very much in earnest, and they were one and all
the determined enemies of the Queen of Scots.
The Protestant feeling in England was further
strengthened by the tremendous cruelties to which
Protestants were exposed in France and in the
Netherlands. Scores of thousands of them were
put to death in those countries with every cruelty
that can be imagined, and at last, in the autumn
of the year one thousand five hundred and
seventy-two, one of the greatest barbarities ever
committed in the world took place at Paris.
It is called in history, The Massacre of
Saint Bartholomew, because it took place on
Saint Bartholomew's Eve. The day fell on
Saturday the twenty-third of August. On that
day all the great leaders of the Protestants (who
were there called Huguenots) were assembled
together, for the purpose, as was represented to
them, of doing honour to the marriage of their
chief, the young King of Navarre, with the sister
of Charles the Ninth : a miserable young
King who then occupied the French throne.
This dull creature was made to believe by his
mother and other fierce Catholics about him that
the Huguenots meant to take his life ; and he
was persuaded to give secret orders that, on the
tolling of a great bell, they should be fallen upon
by an overpowering force of armed men, and
slaughtered wherever they could be found. When
the appointed hour was close at hand, the stupid
wretch, trembling from head to foot, was taken
into a balcony by his mother to see the atrocious
work begun. The moment the bell tolled, the
murderers broke forth. During all that night
and the two next days, they broke into the
houses, fired the houses, shot and stabbed the
Protestants, men, women, and children, and
flung their bodies into the streets. They were
shot at in the streets as they passed along, and
their blood ran down the gutters. Upwards of
ten thousand Protestants were killed in Paris
alone ; in all France four or five times that
number. To return thanks to Heaven for
these diabolical murders, the Pope and his
train actually went in public procession at
Rome, and as if this were not shame enough for
them, they had a medal struck to commemorate
the event. But, however comfortable the whole-
sale murders were to these high authorities, they
had not that soothing effect upon the doll-King.
I am happy to state that he never knew a mo-
ment's peace afterwards ; that he was continually
crying out that he saw the Huguenots covered
with blood and wounds falling dead before him j
and that he died within a year, shrieking and
yelling and raving to that degree, that if all the
Popes who had ever lived had been rolled into
one, they would not have afforded His guilty
Majesty the slightest consolation.
When the terrible news of the massacre ar-
rived in England, it made a powerful impression
indeed upon the people. If they began to run
a little wild against the Catholics at about this
time, this fearful reason for it, coming so soon
after the days of bloody Queen Mary, must be
remembered in their excuse. The Court was
not quite so honest as the people — but perhaps
it sometimes is not. It received the French
ambassador, with all the lords and ladies dressed
in deep mourning, and keeping a profound
silence. Nevertheless, a proposal of marriage
which he had made to Elizabeth only two days
before the eve of Saint Bartholomew, on behalf
of the Duke of Alencpn, the French King's
brother, a boy of seventeen, still went on ;
while on the other hand, in her usual crafty
way, the Queen secretly supplied the Huguenots
with money and weapons.
I must say that for a Queen who made all
those fine speeches, of which I have confessed
myself to be rather tired, about living and dying
a Maiden Queen, Elizabeth was " going " to be
married pretty often. Besides always having
some English favourite or other whom she by
turns encouraged and swore at and knocked
about — for the maiden Queen was very free with
her fists — she held this French Duke off and on
through several years. When he at last came
over to England, the marriage articles were
actually drawn up, and it was settled that the
wedding should take place in six weeks. The
Queen was then so bent upon it, that she prose-
cuted a poor Puritan named Stubbs, and a poor
bookseller named Page, for writing and pub-
lishing a pamphlet against it. Their right hands
were chopped off for this crime ; and poor
Stubbs — more loyal than I should have been
myself under the circumstances — immediately
138
A CHILD 'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
pulled off his hat with his left hand, and cried,
" God save the Queen ! " Stubbs was cruelly
treated ; for the marriage never took place after
all, though the Queen pledged herself to the
Duke with a ring from her own finger. , He went
away, no better than he came, when the court-
ship had lasted some ten years altogether ; and
he died a couple of years afterwards, mourned
by Elizabeth, who appears to have been really
fond of him. It is not much to her credit, for
he was a bad enough member of a bad family.
