The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (270 page)

make peace nor war without consent of the states.n
In order to hasten the execution of this important treaty, Elizabeth sent ships, by which the French forces were transported into their own country.

Thus Europe saw, in the first transaction of this reign, the genius and capacity of the queen and her ministers. She discerned at a distance the danger, which threatened her; and instantly took vigorous measures to prevent it. Making all possible advantages of her situation, she proceeded with celerity to a decision; and was not diverted by any offers, negociations, or remonstrances of the French court. She stopped not till she had brought the matter to a final issue; and had converted that very power, to which her enemies trusted for her destruction, into her firmest support and security. By exacting no improper conditions from the Scottish malcontents even during their greatest distresses, she established an entire confidence with them; and having cemented the union by all the ties of gratitude, interest, and religion, she now possessed an interest over them beyond what remained even with their native sovereign. The regard, which she acquired by this dextrous and spirited conduct, gave her every where, abroad as well as at home, more authority than had attended her sister, though supported by all the power of the Spanish monarchy.
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The subsequent measures of the Scottish reformers tended still more to cement their union with England. Being now entirely masters of the kingdom, they made no farther ceremony or scrupIe, in fully effecting their purpose. In the treaty of Edinburgh it had been agreed, that a parliament or convention should soon be assembled; and the PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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leaders of the congregation, not waiting till the queen of Scots should ratify that treaty, thought themselves fully entitled, without the sovereign’s authority, immediately to summon a parliament. The reformers presented a petition to this assembly; in which they were not contented with desiring the establishment of their doctrine; they also applied for the punishment of the catholics, whom they called vassals to the Roman harlot; and they asserted, that, among all the rabble of the clergy, such is their expression, there was not one lawful minister; but that they were, all of them, thieves and murderers; yea, rebels and traitors to civil authority; and therefore unworthy to be suffered in any reformed commonwealth.
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The parliament seem to have been actuated by the same spirit of rage and persecution. After ratifying a confession of faith, agreeable to the new doctrines, they passed a statute against the mass, and not only abolished it in all the churches, but enacted, that whoever, any where, either officiated in it or was present at it, should be chastised, for the first offence, with confiscation of goods and corporal punishment, at the discretion of the magistrate; for the second, with banishment; and for the third, with loss of life.
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A law was also voted for abolishing the papal jurisdiction in Scotland: The presbyterian form of discipline was settled, leaving only at first some shadow of authority to certain ecclesiastics, whom they called Superintendants. The prelates of the ancient faith appeared, in order to complain of great injustice committed on them by the invasion of their property, but the parliament took no notice of them; till at last, these ecclesiastics, tired with fruitless attendance, departed the town. They were then cited to appear; and as nobody presented himself, it was voted by the parliament, that the ecclesiastics were entirely satisfied, and found no reason of complaint.

Sir James Sandilands, prior of St. John, was sent over to France to obtain the ratification of these acts; but was very ill received by Mary, who denied the validity of a parliament, summoned without the royal consent; and she refused her sanction to those statutes. But the protestants gave themselves little concern about their queen’s refusal. They immediately put the statutes in execution: They abolished the mass; they settled their ministers; they committed every where furious devastations on the monasteries, and even on the churches, which they thought profaned by idolatry; and deeming the property of the clergy lawful prize, they took possession, without ceremony, of the far greater part of the ecclesiastical revenues. Their new preachers, who had authority sufficient to incite them to war and insurrection, could not restrain their rapacity; and fanaticism concurring with avarice, an incurable wound was given to the papal authority in that country. The protestant nobility and gentry, united by the consciousness of such unpardonable guilt, alarmed for their new possessions, well acquainted with the imperious character of the house of Guise, saw no safety for themselves but in the protection of England; and they dispatched Morton, Glencarne, and Lidington to express their sincere gratitude to the queen for her past favours, and represent to her the necessity of continuing them.

