth century race-track; for the special product of those days was neither horses nor machines, but men. and such as the horses were, what were the roads they had to traverse! when a horse put his foot down, the chances were that it would land in a deep rut, or slide crunching down the hardened ridge at the side thereof, or find lodgment in a soggy puddle, or sink deep into soft earth, or fall, like certain of the scriptural seed, upon stony places. it is no wonder, then, that on a certain occasion, when queen elizabeth was particularly impatient for a swift answer to a letter she caused sent to the keepers of mary stuart, the messenger's time from london to fotheringay and back was at the rate of less than sixty miles a day. as for travel upon wheels, an example thereof will occur later in this narrative. but there was in those days one compensatory circumstance to fugitives flying with a rapidity then thought the greatest attainable: if they could not fly any faster, neither could their pursuers. the night journey of our three riders continued in silence. as no sound of other horses now came from behind or from anywhere else, and as the objects passed in the darkness were but as indistinct figures in thick ink against a ground of watered ink. hal's senses naturally turned inward, and mainly upon what was then foremost in the landscape of his mind. this was the face of mistress anne hazlehurst; and the more he gazed upon the image thereof, the more he sighed at having to increase the distance between himself and the reality. his reluctance to going from the neighborhood of her was none the less for the matter-of-fact promptness with which he did go therefrom. the face was no less a magnet to him for that he so readily and steadily resisted its drawing powers. those drawing powers would, of course, by the very nature of magnets, decrease as he went farther from their source; but as yet they were marvellously strong. such is the charm exerted upon impressionable youth by a pair of puzzling eyes, a mysterious expression, a piquant contour, allied to beauty. all the effect of his first sight of that face was revived, and eked to greater magnitude by his strange confrontation with her, proud and wrathful in the poor lantern rays that fell intermittently and shiftingly upon her in the dark road. he wondered what would be her subsequent proceedings that night; tried to form a mental panorama of her conduct regarding her wounded servants; of her actions now that she saw her design upset, the tenor of her life necessarily affected by this new catastrophe to her household. he pitied her, as he thought of the confused and difficult situation into which she had been so suddenly plunged. and then he came to consider what must be her feelings toward himself. looking upon him as her brother's slayer, she must view him with both hate and horror. his violent treatment of her servants would augment the former feeling to a very madness of impotent wrath. yet it was not hal marryott that she hated,--it was the make-believe sir valentine fleetwood; not the player, but the part he played. still, a dislike of a character assumed by an actor often refuses to separate the actor from the character; moreover, she must necessarily hate him, should she ever come to know him, for having assumed that part,--for being, indeed, the aider of her enemy against herself. hal registered one determination: should the uncertain future--now of a most exceeding uncertainty in his case--bring him in his own person into the horizon of this woman, he would take care she should not know he had played this part. what had passed between them should be blotted out; should be as if indeed sir valentine, not hal marryott, had escaped her in the road. and hal bethought himself of one gain that the encounter had yielded him: it had acquainted him with the name and place of the previously unknown beauty. some day, when he should have gone through with all this business, he might indeed seek her. when he should have gone through with this business? the uncertain future came back to his thoughts. what would be the outcome of this strange flight? so strange, that if he should tell his friends in london of it, they would laugh at the tale as at a wild fiction. fool a trained man-hunter, a royal messenger grown old in catching people for the council, and fool him by such a device as hal had employed! act a part in real life, even for a moment, to the complete deception of the spectator intended to be duped! to be sure, dick tarleton had done so, when he pretended in an inn at sandwich to be a seminary priest, in order to be arrested and have the officers pay his score and take him to london, where, being known, he was sure to be discharged. but dick tarleton was a great comedian, and had essayed to represent no certain identifiable seminary priest; whereas master marryott, who had dared impersonate a particular known man, was but a novice at acting. but hal soon perceived this fact: that playing a part on the stage and playing a part in real life are two vastly different matters. a great actor of the first may be a great failure in the second, and the worst stage player may, under sufficient stress, fill an assumed character deceptively in real life. the spectator in a theatre expects to see a character pretended, and knows that what he sees is make-believe, not real. a spectator in real life, chosen to be duped, expects no such thing, and is therefore ready to take a pretence for what it purports to be. whatever may occur eventually to undeceive him, he is in proper mind for deception at first contact with the pretence. and the very unlikelihood of such an attempt as hal's, the very seeming impossibility of its success, was reason for roger barnet's not having suspected it. these thoughts now occurred to hal for the first time. should he succeed in his novel adventure, he might congratulate himself upon the achievement, not of a great feat of stage-playing, indeed, though to his stage training he owed his quick perception and imitation of sir valentine's chief physical peculiarities, but of a singular and daring act, in which he both actually and figuratively played a part. but was he destined to succeed? was roger barnet still upon his track? or was he fleeing from nothing, leaving a track for nobody to follow? well, he must trust to those at fleetwood house to keep sir valentine's actual whereabouts from discovery, and to barnet's skill in picking up the trace that a fugitive _must_ leave, willy-nilly. but what if fate, so fond of playing tricks on mortals, should conceive the whim of covering up the track of this one fugitive who desired his track to be seen? hal cast away this thought. he must proceed, confidently, though in blindness as to what was doing behind him. at present, silence was there; no sound of far-off horse-hoofs. but this might be attributed to barnet's interruption by anne's party; to measures for procuring fresh horses, and to the necessary delivery of the letters of which the queen had told him. and so, fleeing from cold darkness and the unknown into cold darkness and the unknown, deep in his thoughts, and trusting to his star. master marryott rode on through baldock and toward biggleswade. kit bottle presently called his attention to their having passed out of hertfordshire into bedfordshire. the captain had been hard put to it for a fellow talker. his remarks to hal had elicited only absent monosyllables or silence. at last, with a gulp as of choking down an antipathy, he had ridden forward to anthony and tried conversation with that person. master underhill listened as one swallows by compulsion a disagreeable dose, and gave brief, surly answers. kit touched with perfect freedom upon the other's most private concerns, not deeming that a despised dissenter had a right to the ordinary immunities. "marry, i know not which astoundeth me the more," said the soldier; "that a papist should keep a puritan in's household, or that the puritan should serve the papist!" anthony was for a moment silent, as if to ignore the impudent speech; but then, in a manner of resignation, as if confession and apology were part of his proper punishment, he said, with a lofty kind of humility: "the case no more astoundeth you than it reproacheth me. it biteth my conscience day and night, and hath done so this many a year. daily i resolve me to quit the service of them that cherish the gauds and idolatries of papistry. but the flesh is weak; i was born in sir valentine's household, and i could not find strength to wrench me from it." "ay," said kit, "no doubt it hath been in its way a fat stewardship, though the estate be decreased. the master being so oft abroad, and all left to your hands, i'll warrant there have been plump takings, for balm to the bites o' conscience." "i perceive you are a flippant railer; but you touch me not. what should they of no religion understand of the bites of conscience?" "no religion! go to, man! though i be a soldier, and of a free life, look you, i've practised more religions than your ignorance wots of; and every one of them better than your scurvy, hang-dog, vinegar-faced non conformity! nay, i have been puritan, too, when it served my turn, in the days when i was of walsingham's men. he had precisian leanings, and so had the clerk o' the council. mr. beal. but you are an ingrate, to fatten on a good service, yet call it a reproach!" "fatten!" echoed the puritan, glancing down at his spare frame. "mayhap it hath been a good service formerly, by comparison with its having this night made me partaker in a five days' lie, abettor of a piece of play-acting, and associate of a scurrilous soldier!" with which anthony underhill quickened his horse so as to move from the captain's side; whereupon kit, too amazed for timely outward resentment, lapsed into silent meditation. they rode through biggleswade. fatigue was now telling on them. hal's latest sleep had been that of the previous morning, in the cold open air of whitehall garden,--an age ago it seemed! kit's most recent slumbers, taken even earlier, had been, doubtless, in equally comfortless circumstances. hal learned, by a question, that anthony had passed yesternight in bed, warm and sober. so hal decided that when the three should stop at dawn for rest, food, change of horses, and the removal of the false beard, himself and kit should attempt an hour's repose while anthony should watch. the puritan should be one of the sleepers, kit the watcher, at the second halt. hal planned and announced all details for assuring an immediate flight on the distant advent of the pursuers. a system of brief stops and of alternate watches could be employed throughout the whole flight without loss of advantage, for barnet also would have to make similar delays for rest, food, and the changing or baiting of horses. on wore the night. they passed through eaton socon, and continued northward instead of turning into st. neots at the right. they took notice here, as they had taken at previous forkings of the road, that there were houses at or near the junction,--houses in which uneasy slumberers would be awakened by their passing and heed which way their horses went. roger barnet would have but to ride up noisily, and, perchance, pound and call at a house or two, to bring these persons to windows with word of what they had heard. hal marvelled as he thought of it the more, how the nature of things will let no man traverse this world, or any part of it, without leaving trace of his passage. he saw in this material fact an image of life itself, and in the night silence, broken only by the clatter of his horses and by some far-off dog's bark or cock's crow, he had many new thoughts. so he rode into huntingdonshire, and presently, as the pallor of dawn began to blanch the ashen sky, he passed kimbolton, whose castle now seemed a chill death-place for poor catherine of aragon; and, four miles farther on, he drew up, in the dim early light, before the inn at catworth magna, and set kit bawling lustily for the landlord. a blinking hostler came from the stable yard, and the beefy-looking host from the inn door, at the same time. but the travellers would not get off their mounts until they were assured of obtaining fresh ones. captain bottle did the talking. the new horses were brought out to the green before the inn. kit dismounted and examined them, then struck a bargain with the innkeeper for their use, dragging the latter's slow wits to a decision by main force. this done, hal leaped to the ground, called for a room fronting on the green, a speedy breakfast served therein, a razor and shaving materials taken thither, and some oat-cakes and ale brought out to anthony, who should stay with the horses. hal then strode up and down the green, while anthony ate and kit and the hostler transferred the saddles and bridles. he kept well muffled about the face with his cloak, in such manner as at once to display his beard and yet conceal the evidence of its falseness. the new horses ready, anthony mounted one, and, under pretence of exercising them, moved off with them toward the direction whence barnet would eventually come. hal, to forestall hindrance in case of a necessarily hasty departure, handed the innkeeper gold enough to cover all charges he might incur, and was shown, with kit, to a small, bare-walled, wainscoted, plastered, slope-roofed room up-stairs. he threw open the casement toward the green, and promptly fell upon the eggs, fish, and beer that were by this time served upon a board set on stools instead of on trestles. finishing simultaneously with kit, hal took off his false beard, strewed its severed tufts over the floor, and then submitted his face, which had a few days' natural growth of stubble, to a razor wielded by the captain. after this operation, the two stretched themselves upon the bed, in their clothes, their heads toward the open window. a dream of endless riding, varied by regularly renewed charges against a wall of plunging horses that invariably fled away to intervene again, and by the alternate menacings and mockings of a beautiful face, culminated in a clamorous tumult like the shouting of a multitude. hal sprang up. bottle was bounding from the bed at the same instant. the sound was only the steadily repeated, "halloo, halloo!" of anthony underhill beneath the open window. hal looked out. the puritan sat his horse on the green, holding the other two animals at his either side, all heads pointed northward. on seeing hal, he beckoned and was silent. hal and kit rushed to the passage, thence down the stairs, and through the entrance-way, to horse. the landlord, called forth by anthony's hullabaloo, stared at them in wonder. hal returned his gaze, that an impression of the newly shaven face might remain well fixed in the host's mind; and then jerked rein for a start. neither hal nor kit had yet taken time to look for the cause of anthony's alarm. as they galloped away from the inn, hal heard the patter of horses coming up from the south. he turned in his saddle, expecting to see roger barnet and his crew in full chase. but the horses were only two in number, and on them were mistress hazlehurst, in a crimson cloak and hood, and the page in green who had attended her at the theatre. hal's heart bounded with sudden pleasure. as he gazed back at her, he caught himself smiling. she saw him, noted his two companions, and seemed to be in doubt. the landlord was still before the inn. she reined up, and spoke to him. hal could see the innkeeper presently, while answering her, put his hand to his chin. "good!" thought hal; "he is telling her that, though i depart smooth-faced, i arrived bearded." the next moment, she and the page were riding after the three fugitives. without decreasing his pace, hal asked anthony: "was it she only that you saw coming? are barnet's men behind?" "'twas she only. but she is enough to raise the country on us!" "think you that is her purpose?" "ay," replied anthony. "she hath heard of the treason matter from the pursuivant, and hath shot off, like bolt from bow, to denounce you. 'tis her method of vengeance." "'tis like a woman--of a certain kind," commented kit bottle, who had taken in the situation as promptly as the others had. "'tis like a hazlehurst," said anthony. "well," said master marryott, for a pretext, "'tis doubtless as you say; but i desire assurance. it may serve us to know her intentions. she cannot harm us here." (they were now out of the village.) "though she would raise hell's own hue and cry about us, she might halloo her loudest, none would hear at this part of the road. we shall wait for her." anthony cast a keen glance at hal, and kit bottle thrust his tongue in his cheek and looked away,--manifestations at which hal could only turn red and wish that either of the two had given some open cause for rebuke. he was determined, however; the temptation to play with fire in the shape of a beautiful woman was too alluring, the danger apparently too little. so the three horses dropped to a walk, and presently the two that followed were at their heels. hal looked back as she came on, to see if she still carried the sword she had used on the previous night; but he saw no sign of it about her. in fact, she had given it to francis, who bore at his girdle a poniard also. "mistress, you travel ill-protected," was hal's speech of greeting. "so my brother must have done when he met you last," was her prompt and defiant answer. she let her horse drop into the gait of hal's, and made no move to go from his side. the puritan resumed his place at the head, and francis, in order to be immediately behind his mistress, fell in with kit bottle. in this order the party of five proceeded northward, their horses walking. "i did not harm your brother," reiterated marryott, with a sigh. "i perceive," she replied, ironically, "you are not the man that hurt my brother. you have made of yourself another man, by giving yourself another face! god 'a' mercy, the world is dull, indeed, an it is to be fooled with a scrape of a razor! you should have bought the silence of mine host yonder, methinks! and changed your company, altered your attitude, rid yourself of the stiffness from the wound my brother gave you, and washed your face of the welt my sword left! you have a good barber, sir valentine; he hath shaved a score of years from your face; he hath renewed your youth as if with water from that fountain men tell of, in america!" "the loss of a long-worn beard indeed giveth some men a strange look of youth," assented hal, as if humoring her spirit of bitter derision against himself. he was glad of her conviction that he could look youthful and yet be the middle-aged sir valentine. "'twas so in the case of an uncle of mine," she said, curtly, "which the more hindereth your imposing on me with a face of five and twenty." "five and twenty?" echoed hal, involuntarily, surprised that he should appear even so old. but a moment's reflection told him that his age must be increased in appearance by the assumed stiffness of his attitude; by the frown and the labial rigidity he partly simulated, partly had acquired since yesterday; by the gauntness and pallor, both due to nervous tension and to lack of sleep and food. he was indeed an older man than the "laertes" of two days ago, and not to be recognized as the same, for in the play he had worn a mustache and an air little like his present thoughtful mien. "and i'll warrant this new face will serve you little to throw them off that are coming yonder," she went on, indicating the rearward road by a slight backward toss of the head. "certain riders from london, mean you?" said hal. "by your leave, madam, sith you be in their secrets, i would fain know how far behind us they ride?" "not so far but they will be at your heels ere this day's sun grow tired of shining." "ay, truly? they will do swift riding, then!" "mayhap 'twill come of their swift riding," she replied, taunted by his courteous, almost sugary, tone. "and mayhap, of your meeting hindrance!" "prithee, what should put hindrance in my way?" he inquired, with a most annoying pretence of polite surprise and curiosity. "i will!" she cried. "i have run after you for that purpose!" "god's light, say you so? and what will you do to hinder me?" "i know not yet," she answered, with high serenity. "but i shall find a way." "no doubt you will choose the simplest way," said hal. "what is that, i pray you?" she asked, quickly. but hal merely smiled. she followed his glance, however, which rested upon a gabled country-house far across the open field at their right, and she read his thought. "nay," she said, her chin elevated haughtily, "i disdain help. 'tis my humor to be alone the means of throwing you into the hands that bring the warrant for you. nor shall i lose sight of you time enough to seek rustic officers and set them on you." "you are wise in that," said hal; "for, indeed, if you took but time to cry out against me to some passing wayfarer, i and my men would be up-tails-and-away in a twinkling. for my own interest, i tell you this; sith i'd fain not have you do aught to deprive me of your company as fellow traveller." she colored with indignation at this compliment, and hal, thereby reminded that she saw in him her brother's slayer, and sensible how much affront lay in the speech in the circumstances, reddened as deeply. if he could but find a way, without making her doubt that he was sir valentine, of convincing her that he had not been her brother's opponent! he had thought vaguely that, by his reiterated denials of a hand in the killing, he might finally implant in her mind the impression that, though he was sir valentine, he had not given the mortal thrust; that there was some mystery about the fight, to be explained in time. but he now perceived that if such an idea could be rooted into her mind, its effect must be to make her drop the chase and go back to sir valentine's neighborhood. there she might find conclusive evidence of sir valentine's responsibility for her brother's death, and make upon fleetwood house some kind of invasion that would endanger the real sir valentine. moreover, hal took a keen, though disturbed, joy in her presence, despite the bar of bloodshed that in her mind existed between them; and though to retain that joy he must let her continue in that supposition, he elected to retain it at the price. after a pause, during which she acquired the coolness of voice to answer hal's thoughtlessly offensive words, she said: "i pray god to hasten the hour when i shall be your fellow traveller toward london!" "an roger barnet, with his warrant of the council, were left out, i should pray god to be your fellow traveller anywhere!" was hal's reply,--and again he had to curse his heedlessness, as again he saw how odious to her was the truth that had slipped so readily out of him. "you rode fast, else you had not overtaken me," he said, in hope of changing her thoughts. "and having overtaken you, i shall not lose you," she answered. "and you have not slept nor eaten! marry, you must be weary and faint, mistress!" "neither too weary nor too faint to dog you to your undoing," she said, resolutely throwing off all air of fatigue. "and you risked the dangers of the road. ods-death, if you had fallen in with robbers!" "that danger is past," she said. "henceforth, till the officers be with us, i shall go in your company, and the appearance of you and your men will be my guard against robbers." "nay, an you were threatened, i and my men would offer more than mere appearance in your protection, i do assure you!" "be that as it may," she answered, coldly. "appearance would serve. i take protection of you while i have need of it, and not as a favor or a courtesy, but as a right--" "from a gentleman to a lady, yes," put in hal. "from an enemy," she went on, ignoring his interruption, "sith it be a practice in war to avail oneself of the enemy without scruple, in all ways possible!" hal sighed. he would rather let his protection be accepted otherwise. but he inwardly valued her unconscious tribute to the gentlemanhood she divined in him,--the tribute apparent in her taking for granted that he would act her protector even on a journey in which her declared object was to hold him back for the death he was flying from. there were such gentlemen in those days; and there have been such women as anne--women who will avail themselves of the generosity of men they are seeking to destroy--in all days. he was glad of the assurance received from her that roger barnet was still on his track. thus far, all was going well. if this woman, from pride or caprice or a strange jealousy of keeping her vengeance all to herself, did indeed think to impede him by other and more exclusive means than public denunciation or hue and cry, he felt that he had little to fear from her. to put her declaration to the test, he held the horses down to an easy gait in passing through the next villages, though he was ready to spur forward at a sign; but she indicated no thought of starting an outcry. she kept her eyes averted in deep thought. hal would have given much to read what was passing within that shapely head. without doubt, she was intent upon some plan for making a gift of him to his pursuers, some device for achieving that revenge which she craved as a solitary feast, and which she was not willing to owe to any one but herself. what design was she forming? hal imagined she could not be very expert in designs. a crafty nature would not have declared war openly, as her proud and impulsive heart had bade her do. he admired her for that frankness, for that unconscious superiority to underhand fighting. it showed a noble, masterful soul, and matched well her imperious beauty. they rode through clapton and deane. her fatigue became more and more evident, though pride and resolution battled hard against it. her only food during the forenoon was some cold ham she got at a country inn in northamptonshire, at which hal paused to bait the horses. they proceeded into rutlandshire. before entering glaiston she swayed upon her side-saddle, but instantly recovered herself. at manton she was shivering,--the day was indeed a cold one, though the sun had come out at eight o'clock, but she had not shivered so before. "we shall have dinner and a rest at oakham," said master marryott, softly. "'tis but three miles ahead." "all's one, three miles or thirty!" she answered. as they stopped before an inn at the farther end of oakham,--an inn chosen by hal for its situation favorable to hasty flight northward,--the clocks in the town were sounding noon; noon of wednesday. march , ; noon of the long first day of the hoped-for five days' flight. chapter x. the locked door. "when i was at home, i was in a better place: but travellers must be content." --_as you like it._ before alighting from her horse, mistress hazlehurst waited to see what her enemy should do. the enemy's first proceedings were similar to those taken upon his arrival at catworth magna. that is to say, through the expeditious offices of captain bottle, new horses were placed ready before the inn, ere the party dismounted from the tired ones; dinner and a room were bespoken; and all possible charges were forestalled by advance payment. anne imitated this whole arrangement precisely, causing no little wonder on the part of the inn people, that she should give her orders independently, though they were exactly like those of the three men with whom she and her page were manifestly travelling. it was mentally set down by the shrewd ones that here were man and wife, or brother and sister, not on speaking terms, yet obliged to perform a journey together. hal remained outside the inn with anthony, till bottle should ride back to keep watch. anne stood near him, not irresolute, but to observe his actions. refreshed with a stirrup-cup and some cakes, bottle soon rode off, with two led horses. perceiving the object of this movement, anne dismissed the captain from her observation, that she might concentrate it upon the supposed sir valentine. as her boy francis was in no less need of food and sleep than herself, she gave a coin to one of the hostlers, with orders to walk her horses up and down before the inn till she should come for them. hal counted on her fatigue to reinforce her proud determination that she would not resort to the local authorities against him. yet he would not go to his chamber ere she went to hers. deducing this from his actions--for no speech passed between them while they tarried before the inn--and being indeed well-nigh too exhausted to stand, she finally called for a servant to show her to her room. francis followed her, to wait upon her at dinner and then to lie on a bench outside her door. hal watched her into the entrance-hall of the inn. at the foot of the stairs leading to the upper floor, she stopped, handed a piece of money to the attendant, and spoke a few words in a low tone. the fellow glanced toward the inn porch in which hal was standing, and nodded obedience. hal inferred that she was engaging to be notified instantly in case of his departure. a moment later hal beckoned anthony to follow, and went, under the guidance of the landlady herself, up to his own room. as he turned from the stair-head into the upper passage, he saw a door close, which he divined to be that of his fair enemy. a moment later an inn servant appeared with a bench, and placed it outside this door. on reaching his own room, in the same passage, hal noticed that this bench, on which francis was to rest, stood in view of his own door, and also--by way of the stairs--of the entrance-hall below. he smiled at the precautions taken by the foe. examining his room, he saw that it had the required window overlooking the front inn yard and the road beyond. immediately beneath this window was the sloping roof of the inn porch. having opened the casement, and moved the bed's head near it, hal turned to the dinner that a servant was placing on a small trestle-table, for which there was ample free space in the chamber. the english inns of those days were indeed commodious, and those in the country towns were better than those in london. hosts took pride in their tapestry, furniture, bedding, plate, and glasses. some of the inns in the greater towns and roads had room for three hundred guests with their horses and servants. noblemen travelled with great retinues, and carried furniture with them. it was a golden age of inns,--though, to be sure, the servants were in many cases in league with highway robbers, to whom they gave information of the wealth, destinations, routes, and times of setting forth of well-furnished guests. the inn at which hal now refreshed himself, in oakham, was not of the large or celebrated ones. he had his own reasons for resorting to small and obscure hostelries. yet he found the dinner good, the ale of the best, and, after that, the bed extremely comfortable, even though he lay in his clothes, with his hand on his sword-hilt. he had flung himself down, immediately after dinner, not waiting for the platters and cups to be taken away. anthony, who had been as a table-fellow sour and monosyllabic, but by no means abstemious, for all his puritanism, was as prompt as hal to avail himself of the comfort of the bed. his appreciation was soon evinced by a loud snoring, whose sturdy nasality seemed of a piece with his canting, rebuking manner of speech when he allowed himself to be lured into conversation. there was in his snore a rhythmic wrestling and protesting, as of jacob with the angel, or a preacher against satan, that befitted well his righteous non-conformity. from this thought--for which he wondered that he could find place when his situation provided so much other matter for meditation--hal's mind lapsed into the incoherent visions of slumber, and soon deep sleep was upon him. hal had arranged that kit bottle should return to the inn and call him, after four hours, in the event of no appearance of the pursuit. when hal awoke with a start, therefore, and yet heard no such hallooing as anthony had given at catworth, he supposed that kit must have summoned him by a less alarming cry. his head shot out of the window, but he beheld no kit. turning to anthony, he saw that the puritan had just opened his eyes. "didst hear anything?" queried hal. "not sith i awoke," was the answer. "yet meseems in my sleep there was a loud grating sound and a terrific crash." "in our dreams we multiply the sounds that touch our ears," said hal. "it must have been a sound of omen, to have waked us both. so let us think of a small grating sound--" at that instant his eyes alighted on the door. he would have sworn a key had been in that door, though he had not locked it before sleeping. he had noticed the key for its great size and rustiness. but no key was there now, at least on the inside. hal strode from the bed, and tried the door. it was locked. "how now?" quoth he. "some one has robbed us of our key, and used it on the wrong side of the door!" "i warrant it should be no far seeking to find that some one," growled anthony, rising to his feet. "ay," said hal, "'tis just the shallow, childish stop-nobody thing a woman would do, and think she hath played a fine trick! come, anthony,"--hal spoke the puritan's name not superciliously now, for he was beginning to like a fellow who could toil forward so uncomplainingly through fatigue and danger, yet make such full use of comforts when they fell to him,--"i see captain bottle riding hither, at a walk. that means 'tis four o'clock, though master barnet hath not yet shown his face. we must be taking horse again." and he dropped out of the window to the porch roof, let himself down a corner-post, and stood in the inn yard. anne's horses were still there. as soon as anthony was beside him, hal stepped into the entrance-passage. at the stair-foot stood mistress hazlehurst, her back to the door, giving some swift and excited commands to her page, francis, who was ready to ride. she turned to see who had entered the inn. on perceiving it was hal, and that his face wore an involuntary quizzical smile, she caught her breath, and became the very picture of defeat and self-discovered foolishness. "have you seen aught of a key i lost?" said hal, ere he thought. "i need it to unlock my door and get out of my room, as i am in some haste!" she turned deep crimson at the jest; her eyes shot a glance of fire, her lips closed tight; and, without a word, she glided past him, and out to her horses. he saw in her look a new sense of the insufficiency of easy and obvious means, and a resolution to rise to the needs of her purpose. "her eyes are opened," mused hal, following her and francis to the yard. "her next step is like to be more considerable!" meeting kit and the horses just within the inn yard gate, hal and anthony mounted. anne and her page were prompt to follow their example. with courtesy, hal held back his horses for her to precede him out to the road. a minute afterward the five riders, so strangely brought into a single group, were pushing northward in the cold, waning afternoon. she had slept some, and was the better for the food she had taken. yet this riding was manifestly a wearier business than it could have been at the time of her setting out. it was a chilly business, too, for march had begun to turn out very january-like, and was steadily becoming more so. the look of dogged endurance that mingled on her face with the new resolution there, continually touched hal's tender and pitying side. his countenance as continually showed his feelings, and she perceived them with deep and ill-concealed resentment. but she at last attained a degree of stolid iciness at which she remained. it imposed upon hal, riding at her side, a silence that became the harder to break as it became the less bearable. and the further she tried to put herself out of his pity, the greater his pity grew, for the effort she was required to make. the more his admiration increased, too; and if pity is ever akin to love, it is certainly so when united to admiration. her determination had not the mannish mien, nor her dislike the acrid, ill-bred aspect that would have repelled; they were of the womanly and high-born character that made them rather pique and allure. partly to provoke her feelings to some change of phase, partly to elicit relief from the impassiveness in which she had sought refuge, partly for the cruel pleasure sometimes inexplicably found in torturing the tender and beautiful,--a pleasure followed by penitence as keen,--he made two or three delicate jests about the locked door; these were received with momentary glints of rage from her dark eyes, succeeded by coldness more freezing than before. the silence created--and diffused--by her enveloped the whole party, making the ride even more bleak than it was already from the wintry day and the loneliness of the road. it was bad weather for travelling, less by reason of the present cold than of the signs of impending storm. "there is snow in the air," growled anthony underhill to himself, as if he smelled it. of the country through which they passed, the most was open, only the pasture-land and the grounds pertaining immediately to gentlemen's houses being fenced. enclosures were a new thing in those days, defended by the raisers of sheep and cattle, bewailed by the farmers who tilled the soil. where the road did not run between woods or over wild moors, it gave views of far-off sheep-cotes, of mills, and here and there of distant castle-towers, or the gables of some squire's rambling manor-house; or it passed through straggling villages, each with a central green having a may-pole and an open pool. but most human life was indoors upon this evening of belated winter; still and brown was the landscape. once, soon after they had passed from rutlandshire into leicestershire, a burst of yokelish laughter struck their ears from among some trees, like a sudden ray of light and warmth in a cold, dead world. it came from some yeomen's sons who were destroying the eggs of birds of prey. the population of melton mowbray was housed and at supper, as they rode through that town in the early dusk without stop. on into nottinghamshire they went; and at last, checked alike by darkness and by weariness, they came to a halt before a little, low, wobbly-looking wood-and-plaster inn at the junction of the nottingham road with the cross-road to newark. chapter xi. wine and song. "he's in the third degree of drink; he's drowned."--_twelfth night._ the inn people coming forth with a light, hal made similar arrangements to those effected at his two previous stopping-places, with this difference, that he himself was to watch for two hours, and then be succeeded by anthony. anne could not exactly repeat her precautions taken at oakham, for hal procured the only available fresh horses before she applied for any; nor could she arrange that her own horses should be held in readiness before the inn. she caused them, however, to be fed and kept in an unlocked shed, from which her page might speedily take them out; and she was successful in bespeaking information in case of the enemy's departure. though hal left her sight in riding back to keep watch, she now knew that he would not flee without calling his attendants, nor could he continue his flight in either practicable direction--toward nottingham or toward newark--without passing the inn. so she went to her room--one of the few with which the low upper story of the house was provided--in confident mind, stationing francis on a bench where he might, in a state of half slumber, watch the door of kit and anthony. as for the window of the room taken by these two, it was not far from her own, and by keeping the latter open she counted upon hearing any exit made through the former. she lay down, and dozed wakefully. hal's watch was without event. as he moved up and down the silent road with his horses, he continued to ask himself whether she might yet have formed a plan of action against him; and from this question he fell to considering what plan might be possible. he tried to devise one for her, but could invent none that he saw himself unable to defeat. he returned to the inn at the end of his two hours, and summoned anthony by a whistle previously agreed upon. anthony came down by the stairs, and went silently on guard. hal, who had not yet eaten, now entered the inn with a ready appetite for the supper he had previously ordered. as he stepped from the outer wind into the passage, he noticed that the door was open which led thence to the inn parlor. just within that door stood a figure. he glanced at it. by the light of the candles farther in the room, he saw that it was mistress hazlehurst. "sir," she said to him, in a dry tone, which, as also her face, she tried to rob of all expression save that of ordinary, indifferent civility, "i learn you bespoke supper to be sent to your room. i am having mine own served here. we have full understanding of each other's intent. there is open warfare between us. yet while we be fellow travellers, each set upon the other's defeat, meseems we should as well comport ourselves as fellow travellers till one win the other's undoing. though writ down in blood as bitter foes, in birth we are equal, and our lands are neighbor. so i do offer that we sup together, as becometh people of civility upon the same journey, though enemies they be to the death." to this proposal, so congenial with his inclinations, what could master marryott do but forthwith assent, too dazzled by the prospect to torture his brain for a likely motive on her part? with a "right readily, mistress!" he hastened to give the necessary orders, and then entered the parlor, which had no occupant but mistress anne. the last tippler of the night had sought his bed. at one side of the low room was a fire in a wide hearth. at another side, beneath a deep, long, horizontal window was a table, on which some dishes were already set. the floor was covered with stale rushes. there were no hangings on the besmoked, plastered, timbered walls. the poor candles shed a wavering light. this was no mermaid tavern, indeed. yet hal felt mightily, dangerously comfortable here. he opened a casement a little, that he might hear any alarm from anthony, and then he sat down at the table, opposite anne. he saw that francis, who seemed of wire, and proof against fatigue and lack of sleep, stood ready to wait upon his mistress. he saw, too, that her wine was placed on a rude kind of sideboard, to be served from thence each time a sip might be wanted, as in the private houses of gentlefolk. when a tapster came, sleepy and muttering to himself, with hal's wine, master marryott ordered it put as the lady's was; and then mistress hazlehurst proposed, in the manner she had used before, that the inn servant be dismissed and francis wait upon them both. "it is but fair repayment," she added, "for the protection i receive upon the road by the presence of your men." hal was nothing loath. he would not show suspicion, if he felt any, at being invited to be left alone with his enemy and her servant. francis was but a slip of a boy,--and yet, in his tirelessness, his reposeful manner, his discreet look, the closeness of his mouth, there was sufficient of the undisclosed, of the possibly latent, to put a wise man on his guard. hal kept a corner of his eye upon the page, therefore, while with the rest of it he studied the fine face and graceful motions--motions the more effective for being few--of the page's mistress. the early part of the meal went in silence, francis attending to the dishes and serving the wine noiselessly, with neither haste nor tardiness. hal saw in the looks of both lady and page the reviving effects of a short sleep and of cold water. anne ate, not as if hungry, but as if providing against possible exposure and fasting. that francis might not have to depart unfed, she bade him partake of certain dishes as he bore them from before her. he contrived to do this, and yet to see that master marryott never wanted for wine. and, indeed, master marryott, warmed, comforted, made to see things rosily, put into mood of rare good-feeling and admiration, kept francis busy and busier between the sideboard and the wine-cup at hal's hand. finally, the page, when he should have taken the flagon back to the sideboard, set it down on the table, that he might thereafter fill the cup without even the loss of time involved in traversing the rush-covered floor. was this the boy's own happy thought, or was it in obedience to a meaning glance from his mistress? hal did not query himself on this point; he had observed no meaning glance. he was entering the seventh heaven of wine; it seemed the most natural thing in the world that he should find the flagon constantly at his elbow. and suddenly this silence, so long maintained, appeared absurd, unaccountable. god-'a'-mercy! why should people sit tongue-tied in this manner? wherefore he spoke: "truly 'twas well thought on that we might use civil courtesy between us, enemies though you will have us! 'tis like the exchange of gentleness 'twixt our noblest soldiers and those of spain, in times of truce, or even in the breathing moments 'tween sword-thrusts. truly, courtesy sweeteneth all transactions, even those of enmity and warfare! 'tis like this wine that giveth a soft and pleasing hue, as of its own color, to all one sees and hears when one has drunk of it. taste it, madam, i pray. your glass hath not been once refilled. nay, an you spare the wine so, i shall say you but half act upon your own offer!" she drank what remained in her cup, and let francis fill it again. "no doubt the ladies of france drink more wine than we of england," she said, as if at the same time to account for his importunity and her moderation. he perceived the allusion to sir valentine's long residence in france, and was put on his guard against betraying himself. he ought to have taken more into mind that she regarded him as her brother's slayer, and that her tone was strangely urbane for such regarding, even though courtesy had been agreed upon. but by this time he had too much wine in. he had long since exhausted the contents of his own flagon, and was now being served from hers. "the ladies of france," he replied, "are none the better of the ladies of england for that." "i have heard there is a certain facility and grace in them, that we lack," she answered, having noticed that he drank at the end of each speech he made. "it may be," he said, "but 'tis the facility and grace of the cat, with claws and teeth at the back of it." he had to speak of french ladies entirely from hearsay. "for softness, united with strength and candor, for amplitude and warmth of heart, commend me to the english ladies." euphuism was still the fashion, and people of breeding had the knack of conversing offhand in sentences that would now seem studied. the cup-lifting that followed this remark was accompanied by so direct a look at her that she could not but know for which particular english lady the compliment was intended. she gave no outward sign of anger. "the french excel us in their wine, at least," she replied, sipping from her cup as if to demonstrate the sincerity of her words,--an action that instantly moved master hal to further and deeper potations. [illustration: "she gave no outward sign of anger."] "why, i should be an ingrate to gainsay that," said he. "tis indeed matter for thanks that we, sitting by night in this lone country ale-house,--'tis little better,--with the march wind howling wolf-like without, may imbibe, and cheer our souls with, the sunlight that hath fallen in past years upon french hillsides. but we should be churls to despise the vineyards of spain or italy, either! or the rhenish, that hath gladdened so many a heart and begot so many a song! lovest thou music, madam?" she kept a startled silence for a moment, at a loss how to receive the change from "you" to "thou" in his style of addressing her. in truth the familiarity was on his part unpremeditated and innocent. but, for another reason than that, she speedily decided to overlook it, and she answered, in words that gave hal a sudden thrill, for they were those of one of master shakespeare's own comedies, often played by the company: "the man that hath no music in himself. nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils." she paused here, as if struck with the thought that the speech might not be known to the catholic knight. "'tis lorenzo's speech in 'the merchant,'" said hal, quite ecstatic. "i--" he caught himself in time to avoid saying, "know the part by heart, having studied it in hope of some-day playing it," and added, instead, "saw the comedy in london when 'twas first played, and a friend sent me a book of it last year, that he bought in paul's churchyard. thou'st seen the play, i ween." "and read it," she answered, this time filling his glass herself, for francis had stolen from the room with a flagon in quest of more wine at the bar. "know'st thou the full speech," said he, "beginning, 'how sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank'?" without waiting for an answer, and being now in the vinous rage for reciting, he went on through the scene to its interruption by the entrance of portia and nerissa. it was nothing wonderful, in those days, that a gentleman should speak verse well; yet she viewed him with some astonishment, in which was a first faint touch of regret that circumstance made this man, in whom otherwise she might find certain admirable qualities, irrevocably her foe, to become inevitably her victim. this regret she instantly put from her, and set herself the more to plying him with wine. "i'll warrant thou hast music at the end of thy tongue, and of thy fingers also," said hal. "would there were an instrument here! heavenly must be the offspring, when such hands wed string of lute, or key of virginal! but thy lips are here. wilt sing? all are abed. i prithee, a song!" "nay, 'twere better you should sing," she answered, by way of evading a course of importunities, and seeing that he was in ripe mood for compliance. "willingly, an thou'lt engage to sing in thy turn," he replied. she gave her promise, thinking she would not have to keep it; for when a gentleman in wine becomes vocally inclined, he is apt to go on like a wound-up clock till he be stopped, or till he run down into slumber. so hal began, with shakespeare's "o mistress mine, where are you roaming?" as a song whose line, "that can sing both high and low," was appropriate to their recent subject. and this led naturally to the song "it was a lover and his lass," which in turn called up ben jonson's song on a kiss, from the masque of "cynthia's revels." then something gave a convivial shift to hal's thoughts, and he offered king henry viii.'s "pastime with good company," from which he went to the old drinking song from "gammer gurton's needle." mistress hazlehurst, having perceived that singing hindered his drinking, though each lapse between songs was filled with a hasty draught, was now willing enough to keep her promise; and she made bold to remind him of it. he was quite eager to hear her, though it should require silence on his own part. she sang shakespeare's "when icicles hang by the wall," in a low and melodious voice, of much beauty in a limited range,--a voice of the same quality as her ordinary speaking tones. seeing that hal, who gazed in admiration, broke his own inaction by constant applications to the flagon, which the clever francis had succeeded in filling at the bar, she followed this song immediately with "blow, blow, thou winter wind." hal was now ready to volunteer with "under the greenwood tree," but she cut him short, and drove him to repeated uses of the cup, by starting john heywood's song of "the green willow," which she selected as suiting her purpose by reason of its great length. when this was at last finished, hal, who had been regarding her steadily with eyes that sometimes blinked for drowsiness, opened his mouth to put in practice a compliment he had for some minutes been meditating,--that of singing "who is sylvia?" in such manner as should imply that mistress hazlehurst embodied all the excellences of her who "excelled each mortal thing upon the dull earth dwelling." she silenced him at the outset by taking up heywood's "be merry, friends," at which, despite how much he admired her face and was thrilled by her voice, he sat back in resignation; for the old song she had this time hit upon was as nearly endless as it was monotonous. hal's nurse had many times droned him to sleep with it, in his infancy. and now its somnolent effect was as great as ever. save for her voice, in the unvarying rhythm of the countless four-line stanzas marked by the refrain. "be merry, friends!" at the end of each, and for a frequent moan or whine of the wind without, the utmost stillness reigned. francis had effaced himself on a high-backed seat in a dark corner of the fireplace. the candles burned dimly for want of snuffing, and they were just so far from hal's arm that, in his drowsy state, it was too great an effort to reach them. indeed, it had now become too great an effort to draw the wine flagon toward him. his brain swam a little. he sat back limp in his oaken settle, his head fell more and more heavily toward his breast. things became vaguer and vaguer before him; the face from whose lips the soporific melody proceeded was blended more and more with the ambient shadows. his eyelids closed. she continued the song more softly, a triumphant light slowly increasing in her eyes. at last her voice was still. the supposed sir valentine moved not, lifted not his head, opened not his eyes. only his regular breathing, the heavy breathing of vinous stupor, was heard in the room. mistress hazlehurst rose without noise. "he will not be in riding mood for ten hours to come," she said, quietly, to francis. "an his men waken him, he'll be for calling them hard names, and off to sleep again! god-'a'-mercy, what an ocean of wine hath he swallowed in three short hours! come. francis, we may sleep with ease of mind to-night. he is stayed beyond even the will to go on. and i thank heaven, for i am well-nigh as drowsy, and as loath to ride in this weather, as he must be!" it was sleepily indeed that she stepped, with as little sound as could be, over the crackling rushes to the door. to keep her enemy in the drinking mood, and to dissemble her purpose, she had taken an unusual quantity of wine herself. ladies did not drink as much in elizabeth's outwardly decent reign as they came to drink a few years later, under scottish jeames, when, if sir john harrington lied not in , those of the court did "abandon their sobriety" and were "seen to roll about in intoxication." and mistress hazlehurst was the last woman in the world to violate the prevalent seemliness under the virgin queen. but she had sipped enough to augment the languor induced by her recent exertions. she put a hand upon the door-post to support herself as she approached it. there was a wild, swift beating of horses' hoofs on the road outside; an abrupt stoppage just before the inn; a shrill whistle, and this shout from anthony underhill: "what, ho! halloo, halloo!" hal raised his head, and looked drowsily around with blinking eyes. there was a noise overhead of a heavy tread,--that of captain bottle, responding to the alarm. in a trice old kit was heard clearing the stairs at a bound, and then seen dashing through the passage and out into the darkness. he had unbarred the outer door with a single movement. hal stared inquiringly at mistress hazlehurst. her eyes had a glow of confident expectation. that was her blunder. her look told him all,--that she had supped with him, sung for him, incited him to drink, in order that he might be unfit for flight or action. he sprang to his feet, clapped on his hat, threw off his tipsiness with one backward jerk of the shoulders; was himself again, with clear eyes and strong, steady limbs. "to horse, madam, if you would still ride with us!" he cried. "i have some thirty miles or so to go to-night!" and he strode past her, and out after kit bottle. "'tis barnet's men, methinks, by the sound of the horses yonder," said anthony, composedly, pointing southward, as hal rose into the saddle. hal looked back toward the open door of the inn. in a moment anne came out with francis, who ran at once to the shed wherein her horses were. in the doorway between parlor and passage she had undergone a moment of sickening chagrin. not only had she failed ridiculously a second time, but she must now abandon her clutch upon her enemy, or face with him that thirty miles of night ride in biting weather! francis looked at her for commands. she tightened her lips again, imitated hal's own motion of casting away lassitude, drew her cloak close around her, put up her hood, and hastened out to the windy night. hal made great stir with his horses before moving off, that the inn people might be awakened and some of them note which road he took. this precaution, used for the benefit of roger barnet, gave anne time to join hal's party. when the pursuivant and his fellows rode up, soon afterward, on half dead horses, that stumbled before the inn, the fugitives were well forward on the nottingham road. it was a bitter, black night. "fellow travellers still!" quoth master marryott, to the dark figure that rode galloping, with flying cloak, beside him. "and shall be till i see you caught, though i must ride sleepless till i drop!" was the reply. chapter xii. the constable of clown. "i am a wise fellow; and, which is more, an officer; ... and one that knows the law, go to."