The Evolution of an Empire: A Brief Historical Sketch of England Part 5

The crown pa.s.sed to the son of Jane Seymour, Edward VI., a feeble boy of sixteen, and upon his death six years later (1553), by the King's will to Lady Jane Grey, descendant of his sister Mary. This gentle girl of seventeen, sensitive and thoughtful, a devout reformer, who read Greek and Hebrew and wrote Latin poetry, is a pathetic figure in history, where we see her, the unwilling wearer of a crown for ten days, and then with her young husband hurried to that fatal Tower, and to death; a brief touching interlude before the crowning of Mary, daughter of Henry and Katharine of Aragon.

Henry VIII. stoutly adhered to Protestantism, and preferred that the succession should pa.s.s out of his own family, rather than into Catholic dominion again. Hence his naming of Jane Grey instead of his own daughter Mary, in case of the death of his delicate son Edward.

But Henry was no longer there to stem the tide of Catholic sentiment.

Lady Jane Grey was hurried to the block, and the Catholic Mary to the throne.

[Sidenote: Mary 1553-1558. Calais Lost, 1558]

Her marriage with Philip II. of Spain quickly overthrew the work of her father. Unlike Henry VIII., Mary was impelled by deep conviction. She persecuted to save from what she believed eternal death. Her cruelty was prompted by sincere fanaticism, mingled with the desire to please the Catholic Philip, whose love she craved and could not win.

Disappointed in his aim to reign jointly with her, as he had hoped, he withdrew to Spain. Unlovely and unloved, she is almost an object of pity, as with dungeon, rack and f.a.got she strives to restore the Religion she loves, and to win the husband she adores. But Philip remained obdurately in Spain, and while she was lighting up all England with a blaze of martyrs, Calais, the last English possession in France, was lost. Mary died amid crus.h.i.+ng disappointments public and personal, after reigning five years (1553-1558).

CHAPTER VII.

[Sidenote: Elizabeth, 1558-1603.]

Elizabeth, daughter of Henry and a disgraced and decapitated Queen, wore the crown of England. If heredity had been as much talked of then as now, England might have feared the child of a faithless wife, and a remorseless, bloodthirsty King. But while Mary, daughter of Katharine, the most pious and best of mothers, had left only a great blood-spot upon the page of History, Elizabeth's reign was to be the most wise, prosperous and great, the Kingdom had ever known. In her complex character there was the imperiousness, audacity and unscrupulousness of her father, the voluptuous pleasure-loving nature of her mother, and mingled with both, qualities which came from neither. She was a tyrant, held in check by a singular caution, with an instinctive perception of the presence of danger, to which her purposes always instantly bent.

The authority vested in her was as absolute as her father's, but while her imperious temper sacrificed individuals without mercy, she ardently desired the welfare of her Kingdom, which she ruled with extraordinary moderation and a political sagacity almost without parallel, softening, but not abandoning, one of her father's usurpations.

She was a Protestant without any enthusiasm for the religion she intended to restore in England, and prayed to the Virgin in her own private Chapel, while she was undoing the work of her Catholic sister Mary. The obsequious apologies to the Pope were withdrawn, but the Reformation she was going to espouse, was not the fiery one being fought for in Germany and France. It was mild, moderate, and like her father's, more political than religious. The point she made was that there must be religious uniformity, and conformity to the Established Church of England--with its new "Articles," which as she often said, "left _opinion_ free."

It was in fact a softened reproduction of her terrible father's att.i.tude. The Church, (called an "Episcopacy," on account of the jurisdiction of its Bishops,) was Protestant in doctrine, with gentle leaning toward Catholicism in externals, held still firmly by the "Act of Supremacy" in the controlling hand of the Sovereign. Above all else desiring peace and prosperity for England, the keynote of Elizabeth's policy in Church and in State was conciliation and compromise. So the Church of England was to a great extent a compromise, retaining as much as the people would bear of external form and ritual, for the sake of reconciling Catholic England.

