Chapter X: Part 10

Considering that Pitt's income as minister was £6,000 a year, and that he derived an additional £3,000 a year from the Lord Wardenship of the Cinque Ports, his pecuniary troubles may seem hard to explain. He had no family, and no expensive tastes. But he was so intent upon the national exchequer that he neglected his private accounts, with the consequence that he was plundered by his domestics. His expenses were not checked, and his debts continued to grow.

_IV.--Resignation_

In the year 1800 Pitt was able to achieve a momentous change in the affairs of Ireland. The chronic discontent of that country, largely due to the resentment of the Catholics at their exclusion from the rights of citizenship, had been fanned by the importation of revolutionary ideas; and there were hopes, once or twice on the point of realisation, of a French invasion of the island. In 1798 a rebellion broke out, but was suppressed with promptness, and, it must be added, in many instances with cruelty. But to Pitt the suppression of the insurrection was only the first part of his duty. He thought that to revert to the old system would be a most shallow policy. A new, and comprehensive, and healing method must be tried--an Act of Union, which should raise the minds of Irishmen from local to imperial aims--which should blend the two legislatures, and, if possible, also the two nations, in one.

In 1800 the project was fulfilled--not without fierce resistance in the Irish Parliament, and not without a certain distribution of favours to those for whose support the government was anxious; although the allegations made on this subject seem to be exaggerated. Having accomplished the union, Pitt laid plans for a further reform which led, early in the following year, to his retirement from office.

He proposed the emancipation of the Catholics by the substitution of a political for the religious test of fitness for citizenship. Although the Anglican bishops and clergy and many laymen were strongly opposed to Catholic emancipation, Pitt would probably have been able to carry his scheme had it not been for royal antagonism. The king believed, erroneously but passionately, that by consenting to such a measure he would violate his coronation oath.

His majesty expressed his opinions on the subject so publicly and so vehemently that on January 31, 1801, Pitt felt compelled to ask leave to resign unless he were allowed to pursue his course on the Catholic question. The king required the abandonment of the scheme, and on February 3 Pitt resigned office. Thus abruptly ended his renowned administration of more than seventeen years.

The new Prime Minister was Mr. Addington, formerly Speaker of the Commons. Several of Pitt's colleagues remained in the ministry, although others withdrew from it; and Pitt himself gave general support to the government--support which was offered with especial warmth, and possessed especial value, during the hotly criticised peace negotiations with the First Consul Bonaparte in 1801 and 1802. Although Pitt had been obliged when in office to refuse several inadequate offers of peace, he had always been prepared to end the war under honourable conditions. The distinction of ending the war did not fall to his share; but his services were not forgotten. On May 7, 1802, the House of Commons carried by overwhelming numbers a motion, "That the Right Hon. William Pitt has rendered great and important services to his country, and especially deserves the gratitude of this house." And on May 28, 1802, Pitt's birthday, more than 800 persons assembled at a memorable banquet in honour of "the pilot that weathered the storm."

Until the renewal of war in 1803 Pitt took little-part in public affairs. Most of his time was spent at Walmer Castle, with occasional visits to Bath for the sake of his health, which had been uncertain since an attack of serious illness in 1797. He remained in constant communication with his political friends, and sometimes during the earlier part of his retirement aided the ministry with his advice. But with the progress of time he found himself less and less able to support Addington and his colleagues.

In May 1803 the uneasy peace came to an end. The constant aggressions of Bonaparte and his dominating tone made friendly relations impossible. There was a widespread feeling in the country that now that the storm had recommenced the old pilot should be called to the helm. Pitt returned to the Commons after the declaration of war, and forcibly criticised some of the financial and defensive measures of the ministry.

In 1804 the ministry showed itself wholly unequal to the strain upon it; and the situation was complicated by a temporary return of the king's malady. Pitt not only renewed his opposition to Addington, but made it plain that he was prepared to take part in a strong and comprehensive administration, including even Fox, that should be formed to rescue the crown and country from the dangers to which they were exposed under the Addington ministry.

A series of combined attacks was directed against the government during the month of April. Although Addington was not defeated in the Commons, he saw his majority steadily diminish; and on April 26 he resolved to resign. On the 30th, the Lord Chancellor intimated to Pitt his majesty's desire to receive the plan of a new administration.

_V.--The Last Ministry_

The king's opposition made the inclusion of Fox in the new ministry impossible. His hostility to Fox, however, was not simply on political grounds; he believed him to be responsible for the excesses of the Prince of Wales. Pitt was in consequence obliged to be content with a restricted choice of ministers, and had to face a powerful opposition in parliament. Addington was persuaded to join the ministry early in 1805.

During the summer of 1804 Bonaparte and his host lay menacingly at Boulogne, awaiting that command of the channel "for six hours," which the great warrior recognised as essential to his plans. Meanwhile, Pitt laboured to form another coalition, and, at the cost of heavy subsidies, was successful. Russia, Austria, and Sweden joined in the league against Napoleon; Prussia still hesitated.