--_much ado about nothing._ it was one hour after midnight, when the fellow travellers left the lone inn near the newark cross-road. they had arrived there at eight o'clock in the evening. during their stay, hal had obtained no sleep but that which he had taken at the table, and which had lasted but a few minutes. anne had slept perhaps an hour before going down to the parlor. the reader will remember the fatigued condition in which both had come to the inn. their next rest could not be had until a long and hard ride should achieve for them a probable gain of some hours over the horsemen whom anthony underhill had heard. for this gain, hal counted on the fact that barnet's horses, more recently ridden, could not be as fresh as his own, and on barnet's constant necessity of pausing at each branching of the road, to make inquiries. such were the conditions under which the second full day of the flight began. it was now a time for drawing on that reserved energy which manifests itself only in seasons of strait. hal was aware, from past experience, of this stored-up stock of endurance, that serves its possessor on occasions of extremity. to anne, its existence within her must have come as a new disclosure. hal, as a man of gentle rearing, had for her a man's compassion for a woman to whom this discovery is made by hardship undergone for the first time. and yet, so does human nature abound in apparent contradictions, he had a kind of satisfaction, almost gleeful, at the toils she had brought upon herself by attempting to overreach him. for, had she used in sleep the time she had spent in that attempt, had she not taken sufficient of the wine to enervate herself somewhat, she would now have been in fresh vigor for the wearing ride before her. the riders had a slight check at nottingham, owing to a difference of opinion between master marryott and the watch, as to the propriety of their passing through the town at such an hour of the night. hal was in instant readiness for any outcry on the part of mistress hazlehurst. but he looked so resolute, kit bottle so formidable, anthony underhill so rigid with latent fighting force, that anne doubtless saw little to be gained from a conflict between her enemy and the unaided dotards of the night watch. a gold piece, to reinforce a story explaining their early riding, proved the magic opener it commonly proves, and obtained a lantern from one of the watchmen, as well; and the fugitives rode free, northward into sherwood forest. it was lone riding, and toilsome, through the green-wood where robin hood and his outlaws had made merry, and past newstead abbey; and would have been next to impossible but for the lantern, with which the puritan lighted up a few inches of the tree-roofed road ahead. dawn found them near mansfield, through which town they soon after passed without stay, and proceeded into derbyshire. at seven o'clock, having covered twenty-nine miles in the six hours since their last setting out, and all but kit bottle being ready to fall from their saddles, they stopped before a humble hostelry at scardiff. they could get but one fresh horse here. bottle took this one, upon which to ride back to a suitable spot for watching the road behind. the others of the party had to be content with giving their nearly used-up animals what rest might be had in saddle and bridle, and under a penthouse roof at one end of the inn. hal, before entering the inn, bought the vigilance of a hostler toward keeping his horses in readiness for further going, and against any attempt on anne's part, through francis, to disable them while he slept; though, indeed, he saw little likelihood of her employing such means, both she and her page being in the utmost need of immediate sleep; and she unable to purchase treachery of the inn folk, for, as he observed when she paid the hostess in advance, her purse was now sadly fallen away. hal foresaw, from this last circumstance, two things: a certainty of her resorting soon to desperate measures against him, and an opportunity for his chivalry to display itself in an offer to pay her charges while she continued with deadly purpose to accompany him. as hal was about to follow anne into the house, he was greeted by a pleasant-eyed old fellow who had been sitting on a bench by the door, with a mug of ale at his side; an old fellow whose frieze jacket and breeches proclaimed a yeoman, and whose presence on the outer bench on so cold a morning betokened a lively curiosity as to the doings of his fellow-men. "god save your worship!" said he, in a mild little voice, rising and bowing with great respect for gentility. "i dare say your honor hasna' fell in with the rascals, on your worship's travels?" seeing but a rustical officiousness and news hunger in this speech, hal paused, and asked: "what rascals, goodman?" "them that ha' pestered travellers, and householders, too, so bad of late, on roads hereabout. marry, 'tis well to go in plenty company, when robbers ride in such number together! they make parlous wayfaring for gentlefolk, your worship!" "you mean that a band of highway robbers, more than common bold, hath been in the neighborhood?" "ay, and i would any man might say the rogues were yet out of it! they have terrified constables, and the justices sleep over the matter, and the sheriff hath his affairs elsewhere; so god look after honest travellers, say i, sir!" "you say well," replied marryott, casting a glance at anne, who also had stopped to listen to the countryman's words. she took from hal's countenance a sense of the further obligation she must needs be under for his protection, now that a particular known danger was at hand; but this sense only moved her to the inward resolve of ending alike that obligation and their northward travel, by some supreme effort to entrap him. he read her thought in her face, and his look defied her. she hastened to her room, he to his; she, attended by francis, he by anthony underhill. marryott and anthony soon despatched the scant meal brought to their chamber. before placing himself for sleep, harry looked into the passage. the boy francis was at his customary post outside his mistress's door. hal and the puritan were asleep before eight o'clock. at ten, hal awoke. after he had glanced out of the window, and seen no one about the inn, something--he knew not what--impelled him to take another view of the passage. he did so; and this time he beheld no francis. he awakened anthony, and the two stepped softly into the passage. they stood for an instant before mistress hazlehurst's door, but heard no sound from within. down-stairs they went, surveying the public room of the house as they passed out to the open air. the room was empty. they hastened to the shed where the horses were. the horses were now but two,--marryott's and anthony's. those of mistress hazlehurst and her page were gone. with hal's quick feeling of alarm, there came also a chilling sense of sudden loneliness. a void seemed to have opened around him. "the devil!" was all that he could say. "she cannot have given up, and gone back," volunteered anthony. "she would have had to pass your man bottle, and he would have ridden hither to tell you she was stirring." "ay, 'tis plain enough she hath not fled southward, where kit keeps watch for barnet's men. she hath ridden forward! ho, john ostler, a murrain on you!" cried hal. "the lady--whither hath she gone, and when? speak out, or 'twill fare hard with you!" "'twas but your own two beasts your honor bade me guard," said the hostler, coming from the stables. "as for the lady, her and the lad went that way, an hour since or so!" and the fellow pointed northward. "haste, anthony!" muttered hal, untying his own horse. "ride yonder for kit bottle, and then you and he gallop after me! she hath gone to raise the country ahead of us! failure of other means hath pushed her to belie her declaration." "a woman's declaration needeth little pushing, to be o'erthrown," commented anthony, sagely, as he mounted. "tut, knave, 'tis a woman's privilege to renounce her word!" replied master marryott, sharply, having already leaped to saddle. "it may be so; i know not," said anthony, with sour indifference; and the two made for the road together. "well, see that kit and you follow speedily, while i fly forward to stay that lady, lest we be caught 'twixt barnet's men behind us, and a hue and cry in front!" whereupon, without more ado, hal spurred his horse in the direction that anne had taken, while anthony turned southward in quest of bottle. as hal sped along, he did not dare confess which of the two motives more fed his anxious impatience: solicitude for his own cause, or fear that anne might meet danger on the road,--for he recalled what the countryman had told him of highway robbers infesting the neighborhood. he put four miles behind him, neither winning glimpse of her nor being overtaken by kit and anthony. seeking naught in the forward distance but her figure--now so distinct in his imagination, so painfully absent from his real vision,--he paid no heed, until he had galloped into the very midst of it, to a numerous crowd of heavy-shod countrymen that lined both sides of the road at the entrance to the village of clown. so impetuous had been hal's forward movement, so complete the possession of his mind by the one image, that he had seen this village assemblage with dull eyes, and with no sense of its possibly having anything to do with himself; yet it was just such a gathering that he ought to have expected, and against which he ought to have been on his guard. not until it closed about him, not until a huge loutish fellow caught the rein of his suddenly impeded horse, and a pair of rustics drew across the road--from a side lane--a clumsy covered coach that wholly blocked the way, and a little old man on the edge of the crowd brandished a rusty bill and called out in a squeaky voice, "surrender!" did hal realize that he had ridden right into the hands of a force hastily gathered by the village constable to waylay and take him prisoner. hal clapped hand to sword-hilt, and surveyed the crowd with a sweeping glance. the constable had evidently brought out every able-bodied man in the near neighborhood. three or four were armed with long bills, hooked and pointed, like that borne by the constable himself. others carried stout staves. emboldened by the example of the giant who had seized hal's rein, the clowns pressed close around his horse. ere hal could draw sword, his wrist was caught in the iron grasp of one of the giant's great brown paws. two other burly villagers laid hold of his pistols. with his free hand, hal tried to back his horse out of the press, but was prevented both by the throng behind and by the big fellow's gripe of the rein. marryott thereupon flashed out his dagger, and essayed to use it upon the hand that imprisoned his wrist. but his arm was caught, in the elbow crook, by the hook of a bill that a yeoman wielded in the nick of time. the next instant, a heavy blow from a stave struck the dagger from hal's hand. his legs were seized, and he was a captured man. all this had occurred in short time, during the plunging of hal's horse and the shouting of the crowd. it had been a vastly different matter from the night encounter with mistress hazlehurst's servants. these yokels of clown, assembled in large number, led by the parish hercules, bearing the homely weapons to which they were used, opposing afoot and by daylight a solitary mounted man to whom their attack was a complete surprise, were a force from whom defeat was no disgrace. yet never did master marryott know keener rage, humiliation, and self-reproach --self-reproach for his heedless precipitancy, and his having ridden on without his two men--than when he found himself captive to these rustics; save when, a moment later, his glance met an open casement of an ale-house at one side of the road, and he saw anne hazlehurst! her look was one of triumph; her smile like that with which he had greeted her after the incident of the locked door at oakham. and, for the space of that moment, he hated her. "sir valentine fleetwood," cried the constable, in his senile squeak, pushing his way with a sudden access of pomposity from his place at the crowd's edge, "i apprehend you for high treason, and charge you to get down from your horse and come peaceably to the justice's house." "justice's house!" cried hal, most wrathfully. "of what do you prate, old fool? what have i to do with scurvy, rustical justices?" "to justice loudwight's, your honor," replied the constable, suddenly tamed by hal's high and mighty tone. "in good sooth, his house is pleasant lodging, even for a knight, or lord either, and his table and wine--" "devil take justice loudwight's table and wine, and a black murrain take yourself!" broke in hal, from his horse. "give me my weapons, and let me pass! what foolery is this, you rogue, to hinder one of her majesty's subjects travelling on weighty business?" "nay, sir, i know my duty, and mr. loudwight shall judge. i must hold you till he come back from chesterfield, whither he hath gone to--" "i care not wherefore mr. loudwight hath gone to chesterfield, or if every other country wight in derbyshire hath gone to visit the foul fiend! nor can i tarry for their coming back," quoth hal, truly enough, for such tarrying meant his detention for the arrival of roger barnet. "let me pass on, or this place shall rue this day!" "i be the constable, and i know my duty, and i must apprehend all flying traitors, whether they be traitors or no, which is a matter for my betters in the law to give judgment on." the constable's manner showed a desire to prove himself an authoritative personage, in the eyes of the community and of mistress hazlehurst. he was a quailing old fellow, who pretended boldness; a simple soul, who affected shrewdness. "know your duty, say you?" quoth hal. "were that so, you would know a constable may not hold a gentleman without a warrant. where is your writ?" "talk not of warrants! i'll have warrants enough when justice loudwight cometh home. though i have no warrant yet, i have information," and the constable glanced at the window from which anne looked down at the scene. hal thought of the surely fatal consequences of his remaining in custody till either justice loudwight should come home or roger barnet arrive. his heart sank. true, kit bottle and anthony underhill might appear at any moment; but their two swords, unaided by his own, would scarce avail against the whole village toward effecting a rescue. he pondered a second; then spoke thus: "look you, master constable! you have information. well, information is but information. mine affairs so press me onward that i may not wait to be judged of your mr. loudwight. hear you, therefore, the charge against me, and mine answer to't. while the justice is away, is not the constable the main pillar of the law? and shall not a constable judge of information that cometh to him first? ods-light, 'tis a pretty pass when one may say this-and-that into the ears of a constable, and bid him act upon it as 'twere heaven's truth! hath he no mind of his own, by which he may judge of information? if he have authority to receive information, hath he not authority to receive denial of it, and to render opinion 'twixt the two?" the constable, flattered and magnified--he knew not exactly why--by hal's words and mien, expanded and looked profound; then answered, with a sage, approving nod: "there is much law and equity in what you say, sir!" quick to improve the situation, hal instantly added: "then face me with your informer, master constable, and judge lawfully between us!" "bring this worshipful prisoner before me!" commanded the constable, addressing the giant and the others in possession of hal's horse, legs, and weapons; and thereupon walked, with great authority, into the ale-house. hal was promptly pulled from his saddle, and led after him. the constabulary presence established itself behind a table at one side of the public room. the giant and another fellow held hal, while a third tied his hands behind with a rope. the villagery crowded into the room, pushing hal almost against the constable's table. but, after a moment, the crowd parted; for anne hazlehurst, having witnessed the course of events from her window, had come down-stairs without being summoned, and she now moved forward to hal's side, closely followed by francis. meanwhile, at the constable's order, a gawkish stripling, whose looks betokened an underdone pedagogue, took a seat at the table's end, with writing materials which the officer of the peace had commanded from the ale-house keeper in order to give an imposing legal aspect to the proceedings. "now, sir," began the constable, with his best copy of a judicial frown, "there is here to be examined a question of whether this offender be in truth a pursued traitor--" "pardon me, master constable," objected hal. "sith it is questionable whether i be that traitor. i may not yet be called an offender." "sir," replied the constable, taking on severity from the presence of anne, "leave these matters to them that stand for the laws. offender you are, and that's certain, having done offence in that you did resist apprehension." "nay, if i be the pursued traitor i am charged with being," said hal, "then might that apprehension have been proper, and i might stand guilty of resistance; but if i be no such traitor, the apprehension was but the molesting of a true subject of the queen, and my resistance was but a self-defence, and the offence was of them that stayed me." the constable began to fear he was in deep waters; so cleared his throat for time, and at last proceeded: "there is much can be said thereon, and if it be exhibited that there was resistance, then be sure justice will be rendered. if it be proven you are no traitor, then perhaps it shall follow that there was no resistance. but yet i say not so for certain. what is your name, sir?" before hal could answer, mistress hazlehurst put in: "his name is sir valentine fleetwood, and he is flying from a warrant--" "write down sir valentine fleetwood," said the constable, in an undertone, to the youth with quill, ink-horn, and paper. "write down no such name!" cried hal. "write down harry marryott, gentleman, of the lord chamberlain's company of players!" and hal faced anne, with a look of defiance. ere any one could speak, he went on, "this lady, whom i take to be your informer, will confess that, if i be not sir valentine fleetwood, i am not the person she doth accuse." during the silence of the assemblage, anne regarded hal with a contemptuous smile, as if she thought his device to escape detention as shallow and foolish as had been her own first attempt to hinder him. "what name shall i put down?" asked the puzzled scribe, of the constable. "write sir valentine fleetwood!" repeated anne, peremptorily. "this gentleman's sorry shift to evade you, master constable, is scarce worthy of his birth." "write down sir valentine fleetwood," ordered the constable. "is not this the examination of sir valentine fleetwood, and whose name else--?" "if it be the examination of sir valentine fleetwood," interrupted hal, "then 'tis not my examination, and i demand of you my liberty forthwith; for i do not acknowledge that name! i warn you, constable!" taken aback by hal's threatening tone, the constable looked irresolute, and glanced from hal to anne and back again. mistress hazlehurst opened her eyes in a mixture of amazement and alarm, as if it might indeed be possible that her enemy's device should have effect upon this ignorant rustic. she took the supposed sir valentine's denial of that name to be a pitiful lie, employed on the spur of the moment. it was not less important to hal that she should so take it, than it was that the constable should receive it as truth; and he now had to wear toward the officer a manner of veracity, and toward anne the mien of a ready and brazen liar. this could not but make her loathe him the more, and it went against him to assume it. but in his mind he could hear the steady hoof-beats of roger barnet's horses coming up from the south, and so he must stick firmly to the truth which made him in her eyes a liar. her momentary look of alarm died away as the constable continued to gaze in stupid indecision. she waited for others to speak; she had no interest in hastening matters; her hopes were served by every minute of delay. but hal's case was the reverse. "well, man," he said, to the slow-thinking constable. "i am here to answer to any charge made against me in mine own name. if you have aught to say concerning mr. harry marryott, of the lord chamberlain's players, set it forth, for i am in haste. i swear to you, by god's name, and on the cross of my sword if yon fellow hand it back to me, that i am not sir valentine fleetwood, and that there is no warrant for my apprehension!" "perjurer!" cried anne, with scorn and indignation. "nay, madam," quoth the constable, somewhat impressed by hal's declaration, "an oath is an oath. there be the laws of evidence--" "then hear my oath!" she broke in. "i swear, before god, this gentleman is he that the royal officers are in pursuit of, with proper warrant,--as you shall soon know, when they come hither!" the constable sat in bewilderment; frowned, gulped, and hemmed; gazed at hal, at anne, at the table before him, and into the open mouth of the lean clerk, who waited for something to write down. at last he squeaked: "'tis but oath against oath--a fair balance." "then take the oath of my page," said anne, quickly, drawing francis forward. "he will swear this is the gentleman of whom i told you." "that i do," quoth francis, sturdily, "upon this cross!" and he held aloft his dagger-hilt. the constable heaved a great sigh of relief, and looked upon hal with an eased countenance. "the weight of evidence convicts you, sir," he said. "let the name of sir valentine fleetwood be taken down, and then his oath, and then the names of these two swearers, and their two oaths--" "stay a moment, master constable!" cried hal, his eye suddenly caught by the dismounting of two men from horseback, outside the ale-house window, which had been opened to let fresh air in upon the crowd. "there be other oaths to take down! ho. kit bottle, and anthony, tie your horses and come hither! nay, gripe not your swords! let there be no breach of the peace. but hasten in!" the general attention fell upon the newcomers, who had ridden hotly. with a dauntless air kit bottle strode through the crowd, handling men roughly to make a way, and followed close by anthony. "what a murrain hath befallen--?" kit was beginning; but hal stopped him with: "no time for words! captain bottle, you and worthy master underhill, testify to this officer my name, the name half london knows me by as a player of the lord chamberlain's company! this lady will have it i am one sir valentine fleetwood. speak my true name, therefore, upon your oath." hal had said enough to inform both kit and anthony what name was wanted on this occasion, and the captain instantly answered: "i will swear to this officer--an thou call'st him such--and maintain it with my sword against any man in england, that thou art no sir valentine fleetwood, but art master harry marryott, and none other, of the lord chamberlain's servants!" "'tis the simple truth," said anthony underhill, glowering coldly upon the constable. "i will take oath thereto." the constable held up three fingers of one hand, on hal's side, and two fingers of the other hand, on anne's side, and said to her: "mistress, here be three oaths against two; thou'rt clearly outsworn!" "perjurers!" said anne, facing master marryott and his men. "nay, nay, madam!" quoth the constable, becoming severe on the victorious side. "an there be charge of perjury in the case, look to thyself! since these three have sworn truly, it followeth that thy two oaths be false oaths!" "rascal!" cried hal. "do you dare accuse this lady of false swearing?" "why, why, surely your three oaths be true--" "true they are, and see you to't my horse and weapons be rendered up to me straightways! but this lady swore what she thought true. she had good reason for so thinking, and village rogues would best use fair words to her!" he cast a side-glance at anne, as he finished speaking; but at that instant she turned her back upon him, and went from the room, as swiftly as the crowd could let her. hal, perforce, stayed to be unbound by the rustics that had held him. at the further orders of the constable, who speedily dwindled into obsequious nothingness under the swaggering disdain of captain bottle, hal's weapons were restored to him. when he went out to the road, he found his horse ready, with kit's and anthony's. the huge coach, recently used by the rustics to obstruct the way, had been moved back into the lane. hal remarked aloud upon this, as he made ready to mount. "ay, your worship," said a villager, who had overheard him, "we opened the way again, when the lady rode off a minute ago." "the lady!" cried hal, and exchanged a blank look with kit and anthony. he had lost sight of her, while being released and repossessed of his weapons. "a plague on my dull wits!" he added, for the ears of his two men alone. "she hath gone to try the same game in the next parish, and fortune will scarce favor me with such another choice organ of the law as this constable!" meanwhile, in the ale-house, the constable, after some meditation, called for ale to be brought to the table at which he had been sitting, and said, thoughtfully, to his ally of the pen and ink-horn: "thou mayst tear what thou hast taken down of the examination, william." and william, muddled by participation in the recent rush of events, absently tore to pieces his sheet of paper, on which he had written nothing. chapter xiii. the prisoner in the coach. "it smites my heart to deal ungently with thee, lady."--_the fair immured._ "she is like to find some magistrate of knowledge and resources next time!" continued hal, alluding to anne. "well, there's naught to do but ride after her!" "but what then?" put in kit. "what shall hinder her from crying out?" hal, just mounted, happened to glance at the coach in the lane. he had, in one moment, a swift series of thoughts. "would that a dozen horses were to be had!" quoth he. "why, now," said kit, "here come a score of horses, but with men upon their backs." hal turned a startled look southward. no, the riders were not barnet's men; they rode together in too great disorder. something impelled hal to wait their coming up. in a few minutes it could be seen that they were a diverse company, some bravely dressed, some raggedly, some in both bravery and rags at once. some had reckless faces, some uneasy, some stealthy, some sheepish. their leader, a tall man, who would have been handsome but for his low brow and an inequality between the two halves of his visage, looked a mixture of insolent boldness and knavish servility. "why, god's body!" ejaculated kit bottle, with sudden astonishment and gladness. "'tis that same rascal, the very rogue himself, and none else! i had thought we might fall in with him hereabouts!" "of whom speak you?" asked hal, curtly. "of that villain rumney,--mine old comrade that turned robber; him i once told you of. ho. rumney, thou counterfeit captain! well met, thou rogue, says kit bottle!" and while the one "captain" rode out to welcome the other, hal remembered what the yeoman at scardiff had told him of the highway robbers; he scanned the villainous faces of these men, and was thankful in his heart that anne hazlehurst had not ridden their way; and then he thought of her on the road ahead, and looked again at the coach, and at the horses of the newcomers. by the time the two former companions in arms had finished their first salutations, hal had formed his plan. he called kit back to him, and said: "if thy friend hath a mind to put himself and his company in my service for three days, there shall be fair pay forthcoming." "i know not how rumney will take to honest service," replied kit, doubtfully. "but leave the handling of the matter to me--and the fixing of the pay, too." and he rode back to the robber captain, who with his band had remained awaiting kit's return at the place where they had stopped, some distance from hal and anthony. the villagers, now joined by the constable himself, stood gaping before the ale-house, exchanging a curious inspection with the questionable-looking newcomers. kit and captain rumney whispered together for a long time, gravely and mysteriously. rumney was at first of a frowning and holding-off disposition; looked askance at hal several times, and shook his head skeptically, as if he could see no advantage in what was proposed. kit, as his face and gestures showed, waxed eloquent and urgent. there were moments when wrathful looks and words passed between the two, and old matters were raked up, and recriminations cast. but in the end, rumney showed a yielding countenance, and kit came back to hal in triumph. the rate of hire being within hal's limits, the robber captain rode up, at kit's motion, and was introduced to hal as to sir valentine fleetwood. hal, on viewing this new ally more closely, mentally set him down as good for two or three days' fidelity if tactfully dealt with. rumney, on his part, looked hal over searchingly, with half closed gray eyes, as if to see what might be made out of him. the rascal had a fawning manner that might become insolent, or threatening, or cruel, upon the least occasion. rumney now went back to his men, and briefly acquainted them with what he had done,--a disclosure whose only outward effect was to make them gaze with a little more interest at master marryott. at this time, hal was questioning the constable regarding the coach. he learned that, when bogged in mire during a prolonged rain, it had been abandoned by its former owners, who had taken to horseback and left it with the ale-house keeper in lieu of other payment of a large score run up while they were storm-stayed. hal promptly bought it from the landlord, with what harness belonged to it, and with all the carriers' gear that remained about the stables. at hal's order, rumney now had his men hitch their horses to the great vehicle, and thereupon remount, so that the animals might serve at once to bear and to draw. master marryott put kit bottle in charge of the robbers and the coach, with instructions to follow at the best possible speed, and then spurred off, with anthony underhill, in hope of overtaking mistress hazlehurst. it was his intention to catch her if he could do so without entering any inhabited place or putting himself at risk of a second capture. should he find himself approaching any such place or risk, he would wait for, or return to, kit and the robbers. with his so greatly augmented force of fighting men, he could overawe or rout such a crowd as he had met at clown; and, should the necessity arise, he might even offer a hopeful resistance to roger barnet's party. but against a general hue and cry, or an effectual marshalling of magistrate's officers and servants, either or both of which anne might cause in front of him, he could not long contend. hence the speed at which he now urged his horse in pursuit of her. he had ridden seven miles from clown, and met with no impediment in any of the intermediate hamlets,--a fact which convinced him that she would not again rely on such inferior agents of the law as she had first fallen in with,--when at a sharp turn of the road he suddenly came in sight of her. she and her page were at a standstill, she mounted, he afoot. it was a miry place, sheltered by trees and thickets from the drying effect of sun and the freezing effect of wind; and francis stood in deep mud, examining the stone-bruised forefoot of her horse. "this is good fortune, madam!" cried hal, his eyes sparkling as well with the pleasure of seeing her as with relief of mind. "if it be so, enjoy it while you may," she answered, scorning his elation, "my hindrance here is but for a time." "i know it well, madam," replied hal, courteously; "for i, myself, have provided for your going forward." "_you_ have provided?" she said, regarding him with astonishment. "yes, mistress; for look you: if i thought to send you anywhere under escort, i could not afford what escort i might trust, or trust what escort i might afford. if i left you here, without escort, you would be in danger from rogues and vagabonds of the road, and you would be free to raise the country about me,--as you tried yonder, and rode on to try again. if i committed you to the hospitality of gentlefolk hereabouts, you would have that same freedom. even though you gave up your design against me, and would start back for hertfordshire or elsewhere--" "no fear of that!" she said, defiantly. "if there were hope of it," hal went on, "your safety, and another reason, would forbid my allowing it." the other reason, which he dared not tell her, was this: if permitted to return southward, she might meet roger barnet and incidentally give such description of hal as would beget a doubt whether, after all, the right man was being chased. "therefore," concluded hal, who had so opened his mind to her for his own justification, "it behoveth me to take you with me." "to _take_ me!" said she, with the emphasis of both query and correction on the verb. "as a prisoner," added hal, quietly. she looked at him as a queen might look at a madman. "i your prisoner!" she said. "by god's light, never!" "my prisoner," said hal, gently, "now and for three days to come. anthony, look to the boy, and to his horse tied yonder; and follow this lady and me into the woods, that we may wait my men without scrutiny of passing travellers. madam, be so good, i pray you, to ride betwixt yon thickets." "that i will not!" cried anne, with eyes afire. hal waited for one drawing of his breath; then rode to her side, grasped her bridle, and led her unwilling horse after him through the fairly clear way that he had pointed out. she showed herself too amazed for action, and made no resistance with her hands; but if looks could have smitten, master marryott would have found himself sorely belabored. hal stopped in the woods, within easy hearing distance of the road. anthony, having lifted the small page to his own saddle-bow, disarmed him of weapons, and taken the other horse in leading, came after. when the little group was finally stationary among the trees and underbrush, anne's face betrayed some falling away of defiance. she looked around in a kind of momentary panic, as if she would leap from her horse, and flee afoot. but on every side she saw but dark pools, damp earth, moist roots, and brush. she gave a shiver, and stayed in her saddle. "have no fear, mistress," said hal. "no harm will come to you. while you go yieldingly, no hand shall touch you; and in any case, no hand but mine own, which is a gentleman's." "would you dare use force?" she cried, somewhat huskily, her eyes--half threatening, half intimidated--turned full upon him. "if i must," said he, meeting her gaze with outward calmness. she dropped her glance, and was silent. anthony now placed francis on the latter's own horse, but kept a stern eye upon him, and a firm hand upon his bridle. the four sat perfectly still, save for the restless movements of their shivering horses, in the chill and sombre forest. no one was heard to pass in the road. "for what are you waiting?" asked anne, after awhile. "for my men to come up, with the coach you are to occupy," hal replied. she answered him with a look of surprise, but said nothing. after a weary length, the tread of many horses and the noise of cumbrous wheels was heard from the uneven and miry road. hal, retaining anne's bridle, and motioning anthony to follow, led the short but toilsome ride back to the highway. the strange crew, headed by kit bottle and captain rumney, came into view around the turn. losing no time for greetings, hal ordered the men to ride on at their best pace to a dryer part of the road, that the coach might not become fixed in the mire. this was done, the robbers looking with some curiosity at anne as they passed. hal and his immediate party followed. at an open place, where the earth was hard, he called a halt; then dismounted, and led anne's horse close to the coach. the vehicle was as crude as may be supposed when it is remembered that the use of coaches in england was then scarce thirty-five years old. it was springless, heavy of wheel, and with a cover having the entrance-opening at the side. an occupant of it, unless he sat by this opening, was concealed from view; and his cries, if he made any, might be drowned by the various noises of the creaking and rumbling vehicle, the heavily harnessed horses, and the boisterous escort. once an inmate of this moving prison, anne might try in vain to communicate with the outside world through which her captors might convey her.[ ] "mistress," said hal, with great respect, "be so gracious as to exchange your lame horse for the coach." and he offered his hand to assist her. "i will not stir!" she replied, to the additional curiosity of rumney and such of his men as could witness the scene by looking back from their horses. knowing how much slower must be his future progress, with this coach to be dragged along, and how much less he could afford to suffer delay, he forthwith abandoned words for acts. with all possible gentleness, but all necessary force, he deliberately grasped her foot and took it from the stirrup. he then directed kit bottle to dismount, and unfasten the saddle-girth of her horse. this done. hal drew the saddle down, on his side, until he could clasp her waist. he then had bottle lead her horse away, so that, the saddle sliding to the ground, she could not but set foot upon the earth. she held, however, to the bridle, until hal, by a steady compulsion, which he made as painless as possible, loosened her hands from it, one at a time. he had been in some slight fear of a more active resistance from her; but she proved herself of a dignity above that of women who bite and scratch. she was of too great a stateliness to put herself into ungraceful or vixenish attitudes. so she neither clawed nor pounded, though she would have struck with her dagger had hal not taken it from her in time. but she exerted all her strength in holding back from whatever motion he sought to compel from her. he saw that he should have difficulty in making her enter the coach. he had a rude, bench-like seat taken out of the vehicle, and placed beneath the opening, to serve as a step. as she would not budge, even to approach the carriage, he lifted her with both arms, carried her forward, and placed her in a standing position on the bench. he then paused for breath, still keeping one arm about her. commanding kit to hold the bench steady, hal stepped upon it, for the purpose of lifting her into the vehicle. he saw that she was taller by far than the opening through which she would have to pass, and saw, at the same moment, that she made herself rigid, so that, in forcing her into the coach, he might be put to the use of violence. he gathered strength for his final effort, and grasped her waist again. at this instant, he noticed an amused grin on the faces of some of rumney's ruffians, and was conscious that, perspiring and red-faced from his exertions, he doubtless made a somewhat ridiculous figure. perhaps this knowledge acted as a stimulant, and also made him a little less considerate toward his prisoner. he stiffened his muscles, changed her direction from the perpendicular to the oblique, and stepped up into the coach, her diagonal position permitting her admission, headforemost, through the opening. he then caused the seat to be returned, and placed her, full-length, upon it; and ordered francis to be put into the coach with her. his own horse being brought close to the opening. hal transferred himself to the saddle, his intention being to ride at the side of the coach wherever the width of the road should allow. anthony was to follow close behind him. captain bottle was sent forward to lead the caravan. anne's side-saddle was placed in the coach; her horse, being lame, was turned loose; that of francis was hitched, with the animals ridden by the robbers, to the vehicle. captain rumney was left to choose his own place, hal supposing he would elect to be near his old-time gossip, bottle. but rumney preferred to ride behind the coach. hal thereupon called to bottle to start, the robbers whipped their horses, the coach-wheels began to turn, and the flight was at last resumed. why should rumney have placed himself at the rear? hal wondered, and a vague misgiving entered his mind; nor was he reassured when, at a place where a hard heath permitted anthony to ride for a moment at hal's side, the puritan muttered to him: "saw'st thou the look of that robber captain when he first set eyes on the lady? i liked it not!" with which, anthony fell behind again to rumney's side. nor--now that he recalled that look, a greedy lighting up of wicked eyes--did hal himself like it, and the future seemed dubious. chapter xiv. how the page walked in his sleep. "i spy a black, suspicious, threatening cloud."--_henry vi., part iii._ master marryott had lost nearly two hours at clown, through his detention by the constable, his waiting to enlist the highway robbers, and his measures for putting the coach into service. and such was the badness of the road, that he had consumed more than an hour in covering, with alternate dashes and delays, the seven miles from clown to the place where he had overtaken anne. almost another hour had been used in awaiting the coming of the coach, and lodging the prisoner therein. it was, thus, between two and three in the afternoon when the northward journey was again taken up. hal, as he rode beside the coach, considered his situation with regard to his pursuer, roger barnet. the latter, arriving with tired horses at the scene of hal's wine-drinking, and thereafter compelled to stop often for traces of the fugitives, must have been as great a loser of time as hal had been; and this accounted for his non-appearance during either of the recent delays. but, by this time, he was probably not very far behind; and hereafter hal's rate of speed must be, by reason of the coach, considerably slower. the latter circumstance would offset, in barnet's favor, the two disadvantages under which he labored. moreover, upon learning at clown what company hal had reinforced himself with, the pursuivant would find the track easier, and hence speedier, to follow; the passage of so numerous and ill-looking a band being certain to attract more attention than would that of a party of three or five. but hal counted upon one likelihood for a compensating gain of a few hours,--the likelihood that barnet, to strengthen himself for possible conflict with hal's increased force, would tarry to augment his own troop with men from the neighborhood, and that, in his subsequent pursuit, as well as in this measure, his very reliance on his advantages would make him less strenuous for speed. cheering himself with the best probabilities, though not ignoring the worst, master marryott pressed steadily on, after the manner of the tortoise. when bad spots in the road appeared, kit bottle, at the head of the line, caused the robbers to whip up their horses; and if this did not avail to keep the coach from being stayed, hal had the men dismount and put their shoulders to the wheels. a grumbling dislike to this kind of service evinced itself, but captain rumney, flattered by the courteous way in which hal gave him the necessary orders for transmission, checked with peremptory looks the discontent. hal conceded a short stop, at a solitary tavern, for a refection of beer and barley-cakes. during this pause, and also while passing through villages, hal remained at the coach-opening, ready to close its curtain with his own hand, on the least occasion from the inmates. but anne and her page, whose flight from scardiff that morning had shortened their sleeping-time, were too languid for present effort. in attitudes best accommodated to the movements of the coach, they sat--or half reclined--with their backs against the side of the vehicle for support. with changeless face and lack-lustre eyes, anne viewed what of the passing country she could see through the opening; heedless whether hal's figure interrupted her vision or not; whether she passed habitations, or barren heath, or fields, or forest. yet she did not refuse the repast that hal handed into the coach, which, when resort was had to the lone tavern, he had caused to stop at some distance from the house. only once during the afternoon did he take the precaution of shutting the coach entrance; it was while passing through the considerable town of rotherham. night fell while the travellers were toilsomely penetrating further into the west riding of yorkshire. when at last hal gave the word to halt, they found themselves before a rude inn with numerous mean outbuildings, on a hill about six miles beyond rotherham. hal had now to provide, because of new conditions, somewhat otherwise than he had done at his previous stopping-places. anne and francis were to be closely guarded, a repressive hand held ready to check the least hostile act or communication. fresh horses could not be obtained in number equal to the company. ere he had ordered the halt, master marryott had formed his plans. at first it seemed that he might not unopposedly have his way with the frowsy-headed landlord who appeared in the doorway's light in response to his summons. but when the blinking host became aware of the numerousness of the company, and when captain rumney rode forward into the light, he instantly grew hospitable. evidently the captain and the innkeeper were old acquaintances, if not occasional partners in trade. so hal arranged a barter for what fresh horses were at the fellow's command; took lodgings for the night in the several outhouses, caused open fires to be made on the earthen floors therein, and ordered food and drink. he had the coach drawn into shelter, near one of the fires, and bedding placed in it, with other comforts from the inn. he then informed anne that she was to remain in her prison overnight; and he assigned to francis a sleeping-place on a pile of straw, within sword reach of where he himself intended to guard the curtained opening of the coach. anthony, on one of the fresh horses, should keep the usual watch for barnet's party. bottle, who had watched at scardiff, was to sleep in the stable-loft, as was also rumney, whose men were to occupy different outbuildings. no one was to remove his clothes, and, in case of alarm, all were to unite in hitching the horses, and to resume the flight. the horses themselves were placed in stalls, but in as forward a state of readiness as was compatible with their easy resting. it was made clear that, should any of these movements be interrupted or followed by attack from a pursuing party, all the resistance necessary was to be offered. the supper ordered was brought on wooden platters, and eaten in the light of the fires. hal, as before, served anne through the coach doorway, and she accepted the cakes and ale with neither reluctance nor thanks. but under her passiveness. hal saw no abandonment of her purpose. he saw, rather, a design to gather clearness of mind and strength of body, for the invention and execution of some plan not only possible to her restraint, but likely to be more effectual than any she had tried when free. when the company had supped, and the robbers could be heard snoring in the adjacent sheds, and francis lay in the troubled sleep of excessive fatigue, and the regular breathing of anne herself was audible through the coach curtain; when, in fine, every member of his strange caravan slept, save anthony watching at the hill's southeastern brow, master marryott sat upon a log, and gazed into the sputtering fire on the ground, and mused. he marvelled to think how many and diverse and cumbrous elements he had assembled to his hand, and undertaken to keep in motion, for what seemed so small a cause. to herd with robbers; to lavish the queen's money; to deceive a woman--the object of his love--so that he brought upon himself her hate meant for another; to carry off this woman by force, and put her to the utmost fatigue and risk; to wear out the bodies, and imperil the necks, of himself and so many others,--was it worth all this merely to create a fair opportunity--not a certainty--of escape for a frenchified english catholic, whose life was of no consequence to the country? hal laughed to think how unimportant and uninteresting was the man in whose behalf all these labors and discomforts were being undergone by so many people, some of whom were so much more useful and ornamental to the world. and yet he knew that the business _was_ worth the effort; worth all the toil and risk that he himself took, and that he imposed upon other people. it was worth all this, perhaps not that a life might be saved, but that a debt might be paid, a promise made good,--his debt of gratitude to sir valentine, his promise to the queen. it was worth any cost, that a gentleman should fulfil his obligations, however incurred. to an englishman of that time, moreover, it was worth a world of trouble, merely to please the queen. but what most and deepest moved hal forward, and made turning back impossible, was the demand in him for success on its own account, the intolerableness of failure in any deed that he might lay upon himself. manly souls daily strain great resources for small causes, or for no cause worth considering, for the reason that they cannot endure to fail in what they have, however thoughtlessly, undertaken. the man of mettle will not relinquish; he will die, but he will not let go. it is because the thing most necessary to him is his own applause; he will not forfeit that, though he must pay with his life to retain it. once his hand is to the plow, though he find too late that the field is barren, he will furrow that field through, or he will drop in his tracks; what concerns him is, not the reason or the reward, but the mere fact of success or failure in the self-assigned work. men show this in their sports; indeed, the game that heroes play with circumstance and destiny, for the mere sake of striving to win, is to them a sport of the keenest. "maybe it was not worth doing, but i told myself i would do it, and i did it!" hal fancied the deep elation that must attend those words, could he truly say them three days hence. about three hours after midnight he awoke his people, had the horses put to the coach, sent for anthony by one of the robbers,--a renegade london apprentice, tom cobble by name, whose face he liked for its bold frankness,--and rode forth with his company toward barnesley. they passed through this town in the early morning of friday. march th, the third day of the flight. though anne showed the utmost indifference to her surroundings. hal closed her curtain, as he had done at rotherham, until the open country was again reached. soon after this, mistress hazlehurst changed her place to the forward part of the coach, and her position so as to face the backward part. she could thus be seen by any one riding at the side of the coach's rear, and glancing obliquely through the opening. it was, at present, anthony underhill that benefited by this new arrangement. five miles after barnesley, master marryott ordered a halt for breakfast. as before, food was brought to the prisoners. the stop gave captain rumney an opportunity of peering in through the coach doorway. when, at nine o'clock, the journey was resumed. rumney, without a word, took the place behind marryott, formerly kept by anthony. "by your leave, sir," said the puritan, forced by this usurpation to drop behind the coach, "that is where i ride." "tut, man!" replied rumney, with an insolent pretence of carelessness; "what matters it?" "it matters to me that i ride where i have been commanded to," said the puritan, with quiet stubbornness, heading his horse to take the place from which he expected the other to fall out. "and it matters to me that i ride where i please to," retorted rumney, with a little less concealment of the ugliness within him. anthony frowned darkly, and looked at marryott, who had turned half around on his horse at the dispute. rumney regarded hal narrowly through half shut eyes, in which defiance lurked, ready to burst forth on provocation. hal read his man, choked down his feelings, considered that an open break was not yet to be afforded, and to make the matter in which he yielded seem a trifle, said, quietly: "my commands were too narrow, anthony. so that you ride behind me, one side of the road will do as well as another. the fault was mine, captain rumney." so anthony fell back without protest or complaint. he cast his look earthward, that it might not seem to reproach master marryott. and a bitter moment was it to master marryott, for his having had to fail of supporting his own man against this rascal outlaw. a moment of keener chagrin followed, when hal caught a swift glance of swaggering triumph--a crowing kind of half smile--that rumney sent to mistress hazlehurst, with whom he was now in line of vision. it seemed to say, "you see, mistress, what soft stuff this captor of yours shall prove in my hands?" and in anne's eyes, as hal clearly beheld, was the light of a new hope, as if she perceived in this robber a possible instrument or champion. but master marryott let none of his thoughts appear; he hardened his face to the impassibility of a mask, and seemed neither to suspect nor to fear anything; seemed, indeed, to feel himself above possibility of defeat or injury. he realized that here was a case where danger might be precipitated by any recognition of its existence. during the next six hours, he saw, though appeared not to heed, that anne kept her gaze fixed behind him, upon the robber captain. there was no appeal in her eyes, no promise, no overture to conspiracy; nothing but that intentional lack of definite expression, which makes such eyes the more fascinating, because the more mysterious. even savages like rumney are open to the witchery of the unfathomable in a pair of fine eyes. hal wondered how long the inevitable could be held off. he avoided conversation with rumney, did not even look back at him, lest pretext might be given for an outbreak. he was kept informed of the knave's exact whereabouts by the noise of the latter's horse, and, most of the time, by the direction of mistress hazlehurst's look. he had no fear of a sudden attack upon himself, for he knew that anthony underhill held the robber in as close a watch as mistress hazlehurst did. in mid-afternoon, the caravan stopped within three miles of halifax, for food and rest. master marryott stayed near the coach. rumney, too, hovered close; but as yet a kind of loutish bashfulness toward a woman of anne's haughtiness, rather than a fear of master marryott,--at least, so hal supposed,--checked him from any attempt to address her. marryott called kit bottle, and, while apparently viewing the surrounding country as if to plan their further route, talked with him in whispers: "thy friend rumney," said hal, "seems a cur as ready to jump at one's throat as to crawl at one's feet." "'twas lack of forethought, i'm afeard, to take up with the knave, where a woman was to be concerned," replied kit. "it was about a red and white piece of frailty that he dealt scurvily with me in the netherlands. were there no she in the case, we might trust him; he hath too great shyness of law officers, on his own account, to move toward selling us." "if he had a mind, now, to rescue this lady from us--" began hal. "'twould be a sorry rescue for the lady!" put in bottle. hal shuddered. "and yet she would throw herself into his hands, to escape ours, that she might be free to work me harm," said he. "an she think she would find freedom that way, she knows not rumney. if thine only care were to be no more troubled of her, thou couldst do little better than let rumney take her off thy hands." "i would kill thee, kit, if i knew not thou saidst that but to rally me! yet i will not grant it true, either. she might contrive to tame this rumney beast, and work us much harm. well, smile an thou wilt! thine age gives thee privileges with me, and i will confess 'tis her own safety most concerns me in this anxiety. sink this rumney in perdition!--why did i ever encumber us with him and his rascals?" "speaking of his rascals, now," said kit, "i have noticed some of them rather minded to heed your wishes than rumney's commands. there hath been wrangling in the gang." "there is one, methinks," assented hal, "that would rather take my orders than his leader's. 'tis the round-headed, sharp-eyed fellow, tom cobble. he is a runagate 'prentice from london, and seemeth to have more respect for town manners than for rumney's." "and there is a yeoman's son, john hatch, that rides near me," added kit. "he hath some remnant of honesty in him, or i mistake. and one ned moreton, who is of gentle blood and mislikes to be overborne by such carrion as rumney. and yon scare-faced, fat-paunched fellow, noll bunch they call him, hath been under-bailiff in a family that hath fled the country. i warrant he hath no taste for robbery; methinks he took to the road in sheer need of filling his stomach, and would give much to be free of his bad bargain. there be two or three more that might make choice of us, in a clash with their captain; but the rest are of the mangiest litter that was ever bred among two-legged creatures." "then win over quietly whom thou canst, kit. but let us have no clash till we must." rumney and his men looked almost meek while passing through halifax. and herein behold mankind's horror of singularity. in other towns these robbers had been under as much possibility of recognition and detention; but in those towns the result of their arrest would have been no worse than hanging, and was not hanging the usual, common, and natural ending of a thief? but in halifax there was that unique "gibbet law," under which thieves were beheaded by a machine something like the guillotine which another country and a later century were yet to produce. there was in such a death an isolation, from which a properly bred thief, brought up to regard the hempen rope as his due destiny, might well shrink. but the robbers could sleep with easy minds that night, for master marryott put halifax eight miles behind ere he rested. similar arrangements to those of the preceding night were made at the inn chosen as a stopping-place. the coach, furnished for comfortable repose, stood near a fire, under roof. hal, who thought that he had now mastered the art of living without sleep, set himself to keep guard again, by francis, near the coach doorway. it was anthony's night to share rumney's couch of straw; kit bottle's to watch for barnet's men. master marryott, sitting by the fire, was assailed by fears lest the pursuivant had abandoned the false chase. if not, it was strange, when the slow progress with the coach was considered, that he had not come in sight. hal reassured himself by accounting for this in more ways than one. barnet must have been detained long in recruiting men to join in the pursuit. he may have been hindered by lack of money, also, for he had left london without thought of further journey than to welwyn. he could press all necessary means into service, in the queen's name, as he went; but in doing this he must experience much delay that ready coin would have avoided. true, barnet would have learned at clown that the supposed sir valentine had named himself as a london player; but he would surely think this a lie, as mistress hazlehurst had thought it. a slight noise--something like a man yawning aloud, or moaning in sleep--turned marryott's musings into another channel. the sound had come from one of the other outhouses, probably that in which were captain rumney and anthony underhill. it put dark apprehensions into hal's mind, because of its resemblance to the groan a man might give if he were stabbed to death in slumber. suppose, thought he, this rumney were minded for treason and robbery. how could he better proceed, in order to avoid all stir, than to avail himself of the present separation of hal's party; to slay anthony first, while bottle was away on the watch; and thus have marryott and kit each in position to be dealt with single-handed? hal now saw the error of having anthony sleep out of his sight; for the puritan was one who watched while he watched, and slept while he slept. the present situation ought not to be continued a moment longer. yet how was hal to summon anthony? to awaken him by voice, one would have to raise such clamor as would alarm the robbers and perchance excite their leader's suspicions. a touch on the shoulder would accomplish the desired result quietly. might hal venture from his present post for the brief time necessary to his purpose? francis lay near the fire, his eyes closed, his respirations long and easy. the softer breathing of the prisoner in the coach was as deep and measured. hal stole noiselessly out, and made for the shed in which the puritan slept. anthony lay in his cloak, on a pile of hay, his back turned to that of rumney. the highway robber's eyes were closed; whether he slept or not, hal could not have told. but there was no doubt of the somnolent state of the puritan. a steady gentle shaking of his shoulder caused him to open his eyes. "come with me," whispered hal. the puritan rose, without a word, and followed from the one shed to the other, and to the fire by the coach. "'tis best you sleep in my sight, beside the lad," said marryott, turning toward the designated spot as he finished. in the same instant, he stared as if he saw a ghost, and then stifled an oath. francis was gone. hal looked about, but saw nothing human in range of the firelight. he hastened to the curtained opening of the coach. the same soft breathing--there could be no mistaking it--still came from within. "she is here, at least," hal said, quickly, to the somewhat mystified anthony. "but he hath flown on some errand of her plotting, depend on't! he must have feigned sleep, and followed me out. he can't be far, as yet. 'tis but a minute since. watch you by the coach!" with which order, master marryott seized a brand from the fire, and ran out again to the yard. but he had scarce cast a swift glance around the place, ere he saw francis coming out of the very shed from which hal himself had led anthony a few moments earlier. "what is this?" cried marryott, grasping the boy's arm, and thrusting the firebrand almost into his face. francis stared vacantly for an instant, then gave a start, blinked, and looked at hal as if for the first time conscious of what was going on. "what's afoot, you knave?" said hal, squeezing the page's arm. "what deviltry are you about, following me from your bed, hiding in the darkness while i pass, and going to yonder shed? you bore some message from your mistress to master rumney. i'll warrant! confess, or 'twill go ill!" "i know not where i've been, or what done," replied the boy, coolly. "i walk in my sleep, sir." hal searchingly inspected the lad's countenance, but it did not flinch. pondering deeply, he then led the way back to his fire, and commanded the page to lie down. francis readily obeyed. bidding the puzzled but unquestioning puritan sleep beside the boy, hal soon lost himself in his thoughts,--lost himself so far that it did not occur to him to step now and then to the door and look out into the night; else he might presently have seen a dark figure move stealthily from outhouse to outhouse as if in search of something. it would then have appeared that captain rumney, also, was given to walking in his sleep. chapter xv. treachery. "god pless you, aunchient pistol! you scurvy, lousy knave, god pless you!"