Part 20 (2/2)

Philip of Spain and his representatives in England had not realised the true strength of Elizabeth's position, and certainly had no suspicion that she and her advisers were entirely alive to it. On this point they had absolutely no misgivings. They took it for granted that the English queen must place herself in their hands and meekly obey their behests, if only in order to secure Spanish support against France. Philip began operations by proposing him self as her husband, expecting thereby to obtain for himself a far greater degree of power than he had derived from his union with her sister, while inviting her to share the throne of the first Power in Europe. But Elizabeth and Cecil were alive to the completeness of the hold on Philip they already possessed; and Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, would have utterly stultified her own position by marrying her dead sister's husband, since it would be necessary to obtain a papal dispensation, acknowledge the Pope's authority, and recognise by implication the validity of her father's marriage with Katharine of Aragon. To the amba.s.sador's amazed indignation, the Queen with the support of the Council, decisively rejected the honour. Paget, who had in the last reign stood almost alone in commending the Spanish match, would have repeated his counsel now; but he had been displaced, while Cecil and his mistress were entirely at one.

The Queen's argument that the marriage, however attractive to herself or desirable politically, was, from her point of view out of the question, was unanswerable. The Spaniards had to cast about for some other candidate for her hand, whose success would still be likely to attach England to the chariot-wheels of Spain; besides seeking another bride for their own King.

When Philip's hand was definitely declined, three months after Elizabeth's accession, the most pressing danger arising out of the Marriage question was at an end. Thenceforward, dalliance with would-be suitors became simply one of the tactical tricks of Elizabeth's diplomacy, employed by her perhaps not less to the torment of her own advisers than to the perturbation of foreign chancelleries; seeing that whether she knew her own mind or not, up to the last she invariably took very good care that no one else should know it.

[Sidenote: The Religious Question]

One of Philip's main objects was as a matter of course to secure England, through its queen, for Catholicism; and there is very little doubt that at this time the majority of Englishmen--at any rate outside the dioceses of London, Norwich and Canterbury--would have acquiesced much more readily in the maintenance of the old forms of wors.h.i.+p than in inst.i.tutions modelled after Geneva. Elizabeth however, with her trusted advisers, leaned neither to the one nor to the other. They were guided by considerations not of creed but of politics. They had realised that the repudiation of the authority of the Holy See, and the a.s.sertion of the supremacy of the sovereign in matters ecclesiastical, were essential. If they were determined not to submit to Papal claims, they were equally disinclined to submit to the claims of a Calvinistic Ministry, posing as the mouth-pieces of the Almighty, demanding secular obedience on the a.n.a.logy of Samuel or Elijah. As to creed, what the statesmen saw was that the utmost lat.i.tude of dogmatic belief must be recognised; provided that it was consistent with the supremacy of the secular sovereign, and with a moderately elastic uniformity of ritual. The personal predilections of Elizabeth might be in favour of what we call the Higher doctrines, or those of Cecil might lean to the Lower; but neither was willing to impose penalties or disabilities for opinions or practices which did not tend either to the anarchism of the Anabaptists, or to the Sacerdotalism of Rome on the one hand or Geneva on the other hand; both were even disposed to remain in official unconsciousness of such individual transgressors as could conveniently be ignored.

[Sidenote: A Protestant policy]

While the Spanish amba.s.sador, De Feria, like his master, had almost taken it for granted that if Philip offered to marry Elizabeth he would be accepted, he was from the first greatly perturbed as to the att.i.tude of the new Government towards the religious question. That Cecil was going to be chief minister, and that he was, in the political sense, a Protestant, were both manifest facts. All the extreme Catholics, and some of the moderate ones, were displaced from the Council; those who were left might prefer the Ma.s.s to the Communion, but only as King Henry had done. The new members were definitely Protestants. Heath, Archbishop of York, Mary's Chancellor, though personally esteemed, gave place to Nicholas Bacon (as ”Lord Keeper”), whose wife and Cecil's were sisters, and measures were being taken to secure a Protestant House of Commons when Parliament should meet. The number of lay peers was increased by four Protestants; among the twenty-seven bishoprics, Archbishop Pole had omitted to fill up several vacancies, while a sudden mortality was afflicting the episcopal bench. Around the queen, Protestant influences were immensely predominant. It is quite unnecessary to turn to an injudicious letter from Pope Paul to find a motive for the anti-Roman att.i.tude which from the very outset was so obvious to De Feria. [Footnote: _MSS. Simancas, apud_ Froude, vii., p. 27. De Feria to Philip.] Whatever prevarications or ambiguities Elizabeth might indulge in to him, it is quite clear that, whether she liked it or not, she felt that her position required an anti-Roman policy, if her independence was to be secured and the prestige of England among the nations was to be restored.