In the summer of 1805 Napoleon was again at Boulogne, but his plan of invasion was wrecked by the failure of the French fleet to reach the Channel. When Napoleon learned that the fleet had gone south, and that the attack upon England had been thwarted, he straightway marched his army to mid-Europe. Pitt had staked everything on the new coalition, and the surrender of the Austrians at Ulm was news of the utmost bitterness to him. But a splendid corrective came soon afterwards in the crowning naval victory of Trafalgar. Although the nation's feelings were divided between joy at the triumph and grief at the death of the illustrious victor, Pitt's popularity, which had been somewhat uncertain, was enormously enhanced by the event. The Lord Mayor proposed his health as "the saviour of Europe."

Pitt's reply was nearly as follows: "I return you many thanks for the honour you have done me, but Europe is not to be saved by any single man. England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, I trust, save Europe by her example." With only these two sentences the minister sat down. They were the last words that Pitt ever spoke in public.

He was suffering much at this time from gout, and his general health was undermined by anxiety. In December he journeyed to Bath, and at Bath there reached him the news of the destruction of his coalition at Austerlitz. The battle was the cause of his death. He was struck down by a severe internal malady and he was in a state of extreme debility when on January 11, 1806, he returned home to the house he had taken on Putney Heath. It is said that as he passed along to his bedroom, he observed a map of Europe hanging on the wall, upon which he turned to his niece and mournfully said: "Roll up that map. It will not be wanted these ten years."

For a few days the doctors had hopes that he might recover, but on the 22nd it became evident that he could not live for twenty-four hours. Early in the morning of the 23rd he died.

"At about half-past two," wrote the Hon. James Hamilton Stanhope, who was at his bedside, "Mr. Pitt ceased moaning, and did not make the slightest sound for some time. Shortly afterwards, in a tone I never shall forget, he exclaimed: 'Oh, my country! How I love my country!' From that time he never spoke or moved, and at half-past four expired without a groan or struggle. His strength being quite exhausted, his life departed like a candle burning out."

* * * * *

ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY

The Life of Thomas Arnold, D.D.

Arthur Penrhyn Stanley was born at Alderley Rectory, Cheshire,
on December 13, 1815. He was educated at Rugby under Arnold,
and at Oxford, where Tait, the future Archbishop of
Canterbury, was his tutor. Entering holy orders, he was
appointed select preacher in 1845; became Canon of Canterbury
in 1851; and in 1863 succeeded Trench as Dean of Westminster.
He died on July 18, 1881, and by Queen Victoria's commands his
remains were laid beside those of his wife, Lady Augusta
Bruce, in Henry VII.'s Chapel, Westminster. Of all his works,
perhaps his most important contribution to English literature
is the "Life of Arnold," which was published two years after
the death of the famous master of Rugby. To the task of
writing the book Stanley devoted all his energies, steering
clear, however, of any attempt to form an opinion of his own
upon Arnold's life and character, while achieving a result
that not only assured his own position at Oxford, but brought
him well into the front rank of contemporary writers. The
religious animosity at Oxford was uncongenial to Stanley, and
it was only the prospect of Dr. Arnold occupying the Chair of
Modern History that reconciled him to his surroundings.

_I.--Youth and Early Manhood_

Thomas Arnold, seventh child and youngest son of William and Martha Arnold, was born June 13, 1795, at East Cowes, Isle of Wight, where his father was collector of customs. His early education was undertaken by a sister; and in 1803 he was sent to Warminister School, in Wiltshire. In 1807 he went to Winchester, where, having entered as a commoner and afterwards become a scholar of the college, he remained till 1811. In after life he always cherished a strong Wykehamist feeling, and, during his headmastership at Rugby, often recurred to his knowledge there first acquired, of the peculiar constitution of a public school.

He was then, as always, of a shy and retiring disposition; but his manner as a child, and till his entrance at Oxford, was marked by a stiffness and formality, the very reverse of the joyousness and simplicity of his later years. He was unlike those of his own age, with pursuits peculiar to himself; and the tone and style of his early letters are such as might have been produced by living chiefly with his elders, and reading, or hearing read, books suited to a more advanced age. Both as boy and young man he was remarkable for a difficulty in early rising amounting almost to a constitutional infirmity; and though in after life this was overcome by habit, he often said that early rising was a daily effort to him.

The beginning of some of his later interests may be traced in his earlier amusements and occupations. He never lost the recollection of the impression produced upon him by the excitement of naval and military affairs, of which he naturally saw and heard much by living at Cowes in the time of the Napoleonic war; and with his playmates he would sail rival toy fleets or act the battles of the Homeric heroes with improvised spears and shields. He was extremely fond of ballad poetry, and his earliest compositions all ran in that direction. At Winchester he was noted for his forwardness in history and geography; and there also he gave indications of that mnemonic faculty which in later years showed itself in minute details, extending to the exact state of the weather on particular days, or the exact words or passages he had not seen for twenty years. The period of his home and school education was too short to exercise much influence on his after life, but he always looked back upon it with tenderness.

In 1811 he was elected a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford; in 1814 he took a first class in classics; in 1815 he was made a Fellow of Oriel; and he gained the Chancellor's prizes for the Latin and English essays in 1815 and 1817. During his later time at Oxford he took private pupils and read extensively in the libraries. Meanwhile, he had been led gradually to fix on his future life course. In December, 1818, he was ordained deacon and next year settled at Laleham, where, in August, 1820, he married Mary Penrose, daughter of the rector of Fledborough, Notts.

