writers in proportion to their strength. We are a nation of
islanders, and we cannot help it, nor mend ourselves if we
would. We are something in ourselves, nothing when we try to
ape others. Music and painting are not our forte: for what we
have done in that way has been little, and that borrowed from
others with great difficulty. But we may boast of our poets
and philosophers. That's something. We have had strong heads
and sound hearts among us. Thrown on one side of the world,
and left to bustle for ourselves, we have fought out many a
battle for truth and freedom. That is our natural style; and
it were to be wished we had in no instance departed from it.
Our situation has given us a certain cast of thought and
character; and our liberty has enabled us to make the most of
it. We are of a stiff clay, not moulded into every fashion,
with stubborn joints not easily bent. We are slow to think,
and therefore impressions do not work upon us till they act in
masses. ... We may be accused of grossness, but not of
flimsiness; of extravagance, but not of affectation; of want
of art and refinement, but not of a want of truth and nature.
Our literature, in a word, is Gothic and grotesque; unequal
and irregular; not cast in a previous mould, nor of one
uniform texture, but of great weight in the whole, and of
incomparable value in the best parts. It aims at an excess of
beauty or power, hits or misses, and is either very good
indeed, or absolutely good for nothing. This character applies
in particular to our literature in the age of Elizabeth, which
is its best period, before the introduction of a rage for
French rules and French models."
W. Hazlitt,
Lectures on the Literature of the Age of Elizabeth,
lecture 1.
{838}
"Humanism, before it moulded the mind of the English, had
already permeated Italian and French literature. Classical
erudition had been adapted to the needs of modern thought.
Antique authors had been collected, printed, annotated, and
translated. They were fairly mastered in the south, and
assimilated to the style of the vernacular. By these means
much of the learning popularised by our poets, essayists, and
dramatists came to us at second-hand, and bore the stamp of
contemporary genius. In like manner, the best works of
Italian, French, Spanish, and German literature were
introduced into Great Britain together with the classics. The
age favoured translation, and English readers before the close
of the sixteenth century, were in possession of a cosmopolitan
library in their mother tongue, including choice specimens of
ancient and modern masterpieces. These circumstances
sufficiently account for the richness and variety of
Elizabethan literature. They also help to explain two points
which must strike every student of that literature--its native
freshness, and its marked unity of style. Elizabethan
literature was fresh and native, because it was the utterance
of a youthful race, aroused to vigorous self-consciousness
under conditions which did not depress or exhaust its
energies. The English opened frank eyes upon the discovery of
the world and man, which had been effected by the Renaissance.
They were not wearied with collecting, collating, correcting,
transmitting to the press. All the hard work of assimilating
the humanities had been done for them. They had only to survey
and to enjoy, to feel and to express, to lay themselves open
to delightful influences, to con the noble lessons of the
past, to thrill beneath the beauty and the awe of an authentic
revelation. Criticism had not laid its cold, dry finger on the
blossoms of the fancy. The new learning was still young enough to
be a thing of wonder and entrancing joy."
J. A. Symonds,
A Comparison of Elizabethan with Victorian Poetry
(Fortnightly Rev., volume 45, page 56).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1559.
The Act of Supremacy, the Act of Uniformity, and the Court of
High Commission.
"When Elizabeth's first Parliament met in January 1559,
Convocation, of course, met too. It at once claimed that the
clergy alone had authority in matters of faith, and proceeded
to pass resolutions in favour of Transubstantiation, the Mass,
and the Papal Supremacy. The bishops and the Universities
signed a formal agreement to this effect. That in the
constitution of the English Church, Convocation, as
Convocation, has no such power as this, was proved by the
steps now taken. The Crown, advised by the Council and
Parliament, took the matter in hand. As every element, except
the Roman, had been excluded from the clerical bodies, a
consultation was ordered between the representatives of both
sides, and all preaching was suspended till a settlement had
been arrived at between the queen and the Three Estates of the
realm. The consultation broke upon the refusal of the Romanist
champions to keep to the terms agreed upon; but even before it
took place Parliament restored the Royal Supremacy, repealed
the laws of Mary affecting religion, and gave the queen by her
own desire, not the title of 'Supreme Head,' but 'Supreme
Governor,' of the Church of England."
M. Burrows,
Commentaries on the History of England,
book 2, chapter 17.
This first Parliament of Elizabeth passed two memorable acts
of great importance in English history,--the Act of Supremacy
and the Act of Uniformity of Common Prayer. "The former is
entitled 'An act for restoring to the crown the ancient
jurisdiction over the State Ecclesiastical and Spiritual; and
for abolishing foreign power.' It is the same for substance
with the 25th of Henry VIII. ... but the commons incorporated
several other bills into it; for besides the title of 'Supreme
Governor in all causes Ecclesiastical and Temporal,' which is
restored to the Queen, the act revives those laws of King
Henry VIII. and King Edward VI. which had been repealed in the
late reign. It forbids all appeals to Rome, and exonerates the
subjects from all exactions and impositions heretofore paid to
that court; and as it revives King Edward's laws, it repeals a
severe act made in the late reign for punishing heresy. ...
'Moreover, all persons in any public employs, whether civil or
ecclesiastical, are obliged to take an oath in recognition of
the Queen's right to the crown, and of her supremacy in all
causes ecclesiastical and civil, on penalty of forfeiting all
their promotions in the church, and of being declared
incapable of holding any public office.' ... Further, 'The act
forbids all writing, printing, teaching, or preaching, and all
other deeds or acts whereby any foreign jurisdiction over
these realms is defended, upon pain that they and their
abettors, being thereof convicted, shall for the first offence
forfeit their goods and chattels; ... spiritual persons shall
lose their benefices, and all ecclesiastical preferments; for
the second offence they shall incur the penalties of a
præmunire; and the third offence shall be deemed high
treason.' There is a remarkable clause in this act, which gave
rise to a new court, called 'The Court of High Commission.'
