seriousness, but, somehow or other, Sheridan's | work against base tools; did not countermine 'Critic' is constantly, either from its genuine works of darkness with works of darkness; wit or from some perverse old associations, but considering the warfare in which he was blended in our mind with the reign of Eliza- engaged, the enemies against whom he had beth. We do not allude to the warning to strive, the interests which he had, we say against 'Scandal about Queen Elizabeth, not to reconcile, but to balance against each which Scott so cleverly placed as his motto other; the Queen, the woman, we must add, before Kenilworth;' but to a scene, the whom in all her humours, caprices, passions, triumph of Mr. Puff's tragic art, which sin- prejudices, he had to keep in the path of gularly typifies almost this whole reign, espe- honour and of glory, it is marvellous how his cially its commencement: There's a situation character comes forth, with still more comfor you!-there's an heroic group! You see manding greatness, in the broad and glaring the ladies can't stab Whiskerandos; he durst light which Mr. Froude's discoveries have not stab them, for fear of their uncles; the thrown upon him. Whenever Elizabeth uncles durst not kill him for fear of their went wrong, Cecil was not heard, Cecil was nieces. I have them all at a dead lock, for absent, Cecil was in disgrace, or his influence every one is afraid to let go first! Even so was in abeyance; and it is perhaps more Elizabeth dared not defy or quarrel with extraordinary, when Elizabeth righted, as she Philip, for fear, not of him only, but of her always did come right-when her better own Catholic subjects; Philip could not stab nature returned, as it almost always did rethe heretic to the heart, for fear of France; turn, this regeneration was either inspired by Philip, too, was in dread of the heretics in Cecil, or urged by Cecil for the advantage of the Low Countries; the King of France the country, for the fame of Elizabeth herself. (Henry II.), of the Huguenots; Elizabeth At one period only of obscuration, the concould not resolutely take part with the Re- duct of Cecil seems inexplicable, nor do we formers in France or in Scotland; hatred of believe that Mr. Froude has quite explained England, and nationality, would not allow it; and at that time when the baleful star of the Scotch Reformers to league heartily with Leicester was in the ascendant, at its very Elizabeth. Elizabeth could not, or would height, Cecil, in his desperation, had almost not, boldly take their part, from dread of a withdrawn from the contest, and left Elizabeth rival for her own throne in Mary, believed by to her own wayward and perverse will. But most of her Catholic subjects, asserted by Cecil rallied, if Cecil had ever really desmany, to be the legitimate Queen of England. paired; Elizabeth came to her senses; and No one could let go first-no one could the greatest peril which loomed over the move on account of the dagger at his or her future of England, of human liberty, and rethroat; no one could strike the other with- formed religion, passed away with the restored out provoking a more formidable enemy. ascendancy of Cecil. It is really curious to Never was such a game of political cross- trace Cecil throughout these volumes; and purposes, which no dexterity could play out, let us remember that it was Elizabeth who no address bring to a safe termination. On had the wisdom to choose Cecil from the host the issues of this conflict hung the future of of her not less ambitious and more obsequious England, of religious reformation, and this councillors; and that to Cecil alone, she was, depended upon a woman, in some respects a with slight breaks, constant to the end :

very woman.

The

'To Cecil, indeed, it was that Elizabeth had But Elizabeth had her good genius. By turned with exceptional and solitary confidence. her side as she emerged from her prison, the He had received her instructions beforehand how firm supporter of her steps as she ascended to act; and while she herself remained at Hather throne, stood Sir William Cecil, and by field, without waiting to communicate with her, her throne almost throughout her reign rehe assumed the instant direction of the Governmained Cecil-faithful to the end, wise to the ment. Within an hour of Mary's death he had sketched the form of the proclamation. end; in all material points, and with some brief interruptions, trusted to the end. In all The ports were closed. Couriers sped east, west, same day he changed the guard at the Tower. this revelation of the dark secrets of domes- north, and south, to Brussels, to Vienna, to tic and foreign policy, the wisdom of Cecil Venice, to Denmark. but shines the brighter and more conspicuous. marches were charged to watch the Northern We mean not that in this labyrinth of intrigue Border. Before the evening of the 17th of Noand counter-intrigue, of duplicity and counter-vember, the garrisons on the Kent and Sussex duplicity, of mendacity and counter-menda- shores had trimmed their beacons, and looked to city, through which Wellington himself could A safe preacher was selected for the hardly have kept a straightforward course, Cecil did not meet craft with craft, hypocrisy with hypocrisy; did not use base tools to

their arms.

The wardens of the

Sunday's sermon at Paul's Cross, "that no occasion might be given to stir any dispute touching the governance of the realm."

