the sake of the succession and the safety of the realm, to choose a husband either among her own subjects or among strangers, were either satisfied or mocked by her assertion that she was resolved to live and die a virgin; nor will I speak of the great scandal which she gave not only to Catholics, but to the people of her own sect, by this pretence of a single life, which was the ruin of the state, and by her ecclesiastical supremacy, which was the ruin of the Church. But there is one thing, and it belongs in a special manner to the subject of my book, which ought not to be passed over in silence. The queen and her politicians understood at once, as soon as their sect and religion had been set up, that many of her subjects would be very much disturbed by the changes wrought in Church and state; that she would find a stern judge in the Pope, and that the emperor and the most powerful Christian kings would withdraw from her. Then, being thus severed in faith and communion from the whole world, she would not be long safe against her own subjects or her neighbours. There was, therefore, no security for her but in inflicting a like calamity as soon as possible upon the neighbouring countries,1 France and Scotland and Flanders, that all the Catholic sovereigns being fully occupied with their own affairs, might have no time to attend to those of others.2 1 See the "Desire for Alteration of Religion" (Burnet, v. 497). Among other suggestions is this: First, for France, "to practise a peace, or if it be offered, not to refuse it: if controversy of religion be there amongst them, to kindle it. "Scotland will follow France for peace, but there may be practice to help forward their division, and specially to augment the hope of them who inclined them to good religion," i.e., to Protestantism. 2 Hilles, writing to Bullinger from London, July 31, 1562 (Zurich Let., 2d series, No. 38), says, "The queen appears to be considering the evils that may possibly be hanging over us, and is apprehensive lest any misfortune should arise to the realm by reason of negligence and inactivity; that is, lest any foreign prince, in the event of the disorders which still exist in France being settled, should be stirred up by the Roman Pontiff, or any other foreign Papists who Accordingly all the treaties between England and the great monarchs of Christendom were at once either openly violated or observed only in appearance; those of recent date, as well as the older treaties, were dealt with in the same way. Then, to the unutterable dishonour of England, and to their everlasting shame, the queen and her councillors made a league with those who were in rebellion against all those sovereigns, with the men who were traitors to their country and plagues of the world. In Scotland they are the confederates of James the bastard,2 Morton, and others against queen Mary; in France they are leagued together with the admiral, and men of the same kind, most detestable tyrants, against the most Christian kings, three brothers in succession; in Flanders they ally themselves against the most mighty and just sovereign, Philip, with the scourge of God the reprobate prince of Orange. In a word, they send troops into their countries, lay waste their borders, take their cities, plunder their treasuries; they send out pirates, who commit grievous depreda adhere to him, to find some occasion of quarrel against her." Jewell, writing to Bullinger, Aug. 14, 1562 (Zurich Letters, 1st series, No. 50), says: "Our queen gradually withdrew her alliance with the Guises, and not obscurely intimated her determination to assist the prince of Condé. The duke of Guise was very angry at this, and declared by a public proclamation that the queen of England was planning intrigues against the kingdom of France, and that she alone had occasioned those disorders." 2 James Stewart, earl of Murray, and prior of St. Andrews, was natural child of James V. a 3 James Douglas, earl of Morton. This nobleman, on the murder at Dumbarton of the last archbishop of St. Andrews, made an apostate Car 3 5 melite friar bishop, and thereby took the revenues of the see into his own hands. 4 The admiral Gaspar de Coligni. The queen had bound herself (Camden, Annales, p. 93) to pay the prince of Condé, Rohan, the admiral, and others "an hundred thousand angels," to send over into France six thousand men, whereof three thousand should be employed for the defence of Dieppe and Rouen." 