The words are these, 'The Queen and her successors shall have
power, by their letters patent under the great seal, to
assign, name, and authorize, as often as they shall think
meet, and for as long a time as they shall please, persons
being natural-born subjects, to use, occupy, and exercise,
under her and them, all manner of jurisdiction, privileges,
and preeminences, touching any spiritual or ecclesiastical
jurisdiction within the realms of England and Ireland, &c., to
visit, reform, redress, order, correct and amend all errors,
heresies, schisms, abuses, contempts, offences and enormities
whatsoever. Provided, that they have no power to determine
anything to be heresy, but what has been adjudged to be so by
the authority of the canonical scripture, or by the first four
general councils, or any of them; or by any other general
council wherein the same was declared heresy by the express
and plain words of canonical scripture; or such as shall
hereafter be declared to be heresy by the high court of
parliament, with the assent of the clergy in convocation.'
Upon the authority of this clause the Queen appointed a
certain number of 'Commissioners' for ecclesiastical causes,
who exercised the same power that had been lodged in the hands
of one vicegerent in the reign of King Henry VIII. And how
sadly they abused their power in this and the two next reigns
will appear in the sequel of this history. They did not
trouble themselves much with the express words of scripture,
or the four first general councils, but entangled their
prisoners with oaths ex-officio, and the inextricable mazes of
the popish canon law. ... The papists being vanquished, the
next point was to unite the reformed among themselves. ...
Though all the reformers were of one faith, yet they were far
from agreeing about discipline and ceremonies, each party
being for settling the church according to their own model. ...
{839}
The Queen ... therefore appointed a committee of divines to
review King Edward's liturgy, and to see if in any particular
it was fit to be changed; their names were Dr. Parker,
Grindal, Cox, Pilkington, May, Bill, Whitehead, and Sir Thomas
Smith, doctor of the civil law. Their instructions were, to
strike out all offensive passages against the pope, and to
make people easy about the belief of the corporal presence of
Christ in the sacraments; but not a word in favour of the
stricter protestants. Her Majesty was afraid of reforming too
far; she was desirous to retain images in churches, crucifixes
and crosses, vocal and instrumental music, with all the old
popish garments; it is not therefore to be wondered, that in
reviewing the liturgy of King Edward, no alterations were made
in favour of those who now began to be called Puritans, from
their attempting a purer form of worship and discipline than
had yet been established. ... The book was presented to the
two houses and passed into a law. ... The title of the act is
'An act for the Uniformity of Common Prayer and Service in the
Church, and administration of the Sacraments.' It was brought
into the House of Commons April 18th, and was read a third
time April 20th. It passed the House of Lords April 28th, and
took place from the 24th of June 1559."
D. Neal,
History of the Puritans,
volume 1, chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
G. Burnet,
History of the Reformation of the Church of England.,
volume 2, book 3.
P. Heylyn,
Ecclesia Restaurata: Elizabeth, Anno 1.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1559-1566.
Puritanism taking form.
"The Church of England was a latitudinarian experiment, a
contrivance to enable men of opposing creeds to live together
without shedding each others' blood. It was not intended, and
it was not possible, that Catholics or Protestants should find
in its formulas all that they required. The services were
deliberately made elastic; comprehending in the form of
positive statement only what all Christians agreed in
believing, while opportunities were left open by the rubric to
vary the ceremonial according to the taste of the
congregations. The management lay with the local authorities
in town or parish: where the people were Catholics the
Catholic aspect could be made prominent; where Popery was a
bugbear, the people were not disturbed by the obtrusion of
doctrines which they had outgrown. In itself it pleased no
party or section. To the heated controversialist its chief
merit was its chief defect. ... Where the tendencies to Rome
were strongest, there the extreme Reformers considered
themselves bound to exhibit in the most marked contrast the
unloveliness of the purer creed. It was they who furnished the
noble element in the Church of England. It was they who had
been its martyrs; they who, in their scorn of the world, in
their passionate desire to consociate themselves in life and
death to the Almighty, were able to rival in self-devotion the
Catholic Saints. But they had not the wisdom of the serpent,
and certainly not the harmlessness of the dove. Had they been
let alone--had they been unharassed by perpetual threats of
revolution and a return of the persecutions--they, too, were
not disinclined to reason and good sense. A remarkable
specimen survives, in an account of the Church of Northampton,
of what English Protestantism could become under favouring
conditions. ... The fury of the times unhappily forbade the
maintenance of this wise and prudent spirit. As the power of
evil gathered to destroy the Church of England, a fiercer
temper was required to combat with them, and Protestantism
became impatient, like David, of the uniform in which it was
sent to the battle. It would have fared ill with England had
there been no hotter blood there than filtered in the sluggish
veins of the officials of the Establishment. There needed an
enthusiasm fiercer far to encounter the revival of Catholic
fanaticism; and if the young Puritans, in the heat and glow of
their convictions, snapped their traces and flung off their
harness, it was they, after all, who saved the Church which
attempted to disown them, and with the Church saved also the
stolid mediocrity to which the fates then and ever committed
and commit the government of it."
J. A. Froude,
History of England,
volume 10, chapter 20.
"The compromise arranged by Cranmer had from the first been
considered by a large body of Protestants as a scheme for
serving two masters, as an attempt to unite the worship of the
Lord with the worship of Baal. In the days of Edward VI. the
scruples of this party had repeatedly thrown great
difficulties in the way of the government. When Elizabeth came
to the throne, those difficulties were much increased.