Elizabeth, on her part, had equal reason to maintain a union with French affairs.

the Scottish protestants; and soon found that the house of Guise, notwithstanding their former disappointments, had not laid aside the design of contesting her title, and subverting her authority. Francis and Mary, whose counsels were wholly directed by them, refused to ratify the treaty of Edinburgh; and showed no disposition to give her any satisfaction for that mortal affront, which they had put PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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upon her, by their openly assuming the title and arms of England. She was sensible of the danger attending such pretensions; and it was with pleasure she heard of the violent factions, which prevailed in the French government, and of the opposition, which had arisen against the measures of the duke of Guise. That ambitious prince, supported by his four brothers, the cardinal of Lorraine, the duke of Aumale, the marquis of Elbeuf, and the grand prior, men no less ambitious than himself, had engrossed all the authority of the crown; and as he was possessed of every quality, which could command the esteem or seduce the affections of men, there appeared no end of his acquisitions and pretensions. The constable, Montmorency, who had long balanced his credit, was deprived of all power: The princes of the blood, the king of Navarre, and his brother, the prince of Condé, were entirely excluded from offices and favour: The queen-mother, herself, Catherine de Medicis, found her influence every day declining: And as Francis, a young prince, infirm both in mind and body, was wholly governed by his consort, who knew no law but the pleasure of her uncles, men despaired of ever obtaining freedom from the dominion of that aspiring family. It was the contests of religion, which first inspired the French with courage openly to oppose their unlimited authority.

The theological disputes, first started in the north of Germany, next in Switzerland, countries at that time wholly illiterate, had long ago penetrated into France, and as they were assisted by the general discontent against the court and church of Rome, and by the zealous spirit of the age, the proselytes to the new religion were secretly encreasing in every province. Henry II. in imitation of his father Francis, had opposed the progress of the reformers; and though a prince addicted to pleasure and society, he was transported by a vehemence, as well as bigotry, which had little place in the conduct of his predecessor. Rigorous punishments had been inflicted on the most eminent of the protestant party; and a point of honour seemed to have arisen, whether the one sect could exercise, or the other suffer most barbarity. The death of Henry put some stop to the persecutions; and the people, who had admired the constancy of the new preachers, now heard with favour their doctrines and arguments. But the cardinal of Lorraine, as well as his brothers, who were possessed of the legal authority, thought it their interest to support the established religion; and when they revived the execution of the penal statutes, they necessarily drove the malcontent princes and nobles to embrace the protection of the new religion. The king of Navarre, a man of mild dispositions, but of a weak character, and the prince of Condé, who possessed many great qualities, having declared themselves in favour of the protestants, that sect acquired new force from their countenance; and the admiral, Coligni, with his brother Andelot, no longer scrupled to make open profession of their communion. The integrity of the admiral, who was believed sincere in his attachment to the new doctrine, and his great reputation both for valour and conduct, for the arts of peace as well as of war, brought credit to the reformers; and after a frustrated attempt of the malcontents to seize the king’s person at Amboise, of which Elizabeth had probably some intelligence,
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every place was full of distraction, and matters hastened to an open rupture between the parties. But the house of Guise, though these factions had obliged them to remit their efforts in Scotland, and had been one chief cause of Elizabeth’s success, were determined not to relinquish their authority in France, or yield to the violence of their enemies. They found an opportunity of seizing the king of Navarre and the prince of Condé; they threw the former into prison; they obtained a PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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sentence of death against the latter; and they were proceeding to put the sentence in execution, when the king’s sudden death saved the noble prisoner, and interrupted the prosperity of the duke of Guise.

The queen-mother was appointed regent to her son Charles IX.

4th Dec. 1561.

now in his minority: The king of Navarre was named lieutenant-general of the kingdom: The sentence against Condé was annulled: The constable was recalled to court: And the family of Guise, though they still enjoyed great offices and great power, found a counterpoise to their authority.

