Part 26 (1/2)
The amba.s.sador, who knew more of Netherland politics and Netherland humours than any man did, approved of it. The interests of both England and Holland seemed to require it. No one but Leicester knew that her Majesty had forbidden it.
Accordingly, no sooner had the bell-ringing, cannon-explosions, bonfires, and charades, come to an end, and the Earl got fairly housed in the Hague, than the States took the affair of government seriously in hand.
On the 9th January, Chancellor Leoninus and Paul Buys waited upon Davison, and requested a copy of the commission granted by the Queen to the Earl. The copy was refused, but the commission was read; by which it appeared that he had received absolute command over her Majesty's forces in the Netherlands by land and sea, together with authority to send for all gentlemen and other personages out of England that he might think useful to him. On the 10th the States pa.s.sed a resolution to offer him the governor-generals.h.i.+p over all the Provinces. On the same day another committee waited upon his ”Excellency”--as the States chose to denominate the Earl, much to the subsequent wrath of the Queen--and made an appointment for the whole body to wait upon him the following morning.
Upon that day accordingly--New Year's Day, by the English reckoning, 11th January by the New Style--the deputies of all the States at an early hour came to his lodgings, with much pomp, preceded by a herald and trumpeters. Leicester, not expecting them quite so soon, was in his dressing-room, getting ready for the solemn audience, when, somewhat to his dismay, a flourish of trumpets announced the arrival of the whole body in his princ.i.p.al hall of audience. Hastening his preparations as much as possible, he descended to that apartment, and was instantly saluted by a flourish of rhetoric still more formidable; for that ”very great, and wise old Leoninus,” forthwith began an oration, which promised to be of portentous length and serious meaning. The Earl was slightly fl.u.s.tered, when, fortunately; some one whispered in his ear that they had come to offer him the much-coveted prize of the stadholderate-general.
Thereupon he made bold to interrupt the flow of the chancellor's eloquence in its first outpourings. ”As this is a very private matter,”
said he, ”it will be better to treat of it in a more private place I pray you therefore to come into my chamber, where these things may be more conveniently discussed.”
”You hear what my Lord says,” cried Leoninus, turning to his companions; ”we are to withdraw into his chamber.”
Accordingly they withdrew, accompanied by the Earl, and by five or six select counsellors, among whom were Davison and Dr. Clerk. Then the chancellor once more commenced his harangue, and went handsomely through the usual forms of compliment, first to the Queen, and then to her representative, concluding with an earnest request that the Earl--although her Majesty had declined the sovereignty ”would take the name and place of absolute governor and general of all their forces and soldiers, with the disposition of their whole revenues and taxes.”
So soon as the oration was concluded, Leicester; who did not speak French, directed Davison to reply in that language.
The envoy accordingly, in name of the Earl, expressed the deepest grat.i.tude for this mark of the affection and confidence of the States-General towards the Queen. He a.s.sured them that the step thus taken by them would be the cause of still more favour and affection on the part of her Majesty, who would unquestionably, from day to day, augment the succour that she was extending to the Provinces in order to relieve men from their misery. For himself, the Earl protested that he could never sufficiently recompense the States for the honour which had thus been conferred upon him, even if he should live one hundred lives.
Although he felt himself quite unable to sustain the weight of so great an office, yet he declared that they might repose with full confidence on his integrity and good intentions. Nevertheless, as the authority thus offered to him was very arduous, and as the subject required deep deliberation, he requested that the proposition should be reduced to writing, and delivered into his hands. He might then come to a conclusion thereupon, most conducive to the glory of G.o.d and the welfare of the land.
Three days afterwards, 14th January, the offer, drawn up formally in writing, was presented to envoy Davison, according to the request of Leicester. Three days latter, 17th January, his Excellency having deliberated upon the proposition, requested a committee of conference.
The conference took place the same day, and there was some discussion upon matters of detail, princ.i.p.ally relating to the matter of contributions. The Earl, according to the report of the committee, manifested no repugnance to the acceptance of the office, provided these points could be satisfactorily adjusted. He seemed, on the contrary, impatient, rather than reluctant; for, on the day following the conference, he sent his secretary Gilpin with a somewhat importunate message. ”His Excellency was surprised,” said the secretary, ”that the States were so long in coming to a resolution on the matters suggested by him in relation to the offer of the government-general; nor could his Excellency imagine the cause of the delay.”