At Laleham he remained for nine years, coaching private pupils for the universities. Here were born six of his nine children; the youngest three, besides one who died in infancy, were born at Rugby. During this period an essential change and growth of Arnold's character became manifest. The warm feelings of his youth gave place to the fixed earnestness and devotion which henceforth took possession of him. His former indolent habits, his morbid restlessness and occasional weariness of duty, indulgence of vague schemes without definite purpose, intellectual doubts as to accepted religious beliefs--all seem to have vanished for ever.

It was now that the religious aspect of his character came to be emphasised. In common acts of life, public and private, the depths of his religious convictions very visibly appeared. And while it is impossible to understand his religious belief except through the knowledge of his life and writings on ordinary subjects, it is impossible on the other hand, to understand his life and writings without bearing in mind how vivid was his realisation of those truths of religion on which he most habitually dwelt. It was this which enabled him to undertake labours which, without such a power, must have crushed or enfeebled the spiritual growth which in him they seemed only to foster. His letters at this time show better than anything else how he was, though unconsciously to himself, maturing for the arduous duties he afterwards undertook. It was now, too, that he first became acquainted with Niebuhr's "History of Rome," which revolutionised his views of history, and, later, served as a model for his own "History of Rome."

_II.--Headmaster of Rugby_

Arnold was not without his visions of ambition and extensive influence from the first, but he liked Laleham, and always looked back with fond regret to his time there. "I have always thought," he wrote in 1823, "with regard to ambition, that I should like to be _aut Caesar aut nullus;_ and as it is pretty well settled for me that I shall not be Caesar, I am quite content to live in peace as _nullus_." But the fates had ordered it otherwise. Friends had long been urging him to seek a larger sphere of usefulness; and when, in August, 1827, the headmastership of Rugby became vacant, he applied for the post.

He had himself little hope of success. The testimonials he sent in were few, but all spoke strongly of his qualifications. Among them was a letter from Dr. Hawkins, the future Provost of Oriel, in which the prediction was made that if Arnold were elected he would change the face of education throughout the public schools of England. The impression produced upon the trustees by this letter and by the other testimonials was such that Arnold was immediately appointed. In June, 1828, he received priest's orders; in April and November of the same year took his degrees of B.D. and D.D., and in August entered on his new office.

The post was in many respects suited to his natural tastes--to his love of tuition, which had now grown so strongly upon him that he declared sometimes that he could hardly live without such employment; to the vigour and spirits which fitted him rather to deal with the young than the old; to the desire of carrying out his favourite ideas of uniting things secular with things spiritual, and of introducing the highest principles of action into regions comparatively uncongenial to their reception. He had not, however, accepted it without grave doubts about his fitness. In a private letter he says:

I confess that I should very much object to undertake a charge
in which I was not invested with pretty full discretion.
According to my notions of what large schools are, founded on
all I know and all I have ever heard of them, expulsion should
be practised much oftener than it is. Now, I know that
trustees, in general, are averse to this plan, because it has
a tendency to lessen the numbers of the school, and they
regard quantity more than quality. In fact, my opinions on
this point might, perhaps, generally be considered as
disqualifying me for the situation of master of a great
school; yet I could not consent to tolerate much that I know
is tolerated generally, and, therefore, I should not like to
enter on an office which I could not discharge according to my
own views of what is right.

At Rugby, Arnold from the first maintained that in the actual working of the school he must be completely independent, and that the remedy of the trustees, if they were dissatisfied, was not interference, but dismissal. It was on this condition that he took the post; and any attempt to control either the administration of the school or his own private occupations he felt bound to resist as a duty not only to himself but the master of every foundation school in England. The remonstrances which he encountered, particularly from his fixed determination always to get rid of unpromising subjects, were vehement and numerous; but he repeatedly declared that on no other conditions could he hold his appointment, or justify the existence of the public school system in a Christian country.

"My object," he wrote, just before taking up duty, "will be, if possible, to form Christian men, for Christian boys I can scarcely hope to make; I mean that, from the natural imperfect state of boyhood, they are not susceptible of Christian principles in their full development upon their practice, and I suspect that a low standard of morals in many respects must be tolerated amongst them, as it was on a larger scale in what I consider the boyhood of the human race."

This is the keynote of his whole system. As he put it, what he looked for in the school was, first, religious and moral principles; second, gentlemanly conduct; and third, intellectual ability. Intellectual training was never for a moment underrated, but he always thought first of his charges as schoolboys who must grow up to be Christian men. His education, in short, "was not based upon religion, but was itself _religious_." For cleverness as such, Arnold had no regard. "Mere intellectual acuteness," he used to say, "divested as it is, in too many cases, of all that is comprehensive and great and good, is to me more revolting than the most helpless imbecility, seeming to be almost like the spirit of Mephistopheles." Often when this intellectual cleverness was seen in union with moral depravity, he would be inclined to deny its existence altogether.

