prerogative as supreme head of the Church; but Strickland replied, "The salvation of their souls was concerned, to which all the kingdoms of the earth were nothing in comparison." Enraged at this bold conduct, the queen sent for Strickland to appear before her in Council, and ordered him to appear no more in the House of Commons. But the House was of another temper to that which it had shown in her father's time. It called Strickland to its bar, and demanded what was the reason that he absented himself from his duties. Strickland stated the cause, nothing loth; and the House then declared that its privileges had been invaded in his person; that such proceedings could not be submitted to without a betrayal of its trust to the people; that the queen could neither make nor break the laws; and that the House, which had the authority to determine the right to the crown itself, was certainly competent to treat of all matters concerning the Church, its discipline, and ceremonies. The Speaker, after a consultation with some of the ministers, proposed to suspend the debate; but the next morning Strickland appeared in his place, and was greeted by the acclamations of the House. Elizabeth took the hint, and suffered the matter to pass; but she did not forget it. On dismissing Parliament at the end of the Session, she ordered the Lord Keeper Bacon to inform the members that their conduct had been strange, undutiful, and unbecoming; that as they had forgotten themselves, they should be otherwise remembered; and that the queen's highness did utterly disallow and condemn their folly in meddling with things not appertaining to them, nor within the capacity of their understandings. But the example of independence had been shown, and it was not lost. This stern resistance to the will of the monarch in Parliament, in fact, constituted a new era. To the spirit of the Puritans we owe the establishment of the supremacy of Parliament, and its defence against the encroachments of the sovereign, however powerful; for the battle that commenced was continued with various but advancing success, till it terminated in the expulsion of the Stuarts, and the passing of the Bill of Rights. Not the less, however, did Elizabeth rage against it; and if she found Parliament invulnerable, she attacked the liberties of the subject in detail, by her Court of High Commission—a mere variation of the High Court of Star Chamber. This court consisted of a number of commissioners, with Parker, the primate, at their head, who were empowered to inquire, on the oath of the person accused, and on the oaths of witnesses, into all heretical, erroneous, and dangerous opinions; into absence from the public worship and the frequenting of conventicles; into the possession of seditious books, libels against the queen, her magistrates, and ministers; into adulteries, and all offences against decency and morals; and to punish the offender by spiritual censures, by fine, imprisonment, and deprivation. As there was no jury, it was clearly a breach of Magna Charta, and wholly unconstitutional, and was a species of inquisition liable to great abuses, and to become an instrument to the grossest injustice. Its powers were first turned against the Papists, but the sturdy character and acts of the Puritans very soon brought them under its notice, and they becamo ere long the great objects of its oppressive rigour. This rigour only tended to drive so high-spirited a class of subjects into open schism, and to the conventicles which sprang up fast and far. These Parker attackel with fury. At a meeting at Plumber's Hall more than a hundred persons were seized and brought into the High Commission Court, and of these twenty-four men and seven women, who refused to confess themselves guilty of any offence, were punished with twelve months' imprison ment. This course was now pursued towards the Disenters everywhere. They were driven out of their meetings, and subjected to insult and imprisonment, some of them for life. Parker, with his bench of bishop> and delegates, grew more and more ferocious. He declared that the Puritans were cowards, and that they would soon succumb to a strong hand; but, like many another persecutor, whilst he thought he was destroying, he was only disseminating the obnoxious principles; ai the cowards, as he called them, in two more reigns, lai the monarch in his blood, and the throne in the dust. Had the primate been a man of any deep insight into human nature, the hardy answer of Mr. Wentworth, one of the most eloquent debaters of the House of Commons, would have caused him to reflect. He called him bef.:: him to interrogate him regarding certain omissions in th Thirty-nine Articles, which the Commons had take upon themselves to make. "He asked me," said We worth, " "why we did put out of the book the articles íz the homilies, consecration of bishops, and such lik 'Surely, sir,' said I, because we were so occupied in other matters that we had no time to examine them how they agree with the word of God.' What!' said b 'surely you mistake the matter: you will refer yourselves wholly to us therein.' 