--_henry v._ "here is the snow thou hast foretold," said master marryott to anthony underhill, as the cavalcade set out, three hours after midnight. "and a plague of wind," put in captain rumney, with a good humor in which marryott smelt some purpose of cultivating confidence. the riders wrapped themselves in their cloaks, and muffled their necks to keep out the pelting flakes. the night being at its darkest, the snow was more "perceptible to feeling" than "to sight," save where it flew and eddied in the light of a torch carried by bottle at the head of the line, and of a lanthorn that hal had caused to be attached to the rear of the coach. between these two dim centres of radiance, the horsemen shivered and grumbled unseen, and cursed their steeds, and wished red murrains and black plagues, and poxes of no designated color, upon the weather. they passed through keighley about dawn. two miles further on, they stopped at an isolated house for breakfast. as marryott opened the coach curtain (it had been closed against the whirling snow), to convey to the prisoners some cakes and milk, mistress hazlehurst motioned francis to set the platter on a coach seat, and said to hal: "if you wish not to murder me, you will let me walk a little rather than eat. i seem to have lost the use of legs and arms, penned up in this cage these two days." "nay, 'tis but a day and a half," corrected marryott. "but you may walk whiles we tarry here, an you choose. the snow is ankle-deep in the road, however." "i care not if it be knee-deep." "will you promise to return to the coach at my word, if i let you out to walk?" hal did not feel equal to putting her into the coach again by bodily force. "god's light, yes! what choice have i?" "and while you walk, i must walk beside you, and francis at my other side." "i have said, what choice have i?" he offered his hand to assist her from the coach. but she leaped out unaided, and started forthwith in the direction whence the travellers had just come. hal waited for francis, and then strode after her, holding the page by a sleeve. kit bottle was busy looking to the refreshment of the horses. captain rumney was stalking up and down the road, his whole attention apparently concentrated upon a pot of ale he carried. anthony underhill had ridden back to a slightly elevated spot, to keep watch. master marryott was soon at his prisoner's side. she could not, for snow and wind, long maintain the pace at which she had started from the coach. the weather reddened her cheeks, which took hue also from her crimson cloak and hood. hal thought her very beautiful,--a thing of bloom and rich color in a bleak, white desert. it smote him keenly to remember that she deemed him her brother's slayer. he was half tempted to tell her the truth, now that she was his prisoner and could not go back to undeceive roger barnet. but would she believe him? and if she should, was it certain that she might not escape ere the next two days were up? prudence counselled hal to take no risks. so, in faintest hope of shaking her hatred a little, of creating at least a doubt in his favor, he fell back on the poor device of which he had already made one or two abortive trials. "i swear to you, mistress hazlehurst," he began, somewhat awkwardly, "'twas not i that gave your brother his unhappy wound. there is something unexplained, touching that occurrence, that will be cleared to you in time." a little to his surprise, she did not cut short all possible discussion by some sharp derisive or contemptuous answer. though her tone showed no falling away from conviction, she yet evinced a passive willingness to talk of the matter. "there hath been explanation enough for me," she answered. "i had the full story of my brother's servants, who saw all." "the officers of justice could not have had a like story," said hal, at random. "else why came they never to fleetwood house?" "you well know. the quarrel was witnessed of none but your man and my brother's servants. they kept all quiet; your man, for your safety's sake; my brother's men, for--for the reason--my brother's men kept all quiet, too, till i came home." "and why did your brother's men so? you broke off there." "oh, i care not if i say it! my brother's servants were not as near the encounter as your man was, and they saw ill; they were of a delusion that you struck in self-defence. and my brother, too, bade them hush the matter." "'twas as much as to admit that he was the offender." "well, what matters that? at best there was little zeal he might expect of his neighbors in visiting the law upon you. he was a man of too strong mettle; he was too hated in the county to hope for justice, even against a catholic. well you know that, sir valentine fleetwood! but i would have had my rights of the law, or paid you in mine own way,[ ] had not this other means of vengeance come to my hand! self-defence or no self-defence, you shed my brother's blood, and i will be a cause of the shedding of yours!" "but i say naught of self-defence. i say i am not he that, rightly or wrongly, shed your brother's blood!" "god-'a'-mercy, sir, i marvel at you! tis sheer impudence to deny what mine own family servants saw with their eyes and told me with their lips! think you, because i am some miles and days from all witnesses of the quarrel, save your own man, my mind is to be clouded upon it?" "i say only that there is a strange circumstance in all this business, that may not yet be opened to you. well, i see that till time shall permit explanation, i must despair of seeming other to you than stained with your brother's blood. my word of honor, my oath, avail not--" "speak you of oaths and words of honor? there was some talk of oaths two days ago, before the constable of clown!" hal sighed. he did not notice that, in drawing him further into conversation, she had drawn him further from the coach, which was indeed now hidden behind a slight turn of the road. "well," quoth he, resignedly, "time shall clear me; and show, too, why i have had to put so admired a lady to so irksome a constraint." "say, rather, time shall give your prisoner revenge for all constraint. think not you have put me to much distress! what says the play? women can endure mewing up, so that you tie not their tongues!" "i thank heaven you have not given me cause to tie your tongue!" "given you cause,--how?" she asked, looking full at him. "why, suppose, in the towns we passed, you had cried out from the coach to people, and i had found the closed curtain of no avail." "what would you have done then?" "bound with a silken kerchief the shapeliest mouth in england! ay, with these very hands of mine!" "ere that were done, i should have made stir enough to draw a concourse. were i hard put to it, be sure i would attract questioners to whom you'd have to give account." "account were easy given. i should declare you were a mad woman committed to my charge." "more perjury!" "nay, there is truly some madness in a woman's taking vengeance into her own small hands." she answered nothing, and presently they returned to the coach. captain rumney stood pensively by his horse, his gaze averted, as if he thought of the past or the far away. he now looked mildly up, and mounted. the other robbers were already on their horses, bottle at their head. mistress hazlehurst let hal lift her into the coach. francis followed. marryott then whistled for anthony, and got into the saddle. "the snow falls thicker and thicker," remarked captain rumney, in a bland, sociable tone, while the caravan waited for the puritan. as soon as anthony was in place, hal motioned to bottle, at whose word the robbers, with whip and rein, set their horses in motion. the harness strained, the coach creaked, the wheels turned reluctantly in the snow. the procession moved forward a short distance; then, suddenly, there was a splitting sound, a rear wheel fell inward, and the adjacent part of the coach dropped heavily to the ground. the vehicle, thereupon, was still, halting the horses with a violent jerk. anthony underhill leaped from his saddle, and turned over the loose wheel. a single glance revealed that the axle had been, within a very short time past, cut nearly through with a saw. anthony looked at master marryott, who gazed at the axle with a singularly self-communing, close-mouthed expression. all was very clear to master marryott; a train of events had rushed through his mind in an eye's twinkling: mistress hazlehurst's subjugation of captain rumney by the use of her eyes; the nocturnal visit of her page to the robber in the single opportunity afforded by hal's movements; the walk in which she had drawn hal from the coach at a time when anthony was on guard and kit bottle concerned with the horses. a few words would have sufficed for the message borne by francis to rumney, such as, "my mistress desires you to wreck the coach; she will make an opportunity." she had not asked rumney to rescue her by force, for he might prove a worse captor than her present one. she had not asked him to injure the horses during the night, for the watch kept by hal might prevent that, or the robber might be unwilling to sacrifice his own animals. what she sought was delay for the coming of barnet; not an open revolt of the robbers, which might be so victorious as to put her at their mercy. and rumney had obeyed her to the letter; had, doubtless, after receiving her message, searched the outhouses for a suitable tool; and probably carried at the present moment, beneath his leather jerkin, the hand-saw with which, during hal's walk with mistress hazlehurst, he had severed the axle. but, whatever lay concealed under his jerkin or his skull, captain rumney was now looking down at the wheel with a most surprised, puzzled, curious, how-in-god's-name-could-this-have-come-to-pass expression of face. it was but the early morning of the fourth day of the flight. could hal but defer the inevitable break with his ally, for this day and another! until the five days were up, an open breach with, or secret flight from, these robbers, meant the risk of either his mission or her safety. for such break or flight might leave her in their hands. this horrible issue could be provided against only by hal's consigning her to protection in some town or some gentleman's house; but such provision he dared not make till his mission was accomplished, lest she defeat that mission by disclosures that would either cause his own seizure or raise doubts in barnet as to his identity. decidedly, patience was the proper virtue here, and the best policy was that of temporizing. "'tis a curious smooth break," said hal, with an indescribable something in his voice for the benefit of anthony, and of kit, who had ridden back to see what stayed the coach. "but i have seen wood break so, when decay hath eaten a straight way through it. mistress, i rejoice to see you are not hurt by the sudden jar." he spoke to her through the coach doorway. both she and francis were sitting quite undisturbed. the jar had, in fact, not been sudden to them. as hal knew, they had expected the breakdown. but his dissembling must be complete. "here's delay!" put in captain rumney, most sympathetically vexed. "yes," said marryott, very dismally, as if bereft of hope. his wisest course lay in holding the plotters passive by making them think they had already accomplished enough. if mistress hazlehurst supposed that sufficient delay was now obtained, she would not further instigate rumney. and without instigation rumney was not likely to invite open warfare at a place only two miles from keighley. in fact, he would not, of his own initiative, have chosen a spot so near a town, for causing the breakdown, which might result in tumult. he would have waited for a more solitary neighborhood. he was of no mind for needlessly chancing any kind of violent contact with the authorities. mistress hazlehurst, not divining his feelings on this point, had created the opportunity at this spot, and he had taken the risk. but he was well content that the supposed sir valentine accused him not. in roads more remote, accusation might be positively welcome; but not in close vicinity to a centre of law and order. with a kind of vague, general sense of what captain rumney's mental attitude must be, marryott felt that he need fear no interruption to the plan his mind now formed, in a moment's time, for an early resumption of the flight. but he did not communicate this plan to any but anthony, who alone was necessary to its inauguration. even bottle was kept in the dark, in order that rumney might not find, in being excepted from a council of leaders, a pretext for subsequent complaint. as for his instructions to the puritan, hal gave them very quickly, in whispers, leaning down from his saddle to approach more nearly the other's ear. anthony, having listened without speech or sign, remounted his horse, rode to the house at which the breakfast had been obtained, and made a few brief inquiries of the man who came to the door. the result of his questions was evidently not satisfactory; for he rode from the door, shaking his head in the negative to master marryott; and forthwith cantered off through the falling snow, toward keighley. bottle, who had sat his horse in silent observation of these movements, as had rumney also, now glanced at hal as if to question the propriety of sending the puritan away. "fear not," said hal, reassuringly. "if he see thy friend barnet ere he find what he seeks, he will drop all and come back a-flying. and then we shall meet barnet, or dodge him, in what manner we must!" it has been told that marryott was always prepared, as a last resource, to use his forces in resistance to the pursuivant. a close meeting was to be avoided to the utmost, however; not only for its uncertainty of issue to the immediate participants, but for its likelihood of informing barnet that the pursued man was not sir valentine. in the event of that disclosure, hal saw safety for his mission in one desperate course; that was, to kill or disable the pursuivant and all his men. but such a feat of arms was barely within possibility, a fact which made master hal extremely unwilling that matters should come to an encounter. therefore he groaned and fretted inwardly during the minutes of inaction that followed anthony's departure. he sought relief from thoughts of a possible combat with his pursuers, in following out his plan for his forward movement; and saw with joy that the very method he had chosen for going on with his prisoner was the better adapted to his bearing her safely off from rumney in case of a conflict with that gentleman. "have your men take their horses from the coach. captain rumney," hal had said very soon after anthony had departed. the words were spoken lightly, not as if they accorded with a plan, but as if they indeed had no other inspiration than was shown when hal added, "'tis no use now keeping them hitched to this moveless heap of lumber." prompt obedience had been given to an order so suggestive of greater delay. and now the robbers idly sat their horses, jesting, railing at one another, grumbling, and some of them wondering in dull discontent whither in the fiend's name they were bound. anne and her page kept their places in the derelict vehicle, withholding their thoughts. bottle and rumney rode up and down, saying little. they were old soldiers, and used to waiting. moreover, in the days of slow transit, patience was a habit, especially with those who travelled. at last anthony's figure reappeared, rising and falling in the whirling snow as his movements obeyed those of his horse. his manner showed that he did not bear any tidings of barnet. he brought with him an old pillion and a collection of battered hunting-horns, the former behind his saddle, the latter all slung upon a single cord. it was to procure these things that he had gone back to keighley, where there were saddlers, innkeepers, hostlers, smiths, and others from whom such articles were to be had. hal's companions looked with curiosity at these acquisitions. marryott now ordered both anthony and kit to dismount. he then had the horse formerly ridden by francis led back to the coach doorway. here he caused bottle to hold the animal, and anthony to adjust the pillion behind the saddle thereon. "now, mistress," said hal, when this was done, "pray let me aid you to the pillion." from her seat in the coach she did not move, nor made she the smallest answer. she merely cast a look at captain rumney. hal saw the need of swift action; delay would give her mute appeal to the robber time to take effect. summary proceedings would bewilder him. "tom cobble, hold my horse," he said, and was afoot in an instant. in another, he was inside the coach, raising mistress hazlehurst bodily from her seat, and conveying her out of the doorway to the pillion, which was not too high or far to permit his placing her upon it. taken quite by surprise, she found herself on horseback ere she thought to brace herself for physical resistance. "the cord, anthony," called hal. the puritan threw it to him, having already unfastened it from the hunting-horns. before mistress hazlehurst had time to think of sliding from the pillion to the ground. hal had her waist twice encircled by the cord, of which he retained both ends. he then, from the coach doorway, mounted the saddle in front of her, brought the rope's ends together before him, joined them in a knot, and let kit bottle lead the horse a few paces forward so that his prisoner might not impede matters by seizing hold of the coach. "and now the boy, anthony. carry him on your saddle-bow," said marryott. the puritan, reaching into the coach with both arms, laid hold of the page, and placed him on the saddle-bow; then, at a gesture, mounted behind him. "take one of the horns, kit," was hal's next command. "give one to me, one to anthony, one to captain rumney, and the other to tom cobble. john hatch, lead the spare horse. and now all to your saddles. kit, ride at the head. anthony, you shall go at my right hand; tom cobble, at my left. captain rumney shall choose his place. and heed this, all of you: when i sound this horn, all ye that have like instruments, blow your loudest; the rest, halloo your lustiest; and every mother's son set his horse a-galloping till i call halt, taking heed to keep together. and now, forward!" a minute later, the cavalcade was moving through the downcoming flakes, leaving the wrecked coach to bury itself in the snow. mistress hazlehurst could not but see her captor's reason for the order of which a blast from his horn was to be the signal. now that she was no longer concealed in the coach, it would be easier--the temptation would be greater--for her to make an outcry when passing habitations. the noise of the horns and of the hallooing would drown the words she might utter, and the galloping would rob her gesticulations of their intended effect. the conduct of the whole party would strike beholders as the sportive ebullition of a company of merry blades bent on astonishing the natives; and any cries or motions she might make would seem, in the flash of time while they might be witnessed, but of a piece with the behavior of her boisterous companions. there were roysterers of the gentler sex in those days,--witness mary frith, otherwise "moll cutpurse," who was indeed a very devil of a fellow.[ ] such roaring women were not of mistress hazlehurst's quality; but who would have time to discern her quality in the brief while of the company's mad transit through such small towns as lay before them? it was less clear to her why her enemy should have placed her on the same horse with himself, when he might have bound her upon another, of which he could have retained hold of the bridle. but the case was thus: though a possible contest with rumney or barnet might result in hal's own personal escape, such a contest might, were she on another horse, enable her to free herself, and either make disclosures fatal to hal's mission, or fall prisoner to the robber. but, she being on his horse, and unable to act independently of him, hal's escape would leave her still his captive. that escape he must, then, contrive to make. he thus simplified his course in the event of an encounter; twined two threads into one; united two separate lines of possible befalling--his line and hers--so that they might be determined by a single, concentrated exertion of his own prowess. [illustration: "the brazen notes clove the air."] should matters so shape that her life be endangered by her position, hal might, at the last moment, sever with his dagger the cord that bound her to him. she, being now deprived of weapons, could not do this. as for francis, stealthy and resolute as recent occurrences had shown him to be, there was nothing to fear from him while he bestrode the saddle-bow of anthony underhill. it was eight o'clock when they started from the abandoned coach. a little after nine they passed through skipton. the town was half invisible through the falling snow, which, as it came, was the sport of the same wind that made casements rattle and weather-cocks creak, and street-folk muffle themselves and pay small heed to passing riders. to test his device and his men, master marryott, when half way through the town, sounded his horn and gave his horse the spur. the response, from all but captain rumney, was instant and hearty. the brazen notes clove the air, the men emitted a score of unearthly yells, the horses dashed forward; and the clamor, which caused the few snow-blinded outdoor folk to stare blinkingly, might well have awakened the ghosts of the ancient castle of the cliffords. but neither ghosts nor townspeople stayed the turbulent strangers. when hal ordered a cessation, outside the town, he found that the men were in the better humor for the little outlet to their pent-up deviltry; all with the exception of rumney, who had galloped with the rest, but in silence. rumney had indeed been moody since the abandonment of the coach. he had kept his place behind marryott, in full range of the eyes of the lady on the pillion, who, as she sat sidewise, could look back at him with ease. her glances, eloquent of a kind of surprise at his inaction, gave him an ill opinion of himself which he soon burned to revenge upon some one. and his feelings were not sweetened by his men's good humor over an incident from which he had excluded himself. of the roads from skipton, marryott chose that which he thought would take him soonest into the north riding. the cavalcade had gone perhaps four miles upon this road, when, suddenly, captain rumney called out: "halt, lads, and close in upon this quarry!" his men checked their horses, some with surprise, some as if the order might have been expected. they drew their blades, too,--blades of every variety,--and turned their horses about. captain bottle instantly urged his steed back toward hal, charging through the confusion of plunging horses in true cavalry fashion. marryott himself wheeled half around to face rumney. anthony underhill, with francis on his saddle-bow, grimly menaced the robbers who had turned. "what means this, captain rumney?" said hal, quietly. every sword in the company was now unsheathed. "it means that i cry, stand and deliver!" replied the robber, finding all needful confidence and courage in the very utterance of the habitual challenge. he felt himself now in his own rôle, and feared nothing. "is it not foolish," answered marryott, without raising his voice, "to risk your skin thus, for the sake of money that would be yours to-morrow in payment of service?" "to the devil with your money,--though i'll have that, too, ere all's done! first deliver me the lady!" "i am much more like to deliver you to the flames below!" replied hal. "say you so! upon him, boys!" cried rumney, raising a pistol, which he had furtively got ready to fire. two things occurred at the same moment: anthony underhill got his sword engaged with that of the nearest robber who had moved to obey rumney's order; and master marryott struck rumney's pistol aside with his rapier, so that it discharged itself harmlessly into the falling snow. hal's next movement was to turn rumney's sword-point with his dagger, which he held in the same hand with his rein. behind him, mistress hazlehurst clung to her pillion, in a state of mind that may be imagined. in front of anthony underhill. francis, the page, made himself small, to avoid a possible wild thrust from the fellow that contested with the puritan. by this time kit bottle had reached anthony's side. "what, ye jolly bawcocks!" he cried to the robbers, his sword-point raised aloft, as if he awaited the result of his words ere choosing a victim for it. "will ye follow this cheap rascal rumney 'gainst gentlemen? he'll prove traitor to you all, an ye trust him long enough; as he did to me in the low countries! mr. edward moreton, and honest john hatch, and good oliver bunch, i call on you stand by true men!" "and tom cobble!" shouted hal, without looking back from his combat with rumney, which, although it was now one of rapiers, they continued to wage on horseback. "you're my man, i wot! a raw rustical rogue like this, is not fit for london lads to follow!" "what say ye, mates?" cried tom cobble. "i am for the gentleman!" "and i!" quoth john hatch, stoutly; ned moreton, airily; oliver bunch, timidly; and two or three others. "a murrain on gentlemen!" roared a burly fellow, and a chorus of approving oaths and curses showed that a majority of rumney's men remained faithful to their old leader. "good, my hearts!" cried their captain, his brow clearing of the cloud that had risen at the first defection. "there shall be the more pickings for you that are staunch! i'll kill every deserter!" "look to't you be not killed yourself!" quoth master marryott, leaning forward to keep the area of steel-play far from mistress hazelhurst. rumney had exchanged his emptied pistol for a dagger, and he imitated hal in using it with the hand that held his rein. in rapier-and-dagger fights, the long weapon was used for thrusting, the short one for parrying. such contests were not for horseback. when mounted enemies met, so armed, they would ordinarily dismount and fight afoot. but marryott was determined not to separate himself from his prisoner, and rumney chose to remain in readiness for pursuit in case his antagonist should resort to flight. so this unique duel went on,--a single combat with rapier and dagger, on horseback, one of the contestants sharing his horse with a lady on a pillion behind him! the combat remained single because rumney's men had all they could do in defending themselves against the vigorous attack of kit bottle. anthony underhill, and the deserters from their own band. these deserters, knowing that the defeat of the side they had taken would leave them at the mercy of the rumney party, fought with that fury which comes of having no alternative but victory or death. there was not an idle or a shirking sword to be found on either side. each man chose his particular antagonist, and when one combatant had worsted his opponent he found another or went to the aid of a comrade. in the narrow roadway, in blinding flakes, and with mingled cries of pain, rage, and elation, these riders plied their weapons one against another, until blood dripped in many places on the fallen snow that was tramped by the rearing horses. the strange miniature battle, fought in a place out of sight of human habitation, and with no witnesses but the two prisoners so dangerously placed for viewing it, lasted for ten minutes. then master marryott, whose adroitness, sureness, and swiftness had begun to appall and confuse rumney, ran his rapier through the latter's sword-arm. with a loud exclamation, the robber dropped the arm to his side, and backed his horse out of reach with his left hand. but hal, with a fierce cry "talk you of killing?" spurred his horse forward as if to finish with the rascal. this was a pretence, but it worked its purpose. "quarter," whimpered the robber captain, pale with fear. "then call off your hounds!" replied hal, hotly, checking his horse. "i will," answered the trembling rumney, quickly. "lads, a truce! put up your swords, curse you!" his men were not sorry to get this order, nor their opponents to hear it given. the fight had gone too evenly to please either side, and wounds--some of them perhaps destined to prove fatal--had been nearly equally distributed. hal's adherents ceased fighting when their foes did, kit bottle being the last, and probably the only reluctant one, to desist. "and now you will turn back, master rumney," said marryott, in a hard, menacing tone, "and find another road to travel! take with you the knaves that stood by you. the others, an they choose, shall remain my men, in my pay. come, you rogues, march!" master marryott backed to the side of the road, that rumney's followers might pass. they did so, readily enough, those who were unhorsed being lifted to saddles by their comrades. until the two parties were distinctly separated, and several paces were between them, every weapon and every eye on either side remained on the alert to meet treachery. all the deserters from rumney stayed with hal. "'god bless you, ancient rumney,'" called out kit bottle, slightly altering a remembered speech from a favorite play, as the robber turned his horse's head toward skipton. "'you scurvy, lousy knave. god bless you!'" rumney and his men rode for some distance without answer; hal and his company, motionless, looking after them. suddenly, when he was beyond easy overtaking, the robber leader turned in his saddle, and shouted back, vindictively: "i scorn you, kit bottle! you are no better than an irish footboy! and your master there is a woman-stealing dog, that i'll be quits with yet. he's no gentleman, neither, but a scurvy fencing-master in false feathers!" "shall i give chase and make him eat his words?" asked kit of master marryott. "nay, the cur that whines for mercy, and receives it, and then snarls back at a safe distance, is too foul for thy hands, kit! let those fellows on the ground be put on horses and supported till we find a safe place for them. i'll not abandon any that stood by me. and then, onward! madam, i trust you were not incommoded. your page, i see, is safe." mistress hazlehurst deigned no answer. her feelings were wrapped in a cloak of outward composure. the wounded men were soon made safe upon horses, and the northward journey was again in progress. "i thank heaven we are rid of captain rumney!" said hal to kit bottle, who now rode beside him. anthony having taken the lead. "i would thank heaven more heartily, an i were sure we _were_ rid of him!" growled kit, blinking at the snowflakes. chapter xvi. foxby hall. "o most delicate fiend! who is't can read a woman?"--_cymbeline._ the forenoon on which this fray and separation occurred was that of saturday, march seventh, the fourth day of the flight. marryott's company now consisted of his two original followers, his two prisoners. ned moreton, tom cobble, oliver bunch. john hatch, and a few more of the robbers. what wounds had been received were bound up as well as possible, with strips torn from clothing, and were so stoically endured as not to impede the forward journey. the able-bodied rode by the disabled, giving them needful support. marryott had travelled some two hundred miles from fleetwood house in three and a half days, accomplishing an average of nearly sixty miles a day, despite all delays and the slow going of the coach. now that the storm had come up, to make the roads well-nigh impassable, it would take a rider at least three and a half days to return from hal's present place to fleetwood house. thus, even if the pursuivant should overtake the fugitives at any moment, seven days were already gained for sir valentine. another day and a half would, under the storm-caused conditions of travel, procure him the full ten days. now, before the beginning of the storm, roger barnet, had he gone at the speed for which the men of his office were then proverbial ("like flying pursuivant" is spenser's simile for swift-moving angels), would have overtaken a traveller hampered as hal was. but it happened--so prone is circumstance to run to coincidence, as every man perceives daily in his own life--that roger barnet, too, had his special hindrances. that part of the chase which had culminated in his almost catching hal at the hostelry near the newark cross-road, had been delayed at the outset by the delivery of the queen's letters. and in the subsequent pursuit, when hal's several impediments had given the pursuivant the best opportunities, master barnet had suffered most annoying checks. of these, there were those that hal had conjectured; but, in addition, there was a bodily accident to no less a person than master barnet himself. in that very village of clown, where hal had been detained by the constable, an exhausted horse had fallen at the moment when the pursuivant was dismounting from it, and had so bruised the pursuivant's leg that he had been perforce laid up at the ale-house for some hours, unable to stand, or to sit his saddle. for his own reasons, of which a hint has been given earlier in this narrative, he had not allowed his men to continue the chase without him; but he had resumed it at the first moment when he could endure the pain of riding. of this interference of fortune in his behalf, master marryott knew nothing, as he and his riders toiled forward through the blown clouds of snow. he took it on faith that the pursuivant, obliged by duty and enabled by skill, was following through similar clouds somewhere behind. he would not, at this stage, give a moment's room to any thought opposed to this. the travellers covered thirty miles or more, through unremitting snowfall and increasing wind; passing rylston, cumiston, kettlewell, carlton, middleham, and harmby,--names, some of which have lost their old importance, some of which have given place to others, some of which have quite vanished from the map,--stopping twice for food, drink, and to rest the horses. in the inhabited places, the riders were too much obscured by snow, the people outdoors were too few, for mistress hazlehurst to place any hope in an appeal for rescue. nevertheless, to hearten his men up, and to leave the deeper trace for barnet to follow. marryott went through these places at a gallop, with great noise of voices and horns. strange must have been the spectacle to gaping villagers drawn to casements by the advancing clamor, when this mad band of riders--one of them a woman--dashed into sight, as if borne by the wind like the snow clouds, rushed by with blast and shout, and disappeared into the white whirl as they had come! all through the afternoon mistress hazlehurst was silent, close-wrapped in cloak and hood. she accepted with barely uttered thanks the ale and food that master marryott caused kit bottle to bring her from the rude inns near which they stopped. hal showed his solicitude, at first, in brief and courteous inquiries regarding her comfort; then, as these were answered either not at all, or in the coldest monosyllables, in glances over his shoulder. was her inertia, he asked himself, a sign that she had given up the battle?--or a sign that she was nourishing some new plan, sufficiently subtle to fit the new circumstances? during the afternoon, kit bottle rode often among the men from rumney's band, talking with them, and seeing how the wounded bore themselves. as the riders passed in sight of middleham castle, whose wind-beaten walls, with their picturesque background of nature's setting, were now scarce visible behind the driven nebules of snow, kit brought his horse close to hal's, and said, in a low voice: "some of those fellows have ugly little cuts. they would fare better under roof, and on their backs, than on horse, in this weather." "but where may they be left?" asked hal. "what yeoman or hind would take them under shelter? and the inns where their robber-skins would be safe, look you, are those where rumney is a favored guest. if he should come and find them, how many three-farthing pieces would their lives be worth, think you?" "thou speakest by the card there, god wot! but i have in mind a shelter where these honest knaves can lie safe, and where we all may snatch an hour or two of comfort. this oliver bunch hath turned himself inside out to me. the lands where he was under-steward, before the family fled to france for their necks' sake, are five or six mile ahead of us. the mansion, he tells me, is closed tight, and empty. whether confiscation hath been made, i know not; but, be the place the crown's, or some one's else by gift or purchase, there it now stands for our use, without e'en bailiff or porter to say us nay. 'tis called foxby hall." "if it be so tight closed that others have not entered, for thievery or shelter, how can we get in?" "with a key that this bunch hath hid in a safe hole in the wall. it opens a side door. he hath kept his secret, for love of his old place of service, till this hour." "he is a very worthy rascal, truly. well, let us make the better haste to this house, that we may have the more time to tarry in it. foxby hall, say you? i like the name; it hath a sound of hospitable walls amidst the greenwood." speed was made, therefore; and about five o'clock, while the snow still fell unceasingly, the riders came to a place where, on one hand, the road was flanked by varied and well-wooded country, and where, on the other hand, there ran for some distance a wooden fence, beyond which there were at first fields, and then the stately trees of a park. the fence was finally succeeded by a stone wall, at a point where a similar wall ran back at right angle with the first. the wall along the road had in its middle a broken-down gate. before this gate oliver bunch stopped; and, with a look at kit bottle, pointed through it. when hal drew up his horse, and looked into the grounds to which the gate afforded entrance, he saw, some way up a thinly-wooded slope, a turreted and gabled building. from its main front, which was parallel with the road, two wings projected forward. these three parts enclosed three sides of a square: the fourth side was bounded by a little terrace, which descended toward the road, and at whose foot ran a second wall, quite low, across part of the grounds. the main front, which had two gables, was partly of stone, partly of wood and plaster. the wings, more recent, were of brick; they were flanked by turrets, and their ends were gabled. the windows of the main front were high, narrow, and pointed at the tops; those of the wings also were high, but they were wide and rectangular. there was a porched gothic door in the middle of the main front; and one of the wings, in its inner side, had a smaller door. a basin for a fountain was in the centre of the square. tall trees grew on the terrace. "it hath an inviting look," said master marryott. "but 'tis far from the road. were barnet sighted, we could scarce get to horse and reach the gate ere he arrived." "an't please your worship," put in oliver bunch, deferentially, "the house hath a way through the park, to a gate further on the road. 'tis a shorter way to the north than the road itself is, sir, for it runs straight from the stables, while the road goes somewhat roundabout." "then seek your key, good oliver bunch; and heaven grant it be safe in its hiding-place!" the fat household servant of former days slid from his horse with unwonted alacrity, and disappeared through the gate, gliding thence along the inner side of the wall. he soon returned with sparkling eyes, holding up the key. "lead oliver's horse, kit," said hal. "let him show us the way, afoot. yon turret window hath a long view of the road. we can keep watch there for barnet." the worthy bunch, gazing fondly at the deserted mansion amidst the trees, hastened up the gentle incline of land, followed by the riders. all looked with curious eyes upon the house as they ascended. the horse-path, after passing through an alley of neglected hedgerows, skirted the terrace, and led across one side of the square court to the gothic main door. bidding the riders halt there, bunch traversed the other side of the court, and vanished behind the angle of a wing. for some minutes the company waited in expectation, hal watching mistress hazlehurst as her gaze slowly ranged the exterior of the house. at last an unchaining, unbarring, unbolting, and key-turning were heard from within the door. then it swung heavily inward, with a creak, and oliver bunch appeared with a welcoming face. "anthony, you will look to the stabling of the horses," said master marryott. "oliver bunch, be so kind to show him where that may be done. tom cobble, take you charge of the boy, and follow me into the house. master moreton, have the able fellows help in the wounded. captain bottle, find you the turret window of yonder wing, and watch there till i send word. come to this door, anthony and oliver, as soon as the horses be in shelter; i shall have commands, regarding their comfort and our own. madam, i pray you dismount and enter!" hal had swiftly, on finishing his orders to the men, untied the cord that bound him to his prisoner, and had leaped to the ground, holding in one hand the loose ends. she accepted his hand mechanically, in descending from the pillion, and then preceded him into the hall of the mansion. this was a large, lofty apartment, with a timber roof, a great fireplace, walls hung with old tapestry and armor, and a stairway ascending along the rear. in a corner some trestles and boards remained as evidence of the last feast upon which the woven, many-colored hunting party in the arras had looked down. marryott sat beside mistress hazlehurst, on a bench by the empty fireplace, and watched moreton and hatch help the wounded men to a pile of rushes at one side of the hall. by the time that anthony and oliver had returned, hal had made plans for the next few hours. he had travelled so rapidly since morning, that he thought he might make this mansion his stopping-place for as much of the night as he should take for rest. beginning the nightly halt at five, instead of at eight, he might set forth again at twelve instead of at three; unless, of course, an alarm of pursuit should send him to the saddle in the meanwhile. this plan would obviate the difficulty he had anticipated of finding a suitable night's lodging for his prisoner. as the next day would be the fifth and last of his flight, that difficulty would not recur after to-night. he saw, with elation, the end of his mission at hand; and at the same time, with a feeling of blankness and chill, the end of his fellowship with mistress hazlehurst. but meanwhile there was the immediate future, for which he thus arranged: he learned from oliver bunch that there was an inn some distance beyond where the park path joined the highroad. to that inn he sent anthony underhill for provisions. going and returning by the park way, which the travellers would use in a hasty flight, the puritan would meet them in case of such flight during his absence. marryott then set his men to fetching logs and making fires: one in the great hall, for the benefit of the injured robbers; one in an upper chamber that he chose, upon oliver's description, for mistress hazlehurst's use; and a third in the large room from which this chamber had its only entrance. guided by oliver, hal conducted his unresisting prisoner up the stairs, thence through a corridor that made a rectangular turn, thence into the large room, and to the threshold of her chamber. he gave permission, unasked, that francis might wait upon her, but stationed tom cobble in the large room with instructions to follow the page wherever the latter went outside her chamber, and to restrict his movements to the house itself. having heard these orders and made no comment, mistress hazlehurst beckoned the page to follow, and disappeared into the chamber. hal had chosen as his own resting-place the large outer room. it was in the same wing with the turret to which he had sent kit bottle to keep watch. perceiving that the great embayed window of the room gave as good a view of the southward road as the turret itself could give, hal summoned kit, and sent him to stay with the robbers in the hall below. the captain might sleep, if he chose; he had kept vigil the previous night. hal would now watch from the window, until anthony's return; then the puritan should go on guard. tom cobble sat, half asleep, on a chest at one side of the door to mistress hazlehurst's chamber. marryott reclined on the window-seat, looking now through the casement at the snow-covered, rolling, grove-dotted country; now at the blazing, crackling logs in the fireplace opposite; now at the tapestry, which sometimes stirred in the wind that entered by cracks of door and window. the room was well furnished, as indeed most of the house was, for its occupants, whatever the cause of their flight from the country, had valued haste above property. they had not even taken all their trunks; for one of these stood in the room as a piece of furniture, in accordance with the custom of the time. this apartment had probably served as a ladies' room. it had a case of books; a table on which were some scattered playing-cards, and a draughts-board with the pieces in the position of an unfinished game; and another table, on which lay an open virginal, a viol, and smaller musical instruments. the chairs were heavy and solid. overhead was visible the timber work of the roof. marryott went and examined the viol, and, returning to the window-seat, drew from it a few tremulous strains. as he was adjusting the strings, he heard a sound at the end of the apartment, looked up, and saw, to his surprise, that mistress hazlehurst was returning. francis followed her. her face showed the refreshing effect of the cold water with which oliver had supplied her room. hal watched her in silence. motioning francis to sit by the fire, she crossed to the music-table, sat down before it, and touched the keys of the virginal. the response showed the work of weather and neglect upon the instrument; but after twice or thrice running her fingers up and down the short keyboard, she elicited the notes of a soft and pensive melody. after a while of silent listening, marryott gently took up the melody upon his viol. for an instant he was fearful that she might break off at this, but she played on, at first as if not heeding his uninvited participation, and at last accommodating her own playing, where the effect required, to his. from one tune they went to another, and then to a third and fourth. at first it was she that led in the transition; but, at length, having ventured with some trepidation to pass, of his own initiative, from one piece to another, he had the delight of being immediately accompanied by her. there was in her first note, it was true, an instant's dragging, as if she hesitated under the protest of certain feelings, but finally the yielding was complete, the accompaniment in perfect accord. thereafter it was he that led, she that followed. what might he infer from this? aught beyond the mere outward appearance, the mere indifferent willingness to join in a musical performance for the sake of the aural pleasure? or was there signified an inner, perhaps unconscious, yielding of the woman's nature to the man's? was his domination over her, begun, and hitherto maintained, by physical force, at last obtaining the consent of her heart? marryott dared not think so; he recoiled in horror from the thought, when he saw himself, with her eyes, as her brother's supposed slayer. and then, still viewing himself with her eyes, he was fascinated by that very situation from which he had recoiled. it was, of course, as she must regard it, a tragic situation; in that circumstance lay both its horror and its fascination. but did this situation exist? when he remembered that the mere attraction of the one woman for the one man, or the one man for the one woman, ofttimes annihilates all opposing considerations, he knew that this situation was not impossible. to be loved by this woman, even across the abyss of blood she saw between them! the idea possessed and repossessed him, though again and again he put it from him as horrible, or improbable, or both. perhaps he spoke his thoughts in the notes he drew from his viol; perhaps she spoke thoughts of her own in the language of the virginal; perhaps they spoke unconsciously to each other's deepest hidden comprehension; neither could outwardly analyze an impression received from the other's playing, or certainly know whether that impression had been intended. the day faded. the snow fell between the window and the trees of the park; fell as thick as ever, but more slowly and gently now, the wind being at less unrest. the firelight danced oddly on the tapestry, the shadows deepened in its brighter radiance. not a word was uttered. only the viol and the virginal spoke. this strange concert was interrupted, at last, by the return of anthony and oliver, with a supply of cheese, spice-cakes, and apples, a bottle of wine, a large pot of ale, and a bag of feed for the horses. marryott caused the wine and a part of the food to be brought to the room in which he sat. the ale and other provisions were served to the men in the hall. anthony, after supping, and seeing the horses fed, was to keep the usual vigil on the road, as approaching horsemen might not be seen from the window after dark, and as the puritan had slept the previous night. "will you sup in your chamber, or with me at this table?" hal asked his prisoner. without speaking she pointed to the table on which oliver bunch had set the eatables. it was that on which the cards and draughts-board were. as the viands, with the glasses and plate that bunch had furnished, occupied only the table's end next the fire, the draughts-board was not disturbed. captor and captive sat opposite each other, as they had sat in the inn near the newark cross-road. tom and francis, having lighted a candle-end brought by oliver, stood to wait on them; but hal, handing them a platter on which was a good portion of the supper, bade them go to another part of the room and wait on themselves. he gave them also a glass of the wine, reserving the rest, with a single glass, for his prisoner and himself. the meal went in silence. darkness fell over the outer world. the candle added little light to that of the fire; hence much of the room was shadowy. only the table near the fire, where the two sat, was in the glow. marryott would have spoken, but a spell had fallen upon him like that which had locked his lips on the first day of their travelling. sometimes he sighed, and looked at her wistfully. when his eyes met hers, she would glance downward, but without disdain or dislike. what was in her thoughts? what was her mind toward him? he sought answer in her face, but in vain. when it came to drinking from the same glass he used, she did so, in obedience to custom, with no sign of antipathy or scruple. supper over, marryott idly turned to the cards lying near at hand. three of them faced upward. he grasped these, and held them between thumb and forefinger in the light. it was strange. they were the knave of hearts, the queen of spades, the eight of clubs,--a fair man, a dark woman, a battle. mistress hazlehurst gave him a glance signifying that she noted the coincidence. he reached for one of the cards that lay face downward, thinking it might foretell the issue of the battle. it was the nine of clubs,--more battle. he smiled amusedly, and looked at her; but her face told nothing. he turned to the draughts-board, which was portable, and carefully drew it nearer without displacing any of the pieces. there were four of each color left on the board. at first glance one could not see that either side had advantage. hal observed, under his lashes, that mistress hazlehurst's look had fallen, with slight curiosity, upon the board. he made a move, with one of the white pieces, and waited. she continued gazing at the board. at length she placed a delicate finger on one of the black pieces, and moved. hal soon replied. thus was the game, left unfinished by players now self-exiled to foreign lands, and who little imagined at this moment by what a strangely matched pair it was taken up, carried on. and, after all, it ended as a drawn game. mistress hazlehurst, perceiving that one piece of each color was left on the board as a result of an exchange which she had thought would leave two blacks and one white, gave a little shrug of the shoulders; then rose, and walked toward her chamber. marryott swiftly seized the candle, and offered it to her, saying: "we set forth again at midnight. i will knock at your door a little before." she took the candle, and went from the room; but on her threshold she turned for a moment, and said, softly: "good night!" marryott stood in a glow of incredulous joy. her tone, her gracious look, the mere fact of her uttering the civility, or of her volunteering a speech to him, could not but mean that she had softened. had she come to doubt whether he was indeed her brother's slayer? or had her heart come to incline toward him despite the supposed gulf of bloodshed that parted them? either conjecture intoxicated him; the first as with an innocent bliss, the second as with a poignant ecstasy darkly tinged with horror and guilt. francis and tom had fallen asleep where they had sat at supper. anthony, as marryott knew, had long since ridden out to keep his cold and lonely watch. kit and the other men in the hall were asleep, for the sounds of their supper merriment had ceased to come up from below. the horses were in the stables, resting, in readiness for a swift departure. the fire crackled; the wind, having risen again, wailed around the turrets and gables of foxby hall, and the snow beat against the window. marryott took a large book from the case, put it on a chest as a pillow, wrapped himself in his cloak, and lay down with his new and delicious dreams. from waking dreams, they soon became dreams indeed. for the first night in three, he slept. chapter xvii. a woman's victory "my heart hath melted at a lady's tears."--_king john._ a shrill whistle roused marryott from his sleep. he sprang to his feet. the fire was quite low now; some hours must have passed. the whistle was repeated; it came from outside the house, beneath the window. marryott threw open the casement, letting in a dash of wind and snow, and leaned out. below him, in the snowy darkness, was anthony, on horseback. "how now, anthony?" "a score of men have rid into harmby, from the south. i saw them from this side of the town. i had gone so far back to keep warmth in my horse. 'tis bitter cold. they stopped at the inn there, these men; whether to pass the night, or to get fresh horses, i wot not." "are they barnet's men, think you?" "there is no knowing. the darkness and snow make all men look alike at a distance. they might be the pursuivant's men, or they might be captain bottle's friends." by "captain bottle's friends" the puritan meant rumney and his robbers. "harmby is but four miles away," said marryott. "an they came on to-night, they would stop here to inquire of our passing. or if they asked further on, and found we had not passed, they would soon hound us out. 'tis well you brought the news forthwith. anthony!" "why, as for that, 'twas eleven by harmby clock when i turned my back on't. so it must be near starting-time now." "then go you to the hall and call the men, and bring the horses to the door. we shall ride by the road, if we can, to leave the trace there. but if these fellows by chance come up too soon, we shall use the way through the park." "what of the wounded men, sir?" "those that cannot go with us may lie close in some outhouse loft here, with john hatch to care for them. i'll give him money for their needs. look to it all, anthony. i'll meet you at the hall door." the puritan rode off, to round the corner of the wing. marryott, not waiting to close the casement, awoke tom cobble and francis, and sent them to join the men in the hall, the apprentice still in charge of the page. when these two had gone, marryott knocked at mistress hazlehurst's door. he waited. nothing was heard but the wind, and the beating of flakes upon the window. he knocked again. by roundabout ways came faint and indistinct scraps of the noise attendant upon anthony's awakening the men. "mistress hazlehurst!" called marryott, softly. "it is time for us to go." in the ensuing silence, a vague fear grew within him,--fear for his mission, fear for her. could aught have befallen her? "madam!" he said, a little louder and faster. "i must bid you rise. we must set forth." marryott's heart was beating wildly. his was not a time of, nor this the moment for, false delicacy. he flung open the door, and strode into her chamber. there was yet a little firelight left in the room. it shone upon the bed, of which the curtains were apart. mistress hazlehurst lay there, wrapped loosely in her cloak, the hood not up. her eyes were wide open. their depths reflected the red glow of the embers. she sprang up, and stood beside the bed, her gaze meeting marryott's. an instant later, she moved as if to step toward him, but seemed to lose her powers, and staggered. he reached out to catch her, lest she should fall. but she avoided him, and hastened with swift but uncertain steps toward the door. having neared it, she leaned against the post for support, and raised her hand to her forehead, uttering at the same time a low moan of pain. "what is the matter?" asked marryott, going quickly after her. she moved, as by a desperate summoning of what small strength remained to her, into the outer room. she went as far as to the table near the fireplace. on this table she placed her hands, as if to prevent her sinking to the floor. "what is the matter?" repeated marryott, reaching her side in three steps, and putting his arms around her just in time to uphold her from falling. "i know not," she whispered, as with a last remnant of departing breath. "i am dying, i think!" and she let her head rest on his shoulder, as if for inability to hold it erect. "dying!" echoed marryott, gazing with affrighted eyes into hers; whose lids thereupon fell, like those of a tired child. she shivered in his arms, and murmured, feebly. "how cold it is!" "madam!" cried marryott. "this is but a moment's faintness! it will pass! call up your energies, i pray! i dare not delay. already the men are waiting for us in the court below. we must to horse!" "to my grave, 'twould be!" she answered, drowsily. then a spasm of pain distorted her face. she became more heavy in marryott's grasp. "god's light! what am i to do?" he muttered. "mistress, shake off this lethargy! come to the window; the air will revive you!" he moved to the open casement, bearing her in his arms. he feared to place her on the window-seat, lest the little animation she retained might pass from her. she shuddered in the blast of wind. "the cold kills me!" she said, huskily. "the snow hath a sting like needle-points!" "yet your face is warm!" he had placed his cheek against her forehead to ascertain this. "it burns while my body freezes!" she replied. "but your hands are not cold!" a tight clasp had made the discovery. she did not move away her head, of which the white brow and dark hair were still pressed by his cheek, nor did she withdraw her hand. neither did her body shrink from his embrace, though it trembled within it. "i am ill unto death," was her answer. "i cannot move a step." "but you are revived already. your voice is not so faint now. madam, in a few moments you will have strength to ride." "i should fall from the horse. my god, sir, can you be a gentleman, and subject a half dying woman to more of that fatigue which hath brought her to this pass--and on a night of such weather? if my voice has strength, 'tis the strength of desperation, which impels me to beg pity at your hands in mine hour of bitter illness!" thereupon, as if grown weaker, she sought additional support to that of his embrace, by clinging to him with her arms. "but, madam, do you not perceive all is at stake upon my instant flight? a score of horsemen have entered harmby; 'tis but four miles distant. they may be here any moment. perchance they are the pursuivant and his men; perchance, captain rumney, with his band augmented! we must begone! god knows how it wounds my soul to put you to discomfort! but necessity cries 'on,' and ride forth we must!" "then ride forth without me. let me die here alone." "but i dare not leave you here. if roger barnet came and found you--" he did not complete the sentence. his thought was, that her account of him to barnet might send men flying back for the real sir valentine. but, indeed, marryott's continued flight, and her illness, would minimize the chances of barnet's stopping where she was; or, if he did stop, of his waiting for much talk with her. "an you take me with you," said she, "you may take but a cold corpse!" the idea struck marryott to the soul. to think of that beauty lying cold and lifeless, which now breathed warm and quivering in his arms! "mistress, you mistake! your fears exceed your case! you will find yourself able to ride. i will wrap you well; i will let you ride in front of me, and i will support you. i must compel you, even as my cause compels me!" "you would compel me to my death, to save your own life!" "'tis not my poor life i think of! there is that in my flight you wot not of." "then betake yourself to your flight, and leave me!" and, for the first time, she made some faint movement to push from his embrace. "no, no!" he cried, tightening his grasp so that she ceased her opposing efforts. "for your own sake i dare not leave you. these riders may be rumney and his men. if you should fall into their hands!" "leave me to their hands!" she cried, again exerting herself feebly to be free. "'tis a wise course for you. if it be rumney that hath followed, 'tis easy guessing what hath brought him. an he find me, he will cease troubling you." "madam, madam, would you be left to the will of that villain? know you--can you suppose--?" "yes, i know; and can imagine how such villains woo! but what choice have i? i cannot go with you. would you drag me forth to meet my death? but that you cannot do, an you would. here will i remain, and if you go you must leave me behind." and, with an effort for which he was quite unprepared, she thrust him from her, and slipped from his somewhat relaxed embrace. the next instant she traversed, with wavering motions, the distance to the chest. upon this she let herself fall, and straightened her body to a supine position. when marryott ran to her side, and tried to lift her, he found her so rigid that nothing short of violently applied force could place her upon horseback, or keep her there afterward. a moment later a spasmodic shiver stirred her body, and she uttered so pitiful a groan that marryott could no longer hold out against the conviction--which he had thus far resisted, as one hopes against hope--that she was indeed beyond all possibility of taking horse that night. having, perforce, admitted to himself her condition, he ran and closed the casement, then returned to her. "madam, what am i to do?" he asked. "'tis plain that a brief delay would find you no more able to go than you now are. for such illness as hath laid hold of you, after so long exposure, i well know one recovers not in an hour. if i tarried at all for you, it would needs be a long tarrying." "then tarry not," she moaned. "go, and leave me." "if i left men to protect you?" "ay, my page francis! the boy would avail much against rumney and the score of men you say are at harmby!" "if i left, also, the men who joined us from rumney's band?" "why, those that are wounded would sure stay by me, for want of power to run away! and the other four might stay till they caught sight of their old leader. then they would have choice of turning tail, or of crawling to him for pardon, or of dying, either in my defence or for his revenge." "if i left captain bottle and anthony underhill with them?" "certes, if this score of men be the pursuivant's, 'tis better for you that your two faithful dogs die as your accomplices, and you go safe alone!" "madam, i deserve not this irony! i say to you again, 'tis not for mine own life that i would leave others to die on my account without me. 'tis for sir--for the qu--for the cause to which i have bound myself, and of which you know not. my god, i would this were to-morrow's night! then you would see how fearful i am for my life! but for another day, my life is not mine own!" the woman to whom he spoke paid no heed to words whose significance she did not understand. "then why do you stay here?" she said. "is it of my asking? do i request aught of you? go, and take your men with you. you may have need of them." "that is true," thought marryott, appreciating how much easier it was for the pursuivant to follow a trace left by three men than that left by one. "your two henchmen are stout fellows, i ween," she went on, speaking as with difficulty, "but scarce like to use much zeal in my behalf. i'll warrant that puritan would not stir for me, were you not here to command him." "'tis true!" muttered marryott, in a tumult of perplexity. "against a score of desperate rascals, what six men under heaven would long risk their lives for a lady's sake, unless they were gentlemen, or by a gentleman led? and what gentleman leading them, and fighting with them, could hope to win unless he were armed, as i should be, by love for that lady? well i know that gentlemen do not protect ladies by deputy, nor trust to underlings the safety of those they love!" there was a moment's silence. she moved not; gave no start, or frown, or look of surprise, or other sign that she had noted this, his first spoken confession of love. yet that very absence of all sign ought to have told him that she had heeded it,--that she had even been prepared for it. "bitter is my fortune," she replied, using a tone a trifle lower and more guarded than hitherto. "of all who are at hand, only you, being a gentleman and moved by the spirit of chivalry, would protect a lady to the last, against odds. only you, with the valor and strength that a chivalrous heart bestows, might hope to prevail against such odds. only you, with the power of leadership over those men below, could give them either will or courage for the contest. only your remaining, therefore, might save me from this villain. your cause forbids your remaining. go, then; save yourself, save your cause, and leave me to my fate!" her voice had fallen to a whisper. she now lay perfectly still, as if too exhausted even to deplore what might be in store for her. "oh, madam!" said marryott, his voice betraying the distress he no longer tried to conceal. "what a choice is mine! lest these men approaching be rumney's. i dare not go from you; lest they be the pursuivant's, i dare not stay with you! must i, then, leave you here, in this deserted house, in this wild night, to what terrible chances i dare not think of? can you not ride forth? is it not possible? can you not find strength, somewhere deep-stored within you?" her only answer was a faint smile as at his incredulity to her state, or at his futile return to impossible hopes. he had already forgotten, for the time, what strength she had found to make her body rigid. "fare thee well, then!" he cried, abruptly, and hastened, with steps almost as wild as hers had been, to the door leading to the passage. a low sob arrested him at the threshold. he turned and looked at her; his heart, which seemed to have stopped as he was crossing the room to leave her, now began to beat madly. she was not looking after him. she had not changed position. but, by the firelight, to which his sight was now accustomed, a welling up of moisture was visible in her eyes. while he stood gazing at her, she gave another sob,--a convulsive note of despair, in which marryott read a sense of her forlorn situation and possible fate; of being abandoned in dire illness, in an empty country-house, on this wildest of nights, to become, perchance, the prey of a vile, unscrupulous rascal. by the time that marryott, moving in long strides, had reached her side, her cheeks were wet with tears. "lady," he said, in a voice unsteady with emotion, as he flung himself on his knees beside her couch, and caught both her hands in his, "be not afraid! though i forfeit my life, and fail in my cause, i will not go from you! may god above forgive me; and may those for whom i have these four days striven; and may my fathers, who never, for fear of man or love of woman, fell short of their given word! but i love thee! ay, madam, 'tis a right i earn, that of holding thee thus in mine arms; thou know'st not what i pay for it! i love thee!" he had resigned her hands, only that he might enfold her body; and she was so far from resisting his clasp that she had thrown her own arms, soft and warm, around his neck. she no longer wept, yet the tears still stood in her eyes; through them, however, as she met his impassioned gaze, glowed a light at once soft and powerful. her nostrils heaved in quick but regular respirations. as his face neared hers, her lips seemed unconsciously to await the contact of his own. nor did they fail of humid warmth when he pressed upon them a score of kisses. "oh, thou beautiful one!" he whispered, raising his face that he might find again in the depths of her eyes the rapture which, by the responsive intentness of her look, it was evident she found in his own eyes. "never did i think i should prove so weak, or know such joy! though i hazard my mission and my life, yet methinks for this moment i would barter my soul! for at this moment thou lov'st me, dost thou not? else all kisses are false, all eyes are liars! tell me, mistress! for thine own rest's sake, tell me; or be slain with mine importunings!" "wouldst thou have my lips," she whispered, and paused an instant for strength to finish, "confess by speech--what they have too well betrayed--otherwise?" "i did not slay thy brother," he answered, still looking into her eyes. "that thou must believe! yet thou wouldst love me, this one moment, even though the red gulf were indeed between us? is't not so?" she would not answer. when he again opened his lips to urge, she, by a movement of the arm, caused them to close against her own. then, as by a sudden change of impulse, she closed her eyes and thrust him from her with all the force of which her arms were capable. chapter xviii. the horsemen arrive. "'faith, i will live so long as i may, that's the certain of it!"