A mere plodding boy was, above all others, encouraged by him. At Laleham he had once got out of patience, and spoken sharply to a pupil of this kind, when the pupil looked up in his face and said, "Why do you speak angrily, sir? Indeed, I am doing the best that I can." Years afterwards he used to tell the story to his children, and said, "I never felt so much ashamed in my life--that look and that speech I have never forgotten." And though it would, of course, happen that clever boys, from a greater sympathy with his understanding, would be brought into closer intercourse with him, this did not affect his feeling of respect, and even of reverence, for those who, without ability, were distinguished for high principle and industry. "If there be one thing on earth which is truly admirable, it is to see God's wisdom blessing an inferiority of natural powers where they have been honestly, truly and zealously cultivated."

_III.--As Teacher and Preacher_

Arnold had always been painfully impressed by the evils of the public school system, according to which a number of boys are left to form an independent society of their own, in which the influence they exert over each other is far greater than that exerted by the masters. He writes, in 1837:

Of all the painful things connected with my employment,
nothing is equal to the grief of seeing a boy come to school
innocent and promising, and tracing the corruption of his
character from the influence of the temptations around him, in
the very place which ought to have strengthened and improved
it. But in most cases those who come with a character of
positive good are benefited; it is the neutral and indecisive
characters which are apt to be decided for evil by schools, as
they would be, in fact, by any other temptation.

This very feeling led him to catch with eagerness at every means by which the trial might be shortened or alleviated. He believed that the change from childhood to manhood might be hastened without prematurely exhausting the faculties of body and mind; and it was on this principle that he chiefly acted. He desired the boys to cultivate true manliness as the only step to something higher. He treated them as gentlemen, and appealed and trusted to their common sense and conscience.

Lying to the masters he made a grave offence. He placed implicit confidence in a boy's assertion, and then, if a falsehood were discovered, punished it severely. In the higher forms any attempt at further proof of an assertion was immediately checked. "If you say so, that is quite enough; of course, I believe your word"; and there grew up in consequence a general feeling that "it was a shame to tell Arnold a lie: he always believed you." Few scenes can be recorded more characteristic of him than when, in consequence of a disturbance, he had been obliged to send away several boys, and when, in the midst of the general spirit of discontent which this excited, he stood in his place before the assembled school and said, "It is _not_ necessary that this should be a school of three hundred, or one hundred, or of fifty boys; but it is necessary that it should be a school of Christian gentlemen."

Arnold's method of teaching was founded on the principle of awakening the intellect of every individual boy. Hence it was his practice to teach by questioning. As a general rule, he never gave information, except as a kind of reward for an answer, and often withheld it altogether, or checked himself in the very act of uttering it, from a sense that those whom he was addressing had not sufficient interest or sympathy to receive it. His explanations were at short as possible--enough to dispose of the difficulty and no more; and his questions were of a kind to call the attention of the boys to the real point of every subject and to disclose to them the exact boundaries of what they knew or did not know. With regard to the younger boys, he said: "It is a great mistake to think that they should _understand_ all they learn; for God has ordered that in youth the memory should act vigorously, independent of the understanding--whereas a man cannot usually recollect a thing unless he understands it."

At Rugby he made it an essential part of the headmaster's office to preach a sermon every Sunday in the school chapel. "The veriest stranger," he said, "who ever attends service in this chapel does well to feel something more than common interest in the sight of the congregation here assembled. But if the sight so interests a mere stranger, what should it be to ourselves, both to you and to me?" More than either matter or manner of his preaching was the impression of himself. Even the mere readers of his sermons will derive from them the history of his whole mind, and of his whole management of the school. But to his hearers it was more than this. It was the man himself, there more than in any other place, concentrating all his various faculties and feelings on one sole object, combating face to face the evil which, directly or indirectly, he was elsewhere perpetually struggling.

His personal interest in the boys was always strong. "Do you see," he on one occasion said to an assistant-master who had recently come, "those two boys walking together? I never saw them together before; you should make an especial point of observing the company they keep; nothing so tells the changes in a boy's character."

_IV.--Influence of the Great Teacher_

But the impression which Arnold produced upon the boys was derived not so much from any immediate intercourse or conversation with them as from the general influence of his whole character, displayed consistently whenever he appeared before them. This influence, with its consequent effects, was gradually on the increase during the whole of his stay. From the earliest period, indeed, the boys were conscious of something unlike what they had been taught to imagine of a schoolmaster, and by many a lasting regard was contracted for him. In the higher forms, at least, it became the fashion, so to speak, to think and talk of him with pride and affection. As regards the permanent effects of his whole system, it may be said that not so much among his own pupils, or in the scene of his actual labours, as in every public school throughout England is to be sought the chief and enduring monument of Arnold's headmastership at Rugby.

Of Arnold's general life at Rugby there is no need to say much; for although the school did not occupy his whole energies, it is almost solely by his school work that he is remembered. He took a not unimportant part in the political and theological discussions of his time, and various literary enterprises also engaged his attention. In theology he entertained very broad views. One great principle he advocated with intense earnestness was that a Christian people and a Christian Church should be synonymous. That use of the word "Church" which limits it to the clergy, or which implies in the clergy any particular sacredness, he entirely repudiated.

He was convinced that the founders of our constitution in Church and State did truly consider them to be identical; the Christian nation of England to be the Church of England; the head of that nation to be, for that very reason, the head of the Church. This view placed him in antagonism to the High Church party; but, as a matter of fact, he neither belonged, nor felt himself to belong, to any section of the English clergy. Politically, he held himself to be a strong Whig; but that he was not, in the common sense of the word, a member of any party is shown by the readiness with which all parties alike, according to the fashion of the time, claimed or renounced him as an associate.