The large element to whom this was offensive was reinforced by returning refugees who brought with them the stern doctrines of Calvin; and they finally separated themselves altogether from a Church in which so much of Papacy still lingered, to establish one upon simpler and purer foundation; hence they were called "Puritans," and "Nonconformists," and were persecuted for violation of the "Act of Supremacy."

The masculine side of Elizabeth's character was fully balanced by her feminine foibles. Her vanity was inordinate. Her love of adulation and pa.s.sion for display, her caprice, duplicity, and her reckless love- affairs, form a strange background for the calm, determined, masterly statesmans.h.i.+p under which her Kingdom expanded.

The subject of her marriage was a momentous one. There were plenty of aspirants for the honor. Her brother-in-law Philip, since the abdication of Charles V., his father, was a mighty King, ruler over Spain and the Netherlands, and was at the head of Catholic Europe. He saw in this vain, silly young Queen of England an easy prey. By marrying her he could bring England back to the fold, as he had done with her sister Mary, and the Catholic cause would be invincible.

Elizabeth was a coquette, without the personal charm supposed to belong to that dangerous part of humanity. She toyed with an offer of marriage as does a cat with a mouse. She had never intended to marry Philip, but she kept him waiting so long for her decision, and so exasperated him with her caprice, that he exclaimed at last, "That girl has ten thousand devils in her." He little thought, that beneath that surface of folly there was a nature hard as steel, and a calm, clear, cool intelligence, for which his own would be no match, and which would one day hold in check the diplomacy of the "Escurial" and outwit that of Europe. She adored the culture brought by the "new learning;" delighted in the society of Sir Philip Sidney, who reflected all that was best in England of that day; talked of poetry with Spenser; discussed philosophy with Bruno; read Greek tragedies and Latin orations in the original; could converse in French and Italian, and was besides proficient in another language,--the language of the fishwife,--which she used with startling effect with her lords and ministers when her temper was aroused, and swore like a trooper if occasion required.

But whatever else she was doing she never ceased to study the new England she was ruling. She felt, though did not understand, the expansion which was going on in the spirit of the people; but instinctively realized the necessity for changes and modifications in her Government, when the temper of the nation seemed to require it.

It was enormous common-sense and tact which converted Elizabeth into a liberal Sovereign. Her instincts were despotic. When she bowed instantly to the will of the Commons, almost apologizing for seeming to resist it, it was not because she sympathized with liberal sentiments, but because of her profound political instincts, which taught her the danger of alienating that cla.s.s upon which the greatness of her Kingdom rested. She realized the truth forgotten by some of her successors, that the Sovereign and the middle cla.s.s _must be friends_. She might resist and insult her lords and ministers, send great Earls and favorites ruthlessly to the block, but no slightest cloud must come between her and her "dear Commons" and people. This it was which made Spenser's adulation in the "Faerie Queen" but an expression of the intense loyalty of her meanest subject.

Perhaps it was because she remembered that the whole fabric of the Church rested upon Parliamentary enactment, and that she herself was Queen of England by Parliamentary sanction, that she viewed so complacently the growing power of that body in dealing more and more with matters supposed to belong exclusively to the Crown, as for instance in the struggle made by the Commons to suppress monopolies in trade, granted by royal prerogative. At the first she angrily resisted the measure. But finding the strength of the popular sentiment, she gracefully retreated, declaring, with royal scorn for truth, that "she had not before known of the existence of such an evil."

In fact, lying, in her independent code of morals, was a virtue, and one to which she owed some of her most brilliant triumphs in diplomacy.

And when the bald, unmitigated lie was at last found out, she felt not the slightest shame, but only amus.e.m.e.nt at the simplicity of those who had believed she was speaking the truth.

[Sidenote: Ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew's, 1572. East India Company Chartered, 1606. Colonization of Virginia.]