'No, by the faith I bear to God, said I, we will pass nothing before we understand what it is; for that were put to make you Popes. Make yea Popes who list,' said I, 'for we will make you none.'” In the January of 1571 the queen went in great state to dine with Sir Thomas Gresham in the City, who ha invited her to open the new Exchange which he ha built at his own expense on Cornhill. After the ceremony she dined with the great merchant at his house Bishopsgate Street, where she was accompanied by L Mothe Fenelon, the French ambassador. After diner she indulged herself in her favourite topic in private that of marrying-though she hated nothing more tha to have this subject broached to her in public by b Parliament. 'Among other things," Fenelon says, “**** told me that she was determined to marry, not from ! wish of her own, but for the satisfaction of her subjects and also to put an end, by the authority of a husban? by the birth of offspring, if it pleased God to give them: her, to the enterprises which she felt would be perpet made against her person and realm if she became so od woman that there was no longer any pretence for taki a husband, or hope that she might have children. S added that, in truth, she greatly feared not being low. by him whom she might espouse, which would be a great misfortune than the first, for it would be worse to be than death, and she could not bear to reflect on such a possibility."" The ambassador, of course, flattered, and recommends to her one of the French princes-the Duke of An Elizabeth was fain to listen to this proposal, because sti A.D. 1571. THE DUKE OF ANJOU PROPOSED IN MARRIAGE TO ELIZABETH. 473 thought that so long as she could amuse the French and his face was dreadfully scarred with the small-pox. Court with the project, she should be safe from any move- His mind was as deformed as his body—and this was the ment on its part for the Queen of Scots. Yet this could suitor at this moment recommended to Elizabeth by only be temporary, for assuredly Elizabeth never seriously Catherine! This was not, in fact, the Duke of Anjou, but contemplated marrying; but a flirtation, either public of Alençon, his younger brother. Long negotiations or private, was to her always an irresistible fascination. had taken place for the match with Anjou, but every one Besides Leicester, she had now another favourite, Chris- of Elizabeth's ministers had opposed it; and, finally, the topher Hatton, who, having casually appeared at the youth had declined it himself. Cecil used all his influpalace amongst the gentlemen of the Inns of Court at a ence against the match. He declared that not only masque, so charmed the queen by his fine form and fine Anjou, but the whole Royal family of France, were so dancing, that she at once placed him on her band of bigotedly Papist, that the proposal was perilous to the pensioners, the tallest and handsomest men in England. Protestant religion. When he could not prevail on that Soon after she dined with Sir Thomas Gresham she made argument, he even endeavoured to persuade her to marry Cecil Lord of Burleigh; his uncle, Lord William Howard, Leicester, who, he declared, would be far more acceptable lord privy seal; the Earl of Sussex chamberlain-that to the whole realm. But Elizabeth was now bent on office being vacated by Lord William Sir Thomas Smith, carrying on this courtship, at least for a time, and comprincipal secretary of state; and Hatton, who was a plained to the Ladies Clinton and Cobham of the oppolawyer, captain of the guard: rising, however, in Eliza-sition of her ministers. Lady Cobham spoke in favour beth's regard, she afterwards made him vice-chamberlain, of Anjou, only she observed that it was a pity he was so and finally lord chancellor. Gray, the poet, has humorously alluded to the fortunes of Lord Chancellor Hatton, and their cause, in his "Long Story: "— "Full oft within the spacious walls, When he had fifty winters o'er him, And seals and maces danced before him. "His bushy beard and shoe-strings green, His high-crowned hat and satin doublet, Though Pope and Spaniard could not trouble it." So rapid and extravagant grew Elizabeth's passion for the handsome and capering Hatton, that Leicester could not avoid attempting to ridicule his rival by offering to introduce to her a dancing-master who excelled