[Sidenote: 1559 Parliament: The Act of Supremacy]

The methods of the new Government however were to be strictly legal; changes must have parliamentary sanction. At the coronation, the authorised forms obtained. But at the end of January, the Houses met; and during the following four months the whole of the Marian legislation was wiped out, as Mary had wiped out the legislation of the preceding reign. The first measures brought forward were financial--as the first step Cecil had taken was to dispatch an agent to the Netherland cities to negotiate a loan--a Tonnage and Poundage bill, a Subsidy, and a First-fruits bill which marked the revival of the claims of the Crown against ecclesiastical revenues. These bills were skilfully introduced, and well-received; for it was expected that the money would be expended where it was needed, on national defence. Next, the new Act of Supremacy was introduced, against which the small phalanx of bishops fought with determination, supported by the protest of Convocation. It was not in fact carried till April; and then the actual t.i.tle of ”Supreme Head,” which Mary and Philip had surrendered, was not revived, but a different formula was used, the Crown being declared ”Supreme in all causes as well ecclesiastical as civil”. The Act once more repealed the lately revived heresy Acts, and forbade proceedings on the ground of false opinions, except where these were opposed to the decisions of the first four General Councils or the plain words of Scripture. Moreover, the refusal of the Oath was not to be treason, as under Henry VIII.; it merely precluded the recusant from office. All save one of the Marian bishops did refuse it and were deprived; most of them doubtless would have done so even in the face of the old penalties. Incidentally it authorised the appointment of a Commission to deal with ecclesiastical offences, which took shape five and twenty years later as the Court of High Commission. But taken altogether, the measure was a long step in the direction of a much wider toleration than had ever been practised before.

[Sidenote: The Prayer-book, etc.]

In the meantime, the Prayer-book had been undergoing a final revision; and here Elizabeth's own wish would undoubtedly have been to revert to that of 1549. The disciples however of the Swiss school were too strong, and the last Prayer-book of Edward was the basis of the new one, though some sentences were so modified as to cause them dissatisfaction, and higher practices in the matter of ornaments and ceremonial were enjoined. The Act of Uniformity, imposing the use of the Prayer-book on the clergy, resulted in resignations which according to the records did not exceed two hundred. To account for so small a number, we must suppose that the regulations were to a considerable extent evaded; if not, the clergy must have been singularly obsequious.

The only remaining Act of importance was that for the Recognition of the Queen, which declared her to be the lawful sovereign by blood, and repealed in general terms all Acts or judgments [Footnote: _Cf._ Moore, p. 241.] pa.s.sed in a contrary sense, legitimating her without examining the grounds on which her mother's marriage had been declared invalid--a method of settling the question entirely sufficient on the theory of parliamentary sovereignty, but wholly inadequate on the theory of Divine Right.

It was not till some months later that the depletion of the bench of Bishops by deaths or deprivations was remedied. Matthew Parker, a man of moderation and ability, was selected as Archbishop of Canterbury, the consecration being performed by Barlow--who had resigned Bath and Wells under Mary--with Coverdale, Scory, and Hodgekins. The question whether the Apostolic Succession was duly conveyed at the hands of these prelates belongs rather to ecclesiastical history--even to theological controversy--than to general history. It is sufficient here to observe that it turns mainly on the doubt which has been thrown without real justification on Barlow's own ordination as a Bishop. [Footnote: See the Lives of Parker by Strype and Hook; and a brief summary in Moore, pp. 245-247.] After the Archbishop's consecration, the vacant sees were filled up, generally with moderate men, with a leaning towards Zurich or even Lutheranism rather than the old Catholicism or Calvinism, but always in accord with the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity.

In point of time, however, the story of these last events has carried us a year forward, and we have to return to the first six months of the new reign and the relations of Elizabeth to France.

[Sidenote: France and Peace]

Before Mary's death, an armistice was in operation. England did not mean to conclude peace with France, unless Calais was restored, and Philip could not desert England lest an effort should be made to place Mary Stewart on the throne--on which Henry could not venture while Spain supported Elizabeth. Unsuccessful diplomatic attempts were made to negotiate separately with the allied Powers, and to induce Elizabeth formally to recognise the Queen of Scots as heir presumptive--which however she stoutly declined to do, being aware that the obvious effect of such a course would be to invite her own immediate a.s.sa.s.sination, to secure Mary's immediate accession. Moreover, Philip was not without a direct interest in England's recovery of Calais, because of its position on the border of the Netherlands. In the event, however, the English felt that, since the Spanish marriage was rejected, the claims on Philip must not be pressed too hard; and in the final terms of the Peace of Cateau Cambresis, France was allowed to retain Calais under promise to restore it after eight years, while she was formally to recognise Elizabeth as lawful queen of England, with the adhesion of Mary and her husband.