Her natural instincts, her thrift, and her love of peace inclined her to keep aloof from the struggle going on in Europe between Protestants and Catholics. But while the news of St. Bartholomew's Eve seemed to give her no thrill of horror, she still sent armies and money to aid the Huguenots in France, and to stem the persecutions of Philip in the Netherlands, and committed England fully to a cause for which she felt no enthusiasm. She encouraged every branch of industry, commerce, trade, fostered everything which would lead to prosperity. Listened to Raleigh's plans for colonization in America, permitting the New Colony to be called "Virginia" in her honor (the Virgin Queen). She chartered the "Merchant Company," intended to absorb the new trade with the Indies (1600), and which has expanded into a British Empire in India.

But amid all this triumph, a sad and solitary woman sat on the throne of England. The only relation she had in the world was her cousin, Mary Stuart, who was plotting to undermine and supplant her.

The question of Elizabeth's legitimacy was an ever recurring one, and afforded a rallying point for malcontents, who a.s.serted that her mother's marriage with Henry VIII. was invalidated by the refusal of the Pope to sanction the divorce. Mary Stuart, who stood next to Elizabeth in the succession, formed a centre from which a network of intrigue and conspiracy was always menacing the Queen's peace, if not her life, and her crown.

Scotland, since the extinction of the line of Bruce, had been ruled by the Stuart Kings. Torn by internal feuds between her clans, and by the incessant struggle against English encroachments, she had drawn into close friends.h.i.+p with France, which country used her for its own ends, in hara.s.sing England, so that the Scottish border was always a point of danger in every quarrel between French and English Kings.

[Sidenote: Flodden Field 1513. Birth of Mary Stuart 1542.]

In 1502 Henry VIII. had bestowed the hand of his sister Margaret upon James IV. of Scotland, and it seemed as if a peaceful union was at last secured with his Northern neighbor. But in the war with France which soon followed, James, the Scottish King, turned to his old ally. He was killed at "Flodden Field," after suffering a crus.h.i.+ng defeat. His successor, James V., had maried Mary Guise. Her family was the head and front of the ultra Catholic party in France, and her counsels probably influenced Edward to a continual hostility to the Protestant Henry, even though he was his uncle. The death of James in consequence of his defeat at "Solway Moss" occurred immediately after the birth of his daughter, Mary Stuart (1542).

This unhappy child at once became the centre of intriguing designs; Henry VIII. wis.h.i.+ng to betroth the little Queen to his son, afterwards Edward VI., and thus forever unite the rival kingdoms. But the Guises made no compromises with Protestants! Mary Guise, who was now Regent of the realm, had no desire for a closer union with Protestant England, and very much desired a nearer alliance with her own France. Mary Stuart was betrothed to the Dauphin, son of Francis I., and was sent to the French Court to be prepared by Catharine de Medici (the Italian daughter-in-law of Francis I.) for her future exalted position.

[Sidenote: Mary Stuart Returns to England.]

In 1561, Mary returned to England. Her boy-husband had died after a reign of two years. She was nineteen years old, had wonderful beauty, rare intelligence, and power to charm like a siren. Her short life had been spent in the most corrupt and profligate of Courts, under the combined influence of Catharine de Medici, the worst woman in Europe,-- and her two uncles of the House of Guise, who were little better.

Political intrigues, plottings and crimes were in the very air she breathed from infancy. But she was an ardent and devout Catholic, and as such became the centre and the hope of what still remained of Catholic England.

Elizabeth would have bartered half her possessions for the one possession of beauty. That she was jealous of her fascinating rival there is little doubt, but that she was exasperated at her pretensions and at the audacious plottings against her life and throne is not strange. In fact we wonder that, with her imperious temper, she so long hesitated to strike the fatal blow.

Whether Mary committed the dark crimes attributed to her or not, we do not know. But we do know, that after the murder of her wretched husband, Lord Darnley, (her cousin, Henry Stuart), she quickly married the man to whom the deed was directly traced. Her marriage with Bothwell was her undoing. Scotland was so indignant at the act, that she took refuge in England, only to fall into Elizabeth's hands.

Mary Stuart had once audaciously said, "the reason her cousin did not marry was because she would not lose the power of compelling men to make love to her." Perhaps the memory of this jest made it easier to sign the fatal paper in 1587.