Arnold did not like the flat scenery of Warwickshire He described himself as "in it like a plant sunk in the ground in a pot." His holidays were always spent away from Rugby, either on the Continent, or, in later years, at his Westmoreland home, Fox How, a small estate between Rydal and Ambleside, which he purchased in 1832. He was just about to leave Rugby for Fox How when his life was mournfully and suddenly ended by an attack of angina pectoris, on June 12, 1842. Only the year before he had been appointed by Lord Melbourne Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford.

Arnold's principal works are six volumes of sermons, a three-volume edition of Thucydides, the Oxford "Lectures on Modern History," and the three-volume "History of Rome," which, by his unfortunate death, was broken off at the Second Punic War. To the last-named he looked as the chief monument of his historical fame.

* * * * *

AGNES STRICKLAND

Life of Queen Elizabeth

Agnes Strickland, born in London on August 19, 1796, with her
sister Elizabeth began in 1840 the publication of the immense
series of historical biographies of which the "Lives of the
Queens of England" formed the first and most important group.
In that group the "Elizabeth" is recognised as holding the
highest rank. It is an essentially feminine study of one of
the most remarkable of women; not a history, for historical
events are treated as of infinitely less importance than
picturesque personal details and miscellaneous gossip, but
presenting altogether an admirable picture of the outward
seeming of those spacious days, and a discriminating and
judicious portrait of the maiden queen herself. The author's
views, however, would not always be endorsed by a masculine
critic. Agnes Strickland died on July 13, 1874. The literature
relating to the life and times of Queen Elizabeth would form a
library of contemporary records. Many volumes of state papers
have been published: Camden's "Annals of Elizabeth" is the
classical account of her. Creighton's "Queen Elizabeth" and
volumes VII. to XII. of Froude's "History of England" are the
leading modern works; and no one who wishes to know anything
of the great queen can afford to neglect Hume's "Courtships of
Queen Elizabeth," which will also be found in these pages (see
Hume).

_I.--The Lady Elizabeth_

Queen Elizabeth first saw the light at Greenwich Palace, where, says Heywood, "she was born on the eve of the Virgin's nativity, and died on the eve of the Virgin's annunciation." The christening ceremony was gorgeous and elaborate, but, with the downfall of her mother, Anne Boleyn, she ceased to be treated as a princess. She seems to have owed much to the judicious training of Lady Margaret Bryan, in whose charge she was. Later, she was associated with Prince Edward, four years her junior; both displayed an extraordinary precocity and capacity for learning.

On Henry's death, she resided with his widow, Catharine Parr, who married the Lord Admiral, Thomas Seymour. That ambitious nobleman, brother of the Protector, certainly designed, when Catharine died, to marry Elizabeth; an intention which was among the causes of his execution under attainder. His relations with her had already been unduly familiar, but there was no warrant for the scandalous stories that were repeated; and although Elizabeth all her life was naturally disposed to an excessive freedom of manners, she now became a pattern of decorum. But she was probably more in love with Seymour, as a girl of fifteen, than with anyone else in after life; though, on his death, she called him "a man of much wit and very little judgement."

Ascham is full of praises of her learning and her wide reading, both in Greek and Latin, which is displayed somewhat pedantically in her letters; her propriety and simplicity of apparel in these days is in curious contrast to the extravagances of her wardrobe in later life.

Mary treated her conspicuously as a sister; she refused, however, to abjure her Protestantism. Her position became extremely difficult, as the French, the Spaniards, and the Protestant party each sought to involve her in plots for their own ends. These culminated in Wyat's rebellion. The inevitable suspicions attaching to her caused her to be lodged in the Tower; but, in spite of the machinations of the Spanish party and the distrust of Mary, the evidence produced failed to warrant her condemnation.

Yet she was kept in rigorous confinement, her life continuing to be in danger for a month after Wyat himself had been executed. She was then removed to Richmond, but refused to purchase liberty at the price of marriage to a foreign prince, Philibert of Savoy--a scheme intended as a cover for Mary's determination to marry Philip, the Prince of Spain. Finally, she was transferred to Woodstock, where she was held a close prisoner.

Policy now led her to profess acceptance of the Roman religion, but in very ambiguous fashion. Probably it was through the intercession of Philip--now her brother-in-law, whose policy at this time was to conciliate the English people--that she was set at liberty and readmitted to court at Christmas.

At the end of the next year Elizabeth was at Hatfield, under the gentle surveillance of Sir Thomas Pope. She continued to be involved in grave dangers by perpetual plots, in which she was far too shrewd to let herself be implicated; and she guarded herself by a continued profession of Romanism to the hour of her accession on her sister's death.

As the hour of Mary's death approached, there was no doubt of Elizabeth's succession, though there was alarm as to possible complications. On November 17, 1558, the Chancellor announced to Parliament that Mary was dead, and Elizabeth queen. She held her first council at Hatfield two days later, when William Cecil took his place as her chief counsellor; on her entry into London, the position which was to be occupied by Lord Robert Dudley, afterwards Earl of Leicester, was already conspicuous.