Violence naturally engenders violence. The spirit of
Protestantism was therefore far fiercer and more intolerant
after the cruelties of Mary than before them. Many persons who
were warmly attached to the new opinions had, during the evil
days, taken refuge in Switzerland and Germany. They had been
hospitably received by their brethren in the faith, had sate
at the feet of the great doctors of Strasburg, Zurich and
Geneva, and had been, during some years, accustomed to a more
simple worship, and to a more democratical form of church
government, than England had yet seen. These men returned to
their country, convinced that the reform which had been
effected under King Edward had been far less searching and
extensive than the interests of pure religion required. But it
was in vain that they attempted to obtain any concession from
Elizabeth. Indeed, her system, wherever it differed from her
brother's, seemed to them to differ for the worse. They were
little disposed to submit, in matters of faith, to any human
authority. ... Since these men could not be convinced, it was
determined that they should be persecuted. Persecution
produced its natural effect on them. It found them a sect: it
made them a faction. ... The power of the discontented
sectaries was great. They were found in every rank; but they
were strongest among the mercantile classes in the towns, and
among the small proprietors in the country. Early in the reign
of Elizabeth they began to return a majority of the House of
Commons. And doubtless, had our ancestors been then at liberty
to fix their attention entirely on domestic questions, the
strife between the crown and the Parliament would instantly
have commenced. But that was no season for internal
dissensions. ... Roman Catholic Europe and reformed Europe
were struggling for death or life. ... Whatever might be the
faults of Elizabeth, it was plain that, to speak humanly, the
fate of the realm and of all reformed churches was staked on
the security of her person and on the success of her
administration. ...
{840}
The Puritans, even in the depths of the prisons to which she
had sent them, prayed, and with no simulated fervour, that she
might be kept from the dagger of the assassin, that rebellion
might be put down under her feet, and that her arms might be
victorious by sea and land."
Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
volume 1, chapter 1.
"Two parties quickly evolved themselves out of the mass of
Englishmen who held Calvinistic opinions; namely those who
were willing to conform to the requirements of the Queen, and
those who were not. To both is often given indiscriminately by
historians the name of Puritan; but it seems more correct, and
certainly is more convenient, to restrict the use of the name
to those who are sometimes called conforming Puritans. ... To
the other party fitly belongs the name of Nonconformist. ...
It was against the Nonconformist organization that Elizabeth's
efforts were chiefly directed. ... The war began in the
enforcement by Archbishop Parker in 1565 of the Advertisements
as containing the minimum of ceremonial that would be
tolerated. In 1566 the clergy of London were required to make
the declaration of Conformity which was appended to the
Advertisements, and thirty-seven were suspended or deprived
for refusal. Some of the deprived ministers continued to
conduct services and preach in spite of their deprivation, and
so were formed the first bodies of Nonconformists, organized
in England."
H. O. Wakeman,
The Church and the Puritans,
chapter 3.
ALSO IN:
J. Tulloch,
English Puritanism and its Leaders,
introduction.
D. Neal,
History of the Puritans,
volume 1, chapter 4.
D. Campbell,
The Puritan in Holland, England, and America,
chapters 8-10 (volume 1).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1562-1567.
Hawkins' slave-trading voyages to America.
First English enterprise in the New World.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1562-1567.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1564-1565 (?).
The first naming of the Puritans.
"The English bishops, conceiving themselves empowered by their
canons, began to show their authority in urging the clergy of
their dioceses to subscribe to the Liturgy, ceremonies and
discipline of the Church; and such as refused the same were
branded with the odious name of Puritans. A name which in this
notion first began in this year [A. D. 1564]; and the grief
had not been great if it had ended in the same. The
philosopher banisheth the term, (which is Polysæmon), that is
subject to several senses, out of the predicaments, as
affording too much covert for cavil by the latitude thereof.
On the same account could I wish that the word Puritan were
banished common discourse, because so various in the
acceptations thereof. We need not speak of the ancient Cathari
or primitive Puritans, sufficiently known by their heretical
opinions. Puritan here was taken for the opposers of the
hierarchy and church service, as resenting of superstition.
But profane mouths quickly improved this nickname, therewith
on every occasion to abuse pious people; some of them so far
from opposing the Liturgy, that they endeavoured (according to
the instructions thereof in the preparative to the Confession)
'to accompany the minister with a pure heart,' and laboured
(as it is in the Absolution) 'for a life pure and holy.' We
will, therefore, decline the word to prevent exceptions;
which, if casually slipping from our pen, the reader knoweth
that only nonconformists are thereby intended."
T. Fuller,
Church History of Britain,
book 9, section 1.
"For in this year [1565] it was that the Zuinglian or
Calvinian faction began to be first known by the name of
Puritans, if Genebrard, Gualter, and Spondanus (being all of
them right good chronologers) be not mistaken in the time.
Which name hath ever since been appropriate to them, because
of their pretending to a greater purity in the service of God
than was held forth unto them (as they gave out) in the Common
Prayer Book; and to a greater opposition to the rites and
usages of the Church of Rome than was agreeable to the
constitution of the Church of England."
P. Heylyn,
Ecclesia Restaurata: Elizabeth,
Anno 7, section 6.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1568.
Detention and imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1561-1568.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1569.
Quarrel with the Spanish governor of the Netherlands.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1568-1572.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1572-1580.
Drake's piratical warfare with Spain and his famous voyage.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1572-1580.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1572-1603.
Queen Elizabeth's treatment of the Roman Catholics.
Persecution of the Seminary Priests and the Jesuits.
"Camden and many others have asserted that by systematic
connivance the Roman Catholics enjoyed a pretty free use of
their religion for the first fourteen years of Elizabeth's
reign. But this is not reconcilable to many passages in
Strype's collections. We find abundance of persons harassed
for recusancy, that is, for not attending the protestant
church, and driven to insincere promises of conformity. Others
were dragged before ecclesiastical commissions for harbouring
priests, or for sending money to those who had fled beyond
sea. ... A great majority both of clergy and laity yielded to
the times; and of these temporizing conformists it cannot be
doubted that many lost by degrees all thought of returning to
their ancient fold. But others, while they complied with
exterior ceremonies, retained in their private devotions their
accustomed mode of worship. ... Priests ... travelled the
country in various disguises, to keep alive a flame which the
practice of outward conformity was calculated to extinguish.
There was not a county throughout England, says a Catholic
historian, where several of Mary's clergy did not reside, and
were commonly called the old priests. They served as chaplains
in private families. By stealth, at the dead of night, in
private chambers, in the secret lurking places of an
ill-peopled country, with all the mystery that subdues the
imagination, with all the mutual trust that invigorates
constancy, these proscribed ecclesiastics celebrated their
solemn rites, more impressive in such concealment than if
surrounded by all their former splendour. ... It is my
thorough conviction that the persecution, for it can obtain no
better name, carried on against the English Catholics, however
it might serve to delude the government by producing an
apparent conformity, could not but excite a spirit of
disloyalty in many adherents of that faith. Nor would it be
safe to assert that a more conciliating policy would have
altogether disarmed their hostility, much less laid at rest
those busy hopes of the future, which the peculiar
circumstances of Elizabeth's reign had a tendency to produce."
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 3.
{841}
"The more vehement Catholics had withdrawn from the country,
on account of the dangers which there beset them. They had
taken refuge in the Low Countries, and there Allen, one of the
chief among them, had established a seminary at Douay, for the
purpose of keeping up a supply of priests in England. To Douay
numbers of young Englishmen from Oxford continually flocked.
The establishment had been broken up by Requescens, and
removed to Rheims, and a second college of the same
description was established at Rome. From these two centres of
intrigue numerous enthusiastic young men constantly repaired
to England, and in the disguise of laymen carried on their
priestly work and attempted to revive the Romanist religion.
But abler and better disciplined workmen were now wanted.
Allen and his friends therefore opened negotiations with
Mercuriano, the head of the Jesuit order, in which many
Englishmen had enrolled themselves. In 1580, as part of a
great combined Catholic effort, a regular Jesuit mission,
under two priests, Campion and Parsons, was despatched to
England. ... The new missionaries were allowed to say that
that part of the Bull [of excommunication issued against
Elizabeth] which pronounced censures upon those who clung to
their allegiance applied to heretics only, that Catholics
might profess themselves loyal until the time arrived for
carrying the Bull into execution; in other words, they were
permitted to be traitors at heart while declaring themselves
loyal subjects. This explanation of the Bull was of itself
sufficient to justify severity on the part of the government.
It was impossible henceforward to separate Roman Catholicism
from disloyalty. Proclamations were issued requiring English
parents to summon their children from abroad, and declaring
that to harbour Jesuit priests was to support rebels. ...
Early in December several priests were apprehended and closely
examined, torture being occasionally used for the purpose. In
view of the danger which these examinations disclosed,
stringent measures were taken. Attendance at church was
rendered peremptorily necessary. Parliament was summoned in
the beginning of 1581 and laws passed against the action of
the Jesuits. ... Had Elizabeth been conscious of the full
extent of the plot against her, had she known the intention of
the Guises [then dominant in France] to make a descent upon
England in co-operation with Spain, and the many ramifications
of the plot in her own country, it is reasonable to suppose
that she would have been forced at length to take decided
measures. But in ignorance of the abyss opening before her
feet, she continued for some time longer her old temporizing
policy." At last, in November, 1583, the discovery of a plot
for the assassination of the queen, and the arrest of one
Throgmorton, whose papers and whose confession were of
startling import, brought to light the whole plan and extent
of the conspiracy. "Some of her Council urged her at once to
take a straightforward step, to make common cause with the
Protestants of Scotland and the Netherlands, and to bid
defiance to Spain. To this honest step, she as usual could not
bring herself, but strong measures were taken in England.
Great numbers of Jesuits and seminary priests were apprehended
and executed, suspected magistrates removed, and those
Catholic Lords whose treachery might have been fatal to her
ejected from their places of authority and deprived of
influence."
J. F. Bright,
History of England,
period 2, pages 546-549.
"That the conspiracy with which these men were charged was a
fiction cannot be doubted. They had come to England under a
prohibition to take any part in secular concerns, and with the
sole view of exercising the spiritual functions of the
priesthood. ... At the same time it must be owned that the
answers which six of them gave to the queries were far from
satisfactory. Their hesitation to deny the opposing power (a
power then indeed maintained by the greater number of divines
in Catholic kingdoms) rendered their loyalty very
problematical, in case of an attempt to enforce the bull by
any foreign prince. It furnished sufficient reason to watch
their conduct with an eye of jealousy ... but could not
justify their execution for an imaginary offence."
J. Lingard,
History of England,
volume 8, chapter 3.
"It is probable that not many more than 200 Catholics were
executed, as such, in Elizabeth's reign, and this was ten
score too many. ... 'Dod reckons them at 191; Milner has
raised the list to 204. Fifteen of these, according to him,
suffered for denying the Queen's supremacy, 126 for exercising
their ministry, and the rest for being reconciled to the
Romish church. Many others died of hardships in prison, and
many were deprived of their property. There seems,
nevertheless [says Hallam], to be good reason for doubting
whether anyone who was executed might not have saved his life
by explicitly denying the Pope's power to depose the Queen.'"
J. L. Motley,
History of the United Netherlands,
chapter 17, with foot-note.
ALSO IN:
J. Foley,
Records of the English Province of the Society of
Jesus.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1574.
Emancipation of villeins on the royal domains.
Practical end of serfdom.
See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL: ENGLAND.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1575.
Sovereignty of Holland and Zealand offered to Queen Elizabeth,
and declined.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1575-1577.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1581.
Marriage proposals of the Duke of Anjou declined by Queen
Elizabeth.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1581-1584.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1583.
The expedition of Sir Humphrey Gilbert.
Formal possession taken of Newfoundland.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1583.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1584-1590.
Raleigh's colonizing attempts in America.
See AMERICA: A. D. 1584-1586; and 1587-1590.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1585-1586.
Leicester in the Low Countries.
Queen Elizabeth's treacherous dealing with the
struggling Netherlanders.
See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1585-1586.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1585-1587.
Mary Queen of Scots and the Catholic conspiracies.
Her trial and execution.
"Maddened by persecution, by the hopelessness of rebellion
within or deliverance from without, the fiercer Catholics
listened to schemes of assassination, to which the murder of
William of Orange lent at the moment a terrible significance.
The detection of Somerville, a fanatic who had received the
host before setting out for London 'to shoot the Queen with
his dagg,' was followed by measures of natural severity, by
the flight and arrest of Catholic gentry, by a vigourous
purification of the Inns of Court, where a few Catholics
lingered, and by the dispatch of fresh batches of priests to
the block. The trial and death of Parry, a member of the House
of Commons who had served in the Queen's household, on a
similar charge, brought the Parliament together in a transport
of horror and loyalty.
{842}
All Jesuits and seminary priests were banished from the realm
on pain of death. A bill for the security of the Queen
disqualified any claimant of the succession who had instigated
subjects to rebellion or hurt to the Queen's person from ever
succeeding to the crown. The threat was aimed at Mary Stuart.
Weary of her long restraint, of her failure to rouse Philip or
Scotland to aid her, of the baffled revolt of the English
Catholics and the baffled intrigues of the Jesuits, she bent
for a moment to submission. 'Let me go,' she wrote to
Elizabeth; 'let me retire from this island to some solitude
where I may prepare my soul to die. Grant this and I will sign
away every right which either I or mine can claim.' But the
cry was useless, and her despair found a new and more terrible
hope in the plots against Elizabeth's life. She knew and
approved the vow of Anthony Babington and a band of young
Catholics, for the most part connected with the royal
household, to kill the Queen; but plot and approval alike
passed through Walsingham's hands, and the seizure of Mary's
correspondence revealed her guilt. In spite of her protests, a
commission of peers sat as her judges at Fotheringay Castle;
and their verdict of 'guilty' annihilated, under the
provisions of the recent statute, her claim to the crown. The
streets of London blazed with bonfires, and peals rang out
from steeple to steeple, at the news of her condemnation; but,
in spite of the prayer of Parliament for her execution, and
the pressure of the Council, Elizabeth shrank from her death.
The force of public opinion, however, was now carrying all
before it, and the unanimous demand of her people wrested at
last a sullen consent from the Queen. She flung the warrant
signed upon the floor, and the Council took on themselves the
responsibility of executing it. Mary died [February 8, 1587]
on a scaffold which was erected in the castle hall at
Fotheringay, as dauntlessly as she had lived. 'Do not weep,'
she said to her ladies, 'I have given my word for you.' 'Tell
my friends,' she charged Melville, 'that I die a good
Catholic.'"
J. R. Green,
Short History of the English People,
chapter 7, section 6.
"'Who now doubts,' writes an eloquent modern writer, 'that it
would have been wiser in Elizabeth to spare her life?' Rather,
the political wisdom of a critical and difficult act has never
in the world's history been more signally justified. It cut
away the only interest on which the Scotch and English
Catholics could possibly have combined. It determined Philip
upon the undisguised pursuit of the English throne, and it
enlisted against him and his projects the passionate
patriotism of the English nobility."
J. A. Froude,
History of England,
volume 12, chapter 34.
ALSO IN:
A. De Lamartine,
Mary Stuart,
chapter 31-34.
L. S. F. Buckingham,
Memoirs of Mary Stuart,
volume 2, chapter 5-6.
L. von Ranke,
History of England,
book 3, chapter 5.
J. D. Leader,
Mary Queen of Scots in Captivity.
C. Nau,
History of Mary Stuart.
F. A. Mignet,
History of Mary Queen of Scots,
chapters 9-10.
England: A. D. 1587-1588.
The wrath of Catholic Europe.
Spanish vengeance and ambition astir.
"The death of Mary [Queen of Scots] may have preserved England
from the religious struggle which would have ensued upon her
accession to the throne, but it delivered Elizabeth from only
one, and that the weakest of her enemies; and it exposed her
to a charge of injustice and cruelty, which, being itself well
founded, obtained belief for any other accusation, however
extravagantly false. It was not Philip [of Spain] alone who
prepared for making war upon her with a feeling of personal
hatred: throughout Romish Christendom she was represented as a
monster of iniquity; that representation was assiduously set
forth, not in ephemeral libels, but in histories, in dramas,
in poems, and in hawker's pamphlets; and when the king of
Spain equipped an armament for the invasion of England,
volunteers entered it with a passionate persuasion that they
were about to bear a part in a holy war against the wickedest
and most inhuman of tyrants. The Pope exhorted Philip to
engage in this great enterprize for the sake of the Roman
Catholic and apostolic church, which could not be more
effectually nor more meritoriously extended than by the
conquest of England; so should he avenge his own private and
public wrongs; so should he indeed prove himself most worthy
of the glorious title of Most Catholic King. And he promised,
as soon as his troops should have set foot in that island, to
supply him with a million of crowns of gold towards the
expenses of the expedition. ... Such exhortations accorded
with the ambition, the passions, and the rooted principles of
the king of Spain. The undertaking was resolved."
R. Southey,
Lives of the British Admirals,
volume 2, page 319.
"The succours which Elizabeth had from time to time afforded
to the insurgents of the Netherlands was not the only cause of
Philip's resentment and of his desire for revenge. She had
fomented the disturbances in Portugal, ... and her captains,
among whom Sir Francis Drake was the most active, had for many
years committed unjustifiable depredations on the Spanish
possessions of South America, and more than once on the coasts
of the Peninsula itself. ... By Spanish historians, these
hostilities are represented as unprovoked in their origin, and
as barbarous in their execution, and candor must allow that
there is but too much justice in the complaint."
S. A. Dunham,
History of Spain and Portugal,
book 4, section 1, chapter 1.
ALSO IN:
J. A. Froude,
History of England,
volume 12, chapter 35.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1588.
The Spanish Armada.
"Perhaps in the history of mankind there has never been a vast
project of conquest conceived and matured in so protracted and
yet so desultory a manner, as was this famous Spanish
invasion. ... At last, on the 28th, 29th and 30th May, 1588,
the fleet, which had been waiting at Lisbon more than a month
for favourable weather, set sail from that port, after having
been duly blessed by the Cardinal Archduke Albert, viceroy of
Portugal. There were rather more than 130 ships in all,
divided into 10 squadrons. ... The total tonnage of the fleet
was 59,120: the number of guns was 3,165. Of Spanish troops
there were 19,295 on board: there were 8,252 sailors and 2,088
galley-slaves. Besides these, there was a force of noble
volunteers, belonging to the most illustrious houses of Spain,
with their attendants, amounting to nearly 2,000 in all. ...
The size of the ships ranged from 1,200 tons to 300. The
galleons, of which there were about 60, were huge
round-stemmed clumsy vessels, with bulwarks three or four feet
thick, and built up at stem and stern, like castles.
{843}
The galeasses--of which there were four--were a third larger
than the ordinary galley, and were rowed each by 300
galley-slaves. They consisted of an enormous towering fortress
at the stern, a castellated structure almost equally massive
in front, with seats for the rowers amidships. At stem and
stern and between each of the slaves' benches were heavy
cannon. These galeasses were floating edifices, very wonderful
to contemplate. They were gorgeously decorated. There were
splendid state-apartments, cabins, chapels, and pulpits in
each, and they were amply provided with awnings, cushions,
streamers, standards, gilded saints and bands of music. To
take part in an ostentatious pageant, nothing could be better
devised. To fulfil the great objects of a war-vessel--to sail
and to fight--they were the worst machines ever launched upon
the ocean. The four galleys were similar to the galeasses in
every respect except that of size, in which they were by
one-third inferior. All the ships of the fleet--galeasses,
galleys, galleons, and hulks--were so encumbered with
top-hamper, so over-weighted in proportion to their draught of
water, that they could bear but little canvas, even with
smooth seas and light and favourable winds. ... Such was the
machinery which Philip had at last set afloat, for the purpose
of dethroning Elizabeth and establishing the inquisition in
England. One hundred and forty ships, 11,000 Spanish veterans,
as many more recruits, partly Spanish, partly Portuguese, 2,000
grandees, as many galley slaves, and 300 barefooted friars and
inquisitors. The plan was simple. Medina Sidonia [the
captain-general of the Armada] was to proceed straight from
Lisbon to Calais roads: there he was to wait for the Duke of
Parma [Spanish commander in the Netherlands], who was to come
forth from Newport, Sluys, and Dunkirk, bringing with him his
17,000 veterans, and to assume the chief command of the whole
expedition. They were then to cross the channel to Dover, land
the army of Parma, reinforced with 6,000 Spaniards from the
fleet, and with these 23,000 men Alexander was to march at
once upon London. Medina Sidonia was to seize and fortify the
Isle of Wight, guard the entrance of the harbours against any
interference from the Dutch and English fleets, and--so soon
as the conquest of England had been effected--he was to
proceed to Ireland. ... A strange omission had however been
made in the plan from first to last. The commander of the
whole expedition was the Duke of Parma: on his head was the
whole responsibility. Not a gun was to be fired--if it could
be avoided--until he had come forth with his veterans to make
his junction with the Invincible Armada off Calais. Yet there
was no arrangement whatever to enable him to come forth--not
the slightest provision to effect that junction. ... Medina
could not go to Farnese [Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma],
nor could Farnese come to Medina. The junction was likely to
be difficult, and yet it had never once entered the heads of
Philip or his counsellors to provide for that difficulty. ...
With as much sluggishness as might have been expected from
their clumsy architecture, the ships of the Armada consumed
nearly three weeks in sailing from Lisbon to the neighbourhood
of Cape Finisterre. Here they were overtaken by a tempest. ...
Of the squadron of galleys, one was already sunk in the sea,
and two of the others had been conquered by their own slaves.
The fourth rode out the gale with difficulty, and joined the
rest of the fleet, which ultimately reassembled at Coruña; the
ships having, in distress, put in first at Vivera, Ribadeo,
Gijon, and other northern ports of Spain. At the Groyne--as
the English of that day were accustomed to call Coruña--they
remained a month, repairing damages and recruiting; and on the
22d of July (N. S.) the Armada set sail. Six days later, the
Spaniards took soundings, thirty leagues from the Scilly
Islands, and on Friday, the 29th of July, off the Lizard, they
had the first glimpse of the land of promise presented them by
Sixtus V. of which they had at last come to take possession.
On the same day and night the blaze and smoke of ten thousand
beacon-fires from the Land's End to Margate, and from the Isle
of Wight to Cumberland, gave warning to every Englishman that
the enemy was at last upon them."
J. L. Motley,
History of the United Netherlands,
chapter 19.
ALSO IN:
J. A. Froude,
History of England,
volume 12, chapter 36.
J. A. Froude,
The Spanish Story of the Armada.
R. Southey,
Lives of British Admirals,
volume 2, pages 327-334.
C. M. Yonge,
Cameos from English History,
5th series, chapter 27.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1588.
The Destruction of the Armada.
"The great number of the English, the whole able-bodied
population being drilled, counterbalanced the advantage
possessed, from their universal use of firearms, by the
invaders. In all the towns there were trained bands (a civic
militia); and, either in regular service or as volunteers,
thousands of all ranks had received a military training on the
continent. The musters represented 100,000 men as ready to
assemble at their head-quarters at a day's notice. It was, as
nearly always, in its military administration that the
vulnerable point of England lay. The fitting-out and
victualling of the navy was disgraceful; and it is scarcely an
excuse for the councillors that they were powerless against
the parsimony of the Queen. The Government maintained its
hereditary character from the days of Ethelred the Unready,
and the arrangements for assembling the defensive forces were
not really completed by them until after the Armada was
destroyed. The defeat of the invaders, if they had landed,
must have been accomplished by the people. The flame of
patriotism never burnt purer: all Englishmen alike, Romanists,
Protestant Episcopalians, and Puritans, were banded together
to resist the invader. Every hamlet was on the alert for the
beacon-signal. Some 15,000 men were already under arms in
London; the compact Tilbury Fort was full, and a bridge of
boats from Tilbury to Gravesend blocked the Thames. Philip's
preparations had been commensurate with the grandeur of his
scheme. The dockyards in his ports in the Low Countries, the
rivers, the canals, and the harbours of Spain, Portugal,
Naples, and Italy, echoed the clang of the shipwrights'
hammers. A vast armament, named, as if to provoke Nemesis, the
'Invincible Armada,' on which for three years the treasures of
the American mines had been lavished, at length rode the seas,
blessed with Papal benedictions and under the patronage of the
saints. It comprised 65 huge galleons, of from 700 to 1,300
tons, with sides of enormous thickness, and built high like
castles; four great galleys, each carrying 50 guns and 450
men, and rowed by 300 slaves; 56 armed merchantmen, and 20
pinnaces. These 129 vessels were armed with 2,430 brass and
iron guns of the best manufacture, but each gun was furnished
only with 50 rounds.
{844}
They carried 5,000 seamen: Parma's army amounted to 30,000
men--Spaniards, Germans, Italians and Walloons; and 19,000
Castilians and Portuguese, with 1,000 gentlemen volunteers,
were coming to join him. To maintain this army after it had
effected a landing, a great store of provisions--sufficient
for 40,000 men for six months--was placed on board. The
overthrow of this armament was effected by the navy and the
elements. From the Queen's parsimony the State had only 36
ships in the fleet; but the City of London furnished 33
vessels; 18 were supplied by the liberality of private
individuals; and nearly 100 smaller ships were obtained on
hire; so that the fleet was eventually brought up to nearly
30,000 tons, carrying 16,000 men, and equipped with 837 guns.
But there was sufficient ammunition for only a single day's
fighting. Fortunately for Elizabeth's Government, the
Spaniards, having been long driven from the channel by
privateers, were now unacquainted with its currents; and they
could procure, as the Dutch were in revolt, only two or three
competent pilots. The Spanish commander was the Duke of
Medina-Sidonia, an incapable man, but he had under him some of
the ablest of Philip's officers. When the ships set out from
the Tagus, on the 29th May, 1588, a storm came on, and the
Armada had to put into Coruña to refit. From that port the
Armada set out at the beginning of July, in lovely weather,
with just enough wind to wave from the mastheads the red
crosses which they bore as symbols of their crusade. The Duke
of Medina entered the Channel on the 18th July, and the rear
of his fleet was immediately harassed by a cannonade from the
puny ships of England, commanded by Lord Howard of Effingham
(Lord High Admiral), with Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher, Winter,
Fenner, and other famous captains. With the loss of three
galleons from fire or boarding, the Spanish commander, who was
making for Flanders to embark Parma's army, anchored in Calais
roads. In the night fire-ships--an ancient mode of warfare
which had just been reintroduced by the Dutch--passed in among
the Armada, a fierce gale completed their work, and morning
revealed the remnant of the Invincible Armada scattered along
the coast from Calais to Ostend. Eighty vessels remained to
Medina, and with these he sailed up the North Sea, to round
the British Isles. But the treacherous currents of the Orkneys
and the Hebrides were unknown to his officers, and only a few
ships escaped the tempests of the late autumn. More than
two-thirds of the expedition perished, and of the remnant that
again viewed the hills of Spain all but a few hundreds
returned only to die."
H. R. Clinton,
From Crécy to Assye,
chapter 7.
In the fighting on the 23d of July, "the Spaniards' shot flew
for the most part over the heads of the English, without doing
execution, Cock being the only Englishman that died bravely in
the midst of his enemies in a ship of his own. The reason of
this was, that the English ships, being far less than the
enemy's, made the attack with more quickness and agility; and
when they had given a broadside, they presently sheered off to
a convenient distance, and levelled their shot so directly at
the bigger and more unwieldy ships of the Spaniards, as seldom
to miss their aim; though the Lord Admiral did not think it
safe or proper to grapple with them, as some advised, with
much more heat than discretion, because that the enemy's fleet
carried a considerable army within their sides, whereas ours had
no such advantage. Besides their ships far exceeded ours in
number and bulk, and were much stronger and higher built;
insomuch that their men, having the opportunity to ply us from
such lofty hatches, must inevitably destroy those that were
obliged, as it were, to fight beneath them. ... On the 24th
day of the month there was a cessation on both sides, and the
Lord Admiral sent some of his smaller vessels to the nearest
of the English harbours, to fetch a supply of powder and
ammunition; then he divided the fleet into four squadrons, the
first of which he commanded himself, the second he committed
to Drake, the third to Hawkins, and the fourth to Frobisher.
He likewise singled out of the main fleet some smaller vessels
to begin the attack on all sides at once, in the very dead of
the night; but a calm happening spoiled his design." On the
26th "the Spanish fleet sailed forward with a fair and soft
gale at southwest and by south; and the English chased them
close at the heels; but so far was this Invincible Armada from
alarming the sea-coasts with any frightful apprehensions, that
the English gentry of the younger sort entered themselves
volunteers, and taking leave of their parents, wives, and
children, did, with incredible cheerfulness, hire ships at
their own charge; and, in pure love to their country, joined
the grand fleet in vast numbers. ... On the 27th of this month
the Spanish Fleet came to an anchor before Calais, their
pilots having acquainted them that if they ventured any
farther there was some danger that the force of the current
might drive them away into the Northern Channel. Not far from
them came likewise the English Admiral to an anchor, and lay
within shot of their ships. The English fleet consisted by
this time of 140 sail; all of them ships of force, and very
tight and nimble sailors, and easily manageable upon a tack.
But, however, the main brunt of the engagement lay not upon
more than 15 or 16 of them. ... The Lord Admiral got ready
eight of his worst ships the very day after the Spaniards came
to an anchor; and having bestowed upon them a good plenty of
pitch, tar, and rosin, and lined them well with brimstone and
other combustible matter, they sent them before the wind, in
the dead time of the night, under the conduct of Young and
Prowse, into the midst of the Spanish fleet. ... The Spaniards
reported that the duke, upon the approach of the fire-ships,
ordered the whole fleet to weigh anchor and stand to sea, but
that when the danger was over every ship should return to her
station. This is what he did himself, and he likewise
discharged a great gun as a signal to the rest to do as he
did; the report, however, was heard but by very few, by reason
their fears had dispersed them at that rate that some of them
ventured out of the main ocean, and others sailed up the
shallows of Flanders. In the meantime Drake and Fenner played
briskly with their cannon upon the Spanish fleet, as it was
rendezvousing over against Graveling. ... On the last day of
the month the wind blew hard at north-west early in the
morning, and the Spanish fleet attempting to get back again to
the Straits of Calais, was driven toward Zealand.
{845}
The English then gave over the chase, because, in the
Spaniards' opinion, they perceived them making haste enough to
their own destruction. For the wind, lying at the W. N. W.
point, could not choose but force them on the shoals and sands
on the coast of Zealand. But the wind happening to come about
in a little time to Southwest and by West they went before the
wind. ... Being now, therefore, clear of danger in the main
ocean, they steered northward, and the English fleet renewed
the chase after them. ... The Spaniards having now laid aside
all the thoughts and hopes of returning to attempt the
English, and perceiving their main safety lay in their flight,
made no stay or stop at any port whatever. And thus this
mighty armada, which had been three whole years fitting out,
and at a vast expense, met in one month's time with several
attacks, and was at last routed, with a vast slaughter on
their side, and but a very few of the English missing, and not
one ship lost, except that small vessel of Cock's. ... When,
therefore, the Spanish fleet had taken a large compass round
Britain, by the coasts of Scotland, the Orcades, and Ireland,
and had weathered many storms, and suffered as many wrecks and
blows, and all the inconveniences of war and weather, it made
a shift to get home again, laden with nothing but shame and
dishonour. ... Certain it is that several of their ships
perished in their flight, being cast away on the coasts of
Scotland and Ireland, and that above 700 soldiers were cast on
shore in Scotland. ... As for those who had the ill fortune to
be drove upon the Irish shore, they met with the most
barbarous treatment; for some of them were butchered by the
wild Irish, and the rest put to the sword by the Lord Deputy."
W. Camden,
History of Queen Elizabeth.
ALSO IN:
S. R. Gardiner,
Historical Biographies: Drake.
E. S. Creasy,
Fifteen Decisive Battles,
chapter 10.
C. Kingsley,
Westward Ho!
chapter 31.
R. Hakluyt,
Principal Navigations, &C.
(E. Goldsmid's ed.), volume 7.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1596.
Alliance with Henry IV. of France against Spain.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1593--1598.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1596.
Dutch and English expedition against Cadiz.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1596.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1597.
Abolition of the privileges of the Hanse merchants.
See HANSA TOWNS.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1600.
The first charter to the East India Company.
See INDIA: A. D. 1600-1702.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1601.
The first Poor Law.
See POOR LAWS, THE ENGLISH.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1603.
Accession of King James I.
The Stuart family.
On the death of Queen Elizabeth, in 1603, James VI. of
Scotland became also the accepted king of England (under the
title of James I.), by virtue of his descent from that
daughter of Henry VII. and sister of Henry VIII., Margaret
Tudor, who married James IV. king of Scots. His grandfather
was James V.; his mother was Marie Stuart, or Mary, Queen of