For, in truth, the delay was caused by an excessive, rather than a deficient, appet.i.te for power on the part of his Excellency. The States, while conferring what they called the ”absolute” government, by which it afterwards appeared that they meant absolute, in regard to time, not to function--were very properly desirous of retaining a wholesome control over that government by means of the state-council. They wished not only to establish such a council, as a check upon the authority of the new governor, but to share with him at least in the appointment of the members who were to compose the board. But the aristocratic Earl was already restive under the thought of any restraint--most of all the restraint of individuals belonging to what he considered the humbler cla.s.ses.
”Cousin, my lord amba.s.sador,” said he to Davison, ”among your sober companions be it always remembered, I beseech you, that your cousin have no other alliance but with gentle blood. By no means consent that he be linked in faster bonds than their absolute grant may yield him a free and honourable government, to be able to do such service as shall be meet for an honest man to perform in such a calling, which of itself is very n.o.ble. But yet it is not more to be embraced, if I were to be led in alliance by such keepers as will sooner draw my nose from the right scent of the chace, than to lead my feet in the true pace to pursue the game I desire to reach. Consider, I pray you, therefore, what is to be done, and how unfit it will be in respect of my poor self, and how unacceptable to her Majesty, and how advantageous to enemies that will seek holes in my coat, if I should take so great a name upon me, and so little power. They challenge acceptation already, and I challenge their absolute grant and offer to me, before they spoke of any instructions; for so it was when Leoninus first spoke to me with them all on New Years Day, as you heard--offering in his speech all manner of absolute authority. If it please them to confirm this, without restraining instructions, I will willingly serve the States, or else, with such advising instructions as the Dowager of Hungary had.”
This was explicit enough, and Davison, who always acted for Leicester in the negotiations with the States, could certainly have no doubt as to the desires of the Earl, on the subject of ”absolute” authority. He did accordingly what he could to bring the States to his Excellency's way of thinking; nor was he unsuccessful.
On the 22nd January, a committee of conference was sent by the States to Leyden, in which city Leicester was making a brief visit. They were instructed to procure his consent, if possible, to the appointment, by the States themselves, of a council consisting of members from each Province. If they could not obtain this concession, they were directed to insist as earnestly as possible upon their right to present a double.
list of candidates, from which he was to make nominations. And if the one and the other proposition should be refused, the States were then to agree that his Excellency should freely choose and appoint a council of state, consisting of native residents from every Province, for the period of one year. The committee was further authorised to arrange the commission for the governor, in accordance with these points; and to draw up a set of instructions for the state-council, to the satisfaction of his Excellency. The committee was also empowered to conclude the matter at once, without further reference to the States.
Certainly a committee thus instructed was likely to be sufficiently pliant. It had need to be, in order to bend to the humour of his Excellency, which was already becoming imperious. The adulation which he had received; the triumphal marches, the Latin orations, the flowers strewn in his path, had produced their effect, and the Earl was almost inclined to a.s.sume the airs of royalty. The committee waited upon him at Leyden. He affected a reluctance to accept the ”absolute” government, but his coyness could not deceive such experienced statesmen as the ”wise old Leoliinus,” or Menin, Maalzoon, Florin Thin, or Aitzma, who composed the deputation. It was obvious enough to them that it was not a King Log that had descended among them, but it was not a moment for complaining. The governor elect insisted, of course, that the two Englishmen, according to the treaty with her Majesty, should be members of, the council. He also, at once, nominated Leoninus, Meetkerk, Brederode, Falck, and Paul Buys, to the same office; thinking, no doubt, that these were five keepers--if keepers he must have--who would not draw his nose off the scent, nor prevent his reaching the game he hunted, whatever that game might be. It was reserved for the future, however, to show, whether, the five were like to hunt in company with him as harmoniously as he hoped. As to the other counsellors, he expressed a willingness that candidates should be proposed for him, as to whose qualifications he would make up his mind at leisure.
This matter being satisfactorily adjusted-and certainly unless the game pursued by the Earl was a crown royal, he ought to have been satisfied with his success--the States received a letter from their committee at Leyden, informing them that his Excellency, after some previous protestations, had accepted the government (24th January, 1586).
It was agreed that he should be inaugurated Governor-General of the United Provinces of Gelderland and Zutphen, Flanders, Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Friesland, and all others in confederacy with them. He was to have supreme military command by land and sea. He was to exercise supreme authority in matters civil and political, according to the customs prevalent in the reign of the Emperor Charles V. All officers, political, civil, legal, were to be appointed by him out of a double or triple nomination made by the States of the Provinces in which vacancies might occur. The States-General were to a.s.semble whenever and wherever he should summon them. They were also--as were the States of each separate Province--competent to meet together by their own appointment. The Governor-General was to receive an oath of fidelity from the States, and himself to swear the maintenance of the ancient laws, customs, and privileges of the country.