'The next step, characteristic both of Cecil and

his mistress, was to stanch the wounds without | questionable act of Cecil, his intercourse with the delay of a moment, through which the ex-De Quadra. Nor must we confine the usechequer was bleeding to death.'—i. pp. 14–15. fulness of Cecil to foreign, or what were called State affairs.

'A paper of measures,' thus writes Mr. Froude, was sketched by Cecil for the national defences, the first of which-characteristic of his simple piety-was "to see the realm set in order with a clergy, that the ire of God light not upon the people." (Mar. 1560).-i. p. 210.

The Treaty of Edinburgh (July, 1560) was the work of Cecil. That the treaty was never ratified, that it seemed to make worse confusion, was the result of circumstances: of the death of Francis II. and the altered position of Mary Queen of Scots, which Cecil could not foresee, over which he had no control. Cecil's temporary loss of influence through his absence in Scotland, only showed how indispensable he was to Elizabeth and to England. We shall revert to the one

Leicester was the evil genius of Elizabeth. | weeks, the sullen, almost contemptuous, coIt was this fatal weakness, her passion for habitation, the meddling in the affairs of the this vain, unprincipled, incapable man, which country, the dragging England into his wars, nearly wrecked her fame and her country; seemingly his only interest in the kingdom which even after she had resolutely burst the of his wife. And if Philip had any hopes of bondage and submitted-reluctantly, but success, his mode of courtship was not likely absolutely submitted-to the will of her sub- to move Elizabeth. No doubt if she had not jects, who she avowed would not permit her seen the extraordinary letter,* printed by Mr. to marry Leicester; it was yet the uneradi- Froude (and it was shown about in the cated, if subdued, passion which made her so Court), she could well divine its purport, fatally, as Mr. Motley has shown, commit her that Philip had condescended, after a violent affairs in the Low Countries to this most unfit struggle, to sacrifice himself for the sake of of men. his religion; to offer his hand to the Queen, in order to rescue the benighted Elizabeth and benighted England from the perdition of heresy.

Yet something may be said, at least, if not to excuse, to palliate the infirmity of Elizabeth. Robert Dudley had been her playmate in youth; he had been her fellow-prisoner in the Tower. He was young, he was handsome, he was a smooth courtier. He had, what Elizabeth describes, a peculiar delicacy, wanting, perhaps, in her other ruder and more manly nobles.

His want of capacity, if she clearly discerned it, may have been almost a recommendation. Whomsoever she married, if she married, Elizabeth would still be no less than Queen. She did not want, she could not have brooked, a rival on the throne, even though that rival were her husband. That she loved Robert Dudley, though Mr. Froude throws out cold doubts, yet surely we may trust her speech, when in her perilous illness (she had been almost dead for four days) she could not but believe that she was dying, she uttered these words, which, we confess, sound to us pathetically true :—

*

'At midnight the fever cooled, the skin grew moist, the spots began to appear, and after four hours of unconsciousness, Elizabeth returned to herself. The Council crowded round the bed. She believed that she was dying: her first words, before she had collected her senses, were of Lord Robert, and she begged that he might be made Protector of the Realm. As she grew more composed, her mind still running on the same subject, she said she loved Lord Robert dearly, and had long loved him; but she called God to witness that "nothing unseemly" had ever passed between them.'-i. pp. 430-431.

Consider, too, who were the rivals—we -we will not say for her heart-for her hand. It is really amusing to run over the list of Elizabeth's wooers. The first (we pass over Philibert of Savoy) was no less than her sister's late husband, Philip II. Philip, who, if there were no other objection, had shown, by his cold, killing neglect, what were his notions of matrimonial duty and attachment in comparison with his duties as King of Spain. Now and then a flying visit of a few

October, 1562,

'Nevertheless, considering how essential it is, in the general interests of Christendom, to maintain that realm in the religion which, by God's help, has been restored in it-considering the inconveniences, the perils, the calamities which may arise, not only there, but in these States also, if England relapse into error-I have decided to encounter the difficulty, to sacrifice my private inclination in the service of our Lord, and to marry the Queen of England.'-i. pp. 35-36.

Then came the boy Arran, whom Elizabeth saw in secret, but whose utter folly (the half-crazy fool, Mr. Froude calls him-that craziness broke out afterwards in something hardly above idiotcy) could hardly escape keen observation of the Queen. He was even below Darnley in intellect; and conceive. Elizabeth wedded to a Darnley!

the

Of the King of Sweden, Mr. Froude plainly says, in a note, that there was not so great a ruffian among the crowned heads of Europe.

Unquestionably the most eligible, the least objectionable, were the two Archdukes. The elder, Ferdinand, Elizabeth ridiculed :-'She was told, she said, that he was a fine Catholic, and knew how to tell his beads and pray for the souls in purgatory' (i. p. 97).