Hatton in all the dances which he so much charmed her in. But his project was not lucky. Elizabeth, after hearing him, exclaimed, "Pish! I will not see your man: it is his trade." She gave way to the most ridiculous fondness for her new favourite. They corresponded together in the most fond and foolish style, of which the shelves of the State Paper Office bear heaps of proof. Nothing could be too much or too good to bestow upon him. He fell in love with the house and gardens of the Bishop of Ely, on Holborn Hill, then open, and celebrated for its pleasantness and flowers, and Elizabeth called on the bishop to give them up. He was not at all inclined to do so, on which the love-sick queen wrote to him in a style rather different to that in which she addressed Hatton : PROUD PRELATE,-You know what you were before I made you what you now are. If you do not immediately comply with my request, I will unfrock you, by God! ELIZABETH. The bishop lost no time in resigning his pleasant palace and gardens, with the gatehouse of his palace, on Holborn Hill-and several acres of land are since called Hatton Garden-only reserving a right of way through the gatehouse, of walking in the garden, and of gathering annually twenty bushels of roses. The royal lover who was now proposed by his mother, Catherine de Medicis, to supplant the two private lovers, was a youth of sixteen, whilst Elizabeth had arrived at the age of thirty-eight. His figure was diminutive, his features excessively ugly; he had a remarkably large nose, young. Elizabeth said the difference was only ten years, though it was really nearly twenty. But, unfortunately for Elizabeth's vanity, the young Anjou, who was one of the handsomest princes in Europe, positively refused to have her, declaring that he would not marry "an ugly old creature who had a sore leg." This news of the sore leg he had learned from Fenelon, who had informed his Court that, like her royal father, she had been laid up with a sore leg all the summer. From Norris, her ambassador at Paris, Elizabeth obtained so flattering an account of the beauty and grace of Anjou, that she asked Leicester to contrive that he should make a pleasure cruise on the Kentish coast, where she would betake herself, and so that they could see each other as by accident: but even this the ungallant prince bluntly refused, for he did not wish to seɔ her at all. Early in April, however, of this year, Guido Cavalcanti arrived in England with a joint letter from Charles IX. of France and Catherine de Medicis, making a formal offer of the Duke of Anjou's hand. Elizabeth appeared to receive the proposal with so much satisfaction, that the French ambassador really thought her this time sincere. She ran over, in great self-complacence, all the list of her royal and noble lovers, including the Kings of Spain and Sweden, the Prince of Denmark, and the son of the emperor; and, after all, professed to like the idea of the handsome Anjou best. But the ambassador made demands, in case of marriage, which, had Elizabeth been ever so sincere, would have effectually stopped the way. First and foremost, he was to enjoy free exercise of his religion that Elizabeth determined nobody should exercise. Next, he was to enjoy joint power with her: Elizabeth would never let go a particle of her power. Either of these items was enough to defeat the whole scheme. Besides, Elizabeth had heard of the prince's making jests at her expense, and she took care to let the ambassador know it. She told him "that it had been said in France that monsieur would do well to marry an old creature who had had, for the last year, the evil in her leg, which was not yet healed, and never could be cured; and that, under pretext of a remedy, they would send her a potion from France of such a nature that he would find himself a widower in six months, and then could please himself by marrying the Queen of Scotland, and remain the undisputed sovereign of the united realms." Fenelon pretended to be extremely shocked at such abominable falsehoods, as he termed them; and demanded the author of them, that he might be punished. She replied that it was time enough yet to name the author, but she would let them know more about it; and the next time she gave audience to the ambassador, she let him know that, "notwithstanding the reported state of her leg, she had not failed to dance on the preceding Sunday at the Marquis of Northampton's wedding; so that she hoped monsieur would not find himself cheated into marrying a cripple, instead of a lady of proper paces." At this crisis, when Elizabeth was wreaking her resent this he added a menace which confirmed all that Walsingham had heard. He said "that unless Elizabeth took means for the