The deed was done. In vain had an emissary of the French court been exerting his utmost to prevent the consummation of this close alliance.
For the wretched government of Henry III., while abasing itself before Philip II., and offering the fair cities and fertile plains of France as a sacrifice to that insatiable ambition which wore the mask of religious bigotry, was most anxious that Holland and England should not escape the meshes by which it was itself enveloped. The agent at the Hague came nominally upon some mercantile affairs, but in reality, according to Leicester, ”to impeach the States from binding themselves to her Majesty.” But he was informed that there was then no leisure for his affairs; ”for the States would attend to the service of the Queen of England, before all princes in the world.” The agent did not feel complimented by the coolness of this reception; yet it was reasonable enough, certainly, that the Hollanders should remember with bitterness the contumely, which they had experienced the previous year in France.
The emissary was; however, much disgusted. ”The fellow,” said Leicester, ”took it in such snuff, that he came proudly to the States and offered his letters, saying; 'Now I trust you have done all your sacrifices to the Queen of England, and may yield me some leisure to read my masters letters.'”--”But they so shook him, up,” continued the Earl, ”for naming her Majesty in scorn--as they took it--that they hurled him his letters; and bid him content himself;” and so on, much to the agent's discomfiture, who retired in greater ”snuff” than ever.
So much for the French influence. And now Leicester had done exactly what the most imperious woman in the world, whose favour was the breath of his life, had expressly forbidden him to do. The step having been taken, the prize so tempting to his ambition having been s.n.a.t.c.hed, and the policy which had governed the united action of the States and himself seeming so sound, what ought he to have done in order to avert the tempest which he must have foreseen? Surely a man who knew so much of woman's nature and of Elizabeth's nature as he did, ought to have attempted to conciliate her affections, after having so deeply wounded her pride. He knew his power. Besides the graces of his person and manner--which few women, once impressed by them, could ever forget--he possessed the most insidious and flattering eloquence, and, in absence, his pen was as wily as his tongue.
For the Earl was imbued with the very genius of courts.h.i.+p. None was better skilled than he in the phrases of rapturous devotion, which were music to the ear both of the woman and the Queen; and he knew his royal mistress too well not to be aware that the language of pa.s.sionate idolatry, however extravagant, had rarely fallen unheeded upon her soul.
It was strange therefore, that in this emergency, he should not at once throw himself upon her compa.s.sion without any mediator. Yet, on the contrary, he committed the monstrous error of entrusting his defence to envoy Davison, whom he determined to despatch at once with instructions to the Queen, and towards whom he committed the grave offence of concealing from him her previous prohibitions. But how could the Earl fail to perceive that it was the woman, not the Queen, whom he should have implored for pardon; that it was Robert Dudley, not William Davison, who ought to have sued upon his knees. This whole matter of the Netherland sovereignty and the Leicester stadholderate, forms a strange psychological study, which deserves and requires some minuteness of attention; for it was by the characteristics of these eminent personages that the current history was deeply stamped.
Certainly, under the peculiar circ.u.mstances of the case, the first letter conveying intelligence so likely to pique the pride of Elizabeth, should have been a letter from Leicester. On the contrary, it proved to be a dull formal epistle from the States.
And here again the a.s.sistance of the indispensable Davison was considered necessary. On the 3rd February the amba.s.sador--having announced his intention of going to England, by command of his Excellency, so soon as the Earl should have been inaugurated, for the purpose of explaining all these important transactions to her Majesty--waited upon the States with the request that they should prepare as speedily as might be their letter to the Queen, with other necessary doc.u.ments, to be entrusted to his care. He also suggested that the draft or minute of their proposed epistle should be submitted to him for advice--”because the humours of her Majesty were best known to him.”
Now the humours of her Majesty were best known to Leicester of all men in the whole world, and it is inconceivable that he should have allowed so many days and weeks to pa.s.s without taking these humours properly into account. But the Earl's head was slightly turned by his sudden and unexpected success. The game that he had been pursuing had fallen into his grasp, almost at the very start, and it is not astonis.h.i.+ng that he should have been somewhat absorbed in the enjoyment of his victory.