Now however, parties and persons in Scotland become so inextricably interwoven with the English queen's policy and her relations with parties and persons in France, that Scottish affairs demand close attention.

[Sidenote: State of Scotland]

In December, 1542, James V. of Scotland had died leaving a daughter just a week old. When Elizabeth ascended the English throne, the Northern country had for sixteen years been governed or misgoverned by regents and Councils of regency. From early childhood, the little queen had been brought up at the French court, under the more particular tutelage of her uncles, the Duke of Guise and his brothers. In 1558, at the age of fifteen, she was married to the Dauphin. Now (and for some time past) her mother, Mary of Guise--not the least able member of a very able family--was Regent of Scotland, supported in that position against the Protestant factions by a French garrison. In the natural course of events, the Scottish Protestant party looked to England for support, and favoured in the abstract the idea of uniting the English and Scottish crowns, though in the concrete they would not admit an English King. All Scottish sentiment, without distinction of party, rebelled against any prospect of Scotland becoming an appanage of any foreign Power, and the idea of subordination to France was only less unpopular than that of subordination to England. Moreover, with their young queen married to the Heir Apparent of France, and with a Guise supported by French troops as Regent in Scotland, this latter danger seemed the less pressing.

Now the extremes of religious partisans.h.i.+p were more general and more deeply rooted in Scotland than in England; partly because the corruption of the clergy had been more flagrant; partly because in a country where deeds of violence were comparatively ordinary, they had been freely committed under the cloak of religion. The French influence had been cast against the Reformation. The Reformers had murdered Cardinal Beton; John Knox had been taken from St. Andrews to the French galleys; and the Preachers were at war with the Regency. The two men who were about to prove themselves along with Knox the ablest statesmen in Scotland--James Stewart, afterwards famous as the Regent Murray, and young Maitland of Lethington--were on the side of the Preachers, and of what was the same thing, now that a Protestant government was restored in England, the English alliance. Moreover it has to be borne in mind that whereas in England the Reformation was imposed, whether willingly or unwillingly, on the Nation by the Government; in Scotland it was a popular movement which a Government, itself half French, endeavoured to repress. Whatever the sincerity of the aristocratic leaders might be, the Scottish Reformers felt themselves to be fighting for their liberties against an alien domination.

[Sidenote: 1559 Religious parties in Scotland]

In the spring of 1559 the quarrel between the party of the Preachers and the Regency a.s.sumed a very threatening aspect. After the peace of Cateau Cambresis, in March, the French King decided in favour of an anti-Protestant policy. In spite of the promise to recognise the t.i.tle of the English queen, the Dauphin and his wife were allowed to a.s.sume the Arms of England, and it seemed that Mary of Guise in Scotland was about to wage a more active war than of late against the heretics; also that more French troops would be sent to help her. On the other hand, Knox, who on his retirement from England had withdrawn to Geneva, to await an opportunity when his presence might be effective, now returned to Scotland in a very unconciliatory spirit. For the party who desired union with England, it was unfortunate that the great preacher while in exile had issued a tract ent.i.tled _The Monstrous Regiment of Women_, aimed against the two Maries, but inferentially (though not of set purpose) condemning Elizabeth; who entirely refused to forgive him, while he on the other hand refused to eat his words. The fact undoubtedly increased the difficulty of harmonious accord between the English Government and the Scottish ”Lords of the Congregation,” as the Protestant leaders ent.i.tled themselves collectively.

[Sidenote: Arran as a suitor to Elizabeth]

The situation however produced a new candidate for the hand of Elizabeth in the person of the Earl of Arran, son of the quondam Earl of Arran now Duke of Chatelherault. The Duke was head of the house of Hamilton, and was in fact at this time heir presumptive [Footnote: As descending from the daughter of James II., sister of James III, Albany was now dead.] to the throne of Scotland. If then a legitimate ground could be devised for dethroning Mary--as for instance, if she employed foreign (_i.e._ French) troops against her subjects lawfully maintaining their const.i.tutional rights--the succession would fall to the Hamiltons; and if Arran and Elizabeth were married, the crowns of the two kingdoms would be united. Thus this marriage became a primary object with the Lords of the Congregation; and the Earl was included in the list of those with whose aspirations Elizabeth coquetted.

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