Part 24 (1/2)
They found that it was one thing to cry ”Havoc” and quite another to cry ”Halt”. When the thing was done, they could not have disavowed it wholly, even if they would. Katharine however made desperate efforts to minimise her own responsibility, and to justify what she had done by charges of treason against the murdered admiral and his a.s.sociates. She had in fact meant to cripple the Huguenots by destroying their leaders, yet to provide a defence sufficiently plausible to prevent a breach with England. Her object had been to recover her own ascendancy in France, not to replace Coligny by the Guises. What she succeeded in doing was to turn France into two hostile camps; since the ma.s.sacres had not sufficed to destroy the Huguenot power of offering an organised defence and defiance. On the other hand Alva was prompt, and Philip as prompt as his nature permitted, to realise that some capital might be made out of the revulsion in England against the French Government.
[Sidenote: The aim of Elizabeth]
Walsingham, the English Amba.s.sador in Paris, was a sincere Puritan; Burghley's sympathies, personal as well as political, were strongly Protestant. For some time past, both had desired on the mere grounds of political expediency to bid defiance to Spain and frankly avow the cause of the Prince of Orange. They believed that England was already strong enough to face the might of Philip. The moral incentive was now infinitely stronger. That this would be the generous and the courageous course was manifest. Now, too, the English people would have adopted it with a stern enthusiasm worth many s.h.i.+ps and many battalions. The course Elizabeth adopted was less heroic, more selfish, safer for the interests of England. That sooner or later a duel with Spain was all but inevitable she must have recognised; but she had seen the power and wealth of England growing year by year, the stability of the Government becoming ever more a.s.sured; if an immediate collision could be averted, she calculated that the process would continue, whereas the strain of repressing and holding down the Netherlanders would tell adversely on the power of Spain. The longer, therefore, that the struggle could be staved off, the better.
Fortune favoured her: for the resistance of the Netherlands was very much more stubborn than could have been antic.i.p.ated. The Protestant fervour in her people, aroused by St. Bartholomew, was kept alive and intensified, as time went on, by other events, and was moreover concentrated upon animosity to Spain. When the great conflict took place, sixteen years later, its result was decisive. It cannot be affirmed with confidence that it would have been so now. From the prudential point of view, Elizabeth was justified by the event. But it is at least possible that the victory would have been equally decisive at the earlier date, and its moral value in that case would undoubtedly have been greater.
[Sidenote: 1572 England and St. Bartholomew]
At the first moment when intelligence of the ma.s.sacre at Paris was brought to England, the Queen as well as her ministers believed that it was simply the prelude to a Romanist crusade. It was imagined that the plot had been concocted in collusion with Philip and Alva, the outcome of the suspected Catholic League of 1565. Instant preparations were made for war; the musters were called out, the fleet was manned, troops were raised in readiness to embark for Flus.h.i.+ng; and immediate overtures were made to Mar--the second Regent in Scotland since the murder of Murray--for handing Mary over to him to be executed. The popular indignation was expressed in bold and uncompromising terms by Walsingham in Paris, in answer to the attempts of the French Government to excuse itself. In England, it was long before the Queen would admit the French Amba.s.sador to audience; when she did so, her Council was in presence; all were clad in mourning; Elizabeth spoke in terms of the most formal frigidity; on her withdrawal, Burghley, speaking for the Council, expressed their sentiments in very plain language. It is abundantly clear that the whole nation from the Queen down was grimly and confidently prepared for war if war should come.
[Sideline: Spain seeks amity]
But war was not to come. Katharine was not in collusion with Philip; she knew well enough that as things stood, in such an alliance France would begin in a subordinate position, and success would only accentuate and render overwhelming the predominance of Spain. Her one desire was to patch up a reconciliation with England. Alva had no illusions about a Catholic crusade; he only rejoiced that the danger of an Anglo-French coalition was scotched; and only desired to make sure that Elizabeth, left to herself, should not make his task in the Netherlands more difficult. Therefore he strove strenuously, and with ultimate success, to impress the same view of affairs on the slowly moving mind of his master at Madrid, who was at first bitten with the idea of effecting a Catholic revolution in England and marrying Mary to Anjou.
So when Mons, with Lewis of Na.s.sau in it, was forced to capitulate, Alva, by way of contrast to the ma.s.sacre at Paris, allowed the Huguenots to march out with the honours of war--ostentatiously reversing his usual merciless policy: and he pointedly adopted the most conciliatory att.i.tude towards England.
[Sidenote: 1573]
Elizabeth for her part was ready enough to respond. A renewal of the commercial relations in the Netherlands was eminently desirable. The war going on in that country was not to her own taste; politically and theologically she thought the example of the Netherlanders dangerous-- one of the real reasons which helped to make her hold back from espousing their cause--and she offered to mediate between Alva and William of Orange, expressing readiness for her own part to have a settlement of all the outstanding grievances between Spain and England.
She even went so far as to revive the suggestion of a really representative Council, for the purpose of arriving at a general religious settlement---a suggestion so entirely impracticable that it was quite safe to make it. Also with regard to some of the grievances, it was tolerably certain that no solution could be offered in which both the parties would acquiesce. But the fundamental thing, both in her eyes and in Alva's, was to revive the old status of amity, officially if also superficially.