5 William of Nassau-Dillembourg obtained possession of the principality of Orange under the will of a cousin, who had it in right of his wife, forsook the Catholic faith, and founded the republic of Holland, in rebellion. against the king of Spain, who put a price upon his head. 6 Francis Drake, John Hawkins, and Oxenham. T tions, and in every country urge the people into rebellion. By means of their barbarous religion spreading like a pestilence, they have brought their neighbours the Scots to ruin, and their queen into that most miserable condition, utterly undeserved, in which we see her at this moment. In France they have been poison to unnumbered souls, and brought kings, still in their youth, into extreme peril. Lastly, they have corrupted almost the whole of Belgium; they have made themselves the accomplices, the leaders, and the protectors of the seditious heretics in every nation, to the end that the disorder raging throughout Christendom might be made still greater. All this they did in order that, through the misfortunes of other sovereigns and other countries, they might themselves live in peace at home, and by the scattering far and wide of the poison of their heretical corruption, secure to themselves a longer continuance in their sect.1 While the whole island was in this way going to destruction, France in distress, and all the northern nations in danger, Pius IV.2 offered the ordinary remedy of the Church for so great an evil. Hitherto the convocation of a general council had met with many hindrances, but now, after laborious efforts, and with the assent of almost all the princes of Christendom, he summoned it to meet in Trent. He sent a Nuncio,3 1 Heylyn, Hist. Reform., p. 163. "For well she knew that if the Hugonots were not encouraged underhand, and the Guisian faction kept in breath by their frequent stirrings, they would be either hammering some design against her in her own dominions, or animate the queen of Scots to stand to her title and pretensions for the crown of England. Upon which general ground of selfpreservation, as she first aided those of Scotland for the expelling of the French, and the French Protestants from being ruined and oppressed by the house of Guise, so on the same she afterwards undertook the patronage of the Belgic Netherlands against the tyranny and ambition of the duke of Alva, who otherwise might have brought the war to her own door, and hazarded the peace and safety of her whole estate." John Angelo di Medici, elected Dec. 26, 1559, died Dec. 9, 1565. 3 Dod, ed. Tierney, ii. 147. "Where who was to travel through Lower Germany to England, to represent to Elizabeth her errors, and to persuade her not to ruin herself and her illustrious realm out of hatred to the Pope. He was also to say that, if on account of her doubtful birth she was afraid that her title to the throne might, on the part of the Church or the Pope, be questioned, the matter could be easily settled, for the Apostolic See is indulgent. The queen would neither listen to the Nuncio nor allow him even to land in England. Soon afterwards the Pontiff, to leave no means untried, sent another Legate' to persuade the queen to allow some at least of her own bishops to attend the council, and to enter into conference with the Catholics, promising them liberty of speech and the safety of their persons. That Legate, too, was disdainfully refused. The mock prelates also, aware of their own weakness and ignorance, were very urgent with the queen that none of them should be sent to the council.2 fore about May 1560 he sent his the Pope. See Camden, Annales, P. 73. The abbot Martinengo, sent over in 1561. Of him, Jewell, writing to Peter Martyr, Feb. 7, 1562 (Zurich Letters, 1st series, No. 43), says, "The Pope's Nuncio is still loitering in Flanders, for he cannot yet obtain a safe-conduct to come over to England." 2 Jewell, writing to Peter Martyr, Feb. 7, 1562 (Zurich Letters, 1st series, No. 43), says: "Our queen has fully made up her mind not to send any representative to the council, as to the existence or locality of which we are totally ignorant: certainly, if it is held anywhere, or has any being at all, it must be very secret and obscure. We are now thinking about publishing the reasons which have induced us to decline attendance." CHAPTER VII. THE EMPEROR INTERcedes on BEHALF OF THE CATHOLICS— MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS-THE EARLS OF NORTHUMBERLAND AND WESTMORELAND. LETTERS, too, at this time were brought to Elizabeth from the Catholic sovereigns, and especially from the emperor Ferdinand, who in most affectionate terms entreated her not to forsake the fellowship, in matters of faith and religion, of all Christian princes, and even of her own forefathers; not to set her own opinion, and the opinion of certain men who were of yesterday, neither many nor learned, above the judgment of the Church. If, however, she had made up her mind to continue in the sect she had adopted, in spite of the decision of the sovereign Pontiff and a general council, or the example of her Christian fellow-sovereigns, that in that case she would at least, out of her natural kindliness and goodness, proceed no further against those learned and pious men, the Catholic bishops, who were in her prisons, but rather set them free, seeing that they had done nothing against her majesty or against the state; the only offence laid to their charge being their perseverance in the communion, and their profession, of the ancient faith, which is the faith of all nations, and which, said the "is also mine." Lastly, he earnestly begs emperor, of her to let them and the other Catholics have the use of some of the churches in the kingdom, wherein they may meet together for the worship of God according to |