Elizabeth was determined to make advantage of these events against the queen of Scots, whom she still regarded as a dangerous rival. She saw herself freed from the perils attending a union of Scotland with France, and from the pretensions of so powerful a prince as Francis; but she considered, at the same time, that the English catholics, who were numerous, and who were generally prejudiced in favour of Mary’s title, would now adhere to that princess with more zealous attachment, when they saw, that her succession no longer endangered the liberties of the kingdom, and was rather attended with the advantage of effecting an entire union with Scotland. She gave orders, therefore, to her ambassador, Throgmorton, a vigilant and able minister, to renew his applications to the queen of Scots, and to require her ratification of the treaty of Edinburgh. But though Mary had desisted, after her husband’s death, from bearing the arms and title of queen of England, she still declined gratifying Elizabeth in this momentous article; and being swayed by the ambitious suggestions of her uncles, she refused to make any formal renunciation of her pretensions.

Meanwhile, the queen-mother of France, who imputed to Mary all the mortifications, which she had met with during Francis’s life-time, took care to retaliate on her by like injuries; and the queen of Scots, finding her abode in France disagreeable, began to think of returning to her native country. Lord James, who had been sent in deputation from the states to invite her over, seconded these intentions; and she applied to Elizabeth, by D’Oisel, for a safe conduct, in case she should be obliged to pass

through England:s
But she received for answer, that, till she had given satisfaction, by ratifying the treaty of Edinburgh, she could expect no favour from a person, whom she had so much injured. This denial excited her indignation; and she made no scruple of expressing her sentiments to Throgmorton, when he reiterated his applications to gratify his mistress in a demand, which he represented as so reasonable. Having cleared the room of her attendants, she said to him; “How weak I may prove, or how far a woman’s frailty may transport me, I cannot tell: However, I am resolved not to have so many witnesses of my infirmity as your mistress had at her audience of my ambassador D’Oisel. There is nothing disturbs me so much, as the having asked, with so much importunity, a favour which it was of no consequence for me to obtain. I can, with God’s leave, return to my own country without
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leave; as I came to France, in spite of all the opposition of her brother, king Edward: Neither do I want friends both able and willing to conduct me home, as they have brought me hither; though I was desirous rather to make an experiment of your mistress’s friendship than of the assistance of any other person. I have often heard you say, that a good correspondence between her and myself would conduce much to the security and happiness of both our kingdoms: Were she well convinced of this truth, she would hardly have denied me so small a request. But, perhaps, she bears a better inclination to my rebellious PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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subjects than to me, their sovereign, her equal in royal dignity, her near relation, and the undoubted heir of her kingdoms. Besides her friendship, I ask nothing at her hands: I neither trouble her, nor concern myself in the affairs of her state: Not that I am ignorant, that there are now in England a great many malcontents, who are no friends to the present establishment. She is pleased to upbraid me as a person little experienced in the world: I freely own it; but age will cure that defect. However, I am already old enough to acquit myself honestly and courteously to my friends and relations, and to encourage no reports of your mistress, which would misbecome a queen and her kinswoman. I would also say, by her leave, that I am a queen as well as she, and not altogether friendless: And, perhaps, I have as great a soul too; so that methinks we should be upon a level in our treatment of each other. As soon as I have consulted the states of my kingdom, I shall be ready to give her a reasonable answer; and I am the more intent on my journey, in order to make the quicker dispatch in this affair. But she, it seems, intends to stop my journey; so that either she will not let me give her satisfaction, or is resolved not to be satisfied; perhaps, on purpose to keep up the disagreement between us. She has often reproached me with my being young; and I must be very young, indeed, and as ill advised, to treat of matters of such great concern and importance, without the advice of my parliament. I have not been wanting in all friendly offices to her; but she disbelieves or overlooks them. I could heartily wish, that I were as nearly allied to her in affection as in blood: For that, indeed, would be a most valuable alliance.”
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