Of the younger, Charles, almost all that head than the Earl of Bedford.' This Archwas then known was that he had a 'bigger duke was for a time the candidate of the country, of Cecil himself. But Elizabeth, either from policy, prudence, or a woman's natural feeling (whether the large head-in Bedford certainly not incompatible with abilities and virtues of a high order-might threaten sullenness and stupidity) was determined against a blind bargain. She insisted

Last, at this period (in later days was to come the miserable Duke of Anjou), was Charles IX. of France; a boy of fourteen. What Charles became, under the misguidance of his mother, even the sagacity of Elizabeth and of Cecil could not foresee. St. Bartholomew's day cast no shadow before. But a boy of fourteen for Elizabeth, then twentyseven!! especially when the great object was an heir to the throne.t

on a visit to her Court from her suitor. | of Aquilla. It is from the correspondence For some reason or other, this not unreason- of De Quadra that Mr. Froude has drawn able demand was always resisted, or put off his most curious and original information. by the Emperor or by the Archduke himself. It was a gladiatorial contest for the life and Cecil in two remarkable papers balances the death of England, for the power and fame claims of the Archduke against those of of the Spanish King. To De Quadra's ears, Leicester.* Still Cecil must have known, as ever open, came every fact, every rumour, Elizabeth well knew, that the Archduke was every conversation, every whisper in the a Catholic of the Spanish house; might be Court, in the city, in the country, and every dangerously enslaved to the religion and to the minutest incident was faithfully transmitthe politics of Philip. With the strength of ted to the expectant ear of his Sovereign. the Catholic faction, it might be dangerous De Quadra was in constant, it might seem to have a head of that faction on the throne; confidential, communication with the Queen; and Elizabeth was almost less disposed to Cecil himself might appear hardly more deep have one set over her in religion than in in her counsels. He saw her in all her civil rule. moods, serious or playful; in her private chamber, in her amusements. He saw her everywhere but in her chapel; but everything which took place in that chapel, every prayer, the cross or no cross, every Romish or anti-Romish posture, ceremony, every genuflexion, was reported in the most minute and particular detail. He was on the most intimate footing with all the nobility, Catholic or Protestant. To him of course the Catholics looked as their guiding star; he held them, and with them perhaps two-thirds of the kingdom, as in a leash, to let slip when it might suit his master's interests. His great trial and difficulty was to hold them back from premature and ill-timed mutiny or rebellion. With Cecil himself for a time, till Cecil felt himself strong enough to endeavour to rid the land and the Queen of this importunate and dangerous visitor, he was, outwardly at least, on most amicable terms. In his residence, Durham House, in the Strand, all the intriguing, all the discontented, all the disaffected found security and audience; the stricter Roman Catholics could steal to the unmutilated rites of their Church; and it was only at a late period that Cecil dared to venture the unhousing of that formidable foe. To trace the workings and counter-workings, to disentangle the inextricable net, is even now, after all the Samancas revelations, scarcely possible. Some of Cecil's most questionable acts may perhaps have some hidden motive which cannot be detected. two consummate players at diplomatic chess so concealed their game, that the looker-on, proverbially keen-sighted, may at last be baffled. When Cecil allowed his Queen to be in check, it may have been but a feint to drive his adversary's King into a corner.

On Cecil's side, besides his own unrivalled sagacity, his lofty principle, his sturdy and earnest Protestantism, his lofty hopes of the future of his country, was all the right feeling of England: the jealousy and hatred of all classes, especially of almost all the statesmen and nobles, of Leicester; Leicester's own wretched character, the ineffaceable suspicion which attached to him as to his wife's death. On the side of Leicester was the Queen's weakness, not by any means to be depended upon; even on this her weakest point flashes of good sense, of lofty feeling, of shame at her weakness, were constantly breaking forth; the whole Catholic interest, with which Dudley was endeavouring to identify himself; the Spanish Ambassador, the most consummate master in the craft of diplomacy; and, through the Spanish Ambassador, the King of Spain. This Good and this Evil Genius of Elizabeth were to join in mortal struggle, and try their powers of magic over the Queen.

For against Cecil, Philip II., who was never wanting in discernment in the choice of his agents and ministers, had pitted the very ablest and most devoted, De Quadra, Bishop

*See Notes i. 282, ii. 286.

The reader must turn to ii. p. 123 et seqq., for the very strange yet characteristic letters of the scheming, unscrupulous Catherine, the argumentum ad hominem, pressed upon Cecil:-The Queen mother liketh marvellous well that you had a son in your fourteenth or fifteenth year and thinketh you may serve as an example to the Queen's Majesty not to contemn the young years

of the King.'