[Sidenote: Mary Stuart's Death, 1587.]

When we read of Mary's irresistible charm, of her audacity, her cunning, her genius for diplomacy and statecraft, far exceeding Elizabeth's--when we read of all this and think of the blood of the Guises in her veins, and the precepts of Catharine de Medici in her heart, we realize what her usurpation would have meant for England, and feel that she was a menace to the State, and justly incurred her fate.

Then again, when we hear of her gentle patience in her long captivity, her prayers and piety, and her sublime courage when she walked through the Hall at Fotheringay Castle, and laid her beautiful head on the block as on a pillow, we are melted to pity, and almost revolted at the act. It is difficult to be just, with such a lovely criminal, unless one is made of such stern stuff as was John Knox.

[Sidenote: James VI., King of Scotland. Defeat of Spanish Armada, 1597.]

The son of Mary by Henry Stuart (Lord Darnley) was James VI. of Scotland. With his mother's death, all pretensions to the English throne were forever at rest. But Philip of Spain thought the time propitious for his own ambitious purposes, and sent an Armada (fleet) which approached the Coast in the form of a great Crescent, one mile across. The little English "seadogs," not much larger than small pleasure yachts, were led by Sir Francis Drake. They worried the ponderous Spanish s.h.i.+ps, and then, sending burning boats in amongst them, soon spoiled the pretty crescent. The fleet scattered along the Northern Coast, where it was overtaken by a frightful storm, and the winds and the waves completed the victory, almost annihilating the entire "Armada."

[Sidenote: Francis Bacon.]

England was great and glorious. The revolution, religious, social and political, had ploughed and harrowed the surface which had been fertilized with the "New Learning," and the harvest was rich. While all Europe was devastated by religious wars there arose in Protestant England such an era of peace and prosperity, with all the conditions of living so improved that the dreams of Sir Thomas More's "Utopia" seemed almost realized. The new culture was everywhere. England was garlanded with poetry, and lighted by genius, such as the world has not seen since, and may never see again. The name of Francis Bacon was sufficient to adorn an age, and that of Shakespeare alone, enough to illumine a century. Elizabeth did not create the glory of the "Elizabethan Age," but she did create the peace and social order from which it sprang.

If this Queen ever loved any one it was the Earl of Leicester, the man who sent his lovely wife, Amy Robsart, to a cruel death in the delusive hope of marrying a Queen. We are unwilling to harbor the suspicion that she was accessory to this deed; and yet we cannot forget that she was the daughter of Henry VIII.!--and sometimes wonder if the memory of a crime as black as Mary's haunted her sad old age, when sated with pleasures and triumphs, lovers no more whispering adulation in her ears, and mirrors banished from her presence, she silently waited for the end.

She died in the year 1603, and succ.u.mbing to the irony of fate, named the son of Mary Stuart--James VI. of Scotland--her successor.

CHAPTER VIII.

[Sidenote: House of Stuart, 1603-1714.]

The House of Stuart had peacefully reached the long coveted throne of England in the person of a most unkingly King. Gross in appearance and vulgar in manners, James had none of the royal attributes of his mother. A great deal of knowledge had been crammed into a very small mind. Conceited, vain, pedantic, headstrong, he set to work with the confidence of ignorance to carry out his undigested views upon all subjects, reversing at almost every point the policy of his great predecessor. Where she with supreme tact had loosened the screws so that the great authority vested in her might not press too heavily upon the nation, he tightened them. Where she bowed her imperious will to that of the Commons, this puny tyrant insolently defied it, and swelling with sense of his own greatness, claimed, "Divine right" for Kings.h.i.+p and demanded that his people should say "the King can do no wrong," "to question his authority is to question that of G.o.d." If he ardently supported the Church of England, it was because he was its head. The Catholic who would have turned the Church authority over again to the Pope, and the "Puritans" who resisted the "Popish practices" of the Reformed Church of England, were equally hateful to him, for one and the same reason; they were each aiming to diminish _his_ authority.

[Sidenote: First English Colony in New England]