--_henry v._ there was a rapid, heavy tread in the passage without. marryott hastily rose from his kneeling posture, turned, and took a step toward the door. kit bottle entered. "all's ready for going, sir," said the captain. "we shall not go," said marryott, quietly, with as much composure as he could command. "we shall stay here the rest of the night; i know not how much longer." "stay here?" muttered kit, staring at marryott, with amazed eyes. "ay. let anthony take the horses back to stable. and--" marryott felt that so unaccountable a change of plan required some further orders, as if there were a politic reason behind it; moreover. kit's astonished look seemed to call for them. so, begotten of hal's embarrassment in the gaze of his lieutenant, came a thought, and in its train a hope. "and then we'll make this house ready for a siege," he added. "go below; send hither the boy francis, and tom cobble, and let all the others await my commands in the hall." kit disappeared. he saw marryott's plan as soon as it had taken shape. the word "siege" was key sufficient for the captain. ten days were to be gained for sir valentine. four were past. four more would be required for a return to fleetwood house in this weather and over snowbound roads. two days thus remained to be consumed. if foxby hall could be held for two days against probable attempts of roger barnet to enter it, and without his discovering hal's trick, the mission would be accomplished. but after that, what of the lives of master marryott and his men? it was not yet time to face that question. the immediate problem was, to gain the two days. mistress hazlehurst, who believed marryott to be the real fleetwood, and knew nothing of the matter of the ten days, saw in this prospective siege the certainty of the supposed knight's eventual capture; saw, that is to say, the accomplishment of the vengeful purpose for which she had beset his flight. she lay motionless on her improvised couch, her feelings locked within her. "and now, mistress," said marryott, turning to her, and speaking in a low voice, "what may be done for thy comfort? i have no skill to deal with ailments. it may be that one of the men below--" "nay," she answered, drowsily; "there is naught can do me any good but rest. my ailment is, that my body is wearied to the edge of death. the one cure is sleep." "shall i support thee to thy bed?" "an thou wilt." when he had borne her into her chamber, and laid her on the bed, she appeared to sink at once into that repose whence she might renew her waned vitality. he gazed for a moment upon her face, daring not to disturb her tranquillity with another caress. hearing steps approaching in the passage beyond the outer room, he went softly from the chamber and met francis and tom. "your mistress sleeps," said he to the page. "leave her door ajar, that you may hear if she be ailing or in want of aught. go not for an instant out of hearing of her; and if there be need, let tom bring word to me in the hall." he then hurried down to where the men were assembled with kit bottle. the fire had been replenished, and some torches lighted. marryott, seeing that anthony and bunch were still absent with the horses, awaited their return before addressing his company. in this interim, he strode up and down before the fire, forming in his mind the speech he would make. when the two came in, and had barred the door after them, marryott said: "my stout fellows, four miles yonder, or maybe less now, are a score of horsemen. most like, they are either master rumney and a reinforced gang, or a pursuivant's troop from london with a warrant to arrest me. an it be rumney, hounding us for revenge and other purposes, we can best offset his odds by fighting him from this house; and he must in the end give up and depart, lest the tumult bring sheriff's men upon him when the weather betters. but if it be the pursuivant, he will persist till he take me or starve me out, an i do not some way contrive to give him the slip. now if he take you aiding me, 'tis like to bring ropes about your necks forthwith! so i give you, this moment, opportunity of leaving me; knowing well there is not one so vile among you to use this liberty in bearing information of me to shire officers,--which indeed they would find pretext for ignoring, in such weather for staying indoors. stand forth, therefore, ye that wish to go hence; for once we fortify the house, none may leave it without my order, on pain of pistol-shot." whether from attachment to marryott, or fear of falling into rumney's hands, or a sense of present comfort and security in this stout mansion, every man stood motionless. "brave hearts, i thank you!" cried marryott, after sufficient pause. "and mayhap i can save you, though i be taken myself. but now for swift work! captain bottle, an there be any loose timber about, let oliver show it you, and let the men bear it into the house. if there be none such, take what fire-logs there be, and cut timbers from the outhouses with what tools ye may come upon. with these, and with chests and such, ye will brace and bar the doors and all windows within reach of men upon the ground. as soon as oliver has shown where timber may be found, let him point out all such openings to captain bottle. and meanwhile, till timber is here collected, i and the captain will begin the barricading with furniture. as the timbers are brought in, we shall use them, and when enough be fetched, every man shall join us in the fortifying." "there be posts and beams, piled 'neath a pentice-roof by the stables; and fire-wood a-plenty," said oliver bunch. "good! and which door is best to carry it in through?" "there is an old door from the kitchen wing to the stables; 'tis kept ever bolted and barred." "unbolt and unbar it, then! and make fast, instead, the outer stable doors, when ye have brought in the timber. thus we may secure the horses,--which may now rest unsaddled; for here we must abide two days, at least. to it now, my staunch knaves! and leave all your weapons on these settles, and your powder and ball, that i may see how we are provided for this siege. i thank god for this storm, kit; it must limit our besiegers to the enemies we wot of. no lazy rustics will poke nose into the business while such weather endures." leaving the wounded to rely solely upon repose, the men set about doing as they were ordered. marryott and kit took account of the weapons and ammunition. there were, besides the swords and daggers, a number of pistols, two arquebuses, a musket, and a petronel. of these firearms, the pistols alone had wheel-locks, which indeed were still so costly that as yet they were to be found mainly in weapons for use on horseback, the longer arms, for service afoot, being fitted with the awkward and slow-working match-locks. there was good store of ammunition.[ ] marryott and the captain thereupon threw off their doublets, and began barricading, starting at the main door, and using first the chests, trestles, and like material found in the adjacent rooms. when the long and thin pieces of timber began to come in upon the shoulders of the men, hal caused them to be pointed at one end, that they might be used as braces, the blunt ends placed against doors and shutters, the sharp ends sunk into notches made in the floor. pieces of various size and shape were utilized to bar, brace, or block up doors and windows in diverse ways. narrow openings were left at some windows, through which, upon making corresponding openings in the glass, men might fire out at any one attempting to force entrance. when the defences in the house were well begun. hal sent kit to superintend those of the stable, which, as has been shown, communicated directly with a wing of the mansion. these occupations kept marryott and his men busy for several hours. when they were completed, and foxby hall seemed closed tight against the ingress of a regiment, hal, previously drained of strength by his long terms of sleeplessness, was ready to drop. but he dragged himself up-stairs to see how his prisoner fared. francis and tom were asleep in the outer room. at anne's half open door marryott could hear from within the chamber the regular breathing of peaceful slumber. he went down to the hall again, and found the men, with the exception of anthony, stretched upon the stale rushes. the puritan was sitting by the fire. "i shall sleep awhile, anthony," said hal. "i see no use in setting a watch, now that we need keep no more between us and these men than the walls of this house. if they come hither, their noise will wake us ere they can break in." "come hither they will, 'tis sure," said kit bottle, from his place on the floor, "if they be indeed rumney's men or barnet's. they will have heard tell of this empty house ere they come to it, and they will stop to examine. or, if they pass first without stopping, and find no note of our going further north, they will come back with keen noses. when they hear horses snorting and pawing in the stables,--horses stabled at an empty house, look you!--they'll make quick work of smelling us out!" "well, 'faith, we are ready for them," said hal, and sank to a reclining attitude near the fire. "ay, in good sooth," said kit; "fortified, armed, and vict--no, by the devil's horns, victualled we are not!" and the worthy soldier sprang to his feet, the picture of dismay. "go to!" cried hal, rising almost as quickly. "where are the provisions anthony brought yestreen?" "in those bellies and mine, and a murrain on such appetites!" was kit's self-reproachful answer. "god's death, we're like to make up for a deal of lent-breaking, these next two days!" hal became at once hungry, at the very prospect of a two days' complete fast. he wondered how his men would endure it; and he thought of the lady up-stairs. already languishing from sheer fatigue, must she now famish also? "we must get a supply of food!" said marryott, decidedly. "where?" queried the captain. "where we got yesterday's. some one must go, at once!" "i will go," said anthony. "i know the way." "rouse the innkeeper, at any cost," replied hal, handing out a gold piece from the pocket of his hose. "'tis near dawn," returned the puritan. "he will be up when i arrive there." "keep an eye open for our enemies." "if i find them surrounding you, when i return," replied the puritan, calmly, "i will make a dash for one of the doors. by watching from an upper window, you may know when to open it for me." "and when you are within, it can be barred again," said hal. "best make for the same door by which you now go forth; 'twill save undoing more than one of our barricades." "let it be the lesser stable door, then," suggested captain bottle, "as he will go by horse. moreover, if the enemy should force a way into the stables, there's yet the door betwixt the stables and the house, that we could close against them." the world was paling into a snowy dawn, as anthony rode forth from the stable a few minutes later. meanwhile, having aroused the useful bunch, hal had caused vessels to be filled with water from a well, and placed in a room off the hall. kit then barred the stable door, but did not replace the braces and obstructions that had been removed to allow egress. he then volunteered to watch, in an up-stairs chamber of the kitchen wing, for anthony's return. assenting to this offer, marryott returned to the hall, and lay down near oliver, who was already asleep. an hour later hal was awakened by a call from captain bottle, who stood at the head of the stairs. "is anthony coming back?" marryott asked, scrambling to his feet. "he is not in sight yet," was the reply. "and you'd best send oliver to watch in my place. i can be of better use otherwise, now." "what mean'st thou?" "the horsemen are without. from yon room i saw them riding around the house and staring up at the windows." "which party is it?" said hal, quickly, repressing his excitement. "rumney's." hal's brow darkened a little. he would rather it had been barnet's, for then he should have been free of all doubt whether the pursuivant had indeed clung to the false chase. at that instant a loud thud was heard on the front door, as if a piece of timber were being used as a battering-ram. "you are right; i will send oliver to watch," said marryott. he did so, with full instructions; and then roused all the able-bodied men. he distributed the firearms and ammunition; assigned each man to the guardianship of some particular door and its neighboring windows; gave orders for an alarm, and a concentration of force, at any point where the enemy might win entrance; left kit in charge of the hall, at whose door there was present threat of attack, and hastened up-stairs to a gallery where an oriel window projected over that door. he looked down into the quadrangle. it was now broad daylight; snow was still falling. whether from a desire to avail himself of the bad weather for an attempt to plunder this deserted house, or from a suspicion that oliver bunch might have been both able and willing to open the mansion to the travellers, or from other reasons for thinking that they might be here, captain rumney had indeed led his troop into the grounds, made a preliminary circuit of the mansion, heard the horses in the stables, found all doors fast, detected signs of barricades in the windows, dismounted his company in the court, and caused a number of his men to assault the door with the fallen bough of a tree. chapter xix. the horsemen depart. "beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold."--_as you like it._ when marryott looked down from the oriel, he saw the horses huddled in a corner of the quadrangle. rumney standing by the fountain, and several men about to swing the long piece of timber against the door a second time. afar, at the gate by the road, as hal could descry through the leafless trees, a mounted man kept watch. master rumney preferred to avoid witnesses, in his violation of the peace this sunday morning. marryott flung open the casement, and leaned out, a pistol in each hand. "back!" he cried to the men with the branch. "back, or two of you shall die!" the men stopped short, looked up at him, and stood hesitating. "batter down the door!" shouted rumney to the men. "i'll look to this cock!" and he raised a pistol and fired at hal. the ball sang past him and found lodgment in the wall of the gallery. the men sprang forward with the tree-branch. true to his threat, hal let off both his pistols. two men fell,--one struck in the shoulder, the other in the thigh. one howled, the other stared up at hal in a kind of silent amazement. with a wrathful curse, rumney fired a second pistol at marryott. but hal, having now to reload his weapons, had disappeared in good time. moreover. rumney's aim was bad, for the fact that his better arm, wounded the previous day, was now bound up and useless. handing his pistols to two men, for reloading, and grasping from one of these men a weapon already loaded, the robber fiercely ordered his rascals to resume the assault upon the door. they obeyed. the door quivered at their blow; but its bars and braces held. as the men were rushing forward for a third stroke with their improvised ram, flame and smoke suddenly belched forth from the windows nearest the door, and two more fellows sank to the snow. kit bottle and one of hal's wounded followers had fired through holes they had made in the glass. rumney's men rushed panic-stricken from the quadrangle, seeking protection beyond the angle of the kitchen wing. their leader followed them. the men with the horses led off the frightened animals to the same place. the court was now clear. marryott returned to the hall. "at this rate, we shall soon see captain rumney's heels, or his corpse," said hal, to kit bottle. "i know not," was the reply. "we have but taught him the folly of haste and open attack. he will try craft next. now is the time to watch every hole by which even a mouse might crawl into this house. 'tis well that stout fellow, hatch, has guard of the stable door. i would the puritan were back! i'm some troubled for the safety of his saintly skin. he is a likable dog, for all his sour virtuousness. god-'a'-mercy, how his conscience will bite at this breakage of the sabbath!" marryott went up to the room where tom and francis were. the sound of firing had aroused them, and they were in great curiosity. mistress hazlehurst, francis said, still slept. marryott gave the two lads a brief account of matters, for the information of the lady if she awoke. he then rejoined kit in the hall. the morning wore on. silence continued, without and within the house. no further sign came of rumney's presence in the vicinity. marryott began to discuss with bottle the probabilities of the robbers having fled, appalled at the utterly bootless loss of four men. "rumney is a deviceful rascal," was the burden of kit's replies. hal made the rounds of the house. neither moreton nor hatch, nor oliver at his upper window, had sound or sight of the enemy to report. no one was to be seen from the windows. the mounted watchman at the gate had disappeared. but, as bottle said, when marryott returned again to the hall, these facts did not answer the question of rumney's proximity. there were outbuildings, detached from the house; in these the rascals might have taken refuge while biding the formation of a plan. the watchman might have concealed himself behind the gatehouse. while hal and his lieutenant were sitting in talk, near the fire, there arose a sound of hasty steps in an upper corridor, and oliver bunch appeared at the stair-head. "master underhill is coming!" he announced, in a loud, excited whisper. "follow us!" replied hal, starting off with kit at once. the three traversed some rooms, a passage, and part of the kitchen wing, and arrived in the half dark stables. "open the small door!" called marryott, in a low tone, to john hatch. "and stand all, with sword and pistol, to bar the way 'gainst any but underhill!" hatch undid the door, and flung it wide; then drew his weapons, and stood beside marryott and kit, just within the entrance. behind these three crouched oliver bunch, trembling, but with sword and pistol in hand. through the blown flakes in the park, anthony could be seen riding madly for the door. his cloak stood out behind him. from his left shoulder swung a bag, which evidently contained the acquisitions of his journey to the inn. in his right hand he held his naked sword. the manner of his riding, the direction of his look, showed that he saw possible enemies who might attempt to cut him off. marryott took a step forth from the stable, and followed anthony's look. it was directed toward a long shed, whose open side, being from the house, was invisible to hal, but visible to the puritan. as the young gentleman fixed his glance on that shed, there ran out from it nine or ten men, afoot, whose manifest purpose was indeed to intercept anthony. hal recognized them as of rumney's band, but their leader was not with them. anthony spurred his horse for a final dash. the foremost robber fired a pistol. anthony's horse swayed, toppled over, lay quivering on its side. the puritan fell free of the animal, having swung his leg over its back in the nick of time. ere he could rise, his enemies were close upon him. marryott and kit fired their pistols into the pack; then dropped these smoking weapons inside the stable door, and rushed out with ready swords to save the puritan. two robbers had sunk down as if tripped up by a rope, and two behind these fell over them in the onward rush. the fellows menacing anthony, warned of the coming of hal and kit by the latter's loud-bellowed curses, turned so as not to be taken in the rear by them. this gave the puritan time to rise to his feet. while his two rescuers engaged the nearest knaves. anthony, to save the provisions, skirted the crowd and made for the door. but he was headed off by other rascals. john hatch now ran forward to his aid, leaving oliver bunch alone to hold the doorway. two robbers, seeing this opportunity of gaining an entrance, charged the door. the trembling bunch emptied his pistol into the breast of one, and made a feeble sword-thrust at the other. but the sword was dashed from his shaking hand. oliver saw his antagonist's blade flash toward him, and dropped to the ground, uncertain whether he was killed or not. the robber, not to lose time, and joined by one of the knaves that had previously fallen unhurt, sprang over the servant's body, and ran through the stables, toward the door to the kitchen wing. kit bottle killed his man in time to meet the attack of the second fellow that had fallen unhurt. marryott was still engaging his first opponent, a black-bearded rascal of great strength and agility. hal had at last detected the weak place in the other's guard, and was about to profit by it, when suddenly a fearful shriek, far-off but piercing, made his heart jump. it was borne from a window of the further wing of the mansion; was, as he recognized with a chill of the senses, from mistress hazlehurst. he instantly leaped back from his antagonist, turned, and ran for the open door. half way through the stables, he came upon one of the two robbers that had gained entrance. the fellow wheeled about, at sound of footsteps behind. with a single thrust, hal cleared the way of him, and bounded on. at the door to the kitchen wing, the other robber was encountered in similar manner, and was as speedily removed. gaining the main part of the mansion, hal heard additional screams and cries for help, which now reached his ears by indoor ways. like a madman, he dashed through the intervening rooms, cleared the hall, rushed up the stairs, traversed the corridor, sprang across the outer room, which was empty, and entered her chamber. in the centre of the apartment lay one of rumney's men, apparently done for. near him were francis, with a bleeding gash across his forehead, and tom cobble, his jerkin reddened by a fresh wound in the body. at the open window, a man was holding ready the top of a ladder, whose foot must have rested on the ground outside; while another man was tying the wrists of mistress hazlehurst, who was standing in a half fainting position in the single available arm of rumney. [illustration: "rumney ... backed quickly to the window, and mounted the ledge."] the visible top of the ladder explained all. with a small force, leaving his other men at the shed. rumney had caused this ladder--found in one of the outbuildings--to be stealthily placed at the chamber window, and had made good his ascent so quietly that even tom and francis, in the outer room, knew not of his presence until apprised by the shriek that had summoned marryott. whether rumney had known that this was anne's chamber might be inquired into later. the present business was to rescue her from his grasp, and hal rushed blindly forward to the work, his sword still dripping with the blood it had taken in the stables. a smile of joy on anne's face, driving the terror from her eyes, welcomed him to the task. but ere he could thrust at her captor, the latter had swiftly turned, so as to be shielded by her body. rumney then, bearing her in one arm, as if she were of small weight, backed quickly to the window, and mounted the ledge. hal rushed after. the man who had been tying her wrists dropped to his knees, caught hal's legs in both arms, and brought him heavily to the floor; then clambered over him on all fours, and grasped his sword-wrist with a powerful hand. hal cast a glance of dismay at anne, who looked down at him with astonished and terrified eyes. rumney, shouting two words as to some one holding the bottom of the ladder, bestrode the window, and set foot on one of the rounds. doubtless, having no able arm free to grasp the ladder with, he was to be supported by the man who should follow him down. "god's light, she is lost!" cried hal, in tones of despair. just then there came, from the direction of the road, a peculiar sound, half cry, half whistle. it gave captain rumney a start; made him turn pale and stand still, with one foot on the ladder. it caused the man at the ladder's top to look anxiously at rumney, and the robber upon hal to rise and stride toward the window. by the time hal was on his feet, the call was repeated a little nearer. rumney hesitated no longer. with a muffled oath, he released mistress hazlehurst, and slid, rather than stepped, down the ladder. hal's man seized anne, dragged her back from the window ledge to clear the way for himself, and thereby--probably without intention--saved her from losing her balance and falling out of the window. this rascal was speedily followed down the ladder by the one who had held its top; and the chamber was thus suddenly freed of robbers, excepting the inert one on the floor. marryott's first act was to cut the bonds from anne's wrists. motioning away his proffered further assistance, she regained the bed, and lay down exhausted, breathing rapidly from the excitement of the recent peril. hal thereupon looked out of the window, and saw rumney and three men running toward the rear of the wing, behind which they soon disappeared. what meant this sudden flight? marryott would have questioned anne, but she received his first inquiries with shakes of the head, and with an expressed desire to be left alone. he then examined the wounds of francis and tom, which were painful, but apparently not serious. he assisted these two to the outer room, and dragged out the body of the robber, who, it proved, had fallen victim to the long knife of tom cobble. he now groaned, and opened his eyes. finding that he possessed his senses, and promising to send water to him, hal interrogated him as to why rumney had selected that particular window for his stolen entrance. the knave replied, weakly, that when the robbers first rode around the house, they saw the lady standing at that window. this, if true, was news to both francis and tom; but they had been asleep until roused by the shooting below. it was also a circumstance hard to reconcile with anne's manifest illness, and it made hal thoughtful. returning to the lower part of the house, whither more than one consideration called him, hal was surprised to encounter kit bottle in the hall. the captain's face was wet with perspiration and blood. "what?" cried hal. "is all well at the stable door?" "ay, the rascals heard their cry of danger, and took to their heels for the shed where their horses were. rumney and some others joined them from behind the house, and forthwith it was switch and spur with all that were left of them. they're off now, like the wind." "and anthony?" "he and our men are safe inside; they're barricading the stable door. there be some few scratches and knocks among us; nothing more." "what made the rascals fly so suddenly? a cry of danger, say you? what danger?" "a cry of danger raised by their watchman in the road. he joined them as they fled. let us go up and look." the two ascended to the oriel whence hal had fired down on rumney's first assault. kit's gaze instantly sought the road. at the distant gate stood a large group of horsemen, who appeared to have just come up, and to be scanning with interest the front of foxby hall. several of them wore cuirasses and steel head-pieces. in a moment, one of these turned his horse toward the mansion; the others followed. "tis plain now," said kit. "rumney's watchman liked not the looks of this party; perhaps he recognized that fellow at their head, and took him to be after the rumney gang." "and who is the fellow at their head?" asked hal, with a strange thrill,--for he divined already the answer. "'tis roger barnet," said kit, gruffly. chapter xx. roger barnet sits down to smoke some tobacco. "at least we'll die with harness on our back."--_macbeth._ the avenue by which the pursuivant and his men were approaching the house would lead them first near the wing in which was mistress hazlehurst's chamber. marryott remembered the ladder still outside her window. "devil's name!" he cried. "they may enter as rumney did! follow me, kit!" he led the way to her chamber. in the outer room, the wounded robber begged for the water that marryott had promised. but hal first pointed out to kit the top of the ladder, and then proceeded with him to draw it up into the chamber. this was an act of some difficulty, by reason of the ladder's length and weight. when its top struck the roof of the apartment, it had to be turned to a horizontal position, and then moved diagonally across the floor, so that its foremost end should pass through the doorway to the outer room. while hal guided this end, bottle remained at the window, tugging at the ladder's rear. it thus befell that bottle alone was at the window when the pursuivant's troop--men far different in appearance and equipment from rumney's band--rode into sight. at one and the same instant, bottle desisted from his exertions and stared down at the horsemen, and roger barnet halted his party with a curt gesture and gazed with hard coolness up at kit. "i see thou know'st me, hodge," growled bottle, at last. at this, marryott stood still, far within the chamber, and listened for the answer. it came, without emotion, in a voice that suggested iron, as some voices are said to suggest silver or gold. "i thought 'twas you, the night sir valentine fleetwood ran away," said barnet. "and 'twas more certain, when louts by the way mentioned an ugly big rascal, red-faced of drink, and of never keeping fish-days." "i trust i may still be eating meat on fish-days, when thou'rt eaten of worms!" replied kit. "thou'lt fast a long fast, fish-days and other days, when i carry thee to london!" said barnet. "hudsdon, take ten men; place five behind this house, five north of it. look you, bottle, tell sir valentine fleetwood i would speak with him in the queen's name." "what if sir valentine fleetwood be not here?" "thy presence tells me he is." "and i also tell you that he is!" cried another voice, that of mistress hazlehurst, who had risen from her bed and rushed to the window. "he is here, master pursuivant! he is in this very room! he has made a prisoner of me!" "'tis well, mistress!" replied barnet. "we'll soon make a prisoner of him." with that, and after designating men to guard this side of the house, he rode with others toward the front, hudsdon having already led away the ten to watch the rear and the further side. kit turned and looked at marryott, but the latter had eyes for mistress hazlehurst only. the energy of her movement from the bed to the window, the vigor of her voice, gave the lie to her illness. "'twas well feigned!" said hal, quietly, after regarding her for a short while in silence. there was a little sorrow in his tone, but no reproach. his thought was the same as hers, which she uttered while squarely meeting his gaze. "i had an enemy's right to use what means i could, having once declared myself, and the more so as i was your prisoner." "'tis most true," assented hal. he would have much liked to explain that what saddened him was, not that she had counterfeited illness, but that she had counterfeited a willing response to his embraces. why should she have thought it necessary to carry the pretence so far? a choked, blinded feeling came upon him. but he dared not succumb to it. kit bottle was looking on, awaiting orders, and the injured robber was crying for water. from the deceived, humiliated lover, marryott became perforce the alert commander of besieged fugitives. "this lady must be watched," he said to kit. "till i send anthony to take your place see that she does not, by passing them this ladder, or by hanging curtains or such stuff from the window, give barnet's men the means of climbing into the house. nay, mistress, our watchman will not disturb your privacy. from the outer room he can look through the door to your window. seest thou, kit?--the ladder lying flat through the doorway will forbid her closing the door. if there come sign of her at the window, or meddling with ladder or door, then thou must invade her chamber, and do as may seem best. you are warned, madam!" with a courteous bow he left her. bottle established himself outside her door, squatting upon the ladder, his eye following its side-pieces across her room to the window. in the hall, marryott found anthony underhill listening passively to the door-knocks of roger barnet, which were accompanied by calls upon sir valentine fleetwood to open in the queen's name. the puritan assured hal that the stable was now as strongly fortified as it had been ere his departure in quest of provisions. marryott, thereupon, sent him to take kit's place at mistress hazlehurst's door, and then despatched oliver bunch (who had with some surprise discovered himself to be still alive) with water for the wounded robber, and with instructions to care for the latter's injuries and for those of tom and francis. hal then made again the round of the house. moreton, hatch, and the least wounded of yesterday's deserters from rumney, were at their original posts, to which anthony had taken it on himself to order their return. each man reported that his door had been tried from without, but that no violent attempt had been made to force entrance. coming back to the hall, marryott saw kit bottle mounted on a trestle, and surveying the quadrangle through a clear place in a window. "he has had his men dismount and the horses led away," said kit, alluding, of course, to roger barnet. "he has set two guards, i think, at the front end of each wing, and two in the court. he is sitting on the edge of the fountain. he seems a little lame o' the leg." "what think you is his intent?" asked marryott, not risking to barnet a possible glimpse of his face, for fear of an untimely undeceiving. "'tis for time to show. he will either attack or wait. but 'tis less like he will attack." "why?" "because he is a prudent dog and a patient. those gaping bodies on the snow tell how rumney's gang fared 'gainst men firing from inside these stout walls. barnet thinks he has the hare mewed up, and 'tis as cheap to wait for't to venture out as 'tis to risk flesh and blood in trying to come at it. and, moreover, a fight might give the man he seeks a chance to die by sword or pistol, whereas 'tis a point of honor with barnet to take his prisoner well and whole to london. he is a feeder of headsman's blocks and hangman's nooses! ay, he has chosen to wait; 'tis certain now." "how know'st thou?" "he is filling his tobacco-pipe, and motioning one of his men for use of a slow-match. when roger sits down to smoke, he hath made up his mind for a season of waiting. and there is no man can out-wait roger barnet when he is sucking his nicotian. he is then truly patience on a monument, as master shakespeare's comedy says." "if he wait till to-morrow night, my work for others will be done! 'twill be six days since we left welwyn, and 'twill take four and over, in this weather, for any man to ride back thither." "and then 'tis a matter of our own necks, i ween! let me tell thee this, lad: while roger barnet thinks the man he wants is in this house, he will wait to starve him out, though he wait till doomsday. and if he learns 'tis not his man that he hath been chasing, he will infer that the other man is by that time 'scaped, and he will wait still for the man that has tricked him. he will carry some victim back to london for this, be sure on't!" kit had come down from the trestle, and was standing with hal at the fireplace. "well, after to-morrow," said marryott, "we may use our wits, or our valor and skill, to break through the circle he has drawn around us." "'twill take sharp wits to slip through roger barnet's vigilance, now he has closed around us. as for valor and skill, what shall boot our small force 'gainst his, who are stout men all, well armed, and most of them clad above the waist in steel? tut, lad, don't think old kit is disturbed upon it! i'll die as well as another, and better than most! i tell thee these things merely in fireside talk, as i should speak of the weather." "how if we shoot barnet, from one of the windows?" "twould not help. firstly, as the preacher at paul's cross says, we might miss him, or his cuirass and morion might save him. he might take offence, and act as if we forced a fight upon his patience; might set fire to the timber part of this house and burn us out betimes. secondly, if we killed barnet, his man hudsdon might do the burning. hudsdon, look you, is, in his particular humor, a man of as good mettle as barnet. these be no rumneys!" "but if we so diminished barnet's troop, by shooting them one by one from the windows, then we might sally forth, fire or no fire, with fair chance of cutting our way through." "ay, were it not that, for every man we slew, barnet would send to harmby or elsewhere for two men to fill the vacant post. as 'tis, the foul weather, and the pride of doing his own work unhelped, will stay him from demanding aid of the country; but an we force him to it, ere he give us the upper hand he will use to the full his power of pressing men, and requiring local officers, in the queen's name." "why, then, is there no course, no chance?" "none but what time may bring, and time we shall gain by letting roger wait. he will stay where he is, in hope of starvation driving out his man weak and easy to be taken, or of our knaves rebelling from hungry stomachs and delivering up their leader. but we'll see to it the men be staunch; and some time must pass before our bellies take to grinding one side 'gainst the other!" "'tis well anthony brought--" began marryott, but was interrupted by the entrance of oliver bunch at the top of the stairs. "an't please your honor," said oliver, "the lady desired i should ask when she might have breakfast, for that she is faint with hunger." "why, so am i; and the rest of us, i doubt not," said marryott. "we shall eat forthwith. where are the provisions anthony brought, kit?" "i thought to have told you sooner," replied the captain, in a strangely resigned manner; "in the fray outside the stable door, rumney's knaves got anthony's bag of victuals from him, and when they ran off they forgot to leave it behind!" there was a considerable silence, during which kit bottle looked darkly into the fire, and marryott muttered several times under his breath, "a murrain on't!" then, adopting the captain's mien of uncomplaint. hal said to oliver: "tell the lady we have no food and can get none. later, i may contrive to obtain some for her, from the enemy that surrounds us." "why," said kit bottle, as oliver disappeared, "an thou dost that, thou'lt betray our empty state to roger barnet." "what matter?" said hal. "we can hold out two days, that's certain. and after that,--barnet will but know he need smoke the less tobacco till our starving out, that's all!" chapter xxi. roger barnet continues to smoke tobacco. "the best man best knows patience."--_thierry and theodoret._ the day dragged on,--grayest of gray sundays. the snowfall ceased, but the sky remained ashen, and the wind still moaned intermittently, though with subdued and failing voice. in the great, silent house, faint creaks had the startling effect of detonations, and the flapping of tapestry in the wind seemed fraught with mysterious omen. marryott, in the course of his next round of the mansion, told the men of the loss of the provisions. some of them had already known of it. no complaint was uttered. the men replied with a half respectful, half familiar jest, or with good-humored expression of willingness to fast awhile. fortunately, the supply of water was such as to obviate any near dread of the tortures of thirst. when he went to the room adjoining mistress hazlehurst's chamber, marryott found tom, francis, and the robber, all three quiescent under the ministrations of oliver bunch. anthony underhill, seated on a trunk that he had placed on the end of the prostrate ladder, was observing the sabbath by singing to himself a psalm. scarce audible as was his voice, it still had something of that whine which the early english puritans, like the devoutest of the french huguenots, put into their vocal worship, and from which some think the nasal twang of the puritans' new england descendants is derived. mistress hazlehurst either was, or wished to seem, asleep; for when marryott knocked softly upon her half open door, that he might more courteously explain to her the lack of food, she gave no answer. he, thereupon, sent kit bottle to the oriel window to sound roger barnet's mind toward supplying the prisoner, who was indeed to be considered the pursuivant's ally, with food. kit put the necessary question, taking care to show no more of his person than was needful, and to keep his eyes upon the firearms of the pursuivant and the two guards in the court. but roger barnet, who still sat smoking with a kind of hard, surly impassibility, made no movement as to his pistols. neither did he show a thought of ordering his men to fire. he evinced a certain grim satisfaction at the evidence that the besieged had no provisions. he then expressed a suspicion that kit was using the lady's name in order to obtain food for his own party, and said that if sir valentine fleetwood desired the lady not to hunger, sir valentine might set her free. he, barnet, would provide her with an escort to some neighboring inn or gentleman's house. but marryott, who was listening unseen at kit's elbow, dared not yet risk her describing himself as sir valentine fleetwood to the pursuivant; and so he prompted kit to reply that the lady was too ill to go at present from the house. to which roger, between vast puffs of smoke, tranquilly replied that he feared the lady must for the present go hungry. afire with wrath at this stolid churlishness, hal caused kit to remind barnet that the lady had come into her present case through aiding the pursuivant himself. roger answered that he had not requested the lady's assistance. at marryott's further whispered orders, kit informed barnet that, but for her work, the latter should not at that moment have had sir valentine surrounded. roger replied that he had only kit's word for that; moreover, what mattered it? he was not responsible for the lady's ill fortune, even if she were creditable with his good fortune. in short, and by god's light, he would not let any food enter that house unless he and his men went in with it! "when your bellies will no more away with their emptiness, open the door and let us in," he added, phlegmatically, and replaced his pipe in his mouth as if the last word had been said. "nay, thou swinish rogue," said kit, "we're better taught than to leave doors open in march weather!" he then bombarded his old-time comrade of walsingham's day with hard names. barnet showed no resentment, but continued to smoke stolidly. at last, when his reviler had well-nigh exhausted the vocabulary of thersites, roger began to finger abstractedly the butt of one of his pistols; at which gentle intimation, kit suddenly disappeared from the window. "there is no help for it," said he to marryott. "she must starve with the rest of us unless you set her free." "that i must not do till tuesday morning," said hal, with an inward sigh. he went from the gallery, and told francis, for mistress hazlehurst's information should she inquire, of the failure of his attempt to obtain food for her. she still slept, or feigned sleep. marryott then newly assigned the posts to be guarded, dividing the company into two watches, one headed by himself, the other by bottle. the latter took the first period of duty. the men who were thus for a time relieved were prompt to assuage their thirst, though water was a beverage unusual to them; then they stretched themselves on the rushes in the hall to sleep. hal also slept. at evening, being awakened by kit, he and his quota of men arose to do sentinel duty during the first half of the night. "is barnet still yonder?" he asked kit, before leaving the hall. "no; he has set hudsdon in's place. roger has divided his troop into watches. he and some of his men have made their beds in the outhouses. hudsdon and the rest have planted torches in a line around the house. there's not an ell's distance of the mansion's outside, from ground to second story, that cannot be seen by the torch-light. the men are posted beyond the line, out of our sight; only here and there you may catch now and then the light of a slow-match that some fellow blows. if we made a sortie from the house into their torch-light, they would mow us down with muskets and arquebuses from the dark." marryott sat out his watch in a partly torpid state of mind. the deception that mistress hazlehurst had practised upon him, though he acknowledged an avowed enemy's and unwilling prisoner's right to practise it, had struck down his heart, benumbed it, robbed it of hope and of its zest for life. he thought of nothing but present trifles--the writhing of the flames in the fireplace, the snoring of the sleepers on the hall floor--and his chances of accomplishing his mission. all things, he felt, could be endured,--all but failure in the task he had so far carried toward success. regarding his life, which indeed seemed to be doomed, he was apathetic. during the second half of the night, marryott slumbered, bottle watched. dawn found roger barnet again at the fountain's edge, again smoking. but, as kit observed while furtively inspecting him through a window, he puffed a little more vehemently, was somewhat petulant in his motions, more often changed position. bottle, from having known him of old, and from his slight lameness, took it that he was in some pain. his injured leg was, indeed, a seat of great torment; but of this, being stoical as well as taciturn, the frowning man of iron gave no other sign than the tokens of irritation noticed by kit. "i'm afeard roger will be, later, of a mind to hasten matters," said the captain. "peradventure his tobacco is falling low." "i pray 'twill last till the morrow," said marryott. this morning (monday) the sky was clear, but it was a cold sun that shone down upon the world of snow around beleaguered foxby hall. marryott was on the watch till noon. then, kit having taken his place, and before lying down to sleep, he went to see if mistress hazlehurst had aught to request. he felt that, though his position as her captor was one of necessity, it nevertheless required of him a patient attention to all complaints and reproaches she might make. but she made none. to his inquiry, spoken after a gentle knock upon her door, she answered that she desired of him nothing under heaven but to be left alone. if she must starve, she would choose to starve not before spectators. he informed her that he intended to give her, on the morrow, her freedom, as the royal pursuivant had offered her an escort and might be trusted to treat a lady with respect. to this she made no reply. hal thereupon went away. when he was awakened to resume guard duty, at evening, he learned from kit that the afternoon had been without occurrence. roger barnet had continued to show signs of an ailing body, and hence of an ailing temper, but had not deviated from his policy of waiting. the men in the house were very hungry; they had ceased jesting about their enforced fast, and had betaken themselves to dumb endurance. hal was made aware by his own pangs of the stomach, his own feverish weakness of the body, how they must be suffering, though only two days of abstinence had passed. the precautions of the besiegers this evening were like those of the preceding night. marryott looked more than once, through narrow openings in the windows, at the torches lighting up redly the snow that stretched away from the walls of the mansion. some time after dark, while marryott was pacing the hall, kit bottle suddenly awoke, and after gazing around a few moments, said, quietly: "methinks, lad, 'tis eight o'clock, or after." "'tis so, i think," replied hal, softly. "then 'tis full six days since we rode from sir valentine fleetwood's gate." "ay, just six days." "then thy work is done, boy!" "'tis done, old kit; and thanks to thee and anthony, with your true hearts, strong bodies, and shrewd heads!" "thou'rt a valiant and expert gentleman, hal; beshrew me else!" whereupon the old soldier turned upon his side, and slept again, and hal looked dreamily into the fire. their words had been no louder than whispers. nor was hal's feeling aught like the bursting elation, the triumph that would shout, the joy that intoxicates. it was but a gentle transition from suspense to relief, from anxiety to ease of mind; a mild but permeating glow of satisfaction; a sweet consciousness of having done a hard task, a consciousness best expressed by a single sigh of content, a faint smile of self-applause. at midnight, giving place again to kit, marryott sank into a troubled sleep, in which he dreamed of juicy beef, succulent ham, every kind of plump fowl, well basted, and the best wines of france, spain. italy, and the rhine. he woke to tortures of the stomach, and the news that roger barnet was still smoking, but peevishly walking, despite his lameness of leg, to and fro in the courtyard. "i tell thee, hal," said bottle, after imparting this information, "we may look to see things afoot soon! if roger is a devil of pertinacity when he is upon the chase, and a devil of patience when he waits, he is a devil of activity when his body ails overmuch!" "we shall be the sooner forced, then, to set our lives upon a cast!" "ay, and better work losing them, than stretching them out to the anguish of our bellies! this fasting is an odious business. the men are chewing the fire-wood and their leather jerkins." "have they complained?" asked hal. "not a dog among 'em! these be choice rascals all! they bear hunger with no more words than dumb beasts. they'll starve with thee, or die with thee, to the last knave of them!" marryott looked silently at bottle; and saw in his face the very dog-like fidelity he described in the others. he knew what uncomplaining, unpretending steadfastness there was in anthony underhill, too. "brave hearts!" murmured hal, and the next instant he had taken a resolution. "is roger barnet a keeper of his word?" he asked. "when he hath not overmuch to lose by it," replied kit, wondering at the question. "if, on condition of his letting mine innocent followers go free, i proposed to shorten his task by giving myself up, and he agreed thereto, would he keep that agreement?" "but, god's death, hal, thou'lt propose no such thing!" "thou'lt propose it for me; till all is done i must not show my face. and thou'lt not name me as sir valentine fleetwood, but speak of me merely as the gentleman you serve. so when barnet discovers i am not the knight, he will find himself still bound by his word to the condition." "but old kit will never be go-between to buy his life with thy giving thyself up!" "'troth, thou wilt! for, look you, since i must in any case be taken, why need also my men suffer? wilt rob me of my one consolation, the saving of my faithful followers? wilt send me entirely sad of heart to london? wilt not let me cheer myself with knowledge of having done this little deed befitting a gentleman? have i not full right to get my self-approval by this act? wouldst thou hinder my using the one right by which i may somewhat comfort myself? thou wilt do as i bid thee, old kit; else i swear on this crossed hilt i will go forth at once, and surrender myself the more unhappily for that i may not save my men!" "nay, hal, softly! if the thing lies so to thy heart, 'tis not old kit shall go against thy wish. but i have the right of giving myself up with thee. save the rest an thou wilt, i shall not be sorry. but let kit bottle attend thee still, to the end of it!" "now thou talkest arrant foolishness, kit! for look you, if thou'rt free, canst thou not serve me to the better effect? consider how many miles and days it is to london. once i am this fellow's prisoner, and seem to have no will or spirit left, may not my guards grow heedless? an thou art free, riding after me to london, who can say what chance may not occur for rescue and escape? let me but save thee and these true fellows by giving myself up; then may we look for means of saving myself on the journey to london." hal said this but to induce kit to accept freedom with the others if it could be obtained, and it seemed to make the desired impression. "why, there is something in that," said kit, thoughtfully. "but we have been wasting talk. roger barnet, now that thy taking is but matter of time, will not make terms. he is no man for concessions or half-way meetings." "but he hath much to gain by my offer: the time saved, the certainty of taking his man alive and without loss to his own party, the greater ease of carrying one prisoner than many to london. he should be glad of pretext to be rid of the underlings." "truly said, in sooth. but the nature of the man is against making treaty with an opponent, e'en though to his own advantage." marryott thought for a moment. then he said: "let him not seem to make treaty with his opponent. let the treaty be with my seeming betrayers. this will better accord with his nature, methinks. my men shall offer to give me up to him, in purchase of their own freedom. so will he regard my men as choosing to become his allies, and he will think that through them he gets the better of their master; he will have justification for letting them go free." "by my troth, thou'rt a knower of men, hal! roger would be ashamed to profit by a treaty with his enemy, but not by treachery of that enemy's following. there'll be some relish in fooling him thus!" "then set straightways about it. speak to him from the oriel, stealthily, as befits the seeming treason." "i hate even to seem traitor to thee, hal; but 'tis for thy purposes, and to make a gull of roger barnet." with which the captain mounted the stairs leading to the gallery, leaving marryott waiting by the fire. kit had the skill of gesture and grimace, to convey across the quadrangle to his one-time comrade that secret things were to be told, and that a truce, if granted, would not on his part be violated. barnet, who could rely upon the steel he wore and the pistols he carried, as well as on kit's pantomimic word of honor, strode boldly over to a place beneath the window. with an appearance of great caution, kit asked him, on behalf of himself and his comrades, not of the gentleman they served, what would be done with them if they were taken. roger lightly answered that he would see them hanged. this led naturally to the broaching of kit's terms. the ensuing conversation was of some length, and carried on mostly by kit, who skilfully put before the pursuivant's mind the advantages to be gained by accepting the offer. now, as barnet's warrant called for kit's supposed employer only, as barnet had been so many days from london, as the lameness of his leg tried his patience, as the mansion looked impregnable, and as he was loath to resort to local assistance in storming it, it really seemed folly for him to reject an important bird in hand for the doubtful satisfaction of bagging a number of insignificant birds who might prove only a burden to him. he held out, however, until he could bring himself to relinquish the cherished hope of conducting his old friend bottle to the gallows. it was at last agreed that kit and his comrades should deliver over their commander, disarmed and with wrists bound, at the main door, within half an hour. as soon as marryott was informed of this, he summoned all the men (save kit, to whom was assigned the guardianship of mistress hazlehurst's chamber for the while), and told them of the agreement. they stared at him and at one another with little show of feeling, and in silence, excepting anthony, who muttered: "i had as lief i had been left out of the purchase." "go to mistress hazlehurst's door, anthony," said marryott, "and send hither captain bottle, that he may tie my hands and deliver me forth. and conduct the lady hither, that she may go forth at the same time. i think she will not delay, for you will tell her she is to have her freedom." he then divided his money among the men, that they might shift for themselves after his surrender; obtained the promise of the able-bodied to care for the wounded; and finally ordered them to remove the defences of the door. hal had previously furnished kit's purse; anthony had his own supply of coin. when mistress hazlehurst came down the stairs, a little pale and haggard from her fast, but no less beautiful of eye and outline, and with no less clearness of skin, marryott stood already bound, kit at his side, the men waiting silently in the background. she noticed that hal's hands were behind his back, but could not make sure whether they were tied. slightly puzzled at the scene, she looked back at anthony as for an explanation. kit bottle motioned one of the men to open the door; he then indicated to mistress hazlehurst, by a gesture, that she might pass out. she did so, in some wonder. francis, whose head was bandaged, followed her. anthony stopped at the other side of marryott than that on which kit bottle was. beyond the porch outside, and facing the door, stood roger barnet; several men were in line on either hand of the way. the pursuivant looked at anne as if she were not the one he expected. he made way for her to pass, however; but as soon as she had done so, she turned and looked curiously back at the open door. forth came the supposed sir valentine fleetwood, walking listlessly, his hands still behind his back. kit and anthony grasping him by either shoulder. "take your man, master pursuivant," said bottle, huskily. he and the puritan then stopped, and seemed to thrust their prisoner slightly forward for barnet's acceptance; but they still held his shoulders. barnet, whose left hand clasped a document, took a step toward the prisoner, who perforce remained motionless. then the pursuivant paused, and stared at hal with a mixture of bewilderment and slow-gathering dismay. the armed men craned their necks to see the object of their long pursuit. "why," said barnet, his voice faltering for once, "this is not the man!" mistress hazlehurst became acutely attentive. "'tis the gentleman we have served these last six days," replied kit bottle, with great composure. "god's life!" cried barnet, having recovered full vocal energy, "there is a scurvy trick here, to give sir valentine fleetwood chance of leaving this house while i'm befooled! but 'twill not serve! all sides are watched! into the house, you four; search every corner, and drag out the fox!" the men to whom barnet spoke hastened to obey, leaving four of their comrades with their leader. "they'll find naught, roger," said kit. "i swear this gentleman is he we have been travelling with from welwyn." "he says truly, pursuivant!" cried mistress hazlehurst, stepping forward to barnet's side. "'tis sir valentine fleetwood, of a surety; for i, too, have travelled with him these six days." "i don't gainsay you have travelled with him, lady," said barnet. "but if you take him for sir valentine fleetwood, either you know not sir valentine as well as i do, or your eyes play you tricks!" "nay," put in marryott, quietly, "blame not others' eyes, man, till your own eyes never see false!" with which he thrust out his left elbow, stiffened his neck, and took on what other outward peculiarities he had caught from sir valentine. "by the foul fiend," said barnet, in a tone that befitted his dark, wrathful look, "there has been some kind of vile player's work here! 'twas a false beard, that night!" "ay!" spoke up one of his men. "i have wondered where to place the gentleman. your word player sets me right. he is an actor i have seen at the globe, and in the ale-houses. i forget his name." "is it marryott?" asked barnet, remembering what he had learned in clown. "ay, that's it! i drew him many a pot of beer when i was a tapster." "then by the devil's horns," quoth barnet, irefully, "he hath played his last part when he hath played upon me, with his false beard and like devices! if, indeed, you have led me off, master marryott, and sir valentine fleetwood hath fled over seas, by god, it shall go hard but you die in's place for aiding a traitor! i take you in the queen's name, sir player. nay, question not my right; i have blank warrants for emergent use; your name is soon writ; and back to london you shall ride, with your feet tied 'neath the horse's belly! mistress, this is part your doing; for you told me 'twas sir valentine passed you i' the road that night. you have had all your labor for the wrong man, and given the right one time to 'scape both you and me!" but his words might have fallen upon the ears of a statue. anne had realized in a flash all that words could tell her, and this much more: that the captured man loved her, and was a prisoner through her use of his love; and that, even though she had had the resolution to feign illness,-- thought failed her, and she stood leaning on the shoulder of her page, pallor and inertia betokening the utter consternation of her heart. chapter xxii. speech without words. "her eye discourses; i will answer it."--_romeo and juliet._ late in the afternoon of that day--tuesday. march th--there rode into skipton from the north, and took lodging for the night at the principal inn, a party of horsemen, commanded by a stout, hard-browed, black-bearded man, and conducting a pale, tired young gentleman whose hands were tied behind him and whose ankles were fastened with a rope that passed beneath the body of his led horse. when the troop had come to a halt, and accommodations, had been bespoken, the leader caused two of his men to release the prisoner's legs, but not his hands, and then marched with him, preceded and followed by guards, to an upper room overlooking the stableyard. here four armed men were left with the prisoner, to whom presently supper was brought. though without weapons, his wrists were still kept tied; his food had to be conveyed to his mouth by one of his guards. he might sleep on the bed when he chose; but asleep or awake he must remain thus guarded and bound. five minutes after the arrival of this troop at the inn, a smaller party appeared from the same direction. its chief figure was a weary-looking young lady, deeply buried in her thoughts, and attended by a youthful page whose head was bandaged, a boldfaced old fellow, and a lean and sad-visaged man in sombre garments. this company, finding the first inn now full, sought and obtained lodging at a smaller one, not far away. on the journey thither, these two groups of riders had been more than once in sight of each other. both marryott and barnet had observed that captain bottle and the puritan were serving mistress hazlehurst as escort,--a circumstance that seemed to the pursuivant quite natural, since the lady was no friend of marryott's and the two men were, in barnet's belief, marryott's betrayers. barnet himself had offered to let her ride under his protection on the southward journey; but she had refused, and had watched in silence, with kit and anthony, the departure of the prisoner from foxby hall. whatever arrangement she had made with the two men must have been made after that departure. hal explained matters to himself by the supposition that kit bottle and anthony, whom she, too, must regard as his betrayers, had offered her their escort, that they might with less suspicion follow close upon the heels of his captors toward london. he knew that she was ill supplied in purse for the homeward journey, and he guessed that she had obtained of anthony a loan of money to pay the escort and inn charges. in this guess, he was right; but it was scarce possible that he should have divined what other understanding had passed between the lady and his two adherents. he was glad, in the dull way in which thought and feeling now worked within him, that she had found so good an escort. when she had declined barnet's offer, he had feared she might unwittingly expose herself to new danger, though he had believed that kit and anthony, knowing his own wishes, would protect her, in spite of herself, to some gentleman's house where she might procure both money and servants. as for the robbers who had shared his siege at foxby hall, hal knew, by their absence from mistress hazlehurst's party, that they had been left to choose their own ways. the money he had given them would enable them to transport themselves to distant parts of the kingdom ere rumney was likely to traverse again the neighborhood of foxby hall. hal slept lightly but calmly. his slumber was but half slumber, even as his waking state was a kind of lethargic dream. he recked not of past, present, or future. at dawn breakfast was brought to him and readily eaten. so indifferent had he become, so little feeling was active in him, so little emotion was there to affect his physical state, that not even his appetite was altered; his body led a healthy, normal existence, save for the fatigue from which it was already recovering, but his mind and heart languished half inert. after breakfast the southward road was resumed, with no deviation from the order of the previous day. anne's party rode out from the other inn as barnet's was passing. was this mere accident, thought hal, or was it by precaution of kit bottle? the way was choked with snow. in some places this had drifted so as to bury the fences, where it happened--as was rare--that the road was flanked by such enclosures. in other spots, the earth was swept bare. the drifting still continued, for, though the day was clear, another high wind had arisen. it blew the fine, biting crystals into the riders' faces, reddened their cheeks and eyelids, and seemed to add to the discomfort of roger barnet. for the sufferings of the pursuivant, due to the use of the wounded leg when it demanded rest, were now plainly telling upon him. his face was haggard; under his breath, he was fretful; such manifestations, on the part of a man so obstinate against the show of pain, meant that he was in physical agony. at halifax, he ordered a rest for dinner. the day being very cold, marryott was led to a room in the inn's topmost story, where he dined with four guards precisely as he had supped at skipton. before entering the town, he had lost sight of mistress hazlehurst's party; indeed, it was not often, on the journey, that he availed himself of some bend of the road to turn his head and look back. when he had finished his dinner, marryott let his glance stray idly through the window. he had a view of a side lane that ran, apparently, from a street beneath his room. the lane ended at its junction with another street. up and down that other street, so as to cross the end of the lane at brief intervals, a riderless horse was being led by a boy whose head was wrapped around with handkerchiefs. was not the boy francis? and why was he exercising a saddled horse in such a place so far from this inn, not perceptibly near any other? the question dwelt in hal's mind for a moment: then fled, at barnet's summons to horse. not till he had covered several miles out of halifax did marryott catch his next glimpse of anne and her three attendants. they were then at a good distance behind; but gradually during the afternoon they decreased the distance,--a natural enough thing to do, for the proximity of barnet's martial-looking troop was a protection. that evening both parties lodged at barnesley. the state of the roads, and of barnet's leg, had forbidden faster progress. it was not quite dark when hal was led into the chamber where he was to sup and sleep. he sat down on a joint-stool by the window. ten minutes passed. awaiting his supper, he was still looking listlessly out of the window at the darkening evening. was not that anthony underhill yonder, leading a riderless horse to and fro upon the green that was visible through a gap in the row of houses opposite the inn? it was odd that he should haply be repeating in hal's view at supper-time the action that francis had performed in hal's sight at dinner-time. the arrival of pickled herrings and ale drew marryott's eyes from the window, and his mind from the spectacle. the next morning, on arising to depart, marryott by chance beheld, this time with a touch of wondering amusement, another repetition of the same performance, with the single difference that now the leader of the horse was kit bottle. when some hours of the forenoon journey had been spent, marryott, looking back, saw with a little surprise that anne's party was close behind his own. barnet rode at his side, leading his horse; half of the escort rode two and two in front, the other half in the rear. these rear horsemen intervened between hal and anne; but as he ascended the side of a hollow he could look over the heads behind him to her as she descended the farther side. her glance met his; and in it was a kind of message, which she seemed to have long awaited the moment for delivering. with all possible eloquence of eyes and face, she appeared to express apology, a request for pardon, a wish to serve him! ere he could assure himself by keener inspection whether he had read aright the look that had thrilled him out of his lethargy, he had reached the crest of the ascent, and the men behind him had closed his view. poignantly alive now in mind and heart, he tormented himself for several miles with conjectures whether her expression had been intentional on her part or correctly translated on his. this he could best ascertain by sending her, at the first opportunity, a look in reply. when he was next in line of sight with her, he glanced back his answer. it consisted merely of a faint smile, soft and kindly, by which he hoped to say that he understood, forgave, and loved. to his unutterable joy, she instantly responded with a smile that was the echo of his own. this conversation, carried on so silently and at such distance, but so decisive and full of import, was of course so conducted that marryott's captors suspected nothing of it. a certain curiosity as to whether his supposed betrayers were following him toward london was natural on the part of one in his situation, and it accounted, in barnet's mind, for his looking back. at clown, dining in the very ale-house chamber whence mistress hazlehurst had looked at his detention by the constable's men, marryott saw, some way down the lane from which the coach had been drawn, a riderless horse led back and forth by francis. it flashed upon him at last that the continual recurrence of this scene must be more than mere coincidence. in the afternoon, marryott had but one opportunity to exchange looks with anne. this was where the road turned sharply in such direction that, by glancing sidewise and across the back of barnet's horse, he could see her through a sparse copse that filled the angle. her expression now suggested alertness and craft, as if for his imitation; and she pointed with her forefinger to the horse ridden by francis at her side. the trees cut off his view ere the gesture was complete; but he understood; it meant, "you will find a horse ready, if you can break from your guards!" chapter xxiii. the london road. "how many miles to london town?"