These

It was the Leicester marriage which nearly threw the game into De Quadra's hands. This intrigue, in its depth, intricacy, and in its imminent success, is the most extra

ordinary of Mr. Froude's revelations. It thick of the plot-with a letter of De Quadra commences at least we plunge into the

Cecil, 'firing a last shot as he took his leave (of De Quadra),' added, that if the Pope wrote to the Queen, he must address her as Defender of the Faith; if her titles were inadequately rendered, the letter would not be

received.'

to the Regent of the Netherlands (vol. i. | frankly and honestly. The points which he 227). Cecil, he says (and of this fact there concedes about the Council are of great value. is undoubted evidence in Cecil's correspond"The Queen's position is a most difficult one; ence with Randolph), was in disgrace. but although it is possible the consciousness 'Lord Robert, I was aware, was endeavour Robert, may make her really desirous to rejoin of her danger, united with her passion for Lord ing to deprive him of his place.' Cecil, in a the Church, so it is possible that she may familiar conversation, allowed himself to be be playing a game to keep in favour with your led by the wily Spaniard to the fatal subject. Majesty, and to deceive her Catholic subjects 'It was time,' he said, 'for a prudent sailor with hopes which she has no intention of fulfillto make for port when he saw a storm ing (March, 1561).—i. 336.* coming; and for himself he perceived the most manifest ruin impending over the Queen through her intimacy with Lord Robert.' He dwelt on that intimacy, her determination to marry him; that the realm would not tolérate it; for himself, he should withdraw from public affairs, and retire into the country, if he were not sent to the Tower.' He also said that they were thinking of destroying Lord Robert's wife.' But the reader must peruse this whole letter, which betrayed, among other secrets, the determination of a powerful party to set the Earl of Huntingdon on the throne. Cecil himself told me that he, Huntingdon, was the true heir to the Crown.' After this conversation, but before the letter was despatched, the news had arrived of the death of Amy Robsart. What is the meaning of all this? Mr. Froude acknowledges the insoluble difficulty. That Cecil, the cautious Cecil, should make De Quadra his confidant in what bordered on treason, and when he was in danger of the Tower. Is it possible that in his desperation Cecil, to whom the Queen would not now listen, would suppose that she might receive the warning of her peril from De Quadra?

This was in September, 1560. But Cecil is not in the Tower: he is not out of place; he is in intercourse with the wise Paget, he is in correspondence with Throckmorton, who dares to remonstrate with the Queen against the marriage.

In January, 1561, the darker plot unfolds itself. It is no less than that Elizabeth, in order to marry Leicester, should throw herself altogether upon the alliance with Spain and with Philip, and, under the protection of Philip, restore the religion of Spain and of Rome. The overtures to this unholy alliance were made to De Quadra, alas! by Sir Henry Sidney, the brother-in-law of Leicester. But De Quadra was mistaken if he thought that in her hour of extremest peril, of extremest weakness, Cecil had deserted his mistress. He was determined to save his mistress if she could be saved.' We find him in March 'baffling and mystifying De Quadra himself."

་

'I know not what to think; things are so perplexed that they utterly confuse me: Cecil is a violent heretic; but he is neither a fool nor a liar, and he pretends to be dealing with me

The first step in the plot was the admission of a Papal nuncio to the Court. With his consummate dexterity, Cecil seized on this point on which all England was specially sensitive. The awful word Premunire was heard. Elizabeth had begun to draw back; she sent for De Quadra; she asked

'particularly what Philip had proposed to do about Lord Robert and herself in case Catho

licism was restored.

'De Quadra replied sullenly that Philip had proposed nothing. Overtures had been made by Sir Henry Sidney, by Lord Robert, and by herself; Lord Robert had declared expressly, in his own name and hers, that England was to be brought back to the Church; and the King of Spain, who was only anxious for the welfare of the news' (May, 1561).-i. p. 341. the realm, had expressed extreme pleasure at

We

But Cecil had not yet faced the worst. We must give the following extraordinary scene in De Quadra's words. It was a waterparty on the Thames, on St. John's Day, with all London abroad and agape. must understand that Cecil had dexterously committed the Government with measures adverse to the Catholics. De Quadra had remonstrated :—

'She listened patiently and thanked me for my advice. In the afternoon we were in a barge, watching the games on the river. She was alone with the Lord Robert and myself on the poop, when they began to talk nonsense, and went so far, that Lord Robert at last said, as I should not be married, if the Queen pleased. was on the spot there was no reason why they She said that perhaps I did not understand sufficient English. I let them trifle in this way for a time, and then I said gravely to them both, that if they would be guided by me, they would

*About a year later, De Quadra, who had boasted that he had spies everywhere (on one occasion he says that he knew the exact sum which Cecil had expended on a certain object), discovered that his own secretary was in Cecil's pay: his most secret papers in Cecil's hands.— i. p. 397.