restoration of the Queen of Scotland to her rightful dignity, and in the meantime treated her in a kind and honourable manner, he should send forces openly to her assistance." Elizabeth justified her conduct to Mary by accusing her of constant plots against her crown and life, not only with her subjects, but with France, Rome, Flanders, and Spain; and, to turn the tables on the French Court, she immediately began to favour a proposal of marriage which was made her by the Emperor Maximilian for his eldest son, Prince Rodolph. About the same time she had an offer, also, of the hand of Prince Henry of Navarre, afterwards the famous Henry IV. These offers Elizabeth ment on her ungracious royal lover, she was suddenly startled by Walsingham informing her that Anjou was actually proposing for the Queen of Scots; that the French Court was earnestly seconding it, and that an application was already made to the Pope, who had promised a dispensation. He added that it was determined, if the treaty for the restoration of Mary did not succeed, France should fit out an expedition and take her from England by force. Elizabeth heard this intelligence with uncontrollable rage. Whilst she was affecting to reprimand the prince for his freedom of speech regarding herself, that he should actually show such contempt for her as to be wooing her rival-her captive, whom she could at any moment destroy-was a deep stroke to her pride. She is said to have wreaked her mortification on the unfortunate Mary, whose treatment became sensibly more rigorous and unkind. This treatment was, indeed, so cruel and vindictive, that the King of France ordered his ambassador to intercede on her behalf; and in doing played off against the French Court, but especially that of Prince Rodolph, boasting that she was about to ad to Spain a secret mission, whose object was an alliance with Philip, based on her marriage with his relative. Prince Rodolph. By these acts she succeeded in alarming the French Court, and resuming the negotiation on account of the Duke of Anjou. The greater part of this year was onesumed in these coquetries betwixt Elizabeth and the Court of France; for it could scarcely be said to be Anja himself, as he continued to make no scruple of his disgust at the prospect of the connection. His mother, Catherine de Medicis, was greatly disconcerted by this obstinacy of her son. She complained to Walsingham and Sir Thomss Smith, Elizabeth's ambassadors, that she was afraid Anjou listened to all the scandalous stories of the queen with her favourites Leicester and Hatton, and, in truth, these stories were extraordinary, and in every one's mouth The Earl of Arundel, and other nobles at her Court, repre excited her deepest resentment. She had cast him into prison, but even there he was a terror to her. The whole body of the Roman Catholics, indeed, was in a state of irritation and disaffection. They were excluded from all places of honour or profit, from the Court down to the City corporation, and even to the constable of the most remote and obscure village. This expulsion of them from patronage, at the same time that they were persecuted otherwise for the retention of their faith, was most impolitic. It converted them into one great mass of enemies; and as they had little to do, and were many of them at once men of family, of education, and of narrow means, they were anxious for some revolutionary demonstration, because they could lose little in it, and might chance to gain everything: they might avenge their injuries, and achieve liberty and government employment. If Elizabeth had studied how best she might add to this spirit of restless fermentation, she could not have hit on a more successful plan than that of introducing the beautiful Queen of Scots into the midst of them as an object cf admiration for her person and accomplishments, and c deep sympathy on account of her sufferings, her unjust thraldom, and her oppressed religion. She was the very sented the freedoms used by Leicester as a disgrace to the crown, and that neither the nobles nor the people at large ought to allow of such proceedings. They charged Leicester with using his privilege of entrée into the queen's bed-chamber most disreputably, asserting that he went in and out there before she rose; they also accused him of "kissing Her Majesty when he was not invited thereto." But whilst Anjou hung back from this great alliance, Elizabeth seemed only the more bent on it. She appeared to forget her pride, and to do all the wooing herself. She sent her portrait to the prince, declared her full determination to have him, and that he should enjoy the private exercise of his religion in England. The ungallant Anjou replied that he would