--_old song._ and now master marryott was himself again, with the will to break away if he could, and the eye for the opportunity if it should occur. it was plain that she had ceased to view him with antagonism or indifference. and her interest in him--an interest so strong as to overcome or exclude resentment toward him as the agent of sir valentine fleetwood's escape from her as well as from the government--surely sprang from some more powerful feeling than mere regret for a man placed by her in a peril she had designed for another. to have caused her to order or sanction the holding of the horse in readiness, her interest must have fully taken up her mind. perhaps to this fact was due her evident relinquishment of revenge upon sir valentine, as much as to that knight's present inaccessibility, and to the stupefying blow her vengeful impulse had received in the disclosure that her far and toilsome quest in its service had but led her from the right object to the wrong one. whence had this interest arisen? doubtless from her musing on the love he had shown in staying to protect her that night at foxby hall; on the annoyances and delays to which she had subjected him during his long flight, and on his uniform gentleness to her in his necessary severity toward her. could he indeed break from his guards and escape, that he might satisfy himself on these questions, and profit in his love by that interest! but roger barnet's vigilance, like his iron grip on marryott's bridle when they rode, and on marryott's arm when they alighted, seemed to increase with his increasing distress of body. this night they ate and slept at nottingham. barnet occupied a second bed in marryott's chamber. more than once hal was awakened from sleep--a sleep in which his dreams carried out the wildest plans of escape--by the pursuivant's groans of pain. at dawn roger's face was that of a man who had neither slept nor known a moment's ease. it was with a desperate stiffening of muscles and clenching of teeth that he forced himself to rise for the continuance of his journey. marryott had taken pains to view out the whereabouts of the led horse the previous evening, when, as usual, it had appeared in sight of his window. he marvelled not that his friends never failed to find a spot on which his gaze might alight. kit bottle, as he knew, had ways of learning, from inn menials of either sex, what room was taken for the prisoner. this morning the horse was at a place some distance from where it had been yesternight. bottle was leading it; and the picture had a new figure, in the shape of a horse a little farther off. this second horse had a rider,--anne hazlehurst! what would he not give now for means of escape? but there, hemming him in, were his four silent, stalwart guards; and beyond them, with cold eyes now red-rimmed from a restless night but fixed implacably on him, was the equally silent barnet. the wind had blown itself to other regions; the day was as fair as it was serene; it was milder, too, than days had been of late. but hal's captors made poor travelling. barnet had to halt often, as he could now scarce endure the pain caused by the movement of his horse. he stopped for dinner when he had ridden no farther than to melton mowbray and when it was no later than eleven o'clock. marryott took what scant comfort of mind he could, in this slowness of the journey toward london. yet slow as it was, it was all too fast. london was but little more than a hundred miles away, now. only a hundred miles of opportunity for that miracle of accident, or ingenuity and skill, by which he might save himself for the joys awaiting him in anne hazlehurst's love! life had begun to taste ineffably sweet. the world was marvellously beautiful on such a day. but when he faced the terrible likelihood of a speedy hurling hence to "that undiscovered country," where there could not be a fairer sky to look upon, or purer air to breathe, and where there was no anne hazlehurst, the beauty of the day mocked him. and the sight of the horse, too, mocked him, as it passively waited to bear him far from the reclaiming pursuit of death the moment he might slip from death's arms closing tighter around him. his heart cried "avaunt, death! i am not for thee! love and beauty await me; they, and this glad earth even now waking to joy at the first breath of spring! i am for this world, with its music and its wine, its laughter and its poetry, its green fields and its many-colored cities, its pleasures of good-fellowship, its smiles of the woman beloved! unhand me, death; go your ways, black monster; i am life's own!" he had moments wherein he was half mad, not with the fear of death, but with the love of life; yet his madness had so much method in it that he gave no outward sign of it, lest his alertness for some means of escape might be suspected. back in the saddle, after dinner, to decrease by another afternoon's riding: those hundred miles to london town, marryott observed in barnet's face the fierce resolution which a man gathers for a last fight against physical anguish. so these two rode side by side, the captor concealing tortures of the body, the prisoner veiling tortures of the mind. at two o'clock they clattered into oakham. when they arrived before the gate of a large inn, roger barnet suddenly called a halt, and said, in tones whose gruffness was somewhat broken by a note of bodily suffering: "we'll tarry the day out here, and start fresh on the morrow. the foul fiend is in my leg!" he thereupon sent hudsdon to order rooms made ready, so that the prisoner might, as usual, be conducted from the horse to his chamber without stoppage. barnet did not yet ride into the inn yard, for he noticed a crowd and a bustle therein, and preferred not to enter until it should be certain he would not have to go elsewhere for lodging. here, as in other towns, the pursuivant kept his men close around the prisoner, as much to conceal the latter's bound wrists and legs from lookers-on as for any other purpose. thus few people, if any, observed that here was a prisoner, and so no crowd collected. as hal sat his horse, awaiting hudsdon's return, he bethought him that this day was friday, march th,--the tenth day since his departure from fleetwood house. the time he had undertaken to obtain for sir valentine would be past that evening,--and welwyn was still seventy miles away! this geographical fact, connected as it was with the certainty that he had more than accomplished his adventure, called up another and less pleasing fact, of which indeed he needed little reminder,--the fact that not a hundred miles now remained of the road to london. his reflections were cut short by the reappearance of hudsdon, who spoke to barnet in whispers. the party then rode around to a side door of the inn, doubtless to avoid taking the prisoner through the crowd in the great yard. the hostess had already opened this door. barnet and four men alighted from their horses, enabled hal to dismount, and led him, at the heels of a chamberlain, through passages and up-stairs to a room. he had noticed, as he entered, that hostlers had already come from the inn gate to take the horses to stable by the usual route. hal's first glance, on entering his chamber, was for the window. to his dismay, it opened, not so as to give a view of street or of places exterior to the inn, but so as to command a part of the square inn yard, which was enclosed on three sides by the inn itself, on the fourth by a wall and gate. what hid a portion of this yard, which was far below, was the downward-sloping roof of the long upper gallery or balcony that traversed the three inner sides of the house. situated as he now was, he could have no sight of the waiting horse. "what do you see to make you stare so?" asked the watchful barnet. "naught but the crowd in the inn yard," replied hal, with barely the heart to dissemble. "'tis more than common, methinks." "yes. heard you not what hudsdon said? there is to be a play in the yard; the town will not give the guildhall for plays on a friday in lent."[ ] "a play? who are the players?" "the lord chamberlain's men that are now travelling. they are wont to play at the globe,--why, that is where you played, is't not so?" but hal heeded not the question. the lord chamberlain's men! shakespeare, sly, his friends, who a moment since had seemed worlds and ages away! and, that very instant, a familiar voice rang out above the noise of the crowd below. chapter xxiv. how a new incident was added to an old play. "if he come not, then the play is marred."--_a midsummer night's dream._ the cause of marryott's not having seen the person whose voice he now heard, or the little board platform raised to serve as a stage, was that this platform was directly below his window, and hence hidden by the balconies with which the lower stories, unlike that in which he was, were provided. the crowding of guards around marryott, the distraction barnet owed to his pain, had deterred the two from noticing, when outside the gate, the playbills attached to the posts. the play announced was "the battle of alcazar," by mr. george peele. there was still a special favor for anti-spanish plays. fresh in memory was that english victory over spain whence arose the impulse of expansion destined, after three centuries of glory, to repeat itself in a new anglo-saxondom from a victory over the same race, when the guns of dewey and sampson should echo back in multiplied volume the roar of drake's and howard's. history has nowhere repeated itself more picturesquely. but after the play had been selected and announced, there had arrived at the inn, with a small regiment of servants, and a good part of his household furniture for his better accommodation, young lord tyrrington and his newly wedded lady. a squire in my lord's service had preceded him and bespoken the entire second story of one of the wings. my lady, on taking up her quarters, had learned with delight that london actors were to give a play in the yard. she had expressed to her husband, on whom she still looked with the soft eyes of a bride of a fortnight, the wish that the piece might be a love-play. her spouse, as yet deeply enraptured with her and with love, had sent straightways for the master of the players. the result of the interview was the oral announcement which marryott now heard from lips whose facility was well known to him. prefaced by delicately hinted compliments to the noble couple, and by gross open flattery of the worthy, excellent, and good people of oakham, the announcement was to the effect that, instead of performing "the battle of alcazar," the lord chamberlain's servants would enact master william shakespeare's most admired and lamentable tragedy of the love of "romeo and juliet." whereupon there was loud and prolonged applause, and the musicians, on the inn-balcony above the rear of the stage, struck up a tune for the beguilement of the crowd until the actors should be ready to begin. "'twas will sly," said marryott, half to himself. "you know him, i ween," said roger barnet, who had listened to the announcement with close attention, and who seemed to have softened a little under the stress of some concealed inclination. "marry, the days and nights we have tossed the pot together!" replied hal. "i ween you have been gossip and comrade to all of them," went on roger, with guarded interest. "you know burbage, and shakespeare, and the rest?" "i may say i know burbage and the rest, and i have lived under the same roof with master shakespeare. i am acquaint with his outer life, which is, perforce, much like other men's, and with his talk, which varies so gently between sincerity and subtle irony, that one can never be sure; but to know the man himself were to know a world." "i like his plays better than all others," said roger. "and of all his plays, this 'romeo and juliet' best. i have read arthur brooke's poem of the tale, and william paynter's story in 'the palace of pleasure;' but they are pale dullness to this tragedy. it hath rare love-making in it!" the steeliness of barnet's eye had melted to a soft lustre; a warmth had come over his face. marryott looked at him in amazement. that this hard rascal, this complacent spy and implacable man-hunter,--even in that day when rough soldiers were greedy for wit and beauty and fine thought,--should have read poems and novels, and should possess a taste for rare love-making, was indeed one of those marvels which prove how many-sided (not inconsistent) is the individual human. "if we could hear it better than we're like to do," suggested marryott, "'twould a little distract us from our ills of mind and body,--for i take it from your twitchings that you suffer some." the pursuivant was careful against showing how welcome this suggestion was; for he had felt that it would better emanate from the prisoner, in whom a desire to see the play was quite proper, than from an officer who ought to hold in supreme indifference all but duty. "why," said he, "i wot of no reason why you may not be allowed to see this play, under guard. dawkins, go to the landlady and require for me a room in one of yonder wings, well toward the front of the yard, that we may see the stage from it. god forbid i should deprive a doomed man of two hours' forgetfulness!" when, some minutes later, the change of rooms had been effected, marryott found himself looking down from a gabled window, which, being over one side of the yard, gave a complete oblique view of the stage at the yard's rear. he sat on a low stool, his hands pinioned behind him, roger barnet at his side. four armed men stood close around, leaning forward for all possible view over the heads of the two. the musicians, now visible in the gallery over the back of the stage, were still playing. the second story balcony across the yard from hal's window was occupied by the lord and lady and their numerous attendants, a group whose rich attire presented all hues, and every kind, of silk, velvet, and costly cloth. my lady, close to the railing, and leaning expectantly over it, wore on her head a caul of golden thread; and one of her maids held a peaked minever cap ready to be donned in case of cold. my lord, sitting at her side, bent so near that the silk rose at the end of his love-lock often brushed the cheek of her in whose honor it was still worn, despite their being now married. his lordship might have taken a seat upon the stage, but he preferred to remain where he could mark the significant love speeches to his lady's attention by gentle pressure of his hand on hers. three or four rustic gallants sat on the stage, and talked ostentatiously, with a great deal of very knowing laughter, each one keeping a side glance upon the noble lady in the balcony, to see what impression he was making; for each was convinced that her softly eager looks toward the stage were cast in admiration of himself. the stage was of rough boards upon an underwork of upright barrels and trestles. at its back there hung from the balcony a curtain behind which a few makeshift steps descended to the door of an inn parlor now used by the actors as a tiring-room. the balcony thereabove was not devoted exclusively to the musicians; like all the other galleries around the yard, and to which chambers of the inn opened, this one held crowds of spectators,--inn guests and town's people. but of this one, that part immediately over the stage had, since the change of play, been cleared of people, and now remained so, with poles placed on either side as barriers. this part was reserved as juliet's balcony; an inn chamber gave access to it from the rear. the height of the stage was such, that the floor of the balcony would be level with romeo's eyes; but that mattered nothing to the imagination of an elizabethan audience. even the steps leading to the balconies were crowded; the yard itself, paved with cobble stones, was more densely so, and with rougher and noisier people. here were the lowest classes represented, but not those alone; here was a rawer wit than among the groundlings of the globe theatre; here was a smaller measure of acuteness than there, and here was a loutishness that was there absent. the inn gates were now closed, but for a narrow opening, where stood two of the players' men to receive the money of what spectators might yet arrive. the hour when the play ought to have begun had passed. but the crowd was the more tolerant of a burden upon its patience, for the fact that "romeo and juliet" had been substituted for the other play. shakespeare's love-tragedy, which at first production had made the greatest success in the brief history of english drama, was the most popular play of its time; and to a county town of the insignificance of oakham, it was still a novelty, bright with the lustre of its london triumph. but at length the pleasure of anticipation lost power to sweeten the delay of realization. the crowd murmured. the musicians, who had fallen to playing "i am the duke of norfolk," for there being nothing else left unplayed, became the targets of derisive yells; the unseen players, behind the curtain, were called upon to hasten. my lady had changed her position several times, and my lord was beginning to wonder why the devil-- and then the curtain was pushed a little aside, and master sly stepped forth again, now dressed for the part he was on this occasion to enact,--that of mercutio. the crowd gave a shout of welcome, the musicians came to an abrupt but grateful stop. "the prologue," remarked several of the knowing, and then indignantly bade others hush, who were making the same remark. but master sly's air was not suggestive of an ordinary prologue. it was hesitating, embarrassed, a little dubious of consequences. he began, rather to my lord than to the audience as a whole, a halting, bungling speech, of which the purport was that, by reason of the sudden illness of an actor who played a part necessary to the movement of the tragedy, and as no unoccupied player in the company knew the part, either "romeo and juliet" must be for the occasion abandoned, or its performance marred by the reading of the part, "which marring must needs be the greater," said mr. sly, "for that it is a part of exceeding activity, and hath some furious fighting with the rapier." here was a damper, whose potent effect became at once manifest in blank looks on faces noble and faces common. my lord and his lady were as much disappointed as the rudest artisan or the pertest grammar-school truant. the assemblage was yet in that chilled silence which precedes murmurs of displeasure, and mr. sly was drawing breath to submit the alternative of another play or the marred performance, when from a gable window high above all galleries a voice rang out: "go to, will sly! i'll wager 'tis the part of tybalt; and that gil crowe's illness comes of the same old cause!" master sly stared aloft at the distant speaker. so did every auditor to whom the window was visible; and those in the balconies under it leaned over the railings and twisted their necks to look upward. "why,--'tis thee, harry marryott,--i' the name of god!" cried sly, after a moment of blinking,--for hal's gable was sun-bathed, and blue sky was above it. "what dost here, hal? what surprise is this you give us?" "no matter!" answered hal. "i said truly, did i not?" "surely thou didst, and a mur--! why, boy, thou canst play tybalt! you studied it in london!" "and played it once, when master crowe was--ill!" "why, here's good fortune! my lord, 'tis one of our actors, who hath been a time absent from us. you will enjoy to see him in the fighting. haste thee down, master marryott!" a clapping of hands behind the entrance-curtain told hal that the other players had heard, and that they welcomed; some, indeed, were peeping out from the edges of the curtain. lord tyrrington looked across the yard, and up to the gable window, and called out, "well met, sir!" with a kindly face; and his lady, delighted at the turn of affairs, smiled sweetly. whereat the crowd cheered lustily, and all eyes were fixed on hal with approval and pleasure. "alas!" cried hal. "i may not stir from here. i am a prisoner to this officer of the queen." the smiles slowly faded from the countless faces below. roger barnet, who had been taken by surprise at hal's first salutation to sly, and whom the swift ensuing colloquy had caught at a loss, frowned, and wished he had interfered earlier. "nay," called sly, "it can be for no grave offence. the--" "'tis a charge of aiding treason," replied hal, to cut matters short. sly stood a little appalled. a deeper silence and a new interest took possession of the gazing crowd. "why, even so," said sly, at last, "the officer may--" the officer now thought it time to speak for himself. "my prisoner is my prisoner," he said, in a somewhat surly and defiant tone, "taken in the queen's name, with proper warrant; and in the queen's name i hold him here in close guard." will sly, after a perplexed look at the pursuivant by hal's side, turned his eyes in a tentative, questioning way to the young lord. the crowd followed his glance. my lord felt the pressure of the general wish upon him. his lady whispered something to him, in a kind of pouting, appealing way, with a disapproving side glance at roger barnet. my lady herself was only a knight's daughter. to her, a lord was a person of unlimited influence. when a wife imagines that her husband is all-powerful, he does not like to disabuse her mind. when he is deeply in love with her, and she asks him for a pleasure which he has himself offered, he will go far to obtain it. moreover, here was a multitude looking to him, the great lord tyrrington, as to its champion against a vile, sport-spoiling hound of the government. "how now, officer?" cried my lord, in a tone of lofty rebuke. "the queen's name--god save her gracious majesty!--comes as loyally, methinks, from lips that do not make it a common byword of their trade. warrant, say you? your warrant, sirrah, requires not that you guard her majesty's prisoner rather in one part of this inn than in another part. let him be guarded upon yonder stage. 'tis as safe a place, with proper watching, as the chamber you are in." "my lord--" doggedly began barnet, who had noted sly's form of address. but ere he could proceed, there arose from the yard, and was taken up by the galleries, a clamor so mandatory, so threatening to a possible thwarter of the general will, that the pursuivant, who in his day had seen a mob or two at work, became passive. moreover, he had been as cast down as any one at the prospect of his favorite play's being supplanted or spoiled; and deep within him was a keen curiosity to see his prisoner act on the stage. standing at the window, therefore, roger made a curt gesture of yielding to the unanimous will. "my lord," said he, when the cheers of satisfaction had hushed, "sith it be your desire, and haply the pleasure of my lady, and the wish of these good people, i no more say nay. your lordship will of a surety grant me, and require of these players, that i may dispose guards to my own liking, and for the queen's service, during the time of my prisoner's use in the play." my lord was quick to approve of this condition. "your prisoner, mayhap," he added, "will give his word not to attempt escape." "ay, my lord," cried hal, at once, "if this officer rely on that word alone, and dispense with guards about me." marryott knew, of course, and barnet promptly affirmed by word, that the latter would prefer to rely on his guards. hal showed no offence at this; had he thought his word would be accepted he would not have offered it. "then," said he, when barnet had expressed himself, "i will not give my word." the pursuivant was content. he attributed hal's attitude to a mere idle punctilio which would not accept moral bonds without a reciprocal withdrawal of physical ones, even though freedom from moral bonds was useless. barnet was accustomed, in his observations of gentlemen, to such bootless niceties in matters of honor. the musicians were put to it for another quarter of an hour, and barnet conducted the prisoner down-stairs and to the tiring-room. he placed a guard at each entrance to that room, stationed others in the yard so that one breasted each side of the small stage, set two upon the steps between stage and tiring-room, and established himself on a three-legged stool on the stage. he seemed to have conveniently forgotten that tybalt, even during the acts wherein he appears, is less time on the stage than off. he had put the faithful hudsdon, however, at the door from the tiring-room to the steps behind the stage. indeed, hal's freedom was little more than it had been in the chamber, save that. tybalt being a swordsman's part, his hands were now unbound. barnet had assured himself that the rapiers used by the actors were blunted so as not to pierce. he knew, too, that he had won the crowd by his concession to their wish, and that he should have all the spectators, including the lord's people and the inn-folk, as active barriers against any dash the prisoner might rashly venture for liberty. hal's friends had crowded around him in the tiring-room, which was lighted with candles against the gloom caused by the curtain at the back of the stage. even burbage had pressed his hand, and uttered a hope that there might be nothing in this treason matter. "fortune send thee safe out of it, whatever it be!" was master shakespeare's wish. "if thou camest to grief, hal," said the juliet, the same pert stripling that had played ophelia eleven days before, "i should weep like a real girl!" gil crowe alone had nothing to say, for he was stretched half clad, in the corner where he had fallen, in the deepest drunken slumber. master shakespeare wore the white beard and religious cowl of the friar; a habit that had wakened in hal's mind a thought to be quenched the next moment by barnet's injunction to the guards of the tiring-room: "and lose not sight of him an instant while he is here, lest during an eye-wink he slip into some player's disguise of face and body, and pass one of you unknown." his comrades, especially master shakespeare and will sly, would have inquired more closely into the circumstances of hal's detention, but the young man was so pleasantly exhilarated by the reunion with his friends, so carried out of himself at the prospect of playing this part, that he put direful matters aside as not to be talked of. with his dulled rapier in hand, and without having to change costume, he stood surrounded by the players, at the tiring-room door, waiting to go on the stage. the music ceased again; the speaker of the prologue stepped out, and, while the audience came gradually to a hush, delivered his lines from the centre of the platform. a boy fastened to the curtain at the back a scroll reading, "a street in verona." the two capulet serving-men came on, and their rude double-meanings made the crowd guffaw; then the two montague men, then benvolio, then tybalt precipitating the brawl, then the crowd of adherents of both houses; and the ensuing fray, unduly confined by the smallness of the platform, came near involving roger barnet and the gallants sitting at the sides. noting more heedfully how dense was the crowd that pressed from the yard's farthest boundaries to the stage, and recognizing the guards about the latter. hal had a sickening feeling of being mured around with a wall no less impassable for that it was human. his mind reverted to the last time he had acted on a stage; to the face he had seen then. where was she at this moment? was the horse waiting? unmanned for an instant, he felt his eyes moisten. when he made exit, after the prince had quelled the tumult, he stood silent in the dark tiring-room, sad at heart. meanwhile, roger barnet and the audience were enjoying the performance. the pursuivant, nearer to the great burbage than he had ever before been during a play, drank in romeo's every word. in due time, the stage being for a moment vacant, a boy supplanted the first card with one reading, "a room in capulet's house." the scene of the nurse with juliet and her mother drew some very conscious blushes from my lady in the gallery, the too reminiscent nurse's part losing nothing of mellowness from its being played by a portly man. the street card reappeared, and brought on mercutio to deepen the audience's enhancement. another substitution introduced the masquerade, during which the tybalt, covered with an orange-tawny cloak and wearing a black mask, was held in particular note by barnet. hudsdon having followed him to the stage and pointed him out in his visored appearance. during the second act, with its balcony scene, its wisdom so impressively spoken by master shakespeare in the friar's part, its wit contest between romeo and mercutio, roger barnet was in the seventh heaven. throughout this act, hal, seated listlessly in the tiring-room, was under the eyes of hudsdon and other guards. the first scene of the third act, heralded by the useful street scroll, brought his great and last great occasion. "it may be my last stage-playing in this world," he thought, and resolved it should be worthy the remembrance of his comrades. "'by my heel, i care not,'" quoth sly as mercutio, and tybalt, taking the cue, strode out with his followers, to force the deadly quarrel. the brief exchange of defiance with mercutio, the vain attempt of peacemaking benvolio to lead the foes from public gaze, made keen the audience's expectation. romeo entered; refused to be drawn by tybalt's fierce words into fight; tried to placate the other's hot anger. mercutio invited the quarrel to himself, drew rapier, and belabored tybalt with wit. tybalt, with a ready "i am for you," flashed out his blade in turn. there was fine clashing of steel, excellent fencing. romeo rushed in to stop the duel, calling on benvolio to beat down the weapons. is it wonder that the audience was a-quiver with interest, under complete illusion? for here was a truly fiery tybalt; here was mercutio, the most fascinating character in shakespeare; here as romeo was burbage himself, accounted the greatest actor in the world. is it wonder that roger barnet, sitting not a man's length away, hung breathlessly, and with wide eyes, upon the scene? "hold, tybalt! good mercutio!" cried romeo. but mercutio had received his thrust, and tybalt turned to flee with his followers. barnet heard him cry out something as he ran; got an impression of legs disappearing behind the rear curtain; and, with the greater part of the audience, kept his eyes on the group whence the youth had fled. for mercutio was panting in romeo's arms; declaring himself hurt, and calling feebly a plague on both the houses; replying to romeo's encouraging words with: "no, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. i am peppered, i warrant, for this world. a plague o' both your houses!" and so till benvolio led him off gasping with his dying breath, "your houses!" and now it was romeo's task to hold the multitude's illusion with deploring speeches; and to work up anew its breathless sympathy, at the news of mercutio's death and that the furious tybalt was coming back again. "'alive, in triumph! and mercutio slain!'" cried burbage. "'away to heaven, respective lenity. and fire-eyed fury be my conduct now.'" and romeo, trembling with the emotion of the situation, stood with sword ready to receive the slayer of his friend, lips ready to begin, "now, tybalt, take the villain back again--" the audience stood in a suspense not less than romeo's, every gaze intent upon the place where tybalt should come forth. but from that place, no one appeared. why did tybalt delay? what was the matter? it was an embarrassing moment for mr. burbage. he whispered something to the benvolio, who thereupon went to the curtain at the rear and pushed it aside. he disclosed a number of those actors known as servitors, waiting to come on as citizens, and behind these the prince with montague and capulet and their ladies. "where's marryott?" called benvolio to these. "'tis his cue. the stage waits for tybalt." those about the doorway looked into the tiring-room. "he is not here," replied several. "he is not come from the stage yet," said hudsdon. "i have kept my eye for him." "why," said benvolio to the fellows who had played tybalt's followers, "came he not off with you?" "i remember not," said one. "'tis certain he ought to have." "'tis certain he did not," said one of the guards on the steps. hudsdon made his way through the group on the steps, strode upon the stage, and, going to the centre thereof, to mr. burbage's utter amazement, said to roger barnet: "there's deviltry afoot! the prisoner came not yonder, yet he is not here!" "what say'st thou?" replied roger, turning dark, and springing to his feet. "thou'st been cozened. hudsdon! he fled yonder; i saw him!" and he pointed toward the tiring-room. "nay," said one of the gallants on the stage, "he fled over the balcony, into the house." the speaker indicated the balcony used by juliet, which, as has been said, was no higher above the back of the stage than were the eyes of a man standing. "that i'll swear. he grasped the balustrade, and drew himself up, and bent around, and put knee to the balcony's edge; and then 'twas short work over the balustrade and across the balcony." "ay, 'tis so!" cried out many voices from near the stage, and from the occupied part of the balcony itself. "why, then, hudsdon, take three men, and search the house," cried roger, for whom mr. burbage had indignantly made way by retiring to the back of the stage. then the pursuivant turned to his informants: "an ye had eyes for so much, had none of you the wit to call out whither he went?" "i thought it was part of the play," lisped the gallant. "i thought he ran away lest he be taken for killing the witty gentleman." "why, so he did," quoth barnet, "but he ought not to have run to the balcony!" "marry, look you," said the other, "he cried 'away!' and started for the curtain; then he said, 'nay, i'll to the balcony!' and so to the balcony he went. i thought 'twas in the play." "i knew the play," called out a gentleman in the balcony, "but i thought the action had mayhap been changed. we all thought so, who saw him pass this way." "devil take prating!" muttered barnet. "dawkins, go you with three men and seek in the street hereabout for him, or word of him. you three, to the stables, and out with the horses! a murrain on plays and play-acting!--i don't mean that, neither. master shakespeare" (for the poet had hastened to the stage to see what the matter was), "but i've been a blind ass this day, and i would i had your art to tell my feelings!" and he limped after hudsdon, to assist in the search of the house. this was a large inn, and required long searching. as for the men ordered to seek in the adjacent streets, they were a good while hindered in making their way through the crowd in the yard. those who went to take out the horses were similarly impeded. meanwhile, for a time there was clamor and confusion among the spectators. some of the dull witted, who had lost interest in the play after the novelty of the opening scenes, followed the four men to the street. the most, thinking the prisoner might be found in the house, chose to remain where they were, deciding not to sacrifice a certain pleasure for the uncertain one of joining a hunt for an escaped prisoner. so there were calls for the play to go on. it was therefore taken up at the point where marryott had failed to appear, master shakespeare assuming tybalt's part for the one short speech, and the swift death, that remained to it. thenceforward there was no stoppage. my lord and his lady listened with rapt attention, and when at last the two lovers lay clasped in death many of the audience had forgotten the episode that had interrupted the third act. but roger barnet had other occupation than to watch the resumed play. it was not given him to end as agreeably an afternoon so pleasantly begun; yet matter to distract his thoughts from his lame leg was not lacking. the search of the inn yielding nothing, the scouring of the immediate neighborhood being fruitless, the pursuivant sent his men throughout the town for a clue. one came back with news that a man of the prisoner's description had been seen taking the stamford road. another returned with word that the lady who had followed from foxby hall had tarried a short while at another inn; and a third brought information that this lady and her escort of three had later left the town by the road to london. she had not, indeed, had barnet's reason for staying in oakham, and it was quite natural that she should have continued her homeward journey. her departure seemed not connected in any way with the prisoner's flight. meanwhile the horses had been waiting ready in the street during the time necessary for these inquiries. "to saddle, then," said barnet to hudsdon, "every hound of us! i'll on to fleetwood house, you to the stamford road. 'tis the fiend's work that your man hath two hours' start. i wonder how far he is." just about that time, as the players were sitting down to supper, master shakespeare said: "i pray fortune the new action hal put in my tragedy shall prove indeed the winning of his freedom!" chapter xxv. sir harry and lady marryott. "this wild-goose chase is done; we have won o' both sides."--_the wild-goose chase._ marryott, in the midst of the fight with mercutio, had in a flash two thoughts, one springing from the contact of his glance with the balcony, the other following instantly upon the first. the first was, that a man might gain the balcony by one swift effort of agility and strength; the second was, that when momentous action holds the attention of spectators to one part of a stage, a person elsewhere on the stage may move unobserved before their eyes, if his movement be swift, silent, and in harmony with what has preceded,--a fact well known to people of stage experience. no incident in the drama more focuses attention than the dying scene of mercutio; spectators have no eyes for tybalt, of whom they retain but a vague impression of hasty flight. the thing was scarce thought, when the time had come to act it. to make all seem right to those he must pass near, and inspired by necessity, he indeed spoke, for their ears alone, the words, "away! nay, i'll to the balcony;" at the same time casting his sword against the curtain, so that it fell less loudly to the stage. he seized two balusters, swiftly raised himself, and then--not proceeding exactly as the rustic beau had described--lodged a foot in the angle of a brace supporting the balcony, set his other foot on the balcony's edge, and rose ready to swing his body over the rail. to do this, and to glide across the balcony and through the way left open for juliet, was the matter of a second. he was conscious, as he crossed the balcony, of slightly surprised looks from the musicians at one side, and from a few spectators at the other; but as he plunged into the room, he heard behind him only the lamenting voice of romeo. most of the spectators, and those chiefly concerned in his doings, had not observed his flight; like the dupes of a juggler, in watching one thing they had missed another; and those who perforce had seen his exit thought all was as it should be. across the room he ran, to a door leading into a passage. he traversed this to the end, where a window gave upon the street. through the window ere he had time to think of possible broken bones, he hung from the ledge, and dropped. the fall was from the second story only. he slipped sidewise on alighting, jarred his elbow, and bruised his leg. but he was up in a moment. the street was deserted,--everybody in the neighborhood was at the play. he looked in both directions, but saw no horse. then he started on a run, to make a circuit of the inn. if the horse was not in sight on one side, it must be so on another. fortune could not so cruelly will it that when at last he had made the dash, performed the miracle, his friends should, for the first time, fail him. he directed his steps so as first to pass the inn gate, and be gone from it ere barnet's men should have time to sally out. this he accomplished, but without glimpse of the horse. he turned into a street on the third side of the inn; traversed it to its junction with a lane leading toward the side where he had landed from the window; darted into this lane with the fast-beating heart of a dying hope, passed half-way through it, glanced with dreading eyes down a narrow passage conducting from it, and saw, in a street beyond, the waiting horse. how he covered the length of the passage, and vaulted into the saddle, he never could recall. his first remembered impression, after sight of the horse, was of being surrounded by anne, kit, and anthony, all mounted; and seeing francis glide away afoot in quest of a horse for his own riding. there was more gravity than joy in the faces of the three; the sight of him alive and free of his guards was too marvellous for outward rejoicing. such joy is like passions, of which raleigh wrote, that they-- "... are likened best to floods and streams: the shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb." anthony avoided hal's glance by looking down; kit bottle cleared his throat; from anne's eyes there was the least gush of tears, and her voice trembled as she spoke: "god be thanked! i dared not hope for this!" "nor i," he replied. "whither do we ride?" "you, to the lincolnshire coast, with anthony. he knows secret ways of embarkation to france." "but you?--you waited with the horse, that you might ride with me, is't not so?" "no; that i might see all done, with mine own eyes, and you escaped. anthony has money for your needs to france. i will ride home, with captain bottle and francis. tarry not another moment. you are to ride first alone. anthony will leave this town with us, and then make by cross-ways to join you soon on the stamford road. this paper tells where one shall wait for the other, for anthony may ride the faster, knowing better the ways. i have writ it so, for greater surety and less delay. go now; here's money, of anthony's lending. nay, for god's sake, tarry not!" "but thou? when shall i see or hear?" "anthony will tell you how to send word. tarry not, i entreat!" "thou'st been too good to me!" "nay, 'tis not goodness alone--" and she finished with a look straight and deep into his eyes. he seized her hand, and kissed it fervently. "and thou'lt wait?" he whispered. "forever, if need!--but let it not be so long." with his free hand, he grasped kit bottle's, and wrung from the old soldier a husky "god bless thee, boy!" then he spurred forward in the direction silently pointed out by anthony. at a bend of the street, he turned in his saddle, and cast a look back. his friends were motionless upon their horses, gazing after him with saddened, softened faces. a slight movement of mistress hazlehurst's gloved hand, and his horse had carried him from the scene; but he bore that scene ever in his heart's eye, day and night, to the coast, which, thanks to his good start and tireless riding, he reached uncaught; over sea to france, where anthony soon brought him into sight of sir valentine fleetwood, who had arrived at dieppe not a day sooner than hal had disembarked at boulogne; in paris, where hal got an honorable post in a great man's household through the influence of sir valentine's wife,--for it turned out that the knight, unknown to queen elizabeth, had a wife, after all, a french lady whose virtue and beauty easily explained her husband's willingness to save his life at another's risk. she was of great wealth, and, it happened, of equal gratitude; whence it fell out that, when master marryott returned to england, after the accession of king james, he came as owner of an estate previously purchased in his name by anthony underhill; an estate sold by the crown, under confiscation,--no other estate, in fact, than that pertaining to foxby hall, in yorkshire. now it had come out that mistress hazlehurst's brother, before getting himself killed by sir valentine fleetwood, had overladen his estate with debt, and, in conspiracy with his sister's man of business, had made way with her portion also. when the courts of law had finally established beyond doubt that she was penniless, master marryott was about returning to his own country, fully informed, by anne's correspondence, of the state of her affairs. so there was afforded the unique spectacle of a lady who had remained unmarried while she was supposably an heiress, obtaining a husband the moment she was shown to be a beggar. * * * * * "i think, love," said sir harry (he was knighted under king james, on no better pretext than having, with his own servants, rid the northern counties of a famous robber called rumney the highway, whom marryott's man bottle slew in single combat), "i think i will write my memoirs, as everybody in france does." he sat idly touching a viol in an upper window-seat of foxby hall, one summer evening, while lady marryott as idly fingered a virginal near him. "how now, hal? hast done aught wonderful in thy time? 'faith, thou shouldst have told me!" "rail an thou wilt, sweet! but there is much for wonder in the matter that brought us together,--not in any doing of mine, forsooth, but in fortune's doing. for look you, had i not indeed tarried here that night you counterfeited illness in this room, you might perforce have talked with roger barnet ere the six days were done, and he have sent back to sir valentine, who left not fleetwood house till the last hour. thus, perchance, sir valentine had not escaped to france; had he not done so, i had not fared well there, and met his lady, whose gratitude took the shape of filling my purse. i had not then come back as owner of foxby hall at the very time my love was disowned of fortune. but for the sad quarrel 'twixt your brother and sir valentine, and for my having taken up the queen's thankless errand, i had not met you in the road that night; but for the continuance of my pretence to be sir valentine, thou hadst not followed me to the end we wot of." the queen's death had unsealed his lips,--though only to his wife, who was one woman that could keep a secret,--regarding her majesty's commission. "why, then," said anne, "but for the queen's lingering love of the knight, and but for her dread of seeming weak to her councillors,--for that i will take oath was her reason,--we should not be here together this moment. ne'ertheless, 'twas a cruel queen, merely to save her pride a brief unpleasantness, to send a young gentleman to risk his life!" "marry, anne, i have heard of ladies who were not queens, sending great lords further, for less! but look you, i took the errand for no reward, being minded like to master spenser's knight: "'upon a great adventure he was bond. that greatest gloriana to him gave (that greatest glorious queen of faerie land). to win him worship, and her grace to have.' "nay, i know thou'lt say, much virtue in her grace! but bethink you, if i looked for no other direct reward, and got none, neither did i look for the indirect rewards fortune took it on herself to pay me withal. if i sought only the queen's grace, and mayhap received small share of that, was i not put in the way of winning thy grace, my sweet, and of all else i have?" "nay, perhaps fortune had found other ways to bring these things to thee. look out of the window, harry, and bid kit bottle not make little will run so fast. thine old bully is the child's undoing!" "nay, the lad is safe with kit; though indeed the old rascal spoils him some. what was he doing yesterday, but teaching him to counterfeit anthony underhill's psalm-singing? a steward of anthony's years deserves more courtesy." "if the boy grow up as brave a gentleman as thou, hal, i shall be content. there be honors waiting for him in the world, i trow." "why, he hath some honor already, methinks, in being will shakespeare's godson. 'sooth, the players will not know him for the same lad when we go again to london, he hath shot up so tall. but thou wert speaking of that night, when thy feigned tears conquered me in this room--" "nay, thou wert speaking of it, love." "thou hast never told me; never have i dared ask: was--all--counterfeit that night?" "why,--my lord,--the illness, indeed, was counterfeit; but the kisses--though perhaps i had withheld them, save for my purpose--were real enough. god wot, once my lips were loosed! and i marvel i could still cling to my revenge, yet yield myself to thine arms so willingly! nay, hal, there's no need to act the scene anew! out on thee, madcap, thou'st crushed my kirtle--!" the end. notes. note . (page .) mr. fleay seems satisfied that was the year of the production of shakespeare's first "hamlet." but he believes it was "hurriedly prepared during the journey to scotland," where the players had arrived by october, when they were at aberdeen. "in their travels this year they visited the universities of oxford and cambridge, where they performed 'julius cæsar' and 'hamlet.'" that "hamlet" was the second of these two plays produced, seems evident from the allusion of "corambis" ("polonius") to his having played "julius cæsar" at the university. but this speech might have been added to the first version after its original production, and before the publication in of the garbled first quarto; for two plays whose london productions are assigned by fleay to ("satiromastix" and "the malcontent") contain allusions to "hamlet." if the lord chamberlain's company did not act again in london in after its departure on its travels, how account for these allusions, unless "hamlet" had been acted in london before the company's departure? dr. furnivall would forestall this question by saying that "the 'hamlet' allusions in and before are to an old play." but it seems as fair to conjecture a slightly earlier production of the new play, in accounting for these allusions, as a general revival of interest in an old play; and the fact that the allusions are not true to speeches actually occurring in shakespeare's first "hamlet" will not weigh with those who consider the methods of satire and burlesque. the lines in the play that seemingly attribute the company's travelling to the popularity of the "little eyases" (the chapel royal children acting at the blackfriars theatre) are rather such as would have been designed for a london audience on the eve of the company's departure, as a pretext for an exile due to royal disfavor, than for university audiences, to whom the players would less willingly confess a waning of london popularity; or than for a london audience after the company's return, when the allusion, though still of interest, would be the less likely to serve a purpose. the conclusion here driven at is, that sir henry marryott's narrative is not to be impugned because he places the first "hamlet" performance before the company's departure from london, while the investigators place it after. heaven forfend that, even on a single unimportant question, the present writer should rush in where angels fear to tread, to the arena of shakespearean controversy, to whose confusion even such a master as mr. saintsbury refrains from adding! note . (page .) the occasion for the lord chamberlain's players to travel was one of the numerous minor episodes of the essex conspiracy. that plot to seize whitehall, and dictate a change of government to the queen, was hatched at drury house by the earl of essex and his friends, in january. early in february essex was ordered to appear before the council, and he received an anonymous letter of warning. it was decided that the rising should occur sunday, february th. on thursday, february th, essex's friends went to the globe theatre to see shakespeare's "richard ii." performed,--a play affording them a kind of example for their intended action. (in the trials in march, meyrick was indicted for "having procured the out-dated tragedy of 'richard ii.' to be publicly acted at his own charge, for the entertainment of the conspirators.") of the shareholding members of the company of players, the one who had arranged this performance was augustine phillips. the rising in london, when it occurred, was abortive, and essex was taken to the tower, those of his adherents who surrendered, or were caught, being distributed among different london prisons. on february th, the confessions of several of essex's friends were taken. the next day, essex and southampton, shakespeare's friend, were brought before a commission of twenty-five peers and nine judges, in westminster hall. things were done expeditiously in that reign: at p.m., the same day, sentence of death was pronounced upon essex, and he was taken back to the tower. six days later, february th, he was beheaded. southampton was kept a long time in prison. four of essex's associates were executed. one of several remarkable features of this little affair was that the band of conspirators included catholics and puritans, as well as men of the established church. to return to the players: mr. fleay says it is "clear that the subjects chosen for historical plays by marlowe and shakespeare were unpopular at court, but approved of by the essex faction, and that at last the company incurred the serious displeasure of the queen. so they did not perform at court at christmas, ." in the previous christmas season, they had given three performances at court. in elizabeth's reign, this company acted at court twenty-eight plays, twenty of which were by shakespeare, eight by other men. this shows that the age which could produce a shakespeare could appreciate him,--as somebody has said, or ought to have said. note . (page .) "boys were regularly apprenticed to the profession in those days," says the anonymous author of "lights of the old english stage." "each principal was entitled to have a boy or apprentice, who played the young and the female characters, and for whose services he received a certain sum." this certain sum was, of course, paid out, like the rent and other common expenses of the theatre, before money taken in was divided among the different shareholders. all the principals were shareholders. the globe theatre was owned by the burbages. hence richard burbage would first receive rent, as owner of the playhouse, and would later receive his part of the profits as a shareholder. as to these apprentices, one finds mention of "coadjutors," "servitors," and "hired men," not to speak of "tire-boys," "stage-boys," etc. those boys that played female parts must have played them effectively, notwithstanding the unwillingness of shakespeare's egyptian queen to see, on the roman stage, "some squeaking cleopatra boy my greatness." else would shakespeare have dared to write, for acting, such parts as juliet and beatrice, and, above all, such as rosalind and viola, in which a boy, dressed as a boy, should yet have to seem a girl disguised? the anonymous writer already quoted says of these boys: "thus trained under great masters, it is not to be wondered at that they grew up to be such consummate masters of their art." it is well known that women did not appear on the stage in england before , forty-six years after shakespeare's death. note . (page .) if anybody supposes that burbage would not be thought a great or a finished actor, were he now alive and acting just as he did in his own day, let that person read the various poems written at his death and descriptive of the effect produced by him on his audiences. his romeo "begot tears." his brutus and marcius "charmed the faculty of ears and eyes." "every thought and mood might thoroughly from" his "face be understood." "and his whole action he could change with ease, from ancient lear to youthful pericles." in the part of the "grieved moor," "beyond the rest he moved the heart." "his pace" suited with "his speech," and "his every action" was "grace." his tongue was "enchanting" and "wondrous." bishop corbet tells in verse how his host at leicester, in describing the battle of bosworth field, used the name of burbage when he meant king richard. or let the skeptic read what flecknoe says: "he was a delightful proteus, so wholly transforming himself into his part, and putting off himself with his clothes, as he never (not so much as in the tyring-house) assumed himself again until the play was done.... his auditors" were "never more delighted than when he spoke, nor more sorry than when he held his peace; yet even then he was an excellent actor still, never failing in his part when he had done speaking; but with his looks and gesture, maintaining it still unto the height." his death, in , so over-shadowed that of the queen of james i., as a public calamity, that after weeping for him, the people had no grief left for her majesty. note . (page .) as to false beards worn on the stage at that time, recall nick bottom's readiness to discharge the part of "pyramus" in "either your straw-color beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your french crown-color beard, your perfect yellow;" and, later, his injunction to his fellow actors to get good strings to their beards; regarding which injunction. george steevens says: "as no false beard could be worn without a ligature to fasten it on, bottom's caution must mean more than the mere security of his comrades' beards. the good strings he recommends were probably ornamental. this may merely show how little a former-day shakespearean commentator might know of the acting stage. a bad "ligature" might give way and make the actor ridiculous by the sudden shedding of his beard. such an accident was one against which bottom, being of an active jaw, might be particularly precautious. in a full beard, ascending at the sides of the face to meet the hair of the head, the ligature could be completely concealed. but often glue was used, to fasten on false beards. "some tinker's trull, with a beard glued on," says a character in beaumont and fletcher's "the wild-goose chase." sir walter raleigh wore a false beard in his betrayed attempt to escape down the thames, night of august , . real beards of the time were of every form,--pointed, fan-shaped, spade-shaped, t-shaped, often dyed. note . (page .) "fencing was taught as a regular science," says george steevens, in a note to "the merry wives of windsor." "three degrees were usually taken in this art, a master's, a provost's, and a scholar's. for each of these a prize was played. the weapons they used were the axe, the pipe, rapier and target, rapier and cloak, two-swords, the two-hand sword, the bastard-sword, the dagger and staff, the sword and buckler, the rapier and dagger, etc. the places where they exercised were, commonly, theatres, halls, or other enclosures." a party of young gallants at a tavern, says thornbury, would often send for a fencing-master to come and breathe them. the great dictator in fencing, duelling, etc., in london, about , was vincentio savolio, whose book on the "use of the rapier and dagger" and on "honor and honorable quarrels" was printed in london in . the dictionary of national biography says he was born in padua, and, after obtaining a reputation as a fencer, came to england and was taken into the service of the earl of essex. "in 'as you like it,' touchstone's description of the various forms of a lie is obviously based on savolio's chapter 'of the manner and diversitie of lies.'" though a great swordsman, savolio seems to have been anything but a brawler, or an abettor of fighting. in his book he deprecates quarrels upon insufficient causes. note . (page .) nobody needs to be reminded that the original of justice shallow is supposed to have been sir thomas lucy, the knight of charlecote hall, whose deer the legend has it shakespeare stole; as steal them he probably did, if deer there were to steal, and if shakespeare was not totally different from other boys with the opportunities for dangerous frolic afforded by a rustic environment and a middle-class condition of life. on this subject one might pleasurably re-read washington irving's account (in "the sketch book") of his visit to charlecote hall. regarding the proneness of provincial great men to boast of their wickedness in the metropolis, falstaff hits off the type, as it is not yet entirely dead, when he says of shallow: "this same starved justice hath done nothing but prate to me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he hath done about turnbull street: and every third word a lie, duer paid to the hearer than the turk's tribute." the rest of the speech, wherein it is shown what figure master shallow really made in turnbull street, is not here quotable; but it is none the less readable. note . (page .) one might fill pages with the mere names of the different classifications of elizabethan rogues, and of the several members of each kind of gang. we have not at all advanced in thievery since elizabeth's day. the "confidence game" played by new york "crooks" on visitors from the interior, this present year, was played under another name, in shakespeare's time. the "come-on" of present-day new york is but the lineal descendant of the "cony" of sixteenth century london. of thieves, impostors, and beggars, a few of the varieties were: rufflers, upright men, hookers, wild rogues, priggers of prancers (horse-thieves), pallyards, fraters, prigs, curtals, irish rogues, ragmen, jackmen, abram men, mad toms of bedlam, whipjacks, cranks, dommerers, glimmerers, travelling tinkers, and counterfeit soldiers, besides the real soldiers who turned to crime. "laws were made against disbanded soldiers who took to robbing and murder," says thornbury; "and the pursuit by hue and cry, on horse and foot, was rendered imperative in every township." there were ferreters, falconers, shifters, rank riders,--the list is endless. the generic name for gambling cheats was rooks, and these were divided into