[Sidenote: April: A Spanish alliance]
Finally, in spite of the remonstrances of the Pope and the protests of the English Catholic exiles of the Northern Rebellion, who had found an asylum in the Netherlands under the aegis of Spain, a provisional alliance was effected, to last for two years, in April 1573. Spain deserted the English revolutionary Catholics; Elizabeth recalled the English volunteers from Flanders; and commerce was restored. There was a brief lull in the piratical activity of English sailors; and the French were officially left alone to settle the domestic hostilities which afforded them a quite sufficient occupation.
[Sidenote: Scotland: End of the Marians]
By this time, too, the last serious struggle of the Marian party in Scotland was entering on its final stage. There, after Murray's death, the Hamiltons, joined by Lethington and Kirkcaldy of Grange, refused to acknowledge the young King, or the authority of the Regency---an office in which Murray was succeeded first by the incompetent Lennox, and afterwards by Mar, Lennox being killed in the course of a fight.
Finally Lethington and Grange were shut up in Edinburgh Castle, where they continued to bid defiance to the Government. When however overtures were made by England for the delivery of Mary to Mar for execution, the negotiation broke down on the question of Responsibility.
Mar would not carry out the extreme measure, unless supported by English troops and by the presence of high English officials. Elizabeth as usual insisted, in effect, that she must be able to repudiate complicity. As the fear of a combined Catholic attack melted away, the English Queen lost her anxiety to be rid of her rival. Mar died; Morton was nominated to the regency. Then also died John Knox, the last of the men who had seen the Reformation through from its commencement; grim to the end.
[Sidenote: The Netherlands, France, and Spain]
When the new year, 1573, came in, Elizabeth, fearing that the Scots lords might, unless they received something besides vague promises, turn to France after all, at length acknowledged the Regent and the King. A compromise was accepted by the Marian lords with the exception of Lethington and Grange in the Castle. But while these held out, the conflagration might be renewed at any time. Elizabeth then reluctantly yielded to the pressure on her from every side. Money, troops, siege- guns, and Drury in command, were sent in April to the help of Morton.
After a stubborn resistance, the siege artillery proved too much for the garrison; their outworks were carried, their water-supply cut off, and they were forced to surrender in the last days of May. Lethington survived only a few days; rumour had it that he died by his own act.
The craftiest brain in Scotland was stilled but a few months after her sincerest and fiercest tongue was silenced. With Maitland's death, all prospect of reconstructing an organised Queen's-party vanished. It was not many months after these events that Alva, in accordance with his own wishes, was recalled. Conquest did not mean pacification. Haarlem after a prolonged and desperate resistance, fell in July, and the garrison was put to the sword; but there was no hint of yielding on the part of the Hollanders. When the Spaniards advanced on Alkmaar, they were threatened with the opening of the d.y.k.es.
Hardly less significant of the determination of Orange and his following never to submit, at whatever cost, is the fact that they were prepared in the last resort to receive Anjou as their Protector---Anjou, who was regarded as a ring-leader in the Paris ma.s.sacre. The same fact is convincing evidence of the overwhelming antagonism of French and Spanish political interests. Had the French been capable of arranging their religious quarrels on the basis of a fairly inclusive compromise, like that in England, so that the moderates could have worked together, such a league as Walsingham had hoped for before St. Bartholomew would have been entirely in the interest both of France and of England. The advantage of it to France was so obvious that, even after the ma.s.sacre, it was possible for the perpetrators to contemplate friendly relations with foreign Protestants, and for foreign Protestants to regard such relations as possible. Still it was only in the last resort that the Anjou scheme could have been embraced, and perhaps it was now propounded more by way of forcing Elizabeth's hand than for any other purpose. At any rate the project did not deter Anjou from accepting the crown of Poland---only to drop it and hurry back to a.s.sume the sceptre of France as Henry III. when King Charles IX. sank to the grave in 1574.
[Sidenote: 1573-74 The Netherlands, Spain, and England]
Requescens, Alva's successor, adopted a comparatively conciliatory policy. The restoration of the const.i.tutional Government of the States of the Netherlands was offered, on condition of acceptance of Catholicism. In the eyes of Elizabeth, who regarded religious observances as falling entirely to the supreme government to settle, while she could not understand a conscientious objection to outward conformity, the refusal of those terms by Orange seemed quite unreasonable; even Burghley was detached from Walsingham and from those who, thinking with him, still counted the maintenance of Protestantism, and as a necessary corollary hostility to Spain, as the first object which ought to be pursued. This att.i.tude of England, coupled with the irreconcilable character of French religious animosities, which made the prospects of effective French interference a mere will-o'-the-wisp, reduced Orange and his party to a condition verging on desperation.
[Sidenote: 1574 Spain amicable]
Requescens, however, made no haste to crush the stubborn remnant. It was his policy rather to achieve a _modus vivendi_ in which the bulk of the Netherlands would concur, and to conciliate England. Alva before him had realised the true danger of the island-nation's hostility. As we shall presently see in more detail, the growth of the English marine had rendered it extremely formidable. Not only had English rovers for years past been giving unspeakable trouble on the Spanish Main and the Ocean highways, but the English fleets also practically controlled the narrow seas: and could make it impossible for any ordinary convoys, whether of transports, or merchantmen, or treasure-s.h.i.+ps, to pa.s.s up-channel. In other words, England could block the lines of communication between Spain and the Netherlands. Until Spain should bestir all her might, rise up, and annihilate the English s.h.i.+pping, Elizabeth must be kept neutral; whereas, if Orange were pressed too hard, she might be forced even against her will to support him vigorously, if only to prevent France from doing so single-handed, and perhaps thereby capturing the Netherlands for herself.
[Sidenote: Reciprocal Concessions; 1575]