not go there unless he could enjoy it publicly too. That he might no longer believe her lame or invalid, she gave over going to the chase in her coach, but rode upon a tall horse. She shot a large stag with her own hand, and sent it to the French ambassador to show how vigorous and robust she was; and she herself filled her work-basket with fine apricots, and desired Leicester to forward them to the prince, that he might see that England had a climate fine enough to produce beautiful fruit. But all these condescensions failed to move the obdurate Anjou, who, though he some-apple of discord which the most calculating enemy would times made fair speeches as a matter of courtesy, steadily recoiled from her offered hand, and would not even come over to England to gratify her with a view of him. At length, perceiving that her attentions were wholly thrown away on Anjou, she broke off the negotiation in disgust, declaring that the prince's adherence to his demand for the public exercise of his religion rendered the alliance impossible, and, therefore, the thought of it must be dismissed. The French ambassadors, at the suggestion of Burleigh, hastened to remove her mortification, which was in secret shown to be excessive, by offering the hand of the younger brother, the Duke of Alençon; and Elizabeth, though well aware of his mean person and as mean mind, pretended to listen to it, and, as we shall see, commenced a show of negotiation on that subject which lasted for some years; and, that there might appear no sign of chagrin or resentment on her part, she signed a treaty of perpetual peace and alliance with France on Sunday, the 15th of June, 1572, the Duke de Montmorenci and M. de Foix signing it on the part of Charles IX. The course of these love affairs Elizabeth had diversified by an execution. In June of the last year she caused one of her most bitter and determined enemies to be executed. This was Dr. Storey, who, during the reign of her sister Mary, had strenuously recommended her being put to death as the great root of all heresies and seditions. On her accession he had prudently left the kingdom, and entered the service of Philip, where he was said to have cursed Elizabeth every day before dinner as the most acceptable part of his grace. He was captured on board an English ship, in which, for some purpose or other, he was making his way to England, and was condemned as guilty of treason and magic. The Spanish ambassador claimed him as a subject of Philip, to which Elizabeth replied that His Majesty was welcome to his head, but that his body should not quit England. A much greater victim was now to suffer the penalty of her resentment. The Duke of Norfolk, both by his religion and by his earnest attachment to the Queen of Scots, have thrown into the centre of the teeming mass of resentments, wounded conscience, crushed hopes, and political abasement. Elizabeth had fixed her there herself by her perfidious and relentless detention, and st now reaped the punishment in perpetual plots and alarms of treason amid her very Court. All the disaffectel looked still to the Duke of Norfolk as worthy, by ha rank-being nearly connected in blood with the crownby his sufferings and affection for the Queen of Scots, be their head. In the month of April, 1571, Charles Bailly, a servar: of the Queen of Scots, who was coming from Brussels to Dover, was arrested at the latter place, and upon h was discovered a packet of letters which, being writte in cipher, created suspicion. The Bishop of Ross, Mary's staunch and vigilant friend, who knew very well whees they came, on the first rumour of their seizure, contrived to obtain them from Lord Cobham, in whose hands they were, from a pretended curiosity to read them ben they were sent to the Council. Having obtained desire, he dexterously substituted others, and very im cent ones, in their place, in a like cipher: but Bay, being sent to the Tower and placed on the rack, at la confessed that he had written the letters from the tation of Rudolfi, of Brussels, formerly an Italian bazi in London, and then had been commissioned by him convey them to England. He further confessed they contained assurances from the Duke of Alva of warm sympathy with the cause of the captive queen, approved of the plan of a foreign invasion of Engla that if his master the King of Spain authorised hem should be ready to co-operate with 30 and 40. these 30 and 40 were Bailly said he did not know. that all that was explained by a letter enclosed to Bishop of Ross, who was requested to deliver them to right persons. One of these persons was immediately believed the Duke of Norfolk. When he had been ten months a prisoner without any matter having been brought aga |