puffs, setters, gilts, pads, biters, droppers, filers. gull-gropers were gamblers who hunted fools in the ordinaries (eating-houses); each gang was composed of four men,--leader, eagle, wood-pecker, gull-groper (this name serving for the variety as well as for the species). a gambling gang with another method of operation was made up of the setter or decoy duck, the verser and barnacle, the accomplice, the rutter or bully. some gamesters used women as decoys. of dice tricks, there were those known as topping, slurring, stabbing, palming, knapping, besides various others. in addition to having all these--and many more--varieties of rogues to support, the nation was overrun with gipsies, who thieved in a world of ways. the whole population of england in is said to have been only about , , ; that of london was little more than , . and yet, the known rogues being deducted, and the secret rogues, there seem to have been some honest people left. note . (page .) the marryott memoirs (chief source of this narrative), in recounting the talk at the mermaid, naturally do not pause to describe the tavern. the slight description here given has had to be pieced together, of scraps found in various places, one being a magazine article containing what purport to be actual details, but which have the look of coming from some bygone work of fiction. stow, in his "survay of london" ( ), has nothing to say of the mermaid; he twice mentions the "fair inns" in bread street. i fancy that if there were anywhere the authentic materials for a full description of the house, such zealous lighters-up of the past as besant (who in his "london" describes the falcon but not the mermaid), f. f. ordish ("shakespeare's london," a charming little book, inside and out), loftie (in his excellent history of london). hubert hall (who in his "society in the elizabethan age" describes the tabard in southwark but not the mermaid), walter thornbury (whose two volumes on the england of shakespeare are rich especially on tavern life, mainly as reflected in plays and pamphlets of the time). edwin goadby (whose compact little book on the same subject is crowded with matter), and the host of others, including the most recent biographers of shakespeare, would have found it out. a thing we certainly know of the mermaid, in addition to its location and its three entrances, is that the wine and the wit there elicited from francis beaumont to ben jonson these famous "lines sent from the country with two unfinished comedies, which deferred their merry meetings at the mermaid:" "in this warm shine i lie and dream of your full mermaid wine. * * * * * methinks the little wit i had is lost. since i saw you, for wit is like a rest held up at tennis, which men do the best with the best gamesters. what things have we seen done at the mermaid! heard words that have been so nimble, and so full of subtle flame. as if that every one from whence they came had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, and had resolved to live a fool the rest of his dull life; than when there hath been thrown wit able enough to justify the town for three days past, wit that might warrant be for the whole city to talk foolishly. till that were cancelled; and when that was gone. we left an air behind us, which alone was able to make the two next companies right witty, though but downright fools more wise." note . (page .) for the better observance of the lenten statutes, in every ward of london a jury was sworn, and charged by the aldermen, "for the true inquisition of killing, selling, dressing, or eating of flesh this present lent, contrary to the laws and statutes of this realm and her majesty's proclamation and express commandment." in accordance with this the jury "made diligent search divers and sundry times in all inns, tabling-houses, taverns, cook-houses, and victualling-houses within their ward," and thereupon either "resolved that they" had "not hitherto found any to offend against these laws," or they presented the names of those who had "so continued to offend, to the officer." mr. hubert hall says: "the non-observance of these fast-days was no slight matter. not only did the fisheries suffer in consequence, but the benefits of an occasional variation of the interminable diet of salt beef and bad beer must have been incalculable. the obligation of the crown toward one class of its subjects may not have been economically imperative, but a patriarchical government was bound to consult the welfare of each." when philip sidney was at oxford, his uncle solicited for him "a license to eat flesh during lent," he being "somewhat subject to sickness." note . (page .) according to mr. fleay, "every man out of his humor," produced at the globe theatre in , was the first of ben jonson's personal satires against his contemporaries. jonson had to remove these satires to the blackfriars, that same year; when began the "war of the theatres," a war conducted, through plays laden with personalities, by the writers and actors of one theatre against the writers and actors of another. this "war" seems to have endured till after the time of our narrative, and to have died a natural death. its most celebrated productions were jonson's "the poetaster" and thomas dekker's reply thereto, "satiromastix." jonson's "comical satires" were acted at the blackfriars by the chapel royal boys, the "little eyases" derided in "hamlet." mr. fleay finds that jonson's satires were directed against shakespeare as well as against dekker and marston. certain allusions and characters, in shakespeare's plays produced apparently about this time, have been taken as his contributions to this war. with another rival company, also of boys,--those of st. paul's cathedral,--the lord chamberlain's players were friendly. mr. saintsbury says that jonson, dekker, chapman, and marston "were mixed up, as regards one another, in an extricable but not uninteresting series of broils and friendships, to some part of which shakespeare himself was, it is clear, by no means a stranger." but he observes that the direct connection of these quarrels, "even with the literary work which is usually linked to them, will be better established when critics have left being uncertain whether a was b, or b, c." i have heard it suggested, in fun, that the war may have been a device to stimulate public interest in the theatres. the elizabethan age had its visitations of the plague, and was therefore, by the not too cruel dispensers of good and evil, spared the advertising malady of our nineteenth and twentieth centuries. should anything like this war of the theatres occur to-day, it would not take a scotland yard or mulberry street detective to smell out ulterior motives at the back of it. the elizabethans, besides their other advantages, enjoyed that of living too soon to know or even foresee the crafty self-advertiser or the "clever press agent;" else had there surely been an additional verse in their litany, followed by a most fervent "good lord, deliver us!" note . (page .) "but that a gentleman should turn player hath puzzled me." to make an actor of a young gentleman, might, indeed, become a "star chamber matter." among other "misdemeanors not reducible to heads," given in a bodleian library ms., entitled "a short view of criminal cases punishable and heretofore punished in the court of the star chamber in the times of queen elizabeth. king james, and his late majesty king charles," is this: "taking up a gentleman's son to be a stage player." see john s. burn's notices of the "star chamber." note . (page .) all the world knows that in , seven years after shakespeare's death, the first collected edition of his plays appeared, under the supervision of, and from manuscripts provided by, masters heminge and condell. "we have but collected them," say they in their dedication inserted in the subsequent folio ( ), "and done an office to the dead, to procure his orphans, guardians; without ambition either of self-profit or fame: only to keep the memory of so worthy a friend and fellow alive, as was our shakespeare." in the first folio are printed "the names of the principal actors in all these plays." "william shakespeare," heading the list, is followed in order by "richard burbadge," "john hemings," and "augustine philips;" further down come "william slye" and "henry condell." harry marryott's association with the company was too brief, his position too far from that of a "principal actor," for his name to be included in the list. note . (page .) shakespeare's london residence in october, , was in the parish of st. helen's, bishopsgate (fleay, ordish, and others). countless biographers make him a resident of the southwark side of the river, as, "he lived near the bear garden, southwark, in . in he occupied a good house within the liberty of the clink." "his house was somewhere in clink street. as he grew more prosperous, he purchased a dwelling on the opposite shore near the wardrobe, but he does not seem to have occupied it." but it turns out that william shakespeare had two brothers, either or both of whom dwelt in southwark, a fact that confuses the apparent evidence of his own residence there. his house in blackfriars, "near the wardrobe," descended by will to his daughter, susannah hall. his purchase of new place, at stratford, was made in ; but, though he may have at once installed his family there, he certainly remained for some years afterward a londoner. note . (page .) turnbull street was a notorious nest of women of ill fame, and of men equally low in character. falstaff's mention of it has been quoted in a previous note. in beaumont and fletcher's burlesque, "the knight of the burning pestle," the speech of a prisoner, alluding to his fair companion, contains this bit of humor: "i am an errant knight that followed arms with spear and shield; and in my tender years i stricken was with cupid's fiery shaft. and fell in love with this my lady dear. and stole her from her friends in turnbull street." it was also known as turnmill street. "turnemill street," says stow, "which stretcheth up to the west of clerkenwell" (from the "lane called cow cross, of a cross sometime standing there"). note . (page .) concerning queen elizabeth's temper, there is, besides a wealth of other evidence, this from the "character of queen elizabeth," by edmund bohun, esq., published in nichols's "progresses and public processions of queen elizabeth:" "she was subject to be vehemently transported with anger, and when she was so, she would show it by her voice, her countenance, and her hands. she would chide her familiar servants so loud, that they that stood afar off might sometimes hear her voice. and it was reported that for small offences she would strike her maids of honor with her hand; but then her anger was short and very innocent. and when her friends acknowledged their offences, she, with an appeased mind, easily forgave them many things." note . (page .) the famous story of the ring is perhaps too well known to be repeated here. the queen had once given the earl of essex a ring, which, if ever sent to her as a token of his distress, "might entitle him to her protection." while under sentence of death, the earl, looking out of his prison window one morning, engaged a boy to carry the ring to lady scroope, the countess of nottingham's sister, an attendant on the queen, and to beg that she would present it to her majesty. "the boy, by mistake," continues birch's version of the story, "carried it to the lady nottingham, who showed it to her husband, the admiral, an enemy of lord essex. the admiral forbid her to carry it, or return any answer to the message, but insisted on her keeping the ring." when, two years later, this countess was on her death-bed, she sent for the queen, told her all, and begged forgiveness. "but her majesty answered, 'god may forgive you, but i never can,' and left the room with great emotion. her mind was so struck with the story, that she never went into bed, nor took any sustenance from that instant, for camden is of opinion that her chief reason for suffering the earl to be executed was his supposed obstinacy in not applying to her for mercy." note . (page .) of one of queen elizabeth's most characteristic traits. miss aikin says: "it has been already remarked that she was habitually, or systematically, an enemy to matrimony in general; and the higher any persons stood in her good graces, and the more intimate their intercourse with her, the greater was her resentment at detecting in them any aspirations after this state; for a kind of jealousy was in these cases superadded to her malignity; and it offended her pride that those who were honored with her favor should find room in their thoughts to covet another kind of happiness, of which she was not the dispenser." when leicester married the widowed countess of essex, the queen had him confined in a small fort in greenwich park, and would probably have sent him to the tower, but that the earl of sussex dissuaded. later, when essex married sir philip sidney's widow, walsingham's daughter, elizabeth showed rage and chagrin in a degree only less than in the case of leicester. one of her attendants wrote, "yet she doth use it more temperately than was thought for, and, god be thanked, doth not strike at all she threats." both these marriages were conducted secretly, and without previous request for the permission her majesty would have refused. so was that of southampton, in , by which that nobleman so incurred the queen's displeasure that, when she heard that essex, commanding the troops in ireland, had appointed him general of the horse, she reprimanded and ordered essex to recall his commission. it was her unhappy fate that all her favorites, save hatton, should marry. note . (page .) "she was jealous of her reputation with the old and cool-headed lords about her," writes leigh hunt, of elizabeth at the time of the essex conspiracy. that she had grown loath to betray the weaknesses which in earlier years she had made no attempt to conceal, is to be inferred also from the lessening degrees of wrath she evinced as her favorites, one after another, married; and from bohun's statement, regarding her anger, that "she learned from xenophon's book of the institution of cyrus, the method of curbing and correcting this unruly passion." a wonderfully human and pathetic figure: the vain woman whose glass belied the gross flattery of her courtiers, yet who could delude herself into believing them sincere; the "greatest gloriana" whose worshippers declared her favor their breath of life, yet risked it for the smiles of mere gentlewomen; the stateswoman, wise enough to see her kingdom's future safety in the death of her beautiful rival, courageous enough to sanction that death, weak enough to shift the blame on poor davison; the queen, who could say on horseback, to her "loving people," "i know i have but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but i have the heart of a king, and of a king of england, too, and think foul scorn that parma, or spain, or any prince of europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realms;" and yet had to study in a classic author, how to keep from slapping the faces of her maids! note . (page .) the pursuivants who, in this and the next reign, executed warrants of arrest, are not to be confused with the pursuivants of the heralds' college. "send for his master with a pursuivant, presently," orders suffolk, concerning an apprentice's master accused of treason, in "henry vi., part ii." it is of these pursuivants that hume writes as follows, concerning persons who sued great lords for debt in elizabeth's reign: "it was usual to send for people by pursuivants, a kind of harpies, who then attended the orders of the council and high commission; and they were brought up to london, and constrained by imprisonment, not only to withdraw their lawful suits, but also to pay the pursuivants great sums of money." the pursuivant, with his warrants, proclamations, and his constant "in the queen's name," is a familiar figure in elizabethan literature. in sir valentine fleetwood's case, the council would have been perhaps equally or more in custom had it entrusted the prisoner's conveyance to london to some gentleman of equal rank to his. note . (page .) in telling marryott that she was "not wont to go so strong in purse," the queen spoke figuratively, rather than meant that she had for once assumed the functions of purse-bearer, or that a purse habitually carried by her was now uncommonly well provided. true, either of these may have been the case. shakespeare must have modelled the minor habits of his queens somewhat upon those of elizabeth; and he makes cleopatra give a messenger gold, presumably with her own hand. but elizabeth's allusion was to her poverty, and in keeping with her extreme economy, concerning which hume says: "but that in reality there was little or no avarice in the queen's temper, appears from this circumstance, that she never amassed any treasure, and even refused subsidies from the parliament, when she had no present occasion for them. yet we must not conclude that her economy proceeded from a tender concern for her people; she loaded them with monopolies and exclusive patents. the real source of her frugal conduct was derived from her desire of independency, and her care to preserve her dignity, which would have been endangered had she reduced herself to the necessity of having frequent recourse to parliamentary supplies. the splendor of a court was, during this age, a great part of the public charge; and as elizabeth was a single woman, and expensive in no kind of magnificence except clothes, this circumstance enabled her to perform great things by her narrow revenue. she is said to have paid four millions of debt, left on the crown by her father, brother, and sister,--an incredible sum for that age." note . (page .) elizabeth's forenoons, according to bohun, were usually thus passed: "first in the morning, she spent some time at her devotions; then she betook herself to the despatch of her civil affairs, reading letters, ordering answers, considering what should be brought before the council, and consulting with her ministers. when she had thus wearied herself, she would walk in a shady garden, or pleasant gallery, without any other attendance than that of a few learned men. then she took her coach, and passed in sight of her people to the neighboring groves and fields; and sometimes would hunt or hawk. there was scarce a day but she employed some part of it in reading and study." note . (page .) "the circuit of the wall of london on the land side" (writes stow in ), "to wit, from the tower of london in the east unto aldgate, is perches; from aldgate to bishopsgate, perches; from bishopsgate in the north, to the postern of cripplegate, perches; from cripplegate to aldersgate, perches; from aldersgate to newgate, perches; from newgate in the west, to ludgate, perches; in all, perches of assize. from ludgate to the fleet dike west, about perches; from fleet bridge south, to the river thames, about perches; and so the total of these perches amounteth to , ... w hich make up two english miles, and more by feet." the gates here mentioned, as besant says, "still stood, and were closed at sunset, until . then they were all pulled down, and the materials sold." even in stow's time, the city had much outgrown its walls; of its outer part, the highways leading to the country had post-and-chain bars, which were closed at night. note . (page .) plays of the time, notably ben jonson's "bartholomew fair," show in what contempt and ridicule the first puritans were held. shakespeare's malvolio, as maria says, is "sometimes a kind of puritan." the attitude of the obtrusive kind of puritanism to the world, and of the world to that kind of puritanism, is expressed once and forever in what hazlitt terms sir toby's "unanswerable answer" to malvolio, "dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?" though fellow sufferers of governmental severity, the catholics and puritans were no less naturally antipathetic to each other. ben jonson, satirist of the puritans, was, in his time, alternately catholic and anglican. but if the government, in support of the established church, was outwardly severe against the puritans, they had much covert protection at court, some of the chief lords and ministers inclining their way. as to the quality of voice affected by these early puritans in their devotions, recall the clown's speech in the "winter's tale:" "three-man songmen all, and very good ones; but they are most of them means and bases; but one puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes." note . (page .) the babington conspiracy gave the occasion for removing that constant menace to england's future peace,--mary stuart. the skill with which sir francis walsingham possessed himself, one by one, of the secrets of the conspirators, and nursed the plot forward until he had complete evidence of every participant's guilt, and of mary's complicity, is fascinating to study. mary of course, as an unwilling prisoner, had a perfect moral right to plot for herself; but she knew what she risked in doing so, and she and her adherents ran against their fatal rock in walsingham. this man's journal is characteristic of himself: merely the briefest entries, of this messenger's arrival from france, or that one's departure for the low countries, or of a letter from x, or an order transmitted to b. what news the messengers brought, what the letters told, or the orders were, is not confided to the paper. in vigilance and craft, he was the elizabethan predecessor of richelieu and fouché; yet a quiet, virtuous man, who loved his wife, died poor, and leaned toward puritanism. his spy system has excited the righteous horror of certain historians who would never have ceased to admire it, had it been exercised for, not against, their heroine, mary stuart. his own direct instruments served him better than he was served by the rank and file of the law's servants, as this letter to him, from lord burleigh, august , , shows: "as i came from london homeward in my coach, i saw at every town's end, a number of ten or twelve, standing with long staves, and until i came to enfield i thought no other of them but that they had staid for the avoiding of the rain, or to drink at some ale-houses, for so they did stand under pentices at ale-houses; but at enfield, finding a dozen in a plump, when there was no rain, i bethought myself that they were appointed as watchmen for the apprehending of such as are missing; and thereupon i called some of them to me apart, and asked them wherefore they stood there, and one of them answered, to take three young men; and, demanding how they should know the persons, one answered with the words, 'marry, my lord, by intelligence of their favor.' 'what mean you by that?' 'marry,' said they, 'one of the parties hath a hooked nose.' 'and have you,' quoth i,'no other mark?' 'no,' said they. and then i asked who appointed them, and they answered one banks, a head constable, whom i willed to be sent to me. surely, sir, whosoever had the charge from you hath used the matter negligently; for these watchmen stand so openly in plumps as no suspected person will come near them, and if they be no better instructed but to find three persons by one of them having a hooked nose, they may miss thereof. and this i thought good to advertise you, that the justices who had the charge, as i think, may use the matter more circumspectly." harrison (writing - ) complains of the laxity of these lesser arms of the law, saying: "that when hue and cry have been made even to the faces of some constables, they have said, 'god restore your loss! i have other business at this time.'" note . (page .) "but now of late years," writes stow ( ), "the use of coaches, brought out of germany, is taken up, and made so common, as there is neither distinction of time nor difference of persons observed; for the world runs on wheels with many whose parents were glad to go on foot." as to their rate of travel, mr. goadby instances that mary, queen of scots, was from early morning to late evening of a january day, in going from bolton castle to ripon, sixteen miles. charles dudley warner (in "the people for whom shakespeare wrote") says that, in . queen henrietta was four days on the way from dover to london, the best road in england (distance, miles); and quotes the venetian ambassador, whose journey to oxford and back (in all, miles, as he travelled) consumed six days, his coach often sticking in the mud, and once breaking down. queen mary had established a kind of postal service. elizabeth had a postmaster-general in . after the armada, a horse-post was ordered established in every town, a foot-post (to live near the church) in every parish. but letter-writers usually sent their own messengers, or relied on the slow carriers' wagons. note . (page .) in this reign, many were the cases wherein people took vengeance into their own hands, in true feudal fashion, whether from the heat of their impulses, or in view of that "bad execution of the laws" and "neglect of police," for which hume found it not easy to account. miss aikin gives an instance, arising from a long-standing feud between two proud families. orme, a servant of sir john holles, killed in a duel the master of horse to the earl of shrewsbury. "the earl prosecuted orme, and sought to take away his life; but sir john holles caused him to be conveyed away to ireland, and afterward obtained his pardon of the queen. for his conduct in this business, he was himself challenged by gervase markham, champion and gallant to the countess of shrewsbury; but holles refused the duel, because the demand of markham, that it should take place in a park belonging to the earl, his enemy, gave him ground to apprehend treachery. anxious, however, to wipe away the aspersions cast upon his courage, he sought a reëncounter which might wear the appearance of accident; and soon after he met markham on the road, when the parties immediately dismounted and attacked each other with their rapiers; markham fell, severely wounded; and the earl of shrewsbury lost no time in raising his servants and tenantry to the number of , in order to apprehend holles, in case markham's hurt should prove fatal. on the other side lord sheffield, the kinsman of holles, joined him with sixty men; and he and his company remained at houghton till the wounded man was out of danger. we do not find the queen and council interfering to put a stop to this private war." markham, who wrote the poem on the last fight of "the revenge," is a minor but prolific figure in elizabethan literature. note . (page .) moll cutpurse, whose real name was mary frith, a shoemaker's daughter, born probably in , is described by her biographer as in her girlhood a "very tomrig or rumpscuttle" who "delighted and sported only in boy's plays and costume." she was put to domestic service, but her calling lay not in tending children. she donned man's attire and found true outlet for her talents as a "bully, pick-purse, fortune-teller, receiver, and forger." she is the heroine of middleton and dekker's breezy comedy, "the roaring girl" ( ), and of a work thus entered on the stationers' register in august, : "a booke called the madde prancks of merry mall of the bankside, with her walkes in man's apparel, and to what purpose. written by john day." her career is set forth in the very interesting "lives of twelve bad women," recently published in a beautiful edition. note . (page .) the use of firearms was slow work in the earlier centuries. concerning the wheel-lock, invented in , at nuremburg, greener says: "when ready for firing, the wheel was wound up, the flash-pan lid pushed back, and the pyrites held in the cock allowed to come in contact with the wheel. by pressure on the trigger a stop was drawn back out of the wheel, and the latter, turning round its pivot at considerable speed, produced sparks by the friction against the pyrites, and thus ignited the priming." "we find the greater portion of the pistols of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries fitted with wheel-locks." wheel-locks being expensive, the old match-locks, as a rule, were still fitted to the longer firearms, such as the arquebus, of which greener says: "the slow match is kept burning in a holder on the top of the barrel; the flash-pan and touch-hole are at the side. the serpentine is hung upon a pivot passing through the stock, and continued past the pivot, forming a lever for the hand. to discharge the piece, the match in the serpentine is first brought into contact with the burning match on the barrel until ignited; then by raising the lever and moving it to one side, the serpentine is brought into the priming in the touch-hole, and the gun discharged,--though it is highly probable that the first arquebuses did not carry the fire in a holder on the barrel, but only the match in the serpentine." "all the early firearms were so slow to load, that, as late as the battle of kuisyingen in , the slowest soldiers managed to fire seven shots only during eight hours." note . (page .) in london the playhouses were allowed to be open in lent on all days but sermon days,--wednesday and friday. in , lent began february th; easter sunday was april th. the historical year--conforming to our present calendar--is here meant. the civil year then began march th. * * * * * _selections from l.c. page and company's list of fiction_ [illustration] * * * * * selections from l. c. page and company's list of fiction [illustration] =an enemy to the king.= (_twentieth thousand._) from the recently discovered memoirs of the sieur de la tournoire. by robert neilson stephens. illustrated by h. de m. young. vol., lib. mo, cloth =$ . = "brilliant as a play; it is equally brilliant as a romantic novel."--_philadelphia press._ "those who love chivalry, fighting, and intrigue will find it, and of good quality, in this book."--_new york critic._ =the continental dragoon.= (_eighteenth thousand._) a romance of philipse manor house, in . by robert neilson stephens, author of "an enemy to the king." illustrated by h. c. edwards. vol., lib. mo, cloth =$ . = "it has the sterling qualities of strong dramatic writing, and ranks among the most spirited and ably written historical romances of the season. an impulsive appreciation of a soldier who is a soldier, a man who is a man, a hero who is a hero, is one of the most captivating of mr. stephens's charms of manner and style."--_boston herald._ =the road to paris.= (_sixteenth thousand._) by robert neilson stephens, author of "an enemy to the king," "the continental dragoon," etc. illustrated by h. c. edwards. vol., lib. mo, cloth =$ . = "vivid and picturesque in style, well conceived and full of action, the novel is absorbing from cover to cover."--_philadelphia public ledger._ "in the line of historical romance, few books of the season will equal robert neilson stephens's 'the road to paris.'"--_cincinnati times-star._ =a gentleman player.= his adventures on a secret mission for queen elizabeth. by robert neilson stephens, author of "an enemy to the king," "the continental dragoon," "the road to paris," etc. illustrated by frank t. merrill. vol., lib. mo, cloth, pages =$ . = "a gentleman player" is a romance of the elizabethan period. it relates the story of a young gentleman who, in the reign of elizabeth, falls so low in his fortune that he joins shakespeare's company of players, and becomes a friend and protégé of the great poet. throughout the course of his adventures the hero makes use of his art as an actor and his skill as a swordsman, and the dénouement of the plot is brought about by means of a performance by shakespeare's company of a play in an inn yard. =rose à charlitte.= (_eighth thousand._) an acadien romance. by marshall saunders, author of "beautiful joe," etc. illustrated by h. de m. young. vol., lib. mo, cloth =$ . = "a very fine novel we unhesitatingly pronounce it ... one of the books that stamp themselves at once upon the imagination and remain imbedded in the memory long after the covers are closed."--_literary world, boston._ =deficient saints.= a tale of maine. by marshall saunders, author of "rose à charlitte," "beautiful joe," etc. illustrated by frank t. merrill. vol., lib. mo, cloth, pages =$ . = in this story marshall saunders follows closely the fortunes of a french family whose history is bound up with that of the old pine-tree state. these french people become less and less french until, at last, they are americans, intensely loyal to their state and their country. although "deficient saints" is by no means a historical novel, frequent references are made to the early romantic history of maine. =her sailor.= (_in press._) a novel. by marshall saunders, author of "rose à charlitte," "beautiful joe," etc. illustrated. vol., lib. mo, cloth, pages =$ . = a story of modern life of great charm and pathos, dealing with the love affairs of a canadian girl and a naval officer. =midst the wild carpathians.= by maurus jokai, author of "black diamonds." "the lion of janina," etc. authorized translation by r. nisbet bain. illustrated by j. w. kennedy. vol., lib. mo, cloth =$ . = "the story is absorbingly interesting and displays all the virility of jokai's powers, his genius of description, his keenness of characterization, his subtlety of humor and his consummate art in the progression of the novel from one apparent climax to another."--_chicago evening post._ =pretty michal.= a romance of hungary. by maurus jokai, author of "black diamonds," "the green book," "midst the wild carpathians," etc. authorized translation by r. nisbet bain. illustrated with a photogravure frontispiece of the great magyar writer. vol., lib. mo, cloth decorative, pages =$ . = "it is at once a spirited tale of 'border chivalry,' a charming love story full of genuine poetry, and a graphic picture of life in a country and at a period both equally new to english readers."--_literary world, london._ =in kings' houses.= a romance of the reign of queen anne. by julia c. r. dorr, author of "a cathedral pilgrimage," etc. illustrated by frank t. merrill. vol., lib. mo, cloth =$ . = "we close the book with a wish that the author may write more romance of the history of england which she knows so well."--_bookman, new york._ "a fine strong story which is a relief to come upon. related with charming simple art."--_philadelphia public ledger._ =manders.= a tale of paris. by elwyn barron. illustrated. vol., lib. mo, cloth, pages =$ . = "bright descriptions of student life in paris, sympathetic views of human frailty, and a dash of dramatic force, combine to form an attractive story. the book contains some very strong scenes, plenty of life and color, and a pleasant tinge of humor. ... it has grip, picturesqueness, and vivacity."--_the speaker (london)._ "a study of deep human interest, in which pathos and humor both play their parts. the descriptions of life in the quartier latin are distinguished for their freshness and liveliness."--_st. james gazette (london)._ "a romance sweet as violets."--_town topics (new york)._ =in old new york.= (_in press._) a romance. by wilson barrett, author of "the sign of the cross," etc., and elwyn barron, author of "manders." illustrated. vol., lib. mo, cloth, pages =$ . = a historical romance of great vigor and interest. the collaboration of mr. barrett with mr. barron, the successful author of "manders," is a sufficient guarantee of the production of a volume of fiction which will take very high rank. =omar the tentmaker.= a romance of old persia. by nathan haskell dole. illustrated by f. t. merrill. vol., lib. mo, cloth =$ . = "the story itself is beautiful and it is beautifully written. it possesses the true spirit of romance, and is almost poetical in form. the author has undoubtedly been inspired by his admiration for the rubaiyat of omar khayyam to write this story of which omar is the hero."--_troy times._ "mr. dole has built a delightful romance."--_chicago chronicle._ "it is a strong and vividly written story, full of the life and spirit of romance."--_new orleans picayune._ =the golden dog.= a romance of quebec. by william kirby. new authorized edition. illustrated by j. w. kennedy. vol., lib. mo, cloth =$ . = "a powerful romance of love, intrigue, and adventure in the time of louis xv, and mme. de pompadour, when the french colonies were making their great struggle to retain for an ungrateful court the fairest jewels in the colonial diadem of france."--_new york herald._ =the making of a saint.= by w. somerset maugham. illustrated by gilbert james. vol., lib. mo, cloth =$ . = "an exceedingly strong story of original motive and design.... the scenes are imbued with a spirit of frankness ... and in addition there is a strong dramatic flavor."--_philadelphia press._ "a sprightly tale abounding in adventures, and redolent of the spirit of mediæval italy."--_brooklyn times._ =friendship and folly.= a novel. by maria louise pool, author of "dally," "a redbridge neighborhood," "in a dike shanty," etc. illustrated by j. w. kennedy. vol., lib. mo, cloth =$ . = "the author handles her elements with skillful fingers--fingers that feel their way most truthfully among the actual emotions and occurrences of nineteenth century romance. hers is a frank, sensitive touch, and the result is both complete and full of interest."--_boston ideas._ "the story will rank with the best previous work of this author."--_indianapolis news._ =the knight of king's guard.= a romance of the days of the black prince. by ewan martin. illustrated by gilbert james. vol., lib. mo, cloth, pages =$ . = an exceedingly well written romance, dealing with the romantic period chronicled so admirably by froissart. the scene is laid at a border castle between england and scotland, the city of london, and on the french battle-fields of cressy and poitiers. edward the third. queen philippa, the black prince, bertrand du guesclin, are all historical characters, accurate reproductions of which give life and vitality to the romance. the character of the hero is especially well drawn. =the rejuvenation of miss semaphore.= a farcical novel. by hal godfrey. illustrated by etheldred b. barry. vol., lib. mo, cloth =$ . = "a fanciful, laughable tale of two maiden sisters of uncertain age who are induced, by their natural longing for a return to youth and its blessings, to pay a large sum for a mystical water which possesses the value of setting backwards the hands of time. no more delightfully fresh and original book has appeared since 'vice versa' charmed an amused world. it is well written, drawn to the life, and full of the most enjoyable humor."--_boston beacon._ =cross trails.= by victor waite. illustrated by j. w. kennedy. vol., lib. mo, cloth =$ . = "a spanish-american novel of unusual interest, a brilliant, dashing, and stirring story, teeming with humanity and life. mr. waite is to be congratulated upon the strength with which he has drawn his characters."--_san francisco chronicle._ "every page is enthralling."--_academy._ "full of strength and reality."--_athenæum._ "the book is exceedingly powerful."--_glasgow herald._ =the paths of the prudent.= by j. s. fletcher, author of "when charles i. was king," "mistress spitfire," etc. illustrated by j. w. kennedy. vol., lib. mo, cloth, pages =$ . = "the story has a curious fascination for the reader, and the theme and characters are handled with rare ability."--_scotsman._ "dorinthia is charming. the story is told with great humor."--_pall mall gazette._ "an excellently well told story, and the reader's interest is perfectly sustained to the very end."--_punch._ =bijli the dancer.= by james blythe patton. illustrated by horace van rinth. vol., lib. mo, cloth =$ . = "a novel of modern india.... the fortunes of the heroine, an indian nautch girl, are told with a vigor, pathos, and a wealth of poetic sympathy that makes the book admirable from first to last."--_detroit free press._ "a remarkable book."--_bookman._ "powerful and fascinating."--_pall mall gazette._ "a vivid picture of indian life."--_academy (london)._ =drives and puts.= a book of golf stories. by walter camp and lillian brooks. illustrated. vol., lib. mo, cloth decorative =$ . = considering the great and growing interest in golf,--perhaps the king of sports,--this volume, written by walter camp, the eminent authority on sports, in collaboration with lillian brooks, the well known writer of short stories, is sure to be a success. ="to arms!"= being some passages from the early life of allan oliphant, chirurgeon, written by himself, and now set forth for the first time. by andrew balfour. illustrated by f. w. glover. vol., lib. mo, cloth =$ . = "a tale of 'bonnie tweedside,' and st. dynans and auld reekie,--a fair picture of the country under misrule and usurpation and all kinds of vicissitudes. allan oliphant is a great hero."--_chicago times-herald._ "a recital of thrilling interest, told with unflagging vigor."--_globe._ "an unusually excellent example of a semi-historic romance."--_world._ =the river of pearls=; or, the red spider. (_in press._) a chinese romance. by renÃ� de pont-jest, with sixty illustrations from original drawings by felix régamey. vol., lib. mo, cloth, pages =$ . = close acquaintance with the manners and customs of the chinese has enabled the author to write a story which is instructive as well as interesting. the book, as a whole, shows the writer to be possessed of a strong descriptive faculty, as well as keen insight into the characters of the people of whom he is writing. the plot is cleverly conceived and well worked out, and the story abounds with incidents of the most exciting and sensational character. enjoyment of its perusal is increased by the powerful illustrations of felix régamey. the book may be read with profit by any one who wishes to realize the actual condition of native life in china. =frivolities.= especially addressed to those who are tired of being serious. by richard marsh, author of "tom ossington's ghost," etc. vol., lib. mo, cloth, pages =$ . = a dozen stories in an entirely new vein for mr. marsh. the humor is irresistible, and carries the reader on breathlessly from one laugh to another. the style, though appealing to a totally different side of complex human nature, is as strong and effective as the author's intense and dramatic work in "tom ossington's ghost." =via lucis.= by kassandra vivaria. with portrait of the author. vol., lib. mo, cloth =$ . = "'via lucis' is--we say it unhesitatingly--a striking and interesting production."--_london athenæum._ "without doubt the most notable novel of the summer is this strong story of italian life, so full of local color one can almost see the cool, shaded patios and the flame of the pomegranate blossom, and smell the perfume of the grapes growing on the hillsides. it is a story of deep and passionate heart interests, of fierce loves and fiercer hates, of undisciplined natures that work out their own bitter destiny of woe. there has hardly been a finer piece of portraiture than that of the child arduina,--the child of a sickly and unloved mother and a cruel and vindictive father,--a morbid, queer, lonely little creature, who is left to grow up without love or training of any kind."--_new orleans picayune._ =lally of the brigade.= a romance of the irish brigade in france during the time of louis the fourteenth. by l. mcmanus, author of "the silk of the kine," "the red star," etc. illustrated. vol., lib. mo, cloth, pages =$ . = the scene of this romance is partly at the siege of crimona (held by the troops of louis xiv.) by the austrian forces under prince eugene. during the siege the famous irish brigade renders valiant service, and the hero--a dashing young irishman--is in the thick of the fighting. he is also able to give efficient service in unravelling a political intrigue, in which the love affairs of the hero and the heroine are interwoven. =sons of adversity.= a romance of queen elizabeth's time. by l. cope cornford, author of "captain jacobus," etc. illustrated by j. w. kennedy. vol., lib. mo, cloth =$ . = "a tale of adventure on land and sea at the time when protestant england and catholic spain were struggling for naval supremacy. spanish conspiracies against the peace of good queen bess, a vivid description of the raise of the spanish siege of leyden by the combined dutch and english forces, sea fights, the recovery of stolen treasure, are all skilfully woven elements in a plot of unusual strength."--_pittsburg bulletin._ =the archbishop's unguarded moment.= by oscar fay adams. illustrated. vol., lib. mo, cloth decorative =$ . = mr. adams is well known as a writer of short stories. as the title indicates, these stories deal with dignitaries of the episcopal church. the mingled pathos and humor, which mr. adams has handled so admirably in describing his characters, make a book of more than average interest for the reader of fiction. =captain fracasse.= translated from the french of gautier. by ellen murray beam. illustrated by victor a. searles. vol., lib. mo, cloth =$ . = "the story is one of the best in romantic fiction, for upon it gautier lavished his rare knowledge of the twelfth century."--_san francisco chronicle._ "one of those rare stories in which vitality is abundant."--_new york herald._ =the count of nideck.= from the french of erckmann-chatrian, translated and adapted by ralph browning fiske. illustrated by victor a. searles. vol., lib. mo, cloth =$ . = "'the count of nideck,' adapted from the french of erckmann-chatrian by ralph browning fiske, is a most interesting tale, simply told, and moving with direct force to the end in view."--_minneapolis times._ "rapid in movement, it abounds in dramatic incident, furnishes graphic descriptions of the locality and is enlivened with a very pretty love story."--_troy budget._ =muriella=; or, le selve. by ouida. illustrated by m. b. prendergast. vol., lib. mo, cloth =$ . = "ouida's literary style is almost perfect in 'muriella.'"--_chicago times-herald._ "'muriella' is an admirable example of the author's best work."--_brooklyn times._ "it dwells in the memory, and bears the dramatic force, tragic interest, and skilfulness of treatment that mark the work of ouida when at her best."--_pittsburg bulletin._ =bobbie mcduff.= by clinton ross, author of "the scarlet coat." "zuleika," etc. illustrated by b. west clinedinst. vol., large mo, cloth =$ . = "'bobbie mcduff,' by clinton ross, is a healthy romance, tersely and vigorously told."--_louisville courier-journal._ "it is full of mystery and as fascinating as a fairy tale."--_san francisco chronicle._ "it is a well-written story, full of surprises and abounding in vivid interest."--_the congregationalist, boston._ =the shadow of a crime.= a cumbrian romance. by hall caine, author of "the manxman," "the deemster," etc., with twelve full-page illustrations in half-tone, from drawings by m. b. prendergast. vol., cloth, illustrated, gilt top =$ . = * * * * * _the works of gabriel d'annunzio._ =the triumph of death.= =the intruder.= =the maidens of the rocks.= =the child of pleasure.= each, vol., lib. mo, cloth =$ . = "the writer of the greatest promise to-day in italy, and perhaps one of the most unique figures in contemporary literature, is gabriel d'annunzio, the poet-novelist."--_the bookman._ "this book is realistic. some say that it is brutally so. but the realism is that of flaubert and not of zola. there is no plain speaking for the sake of plain speaking. every detail is justified in the fact that it illuminates either the motives or the actions of the man and woman who here stand revealed. it is deadly true. the author holds the mirror up to nature, and the reader, as he sees his own experiences duplicated in passage after passage, has something of the same sensation as all of us know on the first reading of george meredith's 'egoist.' reading these pages is like being out in the country on a dark night in a storm. suddenly a flash of lightning comes and every detail of your surroundings is revealed."--_review of the triumph of death, in the new york evening sun._ =mademoiselle de berny.= a story of valley forge. by pauline bradford mackie. with five full-page photogravures from drawings by frank t. merrill. printed on deckle-edged paper, with gilt top, and bound in cloth. pages =$ . = "the charm of 'mademoiselle de berny' lies in its singular sweetness."--_boston herald._ "one of the very few choice american historical stories."--_boston transcript._ "real romance ... admirably written."--_washington post._ "a stirring romance, full of life and action from start to finish."--_toledo daily blade._ "of the many romances in which washington is made to figure, this is one of the most fascinating, one of the best."--_boston courier._ =ye lyttle salem maide.= a story of witchcraft. by pauline bradford mackie, with four full-page photogravures from drawings by e. w. d. hamilton. printed on deckle-edged paper, with gilt top, and bound in cloth. pages =$ . = a tale of the days of the reign of superstition in new england, and of a brave "lyttle maide," of salem town, whose faith and hope and unyielding adherence to her word of honor form the basis of a most attractive story. several historical characters are introduced, including the rev. cotton mather and governor and lady phipps, and a very convincing picture is drawn of puritan life during the latter part of the seventeenth century. an especial interest is added to the book by the illustrations, reproduced by the photogravure process from originals by e. w. d. hamilton. =in guiana wilds.= a study of two women. by james rodway, author of "in the guiana forest," etc. illustrated. vol., library mo, cloth, decorative cover, pages =$ . = "in guiana wilds" may be described as an ethnological romance. a typical young scotchman becomes, by the force of circumstances, decivilized, and mates with a native woman. it is a psychological study of great power and ability. =vivian of virginia.= being the memoirs of our first rebellion, by john vivian, esq., of middle plantation, virginia. by hulbert fuller. with ten full-page illustrations by frank t. merrill. vol., library mo, cloth, gilt top, deckle-edge paper =$ . = "a stirring and accurate account of the famous bacon rebellion."--_los angeles sunday times._ "we shall have to search far to find a better colonial story than this."--_denver republican._ "a well-conceived, well-plotted romance, full of life and adventure."--_chicago inter-ocean._ "a story abounding in exciting incidents and well-told conversations."--_boston journal._ "mr. fuller will find a large circle of readers for his romance who will not be disappointed in their pleasant expectations."--_boston transcript._ "instead of using history as a background for the exploits of the hero, the author used the hero to bring out history and the interesting events of those early days in virginia. the author has preserved the language and customs of the times admirably."--_philadelphia telegram._ =the gray house of the quarries.= by mary harriott norris. with a frontispiece etching by edmund h. garrett. vol., vo, cloth, pages =$ . = "the peculiar genre, for which, in a literary sense, all must acknowledge obligation to the author of a new type, is the dutch-american species. the church-goings, the courtings, the pleasures and sorrows of a primitive people, their lives and deaths, weddings, suicides, births and burials, are rembrandt and rubens pictures on a fresh canvas."--_boston transcript._ "the fine ideal of womanhood in a person never once physically described will gratify the highest tone of the period, and is an ennobling conception."--_time and the hour, boston._ =a man-at-arms.= a romance of the days of gian galeazzo visconti, the great viper. by clinton scollard, author of "skenandoa," etc. with six full-page illustrations and title-page by e. w. d. hamilton. vol., library mo, cloth, gilt top, deckle-edge paper =$ . = the scene of the story is laid in italy, in the latter part of the fourteenth century. the hero, luigi della verria, unable to bear the restrictions of home or to reconcile himself to the profession of law, as desired by his father, leaves his family and, as the result of chance, becomes a man-at-arms in the service of gian galeazzo visconti, the cunning and unscrupulous lord of pavia, known as the great viper. thenceforward the vicissitudes and adventures, both in love and war, of della verria, are told in a way to incite the interest to the highest point; and a strong picture is drawn of italian life at this period, with its petty vendettas, family broils, and the unprincipled methods employed by the heads of noble families to gain their personal ends. an individual value is added to the book by the illustrations and title-page, drawn by mr. e. w. d. hamilton. "the style is admirable, simple, direct, fluent, and sometimes eloquent; and the story moves with rapidity from start to finish."--_the bookman._ "a good story."--_n. y. commercial advertiser._ "it is a triumph in style."--_utica herald._ =cyrano de bergerac.= a heroic comedy from the french of edmond rostand, as accepted and played by richard mansfield. translated by howard thayer kingsbury. vol., cloth decorative, with a photogravure frontispiece =$ . = vol., paper boards =. = the immediate and prolonged success of "cyrano de bergerac." in paris, has been paralleled by mr. mansfield's success with an english version, dating from its first night at the garden theatre, new york. october , . as a literary work, the original form of rostand took high rank; and the preference of mr. mansfield for mr. kingsbury's new translation implies its superior merit. transcriber's notes: * obvious punctuation and spelling errors repaired. * text enclosed between equal signs was in bold face in the original (=bold=). * deleted a duplicate title named notes in notes section. * several compound words had dual spellings: they were changed for consistency's sake to the hyphenated form as follows: changed inn-keeper to innkeeper, alehouse to ale-house, whereupon to where-upon, crossroad to cross-road, firewood to fire-wood, inkhorn to ink-horn, nonconformity to non-conformity, out-doors to outdoors. gentle-woman was not changed to gentlewoman as the dash was an end-of-page dash. * page : added period to the end of much ado about nothing. * advertisements, page : changed single quote to double quote in "the road to paris." * advertisements, page : added opening quote to "it is a triumph in style." * advertisements, page : edward rosstand corrected to edmond rostand. generously made available by the internet archive.) body, parentage and character in history. _by the same author._ ready--new and cheaper edition, in great part rewritten, /- character as seen in body and parentage, with a chapter on education, career, morals, and progress. a remarkable and extremely interesting book.--_scotsman._ a delightful book, witty and wise, clever in exposition, charming in style, readable and original.--_medical press._ men and women are both treated under these heads (types of character) in an amusing and observant manner.--_lancet._ we cordially commend this volume.... a fearless writer.... merits close perusal.--_health._ mr. jordan handles his subject in a simple, clear, and popular manner.--_literary world._ full of varied interest.--_mind._ kegan paul, trench, trÜbner, and co. limited. body, parentage and character in history: notes on the tudor period. by furneaux jordan, f.r.c.s. london: kegan paul, trench, trÜbner & co. limited, . birmingham: printed by hall and english. preface. in my little work on "character as seen in body and parentage" i have put forward not a system, but a number of conclusions touching the relationship which i believe to exist between certain features of character on the one hand and certain peculiarities of bodily configuration, structure, and inheritance on the other. these conclusions, if they are true, should find confirmation in historic narrative, and their value, if they have any, should be seen in the light they throw on historic problems. the incidents and characters and questions of the tudor period are not only of unfailing interest, but they offer singularly rich and varied material to the student of body and character. if the proposal to connect the human body with human nature is distasteful to certain finely-strung souls, let me suggest to them a careful study of the work and aims and views of goethe, the scientific observer and impassioned poet, whom madame de staël described as the most accomplished character the world has produced; and who was, in matthew arnold's opinion, the greatest poet of this age and the greatest critic of any age. the reader of 'wilhelm meister' need not be reminded of the close attention which is everywhere given to the principle of inheritance--inheritance even of 'the minutest faculty.' the student of men and women has, let me say in conclusion, one great advantage over other students--he need not journey to a museum, he has no doors to unlock, and no catalogue to consult; the museum is constantly around him and on his shelves; the catalogue is within himself. table of contents. page note i.--the various views of henry viii.'s character. momentous changes in sixteenth century many characters given to noted persons a great number given to henry the character given in our time attempt to give an impartial view need of additional light note ii.--the relation of body and parentage to character. bodily organisation and temperaments leading types in both elements of character run in groups intervening gradations note iii.--henry's family proclivities. henry of unimpassioned temperament took after unimpassioned mother derived nothing from his father character of henry vii. henry viii., figure and appearance note iv.--the wives' question. henry's marriages, various causes passion not a marked cause henry had no strong passions self-will and self-importance conduct of impassioned men note v.--the less characteristic features of henry's character. characteristics common to all temperaments henry's cruelty henry's piety note vi.--the more characteristic features of henry's character. always doing or undoing something habitual fitfulness self-importance henry and wolsey: which led? love of admiration note vii.--henry and his compeers. henry's political helpers superior to theological cranmer sir thomas more wolsey note viii.--henry and his people and parliament. no act of constructive genius parliament not abject, but in agreement proclamations liberty a matter of race note ix.--henry and the reformation. teutonic race fearless, therefore truthful outgrew romish fetters french revolution racial the essential and the accidental in great movements wyclif erasmus, luther, calvin, knox henry's part in the reformation no thought of permanent division the dissolution of the monasteries note x.