To return to the Catholics. There arose two
orders of priests, who were very busy in Eng-
land, and who were much dreaded. These were
the Jesuits (who were everywhere in all sorts of
disguises), and the Seminary Priests. The
people had a great horror of the first, because
they were known to have taught that murder
was lawful if it were done with an object of
which they approved ; and they had a great
horror of the second, because they came to teach
the old religion, and to be the successors of
" Queen Mary's priests," as those yet linger-
ing in England were called, when they should
die out. The severest laws were made against
them, and were most unmercifully executed.
Those who sheltered them in their houses often
suffered heavily for what was an act of human-
ity ; and the rack, that cruel torture which tore
men's limbs asunder, was constantly kept going.
What these unhappy men confessed, or what
was ever confessed by any one under that agony,
must always be received with great doubt, as it
is certain that people have frequently owned to
the most absurd and impossible crimes to escape
such dreadful suffering. But I cannot doubt it
to have been proved by papers, that there were
many plots, both among the Jesuits, and with
France, and with Scotland, and with Spain, for
the destruction of Queen Elizabeth, for the
placing of Mary on the throne, and for the
revival of the old religion.
If the English people were too ready to be-
lieve in plots, there were, as I have said, good
reasons for it. When the massacre of Saint
Bartholomew was yet fresh in their recollection,
a great Protestant Dutch hero, the Prince of
Orange, was shot by an assassin, who confessed
that he had been kept and trained for the pur-
pose in a college of Jesuits. The Dutch, in this
surprise and distress, offered to make Elizabeth
their sovereign, but she declined the honour,
and sent them a small army instead, under the
command of the Earl of Leicester, who, although
a capital court favourite, was not much of a
general. He did so little in Holland, that his
campaign there would probably have been for-
gotten, but for its occasioning the death of one
of the best writers, the best knights, and the
best gentlemen of that or any age. This was
Sir Philip Sidney, who was wounded by a
musket ball in the thigh as he mounted a fresh
horse, after having had his own killed under
him. He had to ride back wounded, a long
distance, and was very faint with fatigue and
loss of blood, when some water, for which he
had eagerly asked, was handed to him. But he
was so good and gentle even then, that seeing a
poor badly wounded common soldier lying on
the ground, looking at the water with longing
eyes, he said, "Thy necessity is greater than
mine," and gave it up to him. This touching
action of a noble heart is perhaps as well known
as any incident in history — is as famous far and
wide as the blood-stained Tower of London,
with . its axe, and block, and murders out of
number. So delightful is an act of true human-
ity, and so glad are mankind to remember it.
At home, intelligence of plots began to thicken
every day. I suppose the people never did live
under such continual terrors as those by which
they were possessed now, of Catholic risings,
and burnings, and poisonings, and I don't know
what. Still, we must always remember that they
lived near and close to awful realities of that
kind, and that with their experience it was not
difficult to believe in any enormity. The govern-
ment had the same fear, and did not take the
best means of discovering the truth — for, besides
torturing the suspected, it employed paid spies,
who will always lie for their own profit. It even
made some of the conspiracies it brought to
light, by sending false letters to disaffected
people, inviting them to join in pretended plots,
which they too readily did.
But, one great real plot was at length dis-
covered, and it ended the career of Mary,
Queen of Scots. A seminary priest named
Ballard, and a Spanish soldier named Savage,
set on and encouraged by certain French priests,
imparted a design to one Antony Baisington
— a gentleman of fortune in Derbyshire, who
had been for some time a secret agent of Mary's
— for murdering the Queen. Babington then
confided the scheme to some other Catholic
gentlemen who were his friends, and they joined
in it heartily. They were vain weak-headed
young men, ridiculously confident, and prepos-
terously proud of their plan ; for they got a
gimcrack painting made, of the six choice spirits
who were to murder Elizabeth, with Babington
in an attitude for the centre figure. Two of
their number, however, one of whom was a
priest, kept Elizabeth's wisest minister, Sir
ELIZABETH.
i39
Francis Walsingham, acquainted with the
whole project from the first. The conspirators
were completely deceived to the final point,
when Babington gave Savage, because he was
shabby, a ring from his finger, and some money
from his purse, wherewith to buy himself new
clothes in which to kill the Queen. Walsing-
ham, having then full evidence against the
whole band, and two letters of Mary's besides,
resolved to seize them. Suspecting something
wrong, they stole out of the city, one by one,
and hid themselves in St. John's Wood, and
other places which really were hiding places
then ; but they were all taken, and all executed.