The coronation, which took place in January, was a magnificent pageant, in which Elizabeth openly courted the favour and affection of her subjects; and it became at once apparent that the breach with Rome was reopened. The supremacy of the crown was reasserted, the all but empty bench of bishops was filled up with reformers; and, in answer to the Commons, Elizabeth very clearly implied her intention of reigning a virgin queen. She had already declined Philip of Spain's offer of his widowed hand; and now the fact that Mary Stuart stood next in the succession--with a better title than Elizabeth's own, if her legitimacy were challenged--became of immense importance.

Accordingly, an express declaration of her legitimate right to the throne was procured from Parliament. For some time pageants and popular displays were the order of the day. But, in spite of Elizabeth's own declarations, all her council were convinced that the safety of the realm demanded her marriage; and suitors began to abound. Arran appears--who now stood very near the throne of Scotland. Pickering, Arundel, Dudley, all seemed possible aspirants. The Austrian Archduke Charles, cousin of Philip of Spain, and Eric of Norway, were candidates. She played with them all, and the play was made more grim by the tragic death of Dudley's wife, Amy Robsart.

_II.--Mary Stuart and Saint Bartholomew_

The proposals for Elizabeth's own hand were now diversified by her interest in those for the hand of the Queen of Scots; for it was of immense importance to the Queen of England that Mary should not wed a foreign prince who might support her claim to the English throne. Mary professed willingness to be guided by her "sister," but was insulted by Elizabeth's offer of her own favourite, Dudley, who was made Earl of Leicester. Melville, the courtly Scots ambassador, had much ado to answer Elizabeth's questions about his mistress's beauty and accomplishments in a manner agreeable to the English queen. Mary solved her own problem, only to create a new one, by marrying her cousin, Lord Darnley. Elizabeth was bitterly aggrieved when a son--afterwards James I.--was born to them. She herself continued to agitate Cecil and the council by the favours she lavished on Leicester. But the renewed entreaties of Parliament, that steps might be taken to secure the succession, led to what threatened to be a serious quarrel.

Amongst these high matters, the records of her majesty's wardrobe, and the interests of Cecil in capturing for her service a tailor employed by Catherine de Medici, form an entertaining interlude. But tragedy was at hand; the murder of Darnley, Mary's marriage to the murderer Bothwell, her imprisonment at Loch Leven, Elizabeth's perturbation--for she was sincere in her fear of encouraging subjects to control monarchs by force of arms--was diversified by a last negotiation for her marriage with the Archduke Charles, which broke down over his refusal to abjure his religion.

Then came a turn of the wheel; Mary escaped from Loch Leven, her followers were dispersed at Langside, and she fled across the Solway to throw herself on Elizabeth's protection and find herself Elizabeth's prisoner.

The Scottish queen was consigned to Bolton; an investigation was held at York, when Mary's accusers were allowed to produce, and Mary's friends were not allowed to test, their evidence of her complicity in Darnley's murder. At that stage the investigations were stopped; but the Duke of Norfolk, the head of the commission, was not deterred from pressing the design of marrying Mary himself. Mary was placed in the charge of Shrewsbury and his termagant spouse, Bess of Hardwick.

From this time for fifteen years, Elizabeth was perpetually playing at proposals for her own marriage with one or other of the French King's brothers, to keep the French court from a _rapprochement_ with Spain. Suspicions of Norfolk's intentions led to his arrest, and this precipitated the rising in favour of Mary under the Catholic northern earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland; an insurrection promptly and cruelly crushed. In the spring of 1570 the Pope issued a bull of deposition; and the plots on behalf of Mary as Catholic claimant to the throne thickened.

In 1571 it appeared that Elizabeth was set on the marriage with Henry of Anjou, nineteen years her junior, the brother who stood next in succession to the throne of Charles IX. of France--a marriage not at all approved by her council, and very little to Henry's own taste. It was at this time that the conduct of negotiations in Paris was entrusted to Francis Walsingham.

The relations between the queen and the Commons were exemplified by her attempt to exclude an obnoxious member, Strickland, met by the successful assertion of their privileges on the part of the House.

In this year the plot known as Ridolfi's was discovered, and it is to be noted that Elizabeth herself ordered the rack to be used to extort information. The result was condemnation of Norfolk to the block. The recalcitrance of Henry of Anjou led to his definitely withdrawing from his courtship, while the young Alençon became the new subject of matrimonial negotiation.

Elizabeth played with the new proposal, as usual, relying always on her ability to back out of the negotiations, as in previous cases, by demanding of her suitor a more uncompromising acceptance of Protestantism than could be admitted. The whole affair, however, was apparently brought to a check by the massacre of St. Bartholomew, with the perpetration of which it seemed impossible for the most powerful of Protestant monarchs to associate herself.

Cecil--now Lord Burleigh--would have used the occasion for the destruction of Mary Stuart; but the device for doing so irreproachably by handing her over to her own rebels, was frustrated--though Elizabeth concurred--by the refusal of the Scots lords to play the part which was assigned to them. The Alençon affair was soon in full swing again, the young prince writing love-letters to the lady whom he had not seen.

_III.--The Hour of Mary's Doom_

Elizabeth's fondness for pageantry--partly out of a personal delight in it, partly from a politic appreciation of its value in making her popular--especially pageantry at some one else's expense, was illustrated in the gorgeous doings at Kenilworth, depicted (with sundry anachronisms) in Scott's novel.

These gaieties were the embroidery on more serious matters, for the Netherlands had for some time been engaged in their apparently desperate struggle with the power of Spain, and now actually invited the Queen of England to assume sovereignty over them--an offer which she was too acute to accept.

Yet we cannot pass over a highly characteristic incident. When the queen's majesty had a bad toothache, the protestations of her whole council failed to persuade her to face the extraction of the tooth, till the Bishop of London invited the surgeon to operate first on him in her presence, with satisfactory results. We must also record how the ugly little Alençon, or Anjou as he was now called, arrived unexpectedly to woo her in person, charmed her by his chivalrous audacity in doing so, and won from her the appropriate name of "Little Frog."

Whether she really wished to marry her "frog" is extremely doubtful. She made all the more parade of her desire to do so, since the extreme antipathy of the council and the nation to the project would secure her a retreat to the last. The expectation of the marriage caused the Netherlanders to offer Anjou the sovereignty which she had rejected; with the idea of thus securing the united support of England and France. But when matters reached the point of negotiation for an Anglo-French league, with the marriage as one of the articles, Elizabeth, of course, could not be brought to a definite answer, and after long delay Anjou found himself obliged to return to the Netherlands, neither accepted nor rejected. His subsequent death put an end to this, her last, matrimonial comedy.

At last an English force was actually sent to help the Netherlanders, under the command of Leicester. His conduct there led to his recall. Another favourite stood high in the queen's good graces--Walter Raleigh. Probably it was with a view to ousting this rival that Leicester brought his stepson Essex into the queen's notice.

But now the hour of Mary's doom was approaching. A plot was set on foot for the assassination of Elizabeth, into which Anthony Babington, whose name it bears, was drawn. Walsingham, possessed of complete information from the beginning, through his spies, nursed the plot carefully; letters from Mary were systematically intercepted and copied till the moment came for striking; the conspirators were arrested, and suffered the extreme penalty of the treason laws; and Elizabeth consented to have Mary herself at last brought to trial. She was refused counsel; the commission condemned her. Parliament demanded the execution of the death sentence. Elizabeth had her own misgivings.

She was afraid of the responsibility. Leicester suggested poison, but Burleigh and Walsingham stood by the law. A special embassy of remonstrance came from France; Mary wrote a dignified letter, not an appeal for her life, which moved the queen to tears; protests from the King of Scotland only aroused indignation; Elizabeth was frightened by rumours of fresh plots and of a French invasion.

At last she signed the death warrant, brought to her by Secretary Davison; the Chancellor's seal was attached, and the council, fearing some evasion on Elizabeth's part, issued the commission for Mary's execution without further reference to the queen; she was kept in ignorance of the fact till the tragedy was completed. She was furious with the council, but powerless against their unanimity. She could venture to make a scapegoat of Davison, and made a vain attempt to clear herself of responsibility in a letter to James, which failed to soothe the burst of indignation with which the news was received in Scotland. But the one thing she feared--a coalition of France, Spain, and Scotland--was made impossible by the antagonisms of the former and the weakness of the last.

Another crisis was at hand. Philip of Spain, claiming the throne of England as a descendant of John of Gaunt, was preparing the great Armada; Pope Sixtus V. was proclaiming a crusade against the heretic queen. Drake sailed into Cadiz harbour, and "singed the don's whiskers," but the vast preparations went on. A lofty spirit animated the queen and the people. London undertook to provide double the number of ships and men demanded from her. The militia was gathered at Tilbury, under Leicester. Howard of Effingham was Lord Admiral, with Drake as vice-admiral; in the enthusiasm of the moment, Elizabeth bestowed knighthood on a valorous lady, Mary, the wife of Sir Hugh Cholmondeley.

A report that the Armada had been destroyed by a gale, which actually drove it into Corunna for repairs, caused Elizabeth, with her usual parsimony, to order four great vessels to be dismantled; Howard retained them instead, at his own charges. On July 19, 1588, the Armada was sighted off the Lizard, and for eighteen days the naval heroes were grappling with that "invincible" fleet. Elizabeth herself visited the camp at Tilbury, rode through the lines, wearing a corselet and a farthingale of amazing dimensions, while a page bore her helmet, and addressed her soldiers in stirring words.

The victory was celebrated by medals bearing the device of a fleet in full sail, with the words _Venit, vidit, fugit_ ("it came, it saw, it fled"), and of the dispersal by fireships with the words, _Dux femina facti_ ("a woman led the movement").

_IV.--Elizabeth's Closing Years_

The defeat of the Armada was followed by an expedition to Lisbon, to wrest Portugal from Spain; owing to inadequate equipment it failed, after a promising beginning, the Portuguese lending no help. Essex managed to escape from court and join the expedition, messengers ordering him to return being too late. For this he was forgiven; but when he secretly married the widow of Sidney, and daughter of Walsingham, Elizabeth was furiously angry.

Not Essex, but Norris was sent to command a force dispatched to the aid of Henry of Navarre, who was now fighting for the crown of France. Essex, however, was subsequently sent, at Henry's own request. His absence was utilised by Burleigh to secure the advancement of his own astute son, Robert Cecil, who secured the royal favour by the ingenuity of his flattery.

When Essex finally returned from France, he was received with the utmost favour; but in the interval he had been transformed into an intriguing politician. Parliament, which had not been called for four years, met in 1593, and there was an immediate collision with the Crown. Elizabeth's tone was much more despotic than of old. Petitions for the settlement of the succession were met by the arbitrary imprisonment of Wentworth and other members.

Essex favoured the popular party, but had not the courage to head it; he was moved not by patriotism, but by jealousy of the Cecil ascendancy. The queen, when she had passed the age of sixty, was as determined as ever to pose as a youthful beauty, and her courtiers had no reluctance in assuming the tone of despairing lovers. No one played this part more persistently than Raleigh, who, when relegated to the Tower for marrying, proclaimed his misery, not at being separated from his bride, but at being shut out of the radiant presence of the queen.

Essex and Raleigh were associated in two expeditions, one directed with complete success against Cadiz, the other being a complete failure. The Burleigh faction succeeded in getting for Raleigh whatever credit there was in both cases, though Essex was better entitled to it.

But it was Ireland that wrought the ruin of Essex. A dispute in the council on the subject caused the queen to box the favourite's ears, which caused him to retire in resentment for many months. Soon after his return to court, he brought upon himself his own appointment to the lord-deputyship of Ireland. His conduct there displeased her; from her scolding letters, he concluded that his enemies in the council were undermining his position in his absence. He deserted his post, hurried to London, and burst, travel-stained as he was, into Elizabeth's chamber. For the moment she appeared disposed to forgive him, but was not long in deciding that his insolence must be punished, and he was placed in confinement.

So he continued for about a year, in spite of appeals to the queen. The adverse party in the council had the predominance. At last, however, he was granted a degree of liberty, and Francis Bacon tried to conciliate Elizabeth towards her former favourite. But the unfortunate man allowed his resentment to carry him into dangerous courses. His house became a rendezvous of the discontented. Finally, a futile attempt on his part to raise the citizens of London in his favour consummated his ruin. He was soon a prisoner; his condemnation was now a foregone conclusion; Elizabeth signed the warrant with fingers which did not tremble; and, to the universal astonishment, the favourite was executed.

Elizabeth's meeting with her last parliament displays in a marked degree the tact which never deserted her when she thought fit to employ it. Their protest against the practice of monopolies, instead of rousing her ire, brought from her a notably gracious promise to redress the grievances complained of. This was in 1601. In the next year, when she became sixty-nine, there was no relaxation in her gaieties; but under the surface, Elizabeth was old and sad.

Her popularity had never been the same since the death of Essex; and the memory of the man she had cherished and finally sent to his doom, well-deserved as that was, was a perpetual source of grief to her. In March 1603, she was stricken with her last fatal illness. Yet she would not go to bed. At last she gave in; she knew herself dying long before she admitted it.

It was uncertain whether even in her last moments she would acknowledge the right of any successor to her throne, but a gesture was interpreted as favouring the King of Scots. Finally, she sank into a sleep from which she never awoke. So passed away England's Elizabeth.

* * * * *

JONATHAN SWIFT

Journal to Stella

The "Journal to Stella," which extends over the years 1710 to
1713, was first published in 1766 and has often been
republished since. The manuscripts are preserved in the
British Museum. It was at Sir William Temple's home, Moor Park
in Surrey, that Swift came to know Esther Johnson, or
"Stella," who was fourteen years younger than himself. In 1699
Temple died, and Stella, with her friend, Rebecca Dingley,
came to Ireland at Swift's request. Their relation has been
made a great mystery. It will perhaps always be doubtful
whether he was nominally married to her secretly; the evidence
is on the whole against the existence of such a bond. But to
the further question--why did he not take her to live as his
wife--a sufficient reply may be found in his abnormal nature.
In the "Journal" the word "Presto" refers to Swift himself
(see FICTION); "MD" to Stella.

LONDON, Sept. 9, 1710.

I got here last Thursday, after five days' travelling, weary the first, almost dead the second, tolerable the third, and well enough the rest; and am now glad of the fatigue, which has served for exercise; and I am at present well enough. The Whigs were ravished to see me, and would lay hold on me as a twig while they are drowning, and the great men making me their clumsy apologies, etc. But my Lord Treasurer received me with a great deal of coldness, which has enraged me so, I am almost vowing revenge. I have not yet gone half my circle; but I find all my acquaintance just as I left them. Everything is turning upside down; every Whig in great office will, to a man, be infallibly put out; and we shall have such a winter as hath not been seen in England.

The Tatler expects every day to be turned out of his employment; and the Duke of Ormond, they say, will be Lieutenant of Ireland. I hope you are now peaceably in Presto's lodgings; but I resolve to turn you out by Christmas; in which time I shall either have done my business, or find it not to be done. Pray be at Trim by the time this letter comes to you; and ride little Johnson, who must needs be now in good case. I have begun this letter unusually, on the post-night, and have already written to the Archbishop; and cannot lengthen this. Henceforth I will write something every day to MD, and make it a sort of journal; and when it is full, I will send it, whether MD writes or no; and so that will be pretty: and I shall always be in conversation with MD, and MD with Presto; and so farewell.

LONDON, NOV. 11, 1710.