--queen elizabeth and queen mary. henry viii. and elizabeth much alike elizabeth less pious but more fitful elizabeth and marriage elizabeth's part in the reformation elizabeth and mary stuart very unlike lofty characters with flaws mary's environment and fate bodily peculiarities of the two queens the various views of henry viii.'s character. note i. the progress of an individual, of a people, or even of a movement is never up, and their decadence is never down, an inclined plane. neither do we see sudden and lofty flights in progress nor headlong falls in decadence. both move rather by steps--steps up or steps down. the steps are not all alike; one is short another long; one sudden another gradual. they are all moreover the inevitable sequences of those which went before, and they as inevitably lead to those which follow. our fathers took a long step in the tudor epoch, but older ones led up to it and newer ones started from it. the long step could not possibly be evaded by a teutonic people. rome lay in the path, and progress must needs step over the body of rome--not a dead body then, though wounded from within, not a dead body yet, though now deeply and irreparably wounded from without. civilization must everywhere step over the body of rome or stand still, or turn backwards. two factors are especially needed for progress: brain (racial brain), which by organisation and inheritance tends to be large, free, capable; and secondly, circumstance, which continually calls forth capability, and freedom, and largeness. all the schools of supernaturalism, but above all the romish school, compress and paralyse at least a portion of the brain: if a portion is disabled all is enfeebled. if a bodily limb even, a mere hand or foot, be fettered and palsied, the body itself either dies or droops into a smaller way of life. it is so with a mental limb--a mental hand or foot in relation to the mental life. to the group of ever-present and subtle forces which make for progress, there were added in the sixteenth century seemingly new and conspicuous forces. the art of printing or writing by machinery sowed living seed broadcast over a fertile soil; the "new learning" restored to us the inspiring but long hidden thought of old aryan friends and relatives, and this again in some degree relaxed the grip of alien and enslaving semitic ideas which the exigencies of roman circumstance had imposed on europe with the edge of the sword. new action trod on the heels of new thought. new lands were traversed; new seas were sailed; new heavens were explored. the good steed civilisation--long burdened and blindfolded and curbed,--had lagged somewhat; but now the reins were loose, the spurs were sharp, the path was clear and the leap which followed was long. while our fathers were taking, or were on the eve of taking, this long step, a notable young man, the son of a capable and wise father and of a not incapable but certainly unwise mother, stepped into the chief place in this country. a student who was in training for an archbishop was suddenly called upon to be a king. what this king was, what he was not; what organisation and parentage and circumstance did for him; how he bore himself to his time--to its drift, its movements, its incidents, its men, and, alas, to its women--is now our object to inquire. the study of this theological monarch and of his several attitudes is deeply instructive and of unfailing interest. the autocrat of the breakfast table wittily comments on the number of john's characters. john had three. notable men have more characters than "john." henry viii. had more characters than even the most notable of men. a man of national repute or of high position has the characters given to him by his friends, his enemies, and characters given also by parties, sects, and schools. henry had all these and two more--strictly, two groups more--one given to him by his own time, another given to him by ours. if we could call up from their long sleep half a dozen representative and capable men of henry's reign to meet half a dozen of victoria's, the jury would probably not agree. if the older six could obtain all the evidence which is before us, and the newer six could recall all which was familiar to henry's subjects at home and his compeers abroad; if the two bodies could weigh matters together, discuss all things together--could together raise the dead and summon the living--nevertheless in the end two voices would speak--a sixteenth century voice and a nineteenth. the older would say in effect: "we took our king to be not only a striking personality; not only an expert in all bodily exercises and mental accomplishments; we knew him to be much more--to be industrious, pious, sincere, courageous, and accessible. we believed him to be keen in vision, wise in judgment, prompt and sagacious in action. we looked round on our neighbours and their rulers, and we saw reason to esteem ourselves the most prosperous of peoples and our king the first, by a long way the first, of his fellow kings. your own records prove that long years after henry's death, in all time of trouble the people longed for henry's good sense and cried out for henry's good laws. he was a sacrilegious miscreant you say; if it were so the nation was a nation of sacrilegious miscreants, for he merely obeyed the will of the people and carried out a policy which had been called for and discussed and contrived and, in part, carried out long before our henry's time. upwards of a century before, the assembled knights of the shire had more than once proposed to take the property of the church (much of it gained by sinister methods) and hand it over for military purposes. the spirit of the religious houses had for some time jarred on the awakening spirit of a thinking people. their very existence cast a slur on a high and growing ideal of domestic life. those ancient houses detested and strove to keep down the knowledge which an aroused people then, as never before, passionately desired to gain." "you say he was a 'monster of lust.' lust is not a new sin: our generation knew it as well as yours; detected it as keenly as yours; hated it almost as heartily. but consider: no king anywhere has been, in his own time, so esteemed, so trusted, nay even so loved and reverenced as our king. should we have loved, trusted, and reverenced a 'monster of lust'? if you examine carefully the times before ours and the times since, you will find that monsters of lust, crowned or uncrowned, do not act as henry acted. the court, it is true, was not pure, but it was the least voluptuous court then existing, and henry was the least voluptuous man in it. while still in his teens the widow of an elder brother, a woman much older than he, and who was also old for her years, was married to him on grounds of state policy. not henry only, but wise and learned men, luther and melancthon among others, came to believe that the marriage was not legal. henry himself, indeed, came to believe that god's curse was on it--in our time we fervently believed in god's curse. a boy with promise of life and health was the one eager prayer of the people. but boy after boy died and of four boys not one survived. if one of catharine's boys had lived: nay more, if ann boleyn had been other than a scheming and faithless woman; or if, later, jane seymour had safely brought forth her son (and perhaps other sons), henry would assuredly never have married six wives. you say he should have seen beforehand the disparity of years, the illegality, the incest--should have seen even the yet unfallen curse: in our time boys of eighteen did not see so clearly all these things." "alas," the juror might have added, "marriage and death are the two supreme incidents in man's life: but marriage comes before experience and judgment--these are absent when they are most needed; experience and judgment attend on death when they are needless." "bear in mind, moreover," resumes the older voice, "that in our time the marriage laws were obscure, perplexing, and unsettled. high ideals of marriage did not exist. the first nobleman in our court was the earl of suffolk who twice committed bigamy and was divorced three times; his first wife was his aunt, and his last his daughter-in-law. papal relaxations and papal permissions were cheap and common--they permitted every sort of sexual union and every sort of separation. canon law and the curious sexual relationships of ecclesiastics, high and low, shed no light but rather darkness on the matter. the pope, it is true, hesitated to grant henry's divorce, but not, as the whole world knew, on moral or religious grounds: at heart he approved the divorce and rebuked wolsey for not settling the matter offhand in england. all the papal envoys urged the unhappy catharine to retire into a religious house; but catharine insisted that god had called her to her position"--forgetting, we may interpose, that if he called her to it he also in effect deposed her from it. god called her daughter mary, so mary believed, to burn protestants; god called elizabeth, so elizabeth exclaimed ('it was marvellous in her eyes'), to harass romanists. "but the one paramount circumstance which weighed with us, and we remember a thousand circumstances while you remember the 'six wives' only, was the question of succession. if succession was the one question which more than all others agitated your fathers in anne's time, try to imagine what it was to us. you, after generations of order, peace and security--you utterly fail to understand our position. we had barely come out of a lawless cruel time--a time born of the ferocity and hate of conflicting dynasties. fathers still lived to tell us how they ate blood, and drank blood, and breathed blood. they and we were weary of blood, and our two henrys (priceless henrys to us,) had just taken its taste out of our mouths. no queen, be it well noted, had ruled over us either in peaceful or in stormy times; we believed with our whole souls, rightly or wrongly, that no queen could possibly preserve us from destruction and ruin. it was our importunity mainly--make no mistake on this point,--which drove our king, whenever he was wifeless, to take another wife. his three years of widowhood after jane seymour's death was our gravest anxiety." the newer voice replies: "you were a foolish and purblind generation. the simplicity of your henry's subjects, and the servility of his parliament have become a bye-word. it is true your king, although less capable than you suppose, was not without certain gifts--their misuse only adds to his infamy. it is true also that he had been carefully educated,--his father was to be thanked for that. it would seem, moreover, that quite early in life he was not without some attractiveness in person and manners, but you forget that bodily grossness and mental irritability soon made him a repulsive object. an eminent englishman of our century says he was a big, burly, noisy, small-eyed, large-faced, double-chinned and swinish-looking fellow, and that indeed so bad a character could never have been veiled under a prepossessing appearance. your king was vain, ostentatious, and extravagant. with measured words we declare that his hypocrisy, cruelty, sacrilege, selfishness and lust, were all unbounded. he was above all an unrivalled master of mean excuses: did he wish to humble and oppress the clergy--they had violated the statute of premunire. did his voluptuous eye fall on a dashing young maid of honour--he suddenly discovered that he was living in incest, and that his marriage was under god's curse. did the pope hesitate to grant him a divorce--he began to see that the proper head of the english church was the english king. was his exchequer empty--he was convinced that the inmates of the wealthy religious houses led the lives and deserved the fate of certain cities once destroyed by fire and brimstone. did a defiant pole carry his head out of harry's reach--it was found that pole's mother, lady salisbury, was the centre of yorkist intrigue, and that the mother's head could be lopped off in place of the son's." the two voices it is clear have much to say for themselves. it is equally clear that the two groups of jurymen will not agree on their verdict. it is commonly held and as a rule on good grounds, that the judgment of immediate friends and neighbours is less just than the opinion of foreigners and of posterity. this is so when foreigners and posterity are agreed, and are free from the tumult, and passion, and personal bias of time and place. it is not so in henry's case. curiously enough, foreign observers, scholars, envoys, travellers, agree with--nay, outrun henry's subjects in their praise of henry. curiously too the tumult and passion touching henry's matrimonial affairs--touching all his affairs indeed,--have grown rather than diminished with the progress of time. epochs, like men, have not the gift of seeing themselves as others see them. unnumbered frenchmen ate and drank, and made merry, and bought and sold; married their children and buried their parents, not knowing that france was giving a shock to all mankind for all time to come. the assassins of st. bartholomew believed that in future a united christendom would bless them for performing a pious and uniting deed. we see all at once the bare and startling fact of six wives. henry's subjects saw and became familiar with a slow succession of marriages, each of which had its special cloud of vital yet confusing circumstance. so too the reformation has its different phases. in the sixteenth century it was looked on as a serious quarrel, no doubt, but no one dreamed it was anything more. then each side thought the other side would shortly come to its senses and all would be well; no one dreamt of two permanently hostile camps and lasting combat. if personal hate and actual bloodshed have passed away, and at the present moment the combat shews signs of still diminishing bitterness, it is because a new and mysterious atmosphere is slowly creeping over both--slowly benumbing both the armies. an attempt must be made here to sketch henry's character with as much impartiality as is possible. but no impartial sketch will please either his older friends or his newer enemies. although henry came to the throne a mere boy, he was a precocious boy. in the precocious the several stages of life succeed each other more quickly than in others, and probably they themselves do not wear so well. when henry was twenty-five he was little less wise and capable than he was at thirty-five or forty-five. at forty he was probably wiser than he was at fifty. the young king's presence was striking; he had a fresh rosy complexion, and an auburn though scanty beard. his very limbs, exclaims one foreign admirer, "glowed with warm pink" through his delicately woven tennis costume. he was handsome in feature; large and imposing in figure; open and frank in manners; strong, active, and skilled in all bodily exercises. he was an admirer of all the arts, and himself an expert in many of them. henry had indeed all the qualities, whatever their worth may be, which make a favourite with the multitude. those qualities, no matter what change time brought to them, preserved his popularity to the last. henry was neither a genius nor a hero; but they who deny that he was a singularly able man will probably misread his character; misread his ideals, his conduct, and his various attitudes. henry's education was thorough and his learning extensive. his habit of mind tended perhaps rather to activity and versatility and obedience to old authority than to intensity or depth or independence. his father, who looked more favourably on churchmen and lawyers than on noblemen, destined his second son for the church. at that time theology, scholastic theology--for colet and erasmus and more had not then done their work--was the acutest mental discipline known as well as the highest accomplishment. for when the "new learning" reached this country it found theology the leading study, and therefore it roused theology; in italy on the other hand it found the arts the predominant study, and there it roused the arts. henry would doubtless have made a successful bishop and escaped thereby much domestic turmoil; but, on the whole, he was probably better fitted to be a king; while his quiet, contemplative, and kindly father would at any rate have found life pleasanter in lawn sleeves than he found it on a throne. it would be well if men and women were to write down in two columns with all possible honesty the good and the evil items in the characters (not forgetting their own) which interest them. the exercise itself would probably call forth serviceable qualities, and would frequently bring to light unexpected results. probably in this process good characters would lose something and the bad would gain. from such an ordeal henry viii. would come out a sad figure, though not quite so sad as is popularly considered. it is not proposed in this sketch of character to separate, if indeed separation is possible, the good qualities which are held to be more or less inborn from those which seem to be attainable by efforts of the will. freedom of the will must of course be left in its native darkness. neither can the attempt be made to estimate, even if such estimate were possible, how much the individual makes of his own character and how much is made for him. some features of character, again, are neither good nor evil, or are good or evil only when they are excessive or deficient or unsuitable to time and place. love of pageantry is one of these; love of pleasure another; so, too, are the leanings to conservation or to innovation. in thought and feeling and action henry was undoubtedly conservative. his conservatism was modified by his self-will and self-confidence, but it assuredly ranked with the leading features of his character--with his piety his egotism and his love of popularity. to shine in well-worn paths was his chief enjoyment: not to shine in these paths, or to get out of them, or to get in advance of them, or to lag behind, was his greatest dread. the innovator may or may not be pious, but conservatism naturally leans to piety, and henry's piety, if not deep or passionate, was at any rate copious and sincere. henry, it has been said, was not a hero, not a genius, neither was he a saint. but if his ideals were not high, and if his conduct was not unstained, his religious beliefs were unquestioning and his religious observances numerous and stringent. the fiercer the light which beat upon his throne, the better pleased was henry. he had many phases of character and many gifts, and he delighted in displaying his phases and in exercising his gifts. the use and place of ceremony and spectacle are still matters of debate; but modern feeling tends more and more to hand them over to children, may-day sweeps, and lord-mayors. in henry's reign the newer learning and newer thought had it is true done but little to undermine the love of gewgaws and glitter, but henry's devotion to them, even for his time, was so childish that it must be written down in his darker column. we may turn now to the less debatable items in henry's character, and say which shall go into the black list and which into the white. we are all too prone perhaps to give but one column to the men we approve, and one only to the men we condemn. it is imperative in the estimation of character that there be "intellect enough," as a great writer expresses it, to judge and material enough on which to pronounce judgment. if we bring the "sufficient intellect," especially one that is fair by habit and effort, to the selection of large facts--for facts have many sizes and ranks, large and small, pompous and retiring--and strip from these the smaller confusing facts, strip off too, personal witcheries and deft subtleties--then we shall see that all men (and all movements) have two columns. the 'monster' henry had two. in his good column we cannot refuse to put down unflagging industry--no englishman worked harder--a genuine love of knowledge, a deep sense of the value of education, and devotion to all the arts both useful and elevating--the art of ship-building practically began with him. his courage, his sincerity, his sense of duty, his frequent generosity, his placability (with certain striking exceptions) were all beyond question. his desire for the welfare of his people, although tempered by an unduly eager desire for their good opinion, was surely an item on the good side. the good column is but fairly good; the black list is, alas, very black. henry was fitful, capricious, petulant, censorious. his fitfulness and petulance go far to explain his acts of occasional implacability. failing health and premature age explain in some degree the extreme irritability and absence of control which characterised his later years. in his best years his love of pleasure, or rather his love of change and excitement, his ostentation, and his extravagance exceeded all reasonable limits. ostentation and love of show are rarely found apart from vanity, and henry's vanity was colossal. vain men are not proud, and henry had certainly not the pride which checks the growth of many follies. a proud man is too proud to be vain or undignified or mean or deceitful, and henry was all these. pride and dignity usually run together; while, on the other hand, vanity and self-importance keep each other company as a rule. henry lacked dignity when he competed with his courtiers for the smiles of ann boleyn in her early court days; he lacked it when he searched campeggio's unsavoury carpet-bag. he seemed pleased rather than otherwise that his petty gossip should be talked of under every roof in europe. it is true that in this direction catharine descended to a still lower level of bed-room scandal; but her nature, never a high one, was deteriorated by a grievous unhappiness and by that incessant brooding which sooner or later tumbles the loftiest nature into the dust. henry's two striking failings--his two insanities--were a huge self-importance and an unquenchable thirst for notoriety and applause. i have said 'insanities' designedly, for they were not passions--they were diseases. the popular "modern voice" would probably not regard these as at all grave defects when compared with others so much worse. this voice indeed, we well know, declares him to have been the embodiment of the worst human qualities--of gross selfishness, of gross cruelty, and of gross lust. these charges are not groundless, but if we could believe them with all the fulness and the vehemence with which they are made, we must then marvel that his subjects trusted him, revered him, called (they and their children) for his good sense and his good laws; we can but marvel indeed that with one voice of execration they did not fell him lifeless to the ground. he was unguarded and within reach. if the charges against henry come near to the truth, nero was the better character of the two. nero knew not what he did; he was beyond question a lunatic and one of a family of lunatics. henry's enormities were the enormities of a fairly sane and responsible man. in order to read henry's character more correctly, if that be possible, than it is read by the "two voices," more light is needed. let us see what an examination of henry's bodily organisation, and especially of his parentage, will do for us. in this light--if it be light, and attainable light--it will be well to examine afresh (at the risk of some repetition) the grave charges which are so constantly and so confidently laid at his door and see what of vindication or modification or damning confirmation may follow. before looking specially at henry's organisation and inheritance, i purpose devoting a short chapter to a general view of the principles which can give such an examination any value. it will be for the most part a brief statement of views which i have already put forward in my little work on character as seen in body and parentage. the relation of body and parentage to character. note ii. it is unwise to turn aside from the investigation of any body of truths because it can only be partial in its methods or incomplete in its results. we do this however in the study of the science of character. it is true that past efforts have given but little result--little result because they ignored and avowedly ignored the connection which is coming to be more and more clearly seen to exist between character on the one hand and bodily organisation and proclivity, and especially the organisation and proclivity of the nervous system, on the other hand. those who ignore the bearings of organisation and inheritance on character are, for the most part, those who prefer that "truth should be on their side rather than that they should be on the side of truth." it is contended here that much serviceable knowledge may be obtained by the careful investigation, in given individuals, of _bodily_ characteristics, and the union of these with _mental_ and _moral_ characteristics. the relationship of these combined features of body and mind to parentage, near and remote, and on both sides, should be traced as far back as possible. the greater the number of individuals brought under examination, the more exact and extensive will be the resulting knowledge. very partial methods of classifying character are of daily utility. we say, for example, speaking of the muscular system only, that men are strong or weak. but this simple truth or classification has various notable bearings. both the strong and the weak may be dextrous, or both may be clumsy; both may be slow, or both may be quick; but they will be dextrous or clumsy, slow or quick, in different ways and degrees. so, going higher than mere bodily organisation, we may say that some men are bold and resolute while others are timid and irresolute; some again are parsimonious and others prodigal. now these may possibly be all intelligent or all stupid, all good or all bad; but, nevertheless, boldness and timidity, parsimony and generosity, modify other phases of character in various ways. the irresolute man, for example, cannot be very wise, or the penurious man truly good. it must always be remembered in every sort of classification of bodily or of mental characteristics, that the lines of division are not sharply defined. all classes merge into each other by imperceptible degrees. one of the most, perhaps the most, fundamental and important classification of men and women is that which puts them into two divisions or two temperaments, the active, or tending to be active, on the one hand, and the reflective, or tending to be reflective, on the other. to many students of character this is not anew suggestion, but much more is contended for here. it is contended that the more active temperament is alert, practical, quick, conspicuous, and--a very notable circumstance--less impassioned; the more reflective temperament is less active, less practical, or perhaps even dreamy, secluded, and--also a very notable circumstance--more impassioned. it is not so much that men of action always desire to be seen, or that men of thought desire to be hidden; action naturally brings men to the front; contemplation as naturally hides them; when active men differ, the difference carries itself to the housetops; when thinking men differ, they fight in the closet and by quieter methods. busy men, moreover, are given to detail, and detail fills the eye and ear; men of reflection deal more with principles, and these lie beyond the range of ordinary vision. the proposition which i here put forward, based on many years of observation and study, is fundamental, and affects, more or less, a wide range of character in every individual. the proposition is that in the active temperament the intellectual faculties are disproportionately strong--the passions are feebler and lag behind; in the reflective temperament the passions are the stronger in proportion to the mental powers. character is dominated more by the intellect in one case, more by the emotions in the other. in all sane and healthful characters (and only these are considered here) the intellectual and emotional elements are both distinctly present. the most active men think; the most reflective men act. but in many men and women the intellect takes an unduly large share in the fashioning of life; these are called here the "less impassioned," the "unimpassioned," or for the sake of brevity, "the passionless." in many others the feelings or emotions play a stronger part; these are the "more impassioned" or the "passionate." character is not made of of miscellaneous fragments, of thought and feeling, of volition and action. its elements are more or less homogeneous and run in uniform groups. the less impassioned, or passionless, for example, are apt to be changeable and uncertain; they are active, ready, alert; they are quick to comprehend, to decide, to act; they are usually self-confident and sometimes singularly self-important. they often seek for applause but they are sparing in their approval and in their praise of others. when the mental endowment is high, and the training and environment favourable, the unimpassioned temperament furnishes some of our finest characters. in this class are found great statesmen and great leaders. a man's _public_ position is probably determined more by intellectual power than by depth of feeling. now and then, especially when the mental gifts are slight, the less pleasing elements predominate: love of change may become mere fitfulness; activity may become bustle; sparing approval may turn to habitual detraction and actual censoriousness. love of approbation may degenerate into a mania for notoriety at any cost; self-importance may bring about a reckless disregard of the well-being of others. fortunately the outward seeming of the passionless temperament is often worse than the reality, and querulous speech is often combined with generous action. frequently, too, where there is ineradicable caprice there is no neglect of duty. the elements of character which, in various ways and degrees, cluster together in the more impassioned or passionate temperament are very different in their nature. in this temperament we find repose or even gentleness, quiet reflection, tenacity of purpose. the feelings--love, or hate, or joy, or grief, or anger, or jealousy--are more or less deep and enduring. in this class also there are fine characters, especially (as in the unimpassioned) when the mental gifts are high and the training refined. in this class too are found perhaps the worst characters which degrade the human race. in all save the rarest characters, the customary tranquillity may be broken by sullen cloud or actual storm. in the less capable and less elevated, devotion may become fanaticism, and tenacity may become blind prejudice, or sheer obstinacy. in this temperament too, in its lower grades, we meet too often--not all together perhaps, certainly not all in equal degree--with indolence, sensuality, inconstancy; or morbid brooding, implacability, and even cruelty. i contend then that certain features of character, it may be in very varying degrees of intensity, belong to the more active and passionless temperament, and certain other features attend on the more reflective and impassioned temperament. if it can be shown that there are two marked groups of elements in character--the more impassioned group and the less impassioned group--and that each group may be inferred to exist if but one or two of its characteristic elements are clearly seen, why even then much would be gained in the interpretation of history and of daily life. but i contend for much more than this; the two temperaments have each their characteristic bodily signs; the more marked the temperament, the more striking and the more easily read are the bodily signs. in the intermediate temperament--a frequent and perhaps the happiest temperament--the bodily signs are also intermediate. the bodily characteristics run in groups also, as well as the mental. the nervous system of each temperament is enclosed in its own special organisation and framework. in my work on "character as seen in body and parentage," i treat this topic with some fulness, and what is stated there need not be repeated now. it may be noted, however, that in the two temperaments there are peculiarities of the skin--clearness or pigmentation; of the hair--feebleness or sparseness, or closeness and vigour of growth; of the configuration of the skeleton and consequent pose of the figure. if the conclusions here put forward are true, they give a key which opens up much character to us. they touch, as i have already said, a great range of character in every individual, but they make no pretension to be a system. they have only an indirect bearing on many phases of character; for in both the active and reflective temperaments there may be found, for example, either wisdom or folly, courage or cowardice, refinement or coarseness. it must always be remembered, too, that besides the more marked types of character, whether bodily or mental, there are numberless intervening gradations. when the temperaments, moreover, are distinctly marked, the ordinary concurrent elements may exist in very unequal degrees and be combined in very various ways. one or two qualities may perhaps absorb the sum-total of nerve force. in the passionless man or woman extreme activity may repress the tendency to disapprove; immense self-importance may impede action. in the impassioned individual, inordinate love or hate may enfeeble thought; deep and persistent thought may dwarf the affections. as i have said elsewhere: 'for the ordinary purposes of life, especially of domestic and social life, the intervening types of character (combining thought and action more equally, though probably each in somewhat less degree) produce perhaps the most useful and the happiest results. but the progress of the world at large is mainly due to the combined efforts of the more extreme types--the supremely reflective and impassioned and the supremely active and unimpassioned. both are needed. if we had men of action only, we should march straight into chaos; if we had men of thought only, we should drift into night and sleep!' henry's family proclivities. note iii. if there is any truth in the views put forward in the foregoing chapter, and if history has at all faithfully portrayed a character concerning which it has had, at any rate, much to say, it is clear that henry must be placed in the less impassioned class of human beings. when i first called attention to the three sorts of character--and the three groups of characteristics--the active, practical, and more or less passionless on the one hand; the less active, reflective, and impassioned on the other; and, thirdly, the intermediate class, neither henry nor his period was in my mind. but when, at a later time (and for purposes other than the special study of character), i came to review the reformation with its ideas, its men, its incidents, i saw at once, to my surprise, that henry's life was a busy, active, conspicuous, passionless life. he might have sat for the portrait i had previously drawn. markedly unimpassioned men tend to be fitful, petulant, censorious, self-important, self-willed, and eager for popularity--so tended henry. the unimpassioned are frequently sincere, conscientious, pious, and conservative--henry was all these. they often have, especially when capable and favourably encompassed, a high sense of duty and a strong desire to promote the well-being of those around them--these qualities were conspicuous in henry's character. how much of inherited organisation, how much of circumstance, how much of self-effort go to the making of character is a problem the solution of which is yet seemingly far off. mirabeau, with fine perception, declared that a boy's education should begin, twenty years before he is born, with his mother. unquestionably before a man is born the plan of his character is drawn, its foundations are laid, and its building is foreshadowed. can he, later, close a door here or open a window there? can he enlarge this chamber or contract that? he believes he can, and is the happier in the belief; but in actual life we do not find that it is given to one man to say, i will be active, i will be on the spot, i will direct here and rebuke there; nor to another man to say, i will give myself up to thought, to dreams, to seclusion. henry never said, with unconscious impulse or with conscious words, "i will be this, or i will not be that." henry viii. took altogether after his mother's side, and she, again, took after her father. henry was, in fact, his grandfather edward iv. over again. he had, however, a larger capacity than his mother's father, and he lived in a better epoch. edward, it was said in his time, was the handsomest and most accomplished man in europe. henry was spoken of in similar words by his compeers both at home and abroad. both were large in frame, striking in contour, rose-pink in complexion--then, as now, the popular ideal of manly perfection--and both became exceedingly corpulent in their later years. both were active, courteous, affable, accessible; both busy, conspicuous, vain, fond of pleasure, and given to display. both were unquestionably brave; but they were also (both of them) fickle, capricious, suspicious, and more or less cruel. both put self in the foremost place; but edward's selfishness drifted rather to self-indulgence, while henry's took the form of self-importance. extreme self-importance is usually based on high capacity, and edward's capacity did not lift him out of the region of pomposity and frequent indiscretion. edward iv. was nevertheless an able man although less able than henry. like henry he belonged to the unimpassioned class; he was without either deeply good or deeply evil passion, but probably he had somewhat stronger emotions than his grandson. in other words henry had more of intellect and less of passion than his grandfather. edward's early and secret marriage was no proof of passion. early marriages are not the monopoly of any temperament; sometimes they are the product of the mere caprice, or the self-will and the feeble restraint of the passionless, and sometimes the product of the raw and immature judgment of the passionate. edward deserves our pity, for he had everything against him; he had no models, no ideals, no education, no training. the occupation of princes at that time brought good neither to themselves nor anyone else. they went up and down the country to slay and be slain; to take down from high places the severed heads of one worthless dynasty and put up the heads of another dynasty equally worthless. the eighth henry derived nothing from his father--the seventh,--nothing of good, nothing of evil. one of the most curious errors of a purely literary judgment on men and families is seen in the use of the epithet "tudor." we hear for example of the "tudor" blood shewing itself in one, of the "tudor" spirit flashing out in another. whether henry vii. was a tudor or not we may not now stop to inquire. henry viii. we have seen took wholly after his yorkist mother. of henry's children, mary was a repetition of her dark dwarfish spanish mother; the poor lad edward, whether a seymour or a yorkist, was certainly not a tudor. the big comely pink elizabeth was her father in petticoats--her father in body, her father in mind. henry viii. in fact while tudor in name was lancastrian in dynasty, and yorkist in blood. no two kings, no two men indeed could well have been more unlike, bodily, mentally, and morally, than the two henrys--father and son. the eighth was communicative, confiding, open, frank; the seventh was silent, reserved, mysterious. the son was active, busy, practical, conspicuous; the father, although not indolent, and not unpractical, was nevertheless quiet, dreamy, reflective, self-restrained, and unobtrusive. one was prodigal, martial, popular; the other was prudent, peaceful, steadfast, and unpopular. he is said indeed to have been parsimonious, but the least sympathetic of his historians confess that he was generous in his rewards for service, that his charities were numerous, and that his state ceremonies were marked by fitting splendour. henry viii. changed (or destroyed) his ministers, his bishops, his wives, and his measures also, many times. henry vii. kept his wife--perverse and mischievous as she was,--till she died; kept his ministers and bishops till they died; kept his policy and his peace till he died himself. henry vii. is noteworthy mainly for being but little noticed. the scribe of whatever time sees around him only that which is conspicuous and exceptional and often for the most part foolish, and therefore the documents of this henry's reign are but few in number. the occupants of high places who are careful and prudent are rarely popular. his unpopularity was moreover helped on in various ways. dynastic policy thrust upon him a wife of the busy unimpassioned temperament--a woman in whom deficient emotion and sympathy and affection were not compensated by any high qualities; a woman who was restless, mischievous, vain, intriguing, and fond of influence. elizabeth of york had all the bad qualities of her father and her son and had very few of their good ones. a king henry in feminine disguise without his virtues was not likely to love or be loved. domestic sourness is probably a not infrequent cause of taciturnity and mystery and seclusion in the characters of both men and women. it was well that henry was neither angry nor morose. it says much for him moreover that while he was the object of ceaseless intrigue and hostility and rancour he yet never gave way to cynicism or revenge or cruelty. with a tolerably happy marriage, an assenting and a helpful nobility, and an unassailed throne, it is difficult to put a limit to the good which henry vii. might have done and which it lay in him to do. as it was he smoothed the way for enterprise and discovery, for the printing press and the new learning. he was the first of english monarchs who befriended education--using the word in its modern sense. it is curious that the acutest changes in our history--the death of a decrepit mediævalism, the birth of the young giant modernism--happened in our so-called sleepiest reign. surely the "quiet" father had a smaller share of popular applause than he deserved, and as surely the "dashing" son a much larger share. but in all periods, old and new, popularity should give us pause: yesterday, for example, inquisitors were knelt to, hailed with acclamation and pelted with flowers, and heretics were spat upon, hissed at, and burnt, but to-day's flowers are for the heretics and the execrations are for the inquisitors. thus then in all characteristics--intellectual, moral and bodily--henry viii. must be placed in the unimpassioned class. it may be noted too in passing that all the portraits of henry show us a feeble growth of hair on the face and signs of a convex back--convex vertically and convex transversely. we do not see the back it is true, but we see both the head and the shoulders carried forwards and the chin held down towards the chest--held indeed so far downward that the neck seems greatly shortened. it is interesting to observe the pose of the head and neck and shoulders in the portraits of noted personages. the forward head and shoulders, the downward chin (the products of a certain spinal configuration) are seen in undoubtedly different characters but characters which nevertheless have much in common: they are seen in all the portraits of napoleon i. and, although not quite so markedly, in those of our own general gordon. napoleon and gordon were unlike in many ways, and the gigantic self-importance and self-seeking of napoleon were absent in the simpler and finer character. in other ways they were much alike. both were brave active busy men; but both were fitful, petulant, censorius, difficult to please, and--which is very characteristic--both although changeable were nevertheless self-willed and self-confident. both were devoid of the deeper passions. the wives question. note iv. it is affirmed that no one save a monster of lust would marry six wives--a monster of lust being of course a man of over-mastering passion. it might be asked, in passing, seeing that six wives is the sign of a perfect "monster" if three wives make a semi-monster? pompey had five wives, was he five-sixths of a monster. to be serious however in this wife question, it will probably never be possible to say with exactness how much in henry's conduct was due to religious scruples; how much to the urgent importunity (state-born importunity) of advisers and subjects; how much to the then existing confusion of the marriage laws; how much to misfortune and coincidence; how much to folly and caprice; how much to colossal self-importance, and how much to "unbounded license." history broadly hints that great delusions, like great revolutions, may overcome--especially if the overcoming be not too sudden--both peoples and persons without their special wonder. in such delusions and such revolutions the actors and the victims are alike often unconscious actors and unconscious victims. neither henry nor his people dreamt that the great marriage question of the sixteenth century would excite the ridicule of all succeeding centuries. luther did not imagine that his efforts would help to divide religious europe into two permanently hostile camps. robespierre did not suspect that his name would live as an enduring synonym for blood. but to marry six wives, solely on licentious grounds, is a proceeding so striking and so uncomplicated that no delusion could possibly come over the performer and certainly not over a watchful people. yet something akin to delusion there certainly was; its causes however were several and complex, and lust was the least potent of them. the statement may seem strange, but there was little of desire in henry's composition. a monster he possibly was of some sort of folly; but strange as it may seem he was a monster of folly precisely because he was the opposite of a monster of passion. unhappily unbounded lust is now and then a feature of the impassioned temperament. it is never seen however in the less impassioned, and henry was one of the less impassioned. the want of dignity is itself a striking feature in the character of passionless and active men, and want of dignity was the one conspicuous defect in henry's conduct in his marriage affairs. perhaps too, dignity--personal or national--is, like quietness and like kindliness, among the later growths of civilisation. no incident or series of incidents illustrative of character in any of its phases, no matter how striking the incidents, or how strong the character or phase of character, have ever happened once only. if libertinism, for example, had ever shown itself in the selection and destruction of numerous wives, history would assuredly give information pertinent thereto: it gives none. nothing happens once only. even the french revolution, so frequently regarded as a unique event, was only one of several examples of the inherent and peculiar cruelty of the french celt.[ ] the massacre of bartholomew was more revolting in its numbers and in its character. the massacre of the commune, french military massacres and various massacres in french history deprive the "great" revolution of its exceptional character. but to return. there were licentious kings and princes before henry, granting he was licentious, and there have been notably licentious kings and princes since: their methods are well known and they were wholly unlike his. [ ] from historic comparison we may feel sure that no such cruelty was found in the gothic and frankish and norman blood of france. certain incidents concerning henry's marriages are of great physiological interest: a fat, bustling, restless, fitful, wilful man approaching mid-life--a man brim full of activity but deficient in feeling, waited twenty years before the idea of divorce was seriously entertained; and several more years of papal shiftiness were endured, not without petulance enough, but seemingly without storm or whirlwind. when jane seymour died, three years of single life followed. it is true the three years were not without marriage projects, but they were entirely state projects, and were in no way voluptuous overtures. the marriage with anne of cleves was a purely state marriage, and remained, so historians tell us, a merely nominal and ceremonial marriage during the time the king and the german princess occupied the same bed--a circumstance not at all indicative of "monstrous" passion. the very unfaithfulness of anne boleyn and catherine howard is not without its significance, for the proceedings of our divorce court show that as a rule (a rule it is true not without exceptions) we do not find the wives of lustful men to be unfaithful. in the case of a burns or a byron or a king david it is not the wife who is led astray; it is the wives of the henrys and the arthurs, strikingly dissimilar as they were in so many respects, who are led into temptation. no _sane_ man is the embodiment of a single passion. save in the wards of a lunatic asylum a simple monster of voluptuousness, or monster of anger, or monster of hate has no existence; and within those wards such monsters are undoubted examples of nerve ailment. it is true one (very rarely one only) passion may unduly predominate--one or more may be fostered and others may be dwarfed; but as a very general rule the deeper passions run together. one passion, if unequivocally present, denotes the existence of other passions, palpable or latent--denotes the existence, in fact, of the impassioned temperament. henry viii., startling as the statement may seem, had no single, deep, unequivocal passion--no deep love, no profound pity, no overwhelming grief, no implacable hate, no furious anger. the noisy petulance of a busy, censorious, irritable man and the fretfulness of an invalid are frequently misunderstood. on no single occasion did henry exhibit overmastering anger. historians note with evident surprise that he received the conclusion of the most insulting farce in history--the campeggio farce--with composure. when the bishop of rochester thrust himself, unbidden, into the campeggio court in order to denounce the king and the divorce, henry's only answer was a long and learned essay on the degrees of incestuous marriage which the pope might or might not permit. when his own chaplains scolded him, in coarse terms, in his own chapel, he listened, not always without peevishness, but always without anger. turning to other emotions, no hint is given of henry's grief at the loss of son after son in his earlier married years. if a husband of even ordinary affection _could_ ever have felt grief, it would surely show itself when a young wife and a young mother died in giving birth to a long-wished-for son and heir. not a syllable is said of henry's grief at jane seymour's death; and three weeks after he was intriguing for a continental, state, and purely diplomatic marriage. it is true that he paraded a sort of fussy affection for the young prince edward--carried him indeed through the state apartments in his own royal arms; but the less impassioned temperament is often more openly demonstrative than the impassioned, especially when the public ear listens and the public eye watches. those who caress in public attach as a rule but little meaning to caresses. if henry's affections were small we have seen that his self-importance was colossal; and the very defections--terrible to some natures--of anne boleyn and of catherine howard wounded his importance much more deeply than they wounded his affections. if we limit our attention for a moment to the question of deep feeling, we cannot but see how unlike henry was to the impassioned men of history. passionate king david, for example, would not have waited seven years while a commission decided upon his proposed relationship to bathsheba; and the cold henry could not have flung his soul into a fiery psalm. the impassioned burns could not have said a last farewell to the mother of his helpless babe without moistening the dust with his tears, while henry could never have understood why many strong men cannot read the second verse of "john anderson my jo" with an unbroken voice. the less characteristic features of henry's character. note v. it is well now, after considering the question of henry's parentage and organisation, to look again and a little more closely, at certain significant features in his character--his caprice, his captiousness, his love of applause, his self-will, self-confidence, and self-importance. these elements of character frequently run together in equal or unequal degrees, and they are extremely characteristic of the more markedly passionless temperament. but before doing this it is well to look, in a brief note, at some features of henry's character which are found in the less impassioned and the more impassioned temperaments alike. both temperaments, for example, may be cruel or kindly; both may tend to conservatism or to innovation; pious persons or worldly may be found in both. but the cruelty or kindliness, the conservatism or innovation, the piety or worldliness differ in the different temperaments--they differ in their motives, in their methods, in their aims. the cruelty of the unimpassioned man is, for the most part, a reckless disregard for the happiness or well-being or (in mediæval times especially) for the lives of those who stand in his way or thwart his plans or lessen his self-importance. such cruelty is more wayward resentful and transitory than deliberative or implacable or persistent. the cruelty of the impassioned man is perhaps the darkest of human passions. it is the cruelty born of hate--cruelty contrived with deliberation and watched with glee. happily it is a kind which lessens with the growth of civilisation. often it attends on the strong convictions of strong natures obeying strong commands--commands which are always strongest when they are believed to have a supernatural origin; for belief in supernaturalism is the natural enemy of mercy; it demands obedience and forbids compassion. cruelty was at its worst when supernatural beliefs were strongest; for happily natural reason has grown, and supernatural belief has dwindled. the unimpassioned and the impassioned temperaments may alike scale the highest or descend to the lowest levels of character, although probably the most hateful level of human degredation is reached by the more impassioned nature. it cannot be denied that, even for his time, henry had a certain unmistakable dash of cruelty in his composition. a grandson of edward iv., who closely resembled his grandfather, could not well be free from it. but the cruelty of henry, like that of edward, was cruelty of the passionless type. he swept aside--swept too often out of existence--those who defied his will or lessened his importance. how much of henry's cruelty was due to the resolve to put down opposition, how much was due to passing resentment and caprice, and how much, if any, to the delight of inflicting pain, not even henry's compeers could easily have said. his cruelty in keeping the solitary mary apart from her solitary mother was singularly persistent in so fickle a man; but even here weak fear and a weak policy were stronger than cruel feeling. it was henry's way of meeting persistent obstinacy. it is needless to discuss the cruelty of the executions on religious grounds during henry's reign; they were the order of the day and were sanctioned by the merciful and the unmerciful alike. but henry's treatment of high personages was a much deeper stain--deeper than the stain of his matrimonial affairs. people and parliament earnestly prayed for a royal son and heir, but no serious or popular prayer was ever offered up for the heads of fisher or more or lady salisbury. henry's cruelty had always practical ends in view. great officials who had failed, or who were done with, were officials in the way, and _their_ heads might be left to the care of those who were at once their rivals and their enemies. the execution of lady salisbury will never fail to rouse indignation as long as history is history and men are men. henry might have learned a noble lesson from his father. henry vii. put his own intriguing mother-in-law into a religious house, and the proper destination of a female yorkist intriguer--no matter how high or powerful--was a convent, not a scaffold. in the execution of elizabeth barton meanness was added to cruelty, for the wretched woman confessed her impostures and exposed the priests who contrived them for her. the cruelty which shocked europe most, and has shocked it ever since, was the execution of sir thomas more. more's approval would have greatly consoled the king, but more's approval fell far short of the king's demands. the silence of great men does _not_ give consent, and more was silent. more was, next to erasmus, the loftiest intellect then living on this planet. throughout europe men were asking what more thought of "the king's matter." more's head was the only answer. but however indignant we may be, let us not be unjust; henry, cruel as he was, was less cruel than any of his compeers--royal, imperial, or papal, or other. the cruelty of our tudor ruler has always been put under a fierce light; the greater cruelty of distant rulers we are too prone to disregard. we are too prone also to forget that the one thing new under the sun in _our_ time is greater kindliness--kindliness to life, to opinion, to pocket. if fate had put a crown on luther's head, or calvin's, or later, on knox's, their methods would have been more stringent than henry's. henry and his parliament, it is true, proposed an act of parliament "to abolish diversity of opinion in matters of religion." but luther and calvin and knox, nay even more (erasmus alone stood on a higher level), were each and all confident of their possession of the _one_ truth and of their infallibility as interpreters thereof; each and all were ready, had the power been theirs, to abolish "diversity of religious opinion." there are two kinds of religion, or at any rate two varieties of religious character--both are sincere--the religion of the active and passionless and that of the reflective and impassioned. one is a religion of inheritance, of training, of habit, of early and vivid perception; with certain surroundings it is inevitable; if shaken off it returns. george eliot acutely remarks of one of her notably passionless characters, "his first opinions remained unchanged, as they always do with those in whom perception is stronger than thought and emotion." the other is a religion (two extremes are spoken of here, but every intermediate gradation exists) a religion of thought and emotion, of investigation and introspection. it is marked by deep love of an ideal or real good, and deep hate of what may also often be called an ideal or real evil. henry's religion was of the first sort. it would be deeply interesting to know the sort of religion of the great names of henry's time. we lack however the needful light on their organisation, parentage, and circumstance. but in all the provinces of life the men who have imprinted their names on history have been for the most part active, practical, and unimpassioned men. they, in their turn, have owed much to the impassioned, thinking, and often unpractical men whose names history has not troubled itself to preserve. and now, in the light shed by organisation and inheritance, we may gain further information on the more characteristic features of henry's character--his caprice, his captiousness, his uncertainty, and his peevishness, his resolve never to be hidden or unfelt or forgotten. the more characteristic features of henry's character. note vi. henry was always doing something or undoing something. whether he was addressing parliament, admonishing and instructing subordinates, or exhorting heretics; whether he was restoring order in northern england, or (with much wisdom) introducing order into wales, or (with much folly) disorder into scotland; whether he was writing letters to irish chieftains or scottish councillors, or northern pilgrims; whether he was defending the faith or destroying religious houses; whether he was putting together six articles to the delight of catholics, or dropping them in a few weeks to the exultation of protestants; whether burning those who denied the miracle of the real presence, or hanging those who denied his headship of the church; whether he was changing a minister, a bishop, or a wife, his hands were always full. and in henry's case at least--probably in most cases--satan found much mischief for busy hands to do. the man who is never at rest is usually a fitful man. constant change, whether of ministers or of views or of plans, is in itself fitfulness. but fitfulness is something more than activity: it implies an uncertainty of thought or conduct which forbids calculation or prediction, and therefore forbids confidence; it is an inborn proclivity. happily vigorous reasoning power often accompanies it and keeps it in check. in poorly endowed intellects, whether in men or women, fitfulness and its almost constant associate petulance harass many circles and many hearths. it is recorded that when the disgraced wolsey took his departure from court, the king sent after him a hurried messenger with a valuable ring and comforting words. the incident has excited much perplexity and comment among historians. what was its meaning? what its object? probably the incident had no precise meaning; probably it was merely the involuntary deed of an irresistible constitutional tendency; possibly, too, there lurked in the motive which led to it some idea of future change and exigency. the active, practical, serviceable man sows many seeds and keeps on sowing them. time and circumstance mainly decide which seeds shall grow and which shall not. caprice is not unfrequently associated with high faculties. sometimes it would seem to be due to the gift--not a common one--of seeing many sides of a question, and of seeing these so vividly that action is thereby enfeebled or frequently changed. sometimes it is a conservative instinct which sees that a given step is too bold and must be retraced. it certainly is not selfishness: a long-pondered policy is often dashed to the ground in an instant, or a long-sought friendship is ended by a moment's insult. at root caprice is an inborn constitutional bias. henry was the first powerful personage who declared that the papal authority was divine--declaring this, indeed, with so much fervour that the good catholic more expostulated with him. but henry was also the first high personage who threw papal authority to the winds. it is on record that henry would have taken wolsey into favour again had wolsey lived. not wolsey only but all henry's ministers would have been employed and dismissed time after time could they but have contrived to keep their heads on their shoulders. henry might even have re-married his wives had they lived long enough. one circumstance only would have lessened their chances--attractive women were more numerous than experts in statecraft: for one wolsey there were a thousand fair women. habitual fitfulness, it has already been noted, is not often found apart from habitual petulance, and both these qualities were conspicuous in henry's character. there was something almost impish in the spirit which led him to don gorgeous attire--men had not then got out of barbaric finery, and women are still in its bondage--on the day of anne boleyn's bloodshed. nay more, there was undoubtedly a dash of cruelty in it, as there was in the acerbity which led him to exclaim that the pope might send a cardinal's hat to fisher, but he would take care that fisher had no head to put it on. now and then his whims were simply puerile; it was so when he signalised some triumph over a continental potentate by a dolls' battle on the thames. two galleys, one carrying the romish and the other the english decorations, met each other. after due conflict, the royalists boarded the papal galley and threw figures of the pope and sundry cardinals into the water--king and court loudly applauding. but again, let us not forget that those days were more deeply stained than ours with puerility and cruelty and spite. more, it is true, rose above the puerility of his time; erasmus rose above both its cruelty and its puerility; henry rose above neither. no charge is brought against henry with more unanimity and vehemence than that of selfishness. and the charge is not altogether a baseless one; but the selfishness which stained henry's character is not the selfishness he is accused of. when henry is said to have been a monster of selfishness it is implied that he was a monster of self-indulgence. he was not that--he was the opposite of that. he was in reality a monster of self-importance, and extreme personal importance is incompatible with gross personal indulgence. self-indulgence is the failing of the impassioned, especially when the mental gifts are poor; while self-importance is the failing of the passionless, especially when the mental gifts are rich. let there be given three factors, an unimpassioned temperament, a vigorous intellect, and circumstance favourable to public life--committee life, municipal, platform, parliamentary, or pulpit life--and self-importance is rarely wanting. this price we must sometimes pay for often quite invaluable service. when henry spoke--it is not infrequently so when the passionless and highly gifted individual speaks--the one unpardonable sin on the part of the listener was not to be convinced. a sin of a little less magnitude was to make a proposal to henry. it implied that he was unable to cope with the problems which beset him and beset his time. he could not approve of what he himself did not originate; at any rate he put the alien proposal aside for the time--in a little time he _might_ approve of it and it might then seem to be his own. the temperament which censured a matter yesterday will often applaud it to-day and put it in action to-morrow. the unimpassioned are prone to imitation, but they first condemn what they afterwards imitate. when cromwell made the grave proposal touching the headship of the church, henry hesitated--nay, was probably shocked--at first. yet, for henry's purposes at least, it was cromwell (and not cranmer with his university scheme) who had "caught the right sow by the ear." henry had a boundless belief in the importance of the king; but this did not hinder, nay it helped him to believe in the importance of the people also--it helped him indeed to seek the more diligently their welfare, seeing that the more prosperous a people is, the more important is its king. true he always put himself first and the people second. how few leaders of men or movements do otherwise. possibly william iii. would have stepped down from his throne if it had been shown that another in his place could better curb the ambition of france abroad, or better secure the mutual toleration of religious parties at home. possibly, nay probably, george washington would have retired could he have seen that the attainment of american independence was more assured in other hands. lloyd garrison would have gladly retired into private life if another more quickly than he could have given freedom to the slave. john bright would have willingly held his tongue if thereby another tongue could have spoken more powerfully for the good of his fellow-men. such men can be counted on the fingers and henry is not one of them. henry would have denied (as would all his compeers in temperament) that he put himself first. he would have said; "i desire the people's good first and above all things;" but he would have significantly added; "their good is safest in my hands." it is a moot point in history whether henry was led by his high officials or was followed by them. did he, for example, direct wolsey or did wolsey (as is the common view) in reality lead his king while appearing to follow him. to me the balance of evidence, as well as the natural proclivities of henry's character, favour the view that he thought and willed and acted for himself. do we not indeed know too well the fate of those whose thought and will ran counter to his? no man's opinion and conduct are independent of his surroundings and his time; for every man, especially every monarch, must see much through other eyes and hear much through other ears. but if other eyes and other ears are numerous enough they will also be conflicting enough, and will strengthen rather than diminish the self-confidence and self-importance of the self-confident and self-important ruler. self-importance, as a rule, is built on a foundation of solid self-confidence, and henry's confidence in himself was broad enough and deep enough to sustain any conceivable edifice. the romish church was then, and had been for a thousand years, the strongest influence in europe. it touched every event in men's bodily lives and decided also the fate of their immortal souls. henry nevertheless had no misgiving as to his fitness to be the spiritual head of the church in this country, or the spiritual head of the great globe itself, if the great globe had had one church only. when i come to speak of the reformation i shall have to remark that, had the great european religious movement reached our island in any other reign than henry's, religion would not have been exactly what it now is. of all our rulers henry was the only one who was at the same time willing enough, educated enough (he had been trained to be an archbishop), able enough, and pious enough to be at any rate the _first_ head of a great church. henry was so sagacious that he never forgot the superiority of sagacity over force. he delighted in reasoning, teaching, exhorting; and he believed that while any ruler could command, few could argue and very few could convince. it is true, alas, that when individuals or bodies were not convinced if he spoke, he became unreasonably petulant. when scotland did not accept a long string of unwise proposals he laid leith in ashes. when ireland did not yield to his wishes, he knocked a castle to atoms with cannon, and thereby so astonished ireland, be it noted, that it remained peaceful and prosperous during the remainder of his reign. perhaps the happiest moments in henry's life were those when he presided over courts of theological inquiry. to confute heresy was his chief delight; and his vanity was indulged to its utmost when the heretical lambert was tried. clothed in white silk, seated on a throne, surrounded by peers and bishops and learned doctors, he directed the momentous matters of this world and the next; he elucidated, expounded, and laid down the laws of both heaven and earth. it was a high day; one thing only marred its splendour--he, the first living defender of orthodoxy, had spoken and heterodoxy remained unconvinced. heterodoxy must clearly be left to its just punishment, for bishops, peers, and learned doctors were astonished at the display of so much eloquence, learning, and piety. the physiological student of human nature who is much interested in the question of martyrdom finds, indeed, that the martyr-burner and the martyr (of whatever temperament) have much in common. both believe themselves to possess assured and indisputable truth; both are infallible; both self-confident; both are prepared, in the interests of truth, to throw their neighbours into the fire if circumstance is favourable; both are willing to be themselves thrown into the fire if circumstance is adverse. one day they burn, the next day they are burnt. the feature in henry's character which as we have seen amounted to mania was his love of popularity; it was a mania which saved him from many evils. even unbridled self-will does little harm if it be an unbridled self-will to stand well with a progressive people. it has been a matter of surprise to those who contend that henry, seeing that he possessed--it is said usurped--a lion's power, did not use it with lion-like licence. his ingrained love of applause is the physiological explanation. let it be noted, too, that not everyone who thirsts for popularity succeeds in obtaining it, for success demands several factors: behind popular applause there must be action, behind action must be self-confidence, behind self-confidence must be large capability. henry had all these. in such a chain love of applause is the link least likely to be missing. for, indeed, what is the use of being active, capable, confident and important in a closet? the crow sings as sweetly as the nightingale if no one is listening, and importance is no better than insignificance if there is no one "there to see." we shall gain further and not uninteresting knowledge of henry's character if we look at certain side lights which history throws upon it. we turn therefore, in another note, to look for a few moments at the men, the movements, the drift, the institutions of his time, and observe how he bore himself towards them. henry and his compeers. note vii. in henry's time, and in every time, the art of judging women has been a very imperfect one. it is an imperfect art still and, as long as it takes for granted that women are radically unlike men, so long it will remain imperfect. but henry was a good judge of one sex at any rate, for he was helped by the most capable men then living, and in reality he tolerated no stupidity--except in his wives. in an era of theological change it was perhaps an unfortunate circumstance that he was better helped in his politics than in his theology. wolsey, although a cardinal and even a candidate for the papal chair, was to all intents and purposes a practical statesman. had he succeeded in becoming a pope he would nevertheless have remained a mere politician. wolsey, then, and cromwell and more were all distinctly abler men than cranmer or latimer or gardiner. but henry himself, looking at him in all that he was and in all that he did, was not unworthy of his helpers. there were then living in europe some of the most enduring names in history. more, it is true, was made of finer clay than the king; erasmus was not only the loftiest figure of his time--he is one of the loftiest of any time; but henry was also a great personality and easily held his own in the front rank of european personalities. as a ruler no potentate of his time--royal, imperial or papal--could for a moment compare with him. of all known englishmen he was the fittest to be king of england. had it been henry's fortune to have had one or two or even three wives only, our school histories would have contained a chapter entitled "how 'henry the good' steered his country safely through its greatest storm." he played many parts with striking ability. he was probably as great a statesman as wolsey or more or cromwell. he would certainly have made a better archbishop than cranmer; a better bishop than latimer or gardiner; he was a better soldier than norfolk. what then might he have been had he been a statesman only, or a diplomatist or an ecclesiastic or a soldier only? in all the parts he played, save the part of husband, his unimpassioned temperament stood him in good stead. a man's attitudes to his fellow-men and to the movements of his time are, on the whole, determined more by his intellect than by his feeling. the emotions indeed are very disturbing elements. they have, it is true, made or helped to make a few careers; but they have destroyed many more. very curiously, henry's compeers were, most of them, like himself--unimpassioned men. latimer, who was perhaps an exception, preached sermons at paul's cross brimful of a passion which henry admired but did not understand. cranmer too was a man of undoubted feeling and strong affection. it is said there is sometimes a magnetic charm between the unlike in temperament; strong friendships certainly exist between them; and it is to henry's credit that to the last he kept near to him a man so unlike himself. cranmer was a kindly, sympathetic, helpful, good soul, but not a saint. he was not one of those to whom gracian refers as becoming bad out of pure goodness. cranmer was a capable and a strong man, but he was not supremely capable or supremely strong. he was free from the worst of human evils--'cocksureness.' the acute spaniard just named says that "every blockhead is thoroughly persuaded that he is in the right;" cranmer was less of a blockhead than most of his compeers. left to his own instincts, he preferred to live and let others live. cranmer had not the loftiness (nor the hardness and inflexibility) of a more; not the genius and grace and scholarship of an erasmus; not the definite purpose and iron will of a cromwell; not the fire of a latimer; not the clear sight and grasp of a gardiner; not the sagacity and varied gifts of a henry; but for my part i would have chosen him before all his fellows (certainly his english fellows) to advise with and to confide in. of all the tables and the roofs of that time i should have preferred to sit at his table and sleep under his roof. the great luminaries who guide in revolutions are rare, and the smaller lights of smaller circumstance are not rare; but--the question is not easy to answer--which could we best spare, if we were compelled to choose, the towering lighthouse of exceptional storm or the cheery lamp of daily life? one figure of henry's times which never fails to interest us is that of sir thomas more. more was clearly one of the unimpassioned class; but his commanding intellect, his quick response to high influences, his capability of forming noble friendships, and his lofty ideals seemed to dispense with the need of deep emotions. more and henry, indeed, were much alike in many ways. both were precocious in early life; both were quick, alert, practical; both were able; both, to the outside world at least, were genial, affable, attractive; both also, alas, were fitful, censorious, difficult to please; both were self-confident--one confident enough to kill, the other confident enough to be killed. had they changed places in the greatest crisis of their lives henry would have rejected more's headship of the church and more would have sent henry to the block. in order to understand more's character correctly we must recognise the changing waves of circumstance through which he passed. there were in fact two mores, the earlier and the later. the earlier more was an unembittered and independent thinker; the seeming spirit of independence however was, in a great degree, merely the spirit of contradiction. he was a friend of education and the new learning. he advocated reform in religion; but reform, be it noted, before the reformation, reform gently and from within; reform when kings and scholars and popes themselves all asked for it. history, unhappily, tells of much reform on the lips which doggedly refused to translate itself into practice. the earlier more was all for reform in principle, but he invariably disapproved of it in detail. the later and in some degree embittered more was thrown by temperament, by the natural bias of increasing years and by the exigencies of combat, into the ecclesiastical and reactionary camp, and in that camp his conduct was stained by cruel inquisitorial methods. the deteriorating effects of conflict (which happily grow less in each successive century) on individuals as well as on parties and peoples is seen in another notable though very different character of more's century. savonarola, before his bitter fight with florentine and roman powers, was a large, clear-sighted, sane reformer; after the fight he became blind, fanatical, and insane. why may we not combine all thankfulness for the early more and the early savonarola, and all compassion for the later more and later savonarola? mary stuart, francis bacon, robert burns, napoleon buonapart, and lord byron were notable personalities; they--some of them at least--did the world service which others did not and could not do. yet how many of us are there who, if admitting to the full their greatness, do not belittle their follies? or, if freely admitting their follies, do not belittle their greatness? wolsey, holding aloof from religious strife, remained simply the scholar and the politician--a politician moreover _before_ politics became in their turn also a matter of hostile camps. being a politician only, he continued to be merciful while more drifted from politics and mercy into ecclesiasticism and cruelty. more's change was in itself evidence of a fitful and passionless temperament, of such evidence indeed there is no lack. his first public action was one of petulance and self-importance. he had been treated with continued and exceptional kindness by cardinal morton and henry vii.; but when morton, on behalf of his king, asked parliament for a subsidy, the newly-elected more, conscious of his powers, and thinking too, may we not say, much more of a people's applause than of a people's burdens, successfully urged its reduction to one half. more was by nature censorious, and never heartily approved of anything. when wolsey, on submitting a proposal to him with the usual result, told him--told him it would seem in the unvarnished language of the time--that he stood alone in his disapproval, and that he was a fool, more, with ready wit and affected humility, rejoined that he thanked god that he was the only fool on the king's council. more, we may be quite sure, was not conscious of a spirit of contradiction; he probably felt that his first duty was to suggest to everybody some improvement in everything. this spirit of antagonism nevertheless played a leading part in his changeful life. in his early years he found orthodoxy rampant and defiant, consequently he inclined to heresy; at a later period heresy became rampant and defiant, and as inevitably he returned to the older faith and views. a modern scholar and piquant censor, and--i gather from his own writings, the only knowledge i have of him--an extreme specimen of the unimpassioned temperament, mark pattison, says that he never saw anything without suggesting how it might have been better; and that every time he entered a railway carriage he worked out a better time table than the one in use. if more had lived in his own utopia he would have found fault with it, and drawn in imagination another and a better land. the later more was, as all unimpassioned and censorious temperaments are, a prophet of evil; and as much evil did happen--was sure to happen--his wisdom has come down to us somewhat greater in appearance than it was in reality. the cruelty of the tudor epoch has already been spoken of. catholics and protestants, kings, popes, cardinals, ministers, luthers, calvins, knoxes were all stained by it. henry and more, we know, were no exceptions. but more's cruelty differed from henry's in one important respect--there was nothing appertaining to self in it, except self-confidence. henry's cruelty was in the interest of himself--his person, his family, and his throne; more's cruelty, although less limited perhaps, and more dangerous, was nevertheless in the interest of religion. henry and his people and parliament. note viii. it is in his attitude to his people and his parliament that we see henry at his best. his sagacity did not show itself in any deliberate or deeply reasoned policy, certainly not, we may allow with dr. stubbs, in any great act of "constructive genius;" it showed itself in seeing clearly the difficulties of the hour and the day, and in the hourly and daily success with which they were met. henry and his father presided over the introduction of a new order of things, which new order, however, was a step only, not a cataclysm. they themselves scarcely knew the significance of the step or how worthily they presided over it. the world, indeed, knows little--history says little--of great and sudden acts of constructive genius. these gradually emerge from the growth of peoples; they do not spring from the brains of individuals royal or otherwise. if the vision of a ruler is clear and his aims good, he, more than others, may help on organic and beneficent growth. full-blown schemes and policies, even if marked by genius, are rarely helpful and not infrequently they end in hindrance or even in explosion. the stuarts had a large "scheme" touching church and king. it was a scheme of "all in all or not at all;" for them and their dynasty it ended in "not at all." french history is brimful of "great acts of constructive genius" and has none of the products of development. for celtic history is indeed a sad succession of fits, and not a process of quiet growth. how a succession of fits will end, and how growth will end, it is not difficult to foretel. the government of peoples is for the most part and in the long run that which they deserve, that which they are best fitted for, and not at all that which, it may be, they wish for and cry out for. a people ready--fairly and throughout all strata ready--for that which they demand will not long demand in vain. our fathers, under the tudor henrys and the tudor elizabeth, had the rule which was best fitted for them, which they asked for, which they deserved--a significant morsel, by the bye, of racial circumstance. it by no means follows, let it be noted, that what people and king together approved of was the ideal or the wisest. it is with policies as with all things else, the fittest, not the best, continue to hold the field. henry and elizabeth had not only clearness of sight, but flexibility of mind also, and would doubtless have ruled over puritan england with success; it lay in them to rule well over our modern england also. charles i., by organisation and proclivity, would have fared badly at the hands of a tudor parliament, and, again as a result of organisation and proclivity, henry viii. and the long parliament would have been excellent friends. hand to mouth government, if it is also capable, is probably the best government for a revolutionary time. conflicting parties are often kept quiet by mere suspense--by mingled hopes and fears. it has been well said of henry of navarre that he kept france, the home of political whirlwinds, tranquil for a time because the protestants believed him to be a protestant and the catholics believed he was about to become a catholic. the majority of historians and all the compilers of history tell us that henry's parliaments were abject and servile. the statement is politically misleading and is also improbable on the grounds of organisation and race. it is one of many illustrations of the vice of purely literary judgments on men and movements; a vice which takes no account of physiology, of race, of organisation and proclivity. for we may be well assured that the grandsons of brave men and the grandfathers of brave men are never themselves cowards. one and the same people--especially a slow, steadfast, and growing people--does not put its neck under the foot of one king to-day and cut off the head of another king to-morrow. it is not difficult to see how the misconception arose: in a time of great trial the king and the people were agreed both in politics and in religion. the people held the king's views; they admired his sagacity; they trusted in his honour. if a brother is attached to his brother and does not quarrel with him, is he therefore poor-spirited? if by rare chance a servant sees, possibly on good grounds, a hero in his master, is he therefore a poltroon? if a parliament and a king see eye to eye, is it just to label the parliament throughout history as an abject parliament? henry's epoch, moreover, was not one of marked political excitement, and therefore the hasty observer jumps to the conclusion that it was not one of political independence. in each individual, in each community, in each people there is a sum-total of nerve force. in a given amount of brain substance--one brain or many--in a given amount of brain nutriment of brain vitality, there is a given quantity of nerve power. this totality of power will show itself it may be in one way strongly or in several ways less strongly; it cannot be increased, it cannot be lessened. on purely physiological grounds it may be affirmed that bacon could not have thought and written all his own work and at the same time have also thought and written the life-work of shakspere. shakspere could not have added bacon's investigations to his own 'intuitions.' in our own time carlyle could not have written "the french revolution" and "the descent of man;" he could not have gone through the two trainings, gained the two knowledges, and lived the two lives which led to the two works. so it is with universities: when scholarship is robust, theology limps; and during the tractarian excitement, so a great scholar affirms, learning in oxford sank to a lower level. so with peoples: in a literary age religious feeling is less earnest; in a time of political excitement both religion and literature suffer. henry's era was one of abounding theological activity: luthers, calvins, and (later) knoxes came to the front, and the front could not, never can, hold many dominant and also differing spirits. in elizabeth's time marlowes and shaksperes and spensers were master spirits, and master spirits are never numerous. no doubt as civilisation goes on great men and great movements learn to move, never equally perhaps but more easily, side by side: more leaders come to the front--but is the front as brilliant? choice spirits are more numerous--but are the spirits quite as choice? another and a less partial generation must decide. "but," say the few observers and the crowd of compilers, "only a servile parliament would have given the king permission to issue proclamations having the authority of law." but the people, it cannot be too emphatically repeated, were neither creatures crawling in the mire nor red-tapists terrified at every innovation; they trusted the king, and he did not violate their trust. the proclamations, so it was stipulated, were not to tamper with existing laws; they were to meet exigencies in an epoch of exigencies, and they met them with a wisdom and a promptness which parliament could not come near. it is physiological proclivities--not red tape, not parchment clauses, not magna chartas--which keep a people free. it is rather red tape, and not the occasional snapping of red tape which enfeebles liberty. if the non-conformists, who by the bye detested romanism more than they loved religion, had not rejected the declaration of indulgence of charles ii.--a declaration which gave to romanists leave of worship as well as to non-conformists--does any sane person believe that english freedom would have been less than it now is? in our time a body of men who hate england more than they love ireland have, of set purpose, tumbled parliament into the dust: now, if a capable and firm authority were entrusted for twelve months with exceptional yet absolute control over parliamentary procedure, does any sane person suppose that the english passion for free parliaments would be lulled to sleep? rule has often to be cruel in order to be kind. alas, the multitude is made up not of cromwells, is indeed afraid of cromwells. in total ignorance of racial proclivities, it foolishly believes that a cromwellian speaker for twelve months would mean a cromwellian speaker for ever. note on henry and the reformation. note ix. it is a singular misreading of history to say that henry did much directly or indirectly to help on the reformation of the church in this country, although the part he played was not a small one. neither was the reformation itself, grave and critical as it was, so sudden and volcanic an upheaval as is generally believed. luther himself did not put forward a single new idea. no man is thinker and fighter at once; at any rate, no man thinks and fights at the same moment. luther struck his blows for already accomplished thought. curious ideas of unknown dates--for history reveals mergings only, not beginnings, not endings, and the student of men and movements might well exclaim "nothing begins and nothing ends,"--ideas of unknown dates and unknown birth-places had slowly come into existence. in teutonic europe at least, the older ideas were becoming trivial and inadequate. it was the northern europe, which from the earliest times had been dogged in its courage both bodily and mental; the europe strong in that reverence for truth which rests on courage, which is inseparable from courage, which never exists apart from courage; the europe strong in its respect for women; strong in its fearlessness of death, of darkness, of storm, of the sea-lion, the land monster, the unearthly ghost, and which was strong therefore in its fearlessness of hell-fire and priestly threats. celtic europe, especially celtic ireland, slept then and sleeps now the unbroken slumber of credulity. credulity and fear are allied. celtic ireland was palsied then, and is palsied still, by the fear of what we may now call father furniss's hell. it is surely not difficult to recall and therefore not difficult to foretell the history of so widely differing races. everywhere throughout teutonic europe, in castle and monastery, in mansion and cottage, the old-new ideas were talked over, drunk over, quarrelled over, shaken hands over, slept over. everywhere the poets--the peoples' voices then, for the printed sheet, the coffee house, the club, were yet far off,--the poets, lindsay, barbour and others in scotland; langland, skelton and others in england had, long before, pelted preachers and preaching with their bitterest gibes. those poets little knew how narrowly they escaped with their lives; they escaped because they shouted their fierce diatribes just before not just after the strife of battle. they had flashed out the signals of undying warfare, but before the signals could be interpreted the signallers had died in their beds. thought, inquiry, discussion, printing, poetry, the new learning, the older lollardry had moved on with quiet steps. a less quiet step was at hand, but this also, if less quiet, was as natural and as inevitable as the stealthiest of preceding steps. europe had gradually become covered with a network of universities, and students of every nationality were constantly passing from one to another. one common language, latin, bound university to university and thinking men to thinking men. he who spoke to one spoke to all. the time was a sort of hot-house, and the growth of man was "forced." reaction attends on action, but in the main, studious men made the universities--not universities the studious men; in like-manner good men have made religions, not religions so much good men. ideas and opinions quickly became common property; sooner or later they filtered down from the latin phrase to home-spun talk; filtered down also from the university to the town, village, and busy highway. the papacy itself had made papal rule impossible to vigorous peoples. with curiously narrow ambition popes have always preferred even limited temporal importance to unlimited spiritual sway. two popes, nay at one time three, had struggled not for the supremacy of religion but for merely personal pre-eminence. popes had fought popes, councils had fought councils, and each had called in the friendly infidel to fight the catholic enemy. the catholic sack of catholic rome had been accompanied by greater lust and more copious bloodshed than the sack of rome in olden time by northern infidels. the teachings, claims, and crimes native to rome, nay, even the imported refinements of the arts and letters and elegancies of paganism did what legions of full-blown luthers could not have done. the reformation, with its complex causes, its complex methods, its complex products, is, more than other great movements, brimful of matter for observation, thought, and inference. the french revolution was but one of a series of fierce uprisings of a race which rises and slaughters whenever it has a chance. french history teems with slaughters both in time of peace and time of war. mediæval french kings dared not arm their peasants with bows and arrows, for otherwise not a nobleman or a gentleman would have been left alive. at the close of the eighteenth century in france the oppression was heavy, the opportunity was large, and the uprising was ferocious. no other people have ever shown such a spectacle, and it is therefore idle to compare other great national movements with it. french history stands alone: no oppressor can oppress like the french oppressor; no retaliator can retaliate like the french retaliator. it is a question much less of politics than of organisation and race. but to return. mr. carlyle, in his own rousing way and on a subject which deeply interests him--luther and the reformation--mingles fine literary vigour with an indifference to physiological teaching which is by no means habitual with him. the heaven-born hero tells us what has become false and unreal, and shows us--it is his special business--how we may _go back_ to truth and reality. the humbler student believes that we are constantly journeying _towards_ truth and reality--these lie not behind but in front of us. the school of prophets tells us that the hero alights in front of us and stands apart. the student declares that we all move together; that we partly make our heroes, and partly they make us; that we have grades of heroes; that they are not at all supernatural--we touch them, see them, know them, send them to the front, keep them and dismiss them at our will, or what seems our will. carlyle affirms that modern civilisation took its rise from the great scene at worms. the truths of organisation, of body, of brain, of race, of parentage would rather say that civilisation itself was not born of but in reality gave rise to luther and the scene at worms. the reformation did not give private judgment; private judgment gave the reformation. in all revolutions there is a mixture of the essential and the accidental. during the long succession of the ordinary efforts of growing peoples there are also from time to time unusual efforts to bring to an end whatever of accident is most at variance with essential truth and reason and sanity and honour. in the reformations of a growing people, whatever the age in which they happen, whatever the religion or policy or conduct of the age, leading spirits rebel against what is most oppressive and resent what is most arrogant in that age; they reject what is most false and laugh out of court what is most ridiculous. in the sixteenth century men felt no special or inherent resentment to arrogance because it lifted its head in rome; they looked on the so-called miracle of transubstantiation with no special or peculiar incredulity; their sense of humour was not necessarily tickled by the idea that a soul leaped out of purgatory when a coin clinked in tetzel's box. those were matters of accident and circumstance; they were simply the most intolerable or incredible or preposterous items of the century. given other preceding accidents--another deity, or one appearing in another century or arising in another people; another emperor than constantine; other soldiers than constantine's--and the sixteenth-century items of oppression and falsehood would have been there, it is true, but they would have been other than they were. we are often told that great movements come quickly, and are the peculiar work of heroes. we are told, indeed, that from time to time mankind degenerates into a mass of dry fuel, and that at the fitting moment a hero descends, as a torch, and sets the mass on fire. nay, moreover, if we doubt this teaching we are dead to poetic feeling and have lost our spiritual ideals. happily, however, if phantasy dies, poetry still lives. leaders and led, teachers and taught, are all changing and always changing; but no change brings a lessened poetic susceptibility or a lessened poetic impulse. if, in future, historians and critics come to see that the organisation and bodily proclivity and parentage of men have really much to do with men, let us nevertheless be comforted--the ether men breathe will be no less ample, the air no less divine. every age is transitional--not this or that--and the ages are bound together by unbroken sequence. as with the movements so is it with the leaders: they are in touch with each other as well as in touch with their followers. all ages have some men who are bolder than others, or more reflective than others, or more courageous, or more active. at certain epochs in history there have been men who combined many high qualities, and who in several ways stood in front of their time. wyclif was not separated from his fellows by any deep gulf, neither was he, as regards time, the first in his movement, but no leader ever sprang so far in front of the led. general leaders appear first, and afterwards, when the lines of cleavage are clearer, special leaders arise. wyclif was a general leader, and therefore had many things to do. he did them all well. he was a scholar, a theologian, a writer, a preacher. it is his attitude to his age and to all ages, and to national growth, which interests us--not his particular writing, or his preaching, or his detailed views. he propounded, he defined, he lighted up, he animated, he fought. in one capacity or in two wyclif might have soared to a loftier height and have shone a grander figure. but he did what was most needed to be done then and there. the time was not ripe, and it did not lie in wyclif to make it ripe, for the reformation, but he showed the way to the reformation; he introduced its introducers and led its leaders. the special leaders appeared in due time, and they also were the product of their time. an erasmus shed more light than others on burning problems; a calvin formulated more incisively than his fellows; a luther fought more defiantly; and, a little later, a knox roused the laggards with fiercer speech. it is interesting to note that the fighters and the speakers in all movements and at all times come most quickly to the front; it is for them that the multitude shouts its loudest huzzas and the historian writes his brightest pages. but let us not forget this one lesson from history and physiology: it is not given--or but rarely given--to any one man to do all these things, to innovate, to illuminate, to formulate, to fight, to rouse; it is certainly not given to any one man to do all with equal power, and certainly not all at once. for there is a sum-total of brain-force, not in the individual only, but in the community and in the epoch. in one stream it is powerful; if it be divided in several streams each stream is weaker. it was a theological torrent at the beginning of the sixteenth century, a literary torrent at the century's close. we have (perhaps it is for our good) several streams, we have however, we all hope, a good total to divide. curiously, too, the most clear-sighted of leaders never see the end, never indeed see far into the future of their movement. the matters and forces which go to form a revolution are many and complex, reformers when striving to improve a world often end in forming a party. if the leaders are clear-sighted, the party will be continuous, large, long-lived; dim-sighted enthusiasts, even when for the moment successful, lead a discontinuous, short-lived, spasmodic crowd. sometimes a leader steps forth clear and capable, but the multitude continues to sleep. wyclif, for example, called on his generation to follow him in a new and better path. he seemed to call in vain. in the sixteenth century men were awake, stirring, resolved; but no leaders were ready. fortunately the people marched well although they had no captains to speak of. the age was heroic although it had no conspicuous heroes. although in its forms, its beliefs, its opinions, its policy, its conduct, there was much that was accidental, it was nevertheless inevitable and essential that the reformation should come. it mattered not whether this thing had been done or that; whether this particular leader led or that; whether this or that concession had been made at rome. if erasmus could not fight luther could. if rome could concede nothing, much could be torn from her. there is, indeed, much fighting and tearing in history: complacent persons, loftily indifferent to organisation, and race, and long antecedent, are astonished that men should fight, or should fight with their bodies, or that, when fighting they should actually kill each other. in all times, alas, the fittest, not the wisest, has prevailed--and the fittest, alas, has been cruel. in the seventeenth century parliament and charles stuart fought each other by roughest bodily methods, and parliament, proving victorious, killed charles. had charles conquered, and could parliament have been reduced to one neck or a dozen, we may be quite sure that the one neck or the dozen would have been severed on the block. when the thousand fermenting elements came together in the sixteenth century cauldron, no number of men, certainly no one man, certainly not henry, could do much to hinder or to help on the seething process. this of course was not henry's view. he believed himself to be--gave himself out to be--the fountain of truth. we know that he and an _admiring_ (not an _abject_) parliament proposed an act to abolish diversity of opinion on religious matters. we know too, that while he graciously permitted his subjects to read the word of god, he commanded them to adopt the opinions of the king. it was indeed cheap compulsion, for he and the vast mass of his subjects held similar opinions. nevertheless, it is true that henry, with characteristic sagacity, turned to the right spot and at the right moment when the cauldron threatened to boil over, or possibly to explode. at a critical epoch he helped to avert bloodshed; for in this island there was no war of peasants, or princes, or theologians. those who say that the great divorce question brought about or even accelerated the reformation, are those who see or wish to see the bubbles only, and cannot, or will not see the stream--its depth and strength,--on which the bubbles float. for the six-wives matter was in reality a bubble, large it is true, prismatic, many-coloured, interesting, visible throughout europe, minutely gossiped over on every hearth. if king henry, however, had had no wife at all, the reformation would have come no more slowly than it did; if he had had, like king solomon, seven hundred wives, it would have come no more quickly. henry was not himself a reformer, and but little likely to lead reformers. under a fitful and petulant exterior the king was a cold, calculating, self-remembering man. the reformers were a self-forgetting, passionate, often a frenzied party, and as a rule, firebrands do not follow icebergs. if imperious circumstance loosened henry's moorings to rome, he had no more notion of drifting towards augsburg or geneva, than, a little later, his daughter elizabeth had of drifting to edinburgh and knox. henry had no deep attachment, but he clung to the old religion, chiefly perhaps because it was old, as much as he could cling to anything; he had no deep hatreds, but, as heartily as his nature permitted, he detested the new. he would have disliked it all the more, had that been possible, could he have looked with interpretative glance backward to the seed-time of wyclif's era, or forward to the ripe harvest of the seventeenth century. could it have been made plain to henry that he was helping to put a sword into a puritan's hand and bring a king's head to the block, he would have had himself whipped at the tomb of catharine of aragon, and would have thrown his crown at the pope's feet. he assumed the headship of the english church, it is true; but even good catholics throughout europe did not then so completely as now accept the supremacy of the bishop of rome, and central ideas had not then so completely swallowed up the territorial. if henry had not taken the headship of the english church when he did, the church would probably have had no head at all, and religious teaching in this country would have fared much as it fared in switzerland and scotland and north germany. as it was, henry simply believed himself to be another pope, and london to be another rome. he, the english pope, and the pope at rome would, for the most part, work together like brothers--work for the diffusion of the _one_ truth (which all sorts and conditions of popes believe they possess), and work therefore for the good of all people. had the great european religious movement reached our island in any other reign than henry's it would not have run quite the same course it did. of all the kings who have ruled over us henry viii. was the only king who was at the same time willing enough, able enough, educated enough (he had been trained to be an archbishop), and pious enough to be, at any rate, the first head of a great church. but it is said: "look at the destruction of the religious houses; surely that was the work of heresy and greed." henry had no heresy in his nature, but he was not without greed, and as he was certainly extravagant, he had therefore the stronger incentives to exaction. but in our history the foible of a king avails but little when it clashes with the conscience, the ideal, the will of a people. henry's greed, moreover, whatever its strength, was less strong than his conservatism, less strong than his piety. stronger, too, than all these combined was his boundless love of popularity--a love which alone would have preserved the monasteries could the monasteries have been preserved by any single man. but new ideas and new religious ideals had come in, and the new religious ideals and the old religious houses could not flourish together. the existence of those houses had long been threatened. one hundred years before, parliament had more than once seriously discussed the appropriation of ecclesiastical funds to military purposes. cardinal morton, after impartial inquiry, contemplated sweeping changes. wolsey, a good catholic, had suppressed numerous houses. it is interesting to know that at one period of his life sir thomas more thought of retiring into a religious house, but after carefully studying monastic life he gave up the project. it is not necessary to sift and resift the evidence touching the morality of the monasteries. probably those institutions were not so black as their enemies, new or old, have painted them, nor so white as they appear in the eyes of their modern friends. but whether they were fragments of hades thrust up from below, or fragments of the celestial regions let down from above, or whatever else they were, their end was come. many causes were at work. they were coming into collision with the rapidly growing modern social life--a life more complex than at any time before, more complex in its roots, its growths, its products, and its needs. the newer social life had developed a passionate love of knowledge; it had formed a loftier ideal of domestic life. it pondered too over our economic problems, and disliked the ceaseless accumulation of land and wealth in ecclesiastical hands. does any one imagine that a close network of institutions, which were at any rate not models of virtue; institutions which hated knowledge and thrust it out of doors; which directly or indirectly cast a slur on the growing domestic ideal; which told the awakening descendants of scandinavian and norseman and saxon, that their women were unclean--that their mothers and daughters were "snares;" does anyone imagine that such a network could be permitted to entangle and strangle modern life? it has already been said that the newer social ideas were destined to arise, and that therefore the older religious houses were doomed to fall. it mattered little the particular year in which they fell; it mattered little who seemed to deal the final blow. many centuries before, human nature being what it was, and social conditions what they were, quiet retreats had met a want--they were fittest to live and they lived. but a succession of centuries brought change--a little in human nature, much in social conditions, very much in thought and opinion, and the retreats, the inner life and opinions of which had not kept pace with life outside, were no longer needed, no longer fittest, and they fell. henry did not destroy them. catholicism, which neither made them pure nor made them impure, was unable to preserve them. could the long buried bones of their founders have come to life again and have put on the newer flesh, thought, with newer brain, the newer thought, they would have found quite other outlets for their energy, leisure and wealth. it is so with all founders and all institutions. it is so at this moment with the institutions which were born of the reformation itself. naturalists tell us that the jelly-like mass, the amæba, embraces everything, both the useful and the useless, that comes in its way, but that in time it relaxes its embrace on the useless. so the civilisation of a growing people is like a huge amæba, which slowly enfolds men and ideas, and incidents, and systems, and then sooner or later it disenfolds the unsuitable and the worn-out. queen elizabeth and queen mary. note x. few rulers, few persons indeed, have ever been so much alike as our two rulers henry viii. and his daughter elizabeth. no man was ever so like henry as was the woman elizabeth; no woman ever resembled elizabeth so closely as did the man henry. both father and daughter were extreme examples of the intellectual and unimpassioned temperament. high capacity, acute perception, clear insight, correct inference were present in both. both, too, were capricious, fault-finding, querulous and vain. both, moreover, had their preferences and their dislikes. both, too, felt and showed resentment when their vanity was wounded. but in neither of them, it may be truly affirmed, was there any consuming passion--any fervent love, or invincible hatred, or fierce jealousy, or overwhelming anger. those who preach the doctrine of an essential difference between the sexes and who, with the injustice which so frequently accompanies the abounding self-importance of masculinity, would deprive women not only of "equality of sphere" but "equality of opportunity," may study the character of henry and elizabeth with great advantage. human beings are first of all divided (i have elsewhere contended) into certain types of character and only afterwards into men and women. many men are by nature devoted lovers and parents and friends; many women are not. elizabeth was one of a number--a large number--of women who have, it may be, many of the qualities which tell in practical and public life, and but little of the emotion which wells up in true wifehood and motherhood and friendship. henry and elizabeth stand far above the average level of rulers. in sagacity, in tact and in statesmanship only two of their successors can compare with them. but the methods of oliver cromwell and william iii. were very different from the tudor methods. cromwell and william strove to be guided by what they sincerely held to be lofty principles. henry and elizabeth were guided merely, though wisely guided, by the fineness of their instincts. fine instincts were perhaps better fitted for the earlier time, and lofty principles for the later. it is easier, alas, to bungle in formulating and in applying principles than in trusting to adroitness and intuitions. all the elements of character which henry possessed were found also in elizabeth, and many of these elements, though not all, they possessed in equal degree. they were alike in capacity, courage, sincerity, versatility, industry; alike in their conservative proclivities and also in their love of pageantry--for elizabeth, like henry, revelled in public business and in public pleasures; she delighted in progresses, shows, masks and plays. they were alike, too, in their sense of duty, in their desire for the welfare of the people, and also in their thirst for the people's good opinion. but elizabeth, although she had immense self-importance (she heartily approved of the queen and, heartily indeed, of nothing else), was perhaps less self-confident than her father. she was not quite comfortable in her headship of the church--but then she had not been educated for the church as her father had been, and she did not possess her father's devotional nature. her conduct was however more decorous than her father's, notwithstanding that she was distinctly less religious than he--less religious in principle, in inward conviction and in outward worship. if she was less devout than henry she had however a larger share of fitfulness than even he. the historian who more vividly than any other has placed the tudor time before us speaks of elizabeth's "ingrained insincerity;" the words "ingrained fitfulness" would perhaps be more correct, for she was in truth as sincere as her fitfulness permitted her to be. although it is true she was not without--no one at that time was quite without--insincerity and intrigue and duplicity and falsehood in her diplomatic methods, she was fairly sincere in her views and aims and conduct. but unfortunately her views and aims and conduct were constantly changing. she was sincere too easily and too frequently. she had a dozen fits of sincerity in a dozen hours. whenever she sent a message, no matter how carefully the message had been considered, a second was sent to recall or change it, and very shortly a third messenger would be despatched in pursuit of the second. urgent and critical circumstance alone, and frequently not even this, forced upon her any conclusive action. i am compelled to agree with those who believe that the most distressing incident of her life was the final decision touching mary stuart's death: it was distressing on several grounds--she was not naturally cruel, or, like her father, cruel to those only who stood in her path; she did not like to kill a queen; and, above all, she hated to do anything which (like marriage, to wit) could not be undone. elizabeth was compelled by temperament to be always doing something, but by temperament also she was always reluctant to get anything done. in her two bushels of occupation there were not two grains of performance. her extreme fitfulness had at least one fortunate result--it saved many lives. henry's frequent change of view and of policy was unquestionable, but the change was slow enough to give to the ever-watchful enemies of a fallen minister time enough to tear the fallen minister to pieces. but if a minister of elizabeth's fell, his head was in little danger: if he fell from favour to-day, he was restored to-morrow. he might trip twenty times, and as many times his rivals would be on the alert; but twenty pardons would be granted all in good time. touching the question of marriage the queen was far wiser than her father. neither father nor daughter had the needful qualities which go to make marriage happy, and both had certain other qualities which in many cases make it an intolerable burden. henry, unlike elizabeth, did not discover this, for his perceptive powers generally were less acute than hers. she probably knew that in her inmost heart (her brain was sufficiently acute to gain a glimpse of what was in her heart and what was not) she was a stranger to the deep and sustained affections without which marriage is so often a cruel deception. she had admirers and favourites it is true; and, after the fashion of the time, was unseemly enough in her fits of romping and her fits of pettishness. but there has not yet been anywhere, or at any time, under the sun a healthful temperament which has objected to admiration and entertainment, and probably there never will be. elizabeth's attitude to the religious condition of her people marks a decided movement, if not an onward movement: for we must never forget that a multitude of high-minded and capable souls believe that the several steps of the reformation were downward steps. but what were the steps, and what especially was elizabeth's step? the popes (and their times) had said, _in effect_, you need not read and you must not think or inquire; your duty is to obey and believe. henry (and his time) said, you may think and you may read, especially if your reading enables you to understand the king, but you must believe what the king believes and worship as the king worships. elizabeth (and her times), still more at the mercy of rising teutonic waves, exclaimed, you may think and read and inquire and believe as you like--especially as you insist upon doing so--but you really must, all of you, go to church with me on sunday mornings. elizabeth's church-going act, by the bye, is still unrepealed. long after, william iii. (and his time, though william was before his time) said, you may think, read, believe, and publicly worship as you will, but you must believe something and you must worship somewhere. john milton, before william in time and long before him in largeness of view, was the one colossal figure who fought bravely and single-handed for freedom in every domain of thought and speech and conduct. the tudor time, more than any other in our history, lends itself to the study of character; a study which, although difficult, is the less difficult in that whatever of change may take place, old elements of character do not altogether disappear and entirely new elements do not make their appearance. these elements lie everywhere around us. a great writer and an acute observer of men declares indeed that we all contain the elements of a luther and a borgia (his ideal of the best and worst elements), and that if a man cannot see these near at hand he will not find them though he travel from dan to beersheba. the tudor and the stuart periods alike present remarkable persons and remarkable incidents; but in the earlier period the men and women were more striking than the events, while events attract our attention more than individuals in the later. with the tudors men and women seemed to lead, for men and women were proportionately the stronger; circumstance seemed to be the stronger in the stuart times. no century contains three royal figures so striking in themselves and so clearly revealed to us as are the figures of henry and elizabeth and mary in the sixteenth. their capability, their vitality and their attainments would have made them striking persons in any position of life. each, indeed, possessed the three qualities which make a really interesting personality--and such personalities are but a small proportion of the neutral-tinted multitude who are good and kind and industrious--and nothing more. they, the three personalities, could all see facts for themselves; they could all see the relative value of facts (the rarest of the three qualities); and they could all draw sound inferences from the larger facts. the three individuals presented however but two types of character. henry and elizabeth were examples of one type and mary of another. the tudor father and daughter were, as we have already seen, not examples merely but _extreme_ examples of the unimpassioned, ever active, ever visible class. mary was as extreme an example of the impassioned, meditative, persistent and tenacious class. it was a remarkable coincidence that pitted two such mental and bodily extremes against each other. all sane human beings have much more of that which is common to the character of the race than they have of that which is peculiar to the individual. there was not only this common basis of human nature in elizabeth and mary, there was something more: both were singularly capable, brilliant, witty and brave (mary being the braver and her bravery being the more tried). the two queens had certain unusual advantages in common, for both were educated to the highest ideal of female education--very curiously a higher ideal then than at any other time before, or even since, until our own generation; both, too, had much experience of life--the larger and the less elevating share falling to mary's lot. but here the resemblance ceases. what in elizabeth tudor were slight though shrill rivulets of love and hate and anger and scorn and jealousy, or of pity or gratitude, were mighty and rushing torrents in mary stuart. we have seen what elizabeth was: in many ways mary was the exact opposite, for she was not at all given to bustle or change or acrimony or captiousness or suspicion. she was not, it is true, without vanity; she had ample grounds for having it and she was deeply human, but (it was not so with elizabeth) her pride was even greater than her vanity. the elements which met together in mary were all of a finer quality than those which were found in elizabeth; but in mary some troublous elements were added to the choicer ones. in her high land there were ominous volcanic peaks, while in the decorous plain of elizabeth's character there was a monotonous blending of vegetation and sand. in some of our greatest characters (the truism is well-worn) there have been grave defects. burns' life never comes to any generous mind save with the deepest regret as well as the keenest admiration. bacon's was a great mind with a great fault. shakspere and goethe--the two foremost spirits which time has yet given to us--are not held to have led altogether stainless lives. now the queen of scots was not by any means one of the immortals, but she was nevertheless and in truth a great woman. yet in the splendid block out of which the ever-pathetic figure of mary was chiselled there came to light an ineradicable flaw. the good and evil of all these characters were mainly, though not wholly (for circumstance must not be forgotten), due to organisation and inheritance. a little difference in their organisation, and they would have been other individuals than they were, and would most likely have remained unknown to us; but having the parentage they had, and being what they were, a little difference in circumstance would probably have mattered little. what there was in each of organisation, what of circumstance, and what of volition, is a problem the solution of which is still far off. in all of them volition, whatever that may be, did its best; organisation, let us say, did its worst; circumstance looked on, helping here and hindering there,--the compromise is history. as the six-wives business clings to henry's name, so does the darnley matter, though curiously with less odium, cling to that of mary. henry has had no friends save those who lived in or near his time. in our time an inquirer, here or there, strives perhaps to gain for him something of impartial judgment. mary has never been without warm friends, and her friends seem to grow in number and in warmth. the controversy still rages touching mary's part in the tragic event which inflicted so deep a wound into her life. but although the controversy goes on at even fever heat, the public judgment remains cool and is probably just. it is kept cool and just by the weight of a few colossal truths which the deftest manipulation of a cloud of smaller truths cannot hide. at critical moments the physiological historian, who looks steadily at a few large incidents in the light of human nature, discovers clues which escape the vision of the purely literary historian, who is for ever diving--and usefully diving--into the wells of parchment detail. in reality it matters little whether this diver or that has dived most deeply; matters little whether certain documents are spurious or genuine. mary stuart accepted--she certainly did not reject--the passion of a certain man; that man was a leader among a number of men who murdered her husband; after the murder mary stuart married that particular man, and thereby most assuredly held a candle to murder. this was mary. now if everything that has been said in her favour could be proved, she would be but little better than this; if everything that has been said against her could be proved, she would be but little worse. the student of historic characters never forgets the time the country and the circumstance in which his characters lived. we are now looking at a time when not only noble and ignoble characters existed side by side, but when noble and less noble elements existed together in one and the same character. for indeed the good elements of a better time come in slowly, and the evil elements of a bad past die a lingering death. the active scotland (there was, we know, a good quiet scotland in the background), the active scotland of tudor times was given over to factions, fanatics, self-seekers and assassins. life was taken and given with scant ceremony. the highest personages of that time contrived murder, or sanctioned it, or forgave it--the popes did, continental sovereigns did, henry did, elizabeth did. the murders thus contrived or sanctioned or condoned were, it is true, mainly on behalf of thrones or dominions or religions, while the murder which mary assuredly forgave, if she did not sanction, was on behalf of her passions. the moral difference between murder for a crown and murder for a love we may not now discuss. it was to this scotland, the active and factious scotland just described, that the young queen of nineteen years was brought--brought from a different atmosphere and with an unpropitious training. the more favoured elizabeth meanwhile was ruling over a quieter, a more united people, and was helped at her council-table by high-minded and unselfish men. it is useless now perhaps to ask if we may be allowed to admire the gifts, to deplore the faults, and to pity the fate of the more unfortunate queen. we can indeed, individually, do what we please, but the queen's posterity with no uncertain voice has declared that we may. emerson says that the great soul of the world is just, and the great soul has kept mary within the territory of its favour. it would seem that the affection and devotion which were given to mary were not based on any single great or on any group of great actions; they were based (it is to her credit) on daily acts of kindliness and patience and unruffled grace. the sum of mary's qualities, whatever they were, endowed her with the rare gift of making the world her friend; and the world does not, as a rule, make lasting friendships on insufficient grounds. mary indeed, with all her faults, deserved a better country than scotland; and england, it may be added, deserved a more gracious queen than elizabeth. but whatever she deserved or whatever she was fitted for, mary's fate was destined to be one of the saddest of recorded time. inward force and outer circumstance are so commingled that mortal reason fails to disentangle them. to-day men _seem_ to put a curb on circumstance, and to-morrow circumstance _seems_ to run away with men. an ocean of complex and imperious circumstance surged around two queens, one it lifted up and kept afloat and carried into a secure haven, the other it tossed mercilessly to and fro and finally drew her underneath its waves. a number of leading scottish nobles gave out and probably believed that the wretched darnley's life was incompatible with the general good. bothwell was but one of this number. yet how clear it has ever been to all eyes, save to those of the blindly passionate actors themselves, that the scottish queen's fatal error, even if there were no grave error before, was in marrying any one of the misguided band. but misguidance was in the ascendant. could she by some magic web have concealed the husbands from each other and have married them all, she would at any rate have fared no worse than she did. but, to be serious, if a queen marries one of half a dozen ambitious assassins, the other five will assuredly make her life intolerable and her rule impossible. in no aspect of character did the two queens differ more than in their attitude to religion. elizabeth's piety, like her father's, though less deep than his, was of a similar passionless, perceptive, unreflective order. mary's religion, like elizabeth's, like that of all individuals in all parts of the world, was no doubt at first the product of her early surroundings; but with the scottish queen it was much more than this--it was a profoundly passionate conviction and a deeply revered ideal. a living writer, who is perhaps unrivalled in the historic art and who rarely errs in his historic judgments, is less happy than is his wont in his verdict on the catholic queen. he avers that she had no share "in the deeper and nobler emotions;" yet almost in the same breath he states that she had "a purpose fixed as the stars to trample down the reformation." to have a purpose "fixed as the stars" to trample down _one_ religion was, in that age of the world, surely to have a purpose "fixed as the stars" to strengthen and protect _another_; to yearn to put down the reformation was surely to yearn to bring in catholicism--catholic teaching and catholic rites and catholic rule. we may not be catholics, but we are not entitled to say that from an impassioned catholic woman's point of view this was not a high ideal; it had been the ideal of the judicial mind, sir thomas more, as well as the ideal of the enthusiast, ignatius loyola; it had been for a thousand years the ideal of a multitude of noble natures both men and women. elizabeth, opportunely enough, had no ideals of any kind; ideals indeed are often inconvenient in a ruler; but she had, despite her acrimonious speech, plenty of sincerely good wishes and good intentions for all the world. if the queen of england had no ideals she had many devices, and one was to check the flow of all sorts of zeal, especially protestant zeal. in the two lives religion told in different ways--the difference was in the two natures, be it noted, not in the two religions. elizabeth, with a skin-deep religion only, was evenly and enduringly virtuous. mary had ardent and deep convictions, but her career was not one of unbroken virtue. elizabeth was certainly unfortunate in her religious attitudes. she did not like the protestants for she was not a good protestant; the catholics did not like her for she was not a good catholic. in religion, indeed as in all things, she was greatly influenced by her inborn spirit of "contrariness." if the catholics had intrigued less persistently against her throne and her life, and if (the idea is sufficiently ludicrous) the queen of scotland had chanced to run in harness with the hated john knox (hated of both queens), she would gladly have given the rein to her catholic impulses. the two queens differed as much in body as in mind. i have elsewhere sought to show not only that certain leading features of character tend to run together (in itself a distinct contribution to our knowledge), but also that these allied features are associated with a group of bodily peculiarities, a contribution, if it really is a contribution, of greatly additional interest. elizabeth, large and pink-skinned like her father, was by no means without impressiveness and even stateliness. she carried her head a little forward and her chin a little downward, both these positions being due to a slightly curved upper spine. her hair was scanty and her eyebrows were practically absent. all these bodily items, as well as her mental items, she inherited from her father. mary had a wholly different figure and a different presence; her head was upright, her spine straight; in her back there was no convexity either vertically or transversely. her eyebrows were abundant and her head of hair was long and massive. all these peculiarities, too, we may be quite sure, she derived from her parentage (not necessarily the nearest parents) on one side or the other. in my little work on body and parentage in character i urge--it is well to say here--that the bodily signs of certain classes of character (two more marked and one intervening) are now and then subject to the modifying influences of ailment and accident, and especially when these happen in early life. in elizabeth and mary, however, no such influences disturbed the development of two strongly-marked examples, both in body and in character, of two large classes of women and, with but little alteration, of two large classes of men also. [for index see full table of contents.] hall & english, printers, no. , high street, birmingham.