When they were seized, a gentleman was sent
from Court to inform Mary of the fact, and of
her being involved in .the discovery. Her
friends have complained that she was kept in
very hard and severe custody. It does not
appear very likely, for she was going out a
hunting that very morning.
Queen Elizabeth had been warned long ago,
by one in France who had good information of
what was secretly doing, that in holding Mary
alive, she held " the wolf who would devour
her." The Bishop of London had, more lately,
given the Queen's favourite minister the advice
in writing, "forthwith to cut off the Scottish
Queen's head." The question now was, what
to do with her? The Earl of Leicester wrote a
little note home from Holland, recommending
that she should be quietly poisoned ; that noble
favourite having accustomed his mind, it is
possible, to remedies of that nature. His black
advice, however, was disregarded, and she was
brought to trial at Fotheringay Castle in North-
amptonshire, before a tribunal of forty, com-
posed of both religions. There, and in the Star
Chamber at Westminster, the trial lasted a fort-
night. She defended herself with great ability,
but could only deny the confessions that had
been made by Babington and others ; could
only call her own letters, produced against her
by her own secretaries, forgeries ; and, in short,
could only deny everything. She was found
guilty, and declared to have incurred the
penalty of death. The Parliament met, ap-
proved the sentence, and prayed the Queen to
have it executed. The Queen replied that she
requested them to consider whether no means
could be found of saving Mary's life without
endangering her own. The Parliament rejoined,
No ; and the citizens illuminated their houses
and lighted bonfires, in token of their joy that
all these plots and troubles were to be ended
by the death of the Queen of Scots.
She, feeling sure that her time was now come,
wrote a letter to the Queen of England, making
three entreaties ; first, that she might be buried
in France ; secondly, that she might not be
executed in secret, but before her servants and
some others ; thirdly, that after her death, her
servants should not be molested, but should be
suffered to go home with the legacies she left
them. It was an affecting letter, and Elizabeth
shed tears over it, but sent no answer. Then
came a special ambassador from France, and
another from Scotland, to intercede for Mary's
life ; and then the nation began to clamour,
more and more, for her death.
What the real feelings or intentions of Eliza-
beth were, can never be known now ; but I
strongly suspect her of only wishing one thing
more than Mary's death, and that was to keep
free of the blame of it. On the first of February,
on'e thousand five hundred and eighty-seven.
Lord Burleigh having drawn out the warrant for
the execution, the Queen sent to the secretary
Davison to bring it to her, that she might sign
it : which she did. Next day, when Davison
told her it was sealed, she angrily asked him
why such haste was necessary ? Next day but
one, she joked about it, and swore a little.
Again, next day but one, she seemed to com-
plain that it was not yet done, but still she
would not be plain with those about her. So,
on the seventh, the Earls of Kent and Shrews-
bury, with the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, came
with the warrant to Fotheringay, to tell the
Queen of Scots to prepare for death.
When those messengers of ill omen were
gone, Mary made a frugal supper, drank to her
servants, read over her will, went to bed, slept
for some hours, and then arose and passed the
remainder of the night saying prayers. In the
morning she dressed herself in her best clothes :
and, at eight o'clock when the sheriff came for
her to her chapel, took leave of her servants
who were there assembled praying with her,
and went down-stairs, carrying a Bible in one
hand and a crucifix in the other. Two of her
women and four of her men were allowed to be
present in the hall ; where a low scaffold, only
two feet from the ground, was erected and
covered with black ; and where the executioner
from the Tower, and his assistant, stood, dressed
in black velvet. The hall was full of people.
While the sentence was being read she sat upon
a stool; and, when it was finished, she again
denied her guilt, as she had done before. The
Earl of Kent and the Dean of Peterborough, in
their Protestant zeal, made some very unneces-
sary speeches to her ; to which she replied that
she died in the Catholic religion, and they need
140
A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
not trouble themselves about that matter.
When her head and neck were uncovered by
the executioners, she said that she had not
been used to be undressed by such hands, or
before so much company. Finally, one of her
women fastened a cloth over her face, and she
laid her neck upon the block, and repeated
more than once in Latin, " Into ihy hands, O
Lord, I commend my spirit i " Some say her
head was struck off in two blows, some say in
three. However that be, when it was held up,
streaming with blood, the real hair beneath the
false hair she had long worn was seen to be as
grey as that of a woman of seventy, though she
was at that time only in her forty-sixth year.
All her beauty was gone.
But she was beautiful enough to her little
dog, who cowered under her dress, frightened,
when she went upon the scaffold, and who lay
down beside her headless body when all her
earthly sorrows were over.
Third Part.
On its being formally made known to Elizabeth
that the sentence had been executed on the
Queen of Scots, she showed the utmost grief
and rage, drove her favourites from her with
violent indignation, and sent Davison to the
Tower ; from which place he was only released
in the end by paying an immense fine which
completely ruined him. Elizabeth not only
over-acted her part in making these pretences,
but most basely reduced to poverty one of her
faithful servants for no other fault than obeying
her commands.
James, King of Scotland, Mary's son, made
a show likewise of being very angry on the
occasion ; but he was a pensioner of England
to the amount of five thousand pounds a year,
and he had known very little of his mother, and
he possibly regarded her as the murderer of his
father, and he soon took it quietly.
Philip, King of Spain, however, threatened
to do greater things than ever had been done
yet, to set up the Catholic religion and punish
Protestant England. Elizabeth, hearing that he
and the Prince of Parma were making great
preparations for this purpose, in order to be
beforehand with them sent out Admiral Drake
(a famous navigator, who had sailed about the
world, and had already brought great plunder
from Spain) to the port of Cadiz, where he burnt
a hundred vessels full of stores. This great loss
obliged the Spaniards to put off the invasion for
a year ; but it was none the less formidable for
that, amounting to one hundred and thirty ships,
nineteen thousand soldiers, eight thousand sailors,
two thousand slaves, and between two and three
thousand great guns. England was not idle in
making ready to resist this great force. All the
men between sixteen years old and sixty, were
trained and drilled ; the national fleet of ships
(in number only thirty-four at first) was enlarged
by public contributions and by private ships,
fitted out by noblemen ; the city of London, of
its own accord, furnished double the number of
ships and men that it was required to provide ;
and, if ever the national spirit was up in Eng-
land, it was up all through the country to resist
the Spaniards. Some of the Queen's advisers
were for seizing the principal English Catholics,
and putting them to death ; but the Queen —
who, to her honour, used to say, that she would
never believe any ill of her subjects, which a
parent would not believe of her own children —
rejected the advice, and only confined a few of
those who were the most suspected, in the fens
in Lincolnshire. The great body of Catholics
deserved this confidence ; for they behaved most
loyally, nobly, and bravely.
So, with all England firing up like one strong
angry man, and with both sides of the Thames
fortified, and with the soldiers under arms, and
with the sailors in their ships, the country waited
for the coming of the proud Spanish fleet, which
was called The Invincible Armada. The
Queen herself, riding in armour on a white horse,
and the Earl of Essex and the Earl of Leicester
holding her bridle rein, made a brave speech to
the troops at Tilbury Fort opposite Gravesend,
which was received with such enthusiasm as is
seldom known. Then came the Spanish Armada
into the English Channel, sailing along in the
form of a half moon, of such great size that it
was seven miles broad. But the English were
quickly upon it, and woe then to all the Spanish
ships that dropped a little out of the half moon,
for the English took them instantly ! And it
soon appeared that the great Armada was any-
thing but invincible, for on a summer night,
bold Drake sent eight blazing fire-ships right
into the midst of it. In terrible consternation
the Spaniards tried to get out to sea, and so
became dispersed ; the English pursued them
at a great advantage ; a storm came on, and
drove the Spaniards among rocks and shoals ;
and the swift end of the Invincible fleet was,
that it lost thirty great ships and ten thousand
men, and, defeated and disgraced, sailed home
again. Being afraid to go by the English Chan-
nel, it sailed all round Scotland and Ireland ;
some of the ships getting cast away on the latter
ELIZABETH.
141
coast in bad weather, the Irish, who were a kind
of savages, plundered those vessels and killed
their crews. So ended this great attempt to
invade and conquer England. And I think it
will be a long time before any other invincible
fleet coming to England with the same object,
will fare much better than the Spanish Armada.
Though the Spanish king had had this bitter
taste of English bravery, he was so little the
wiser for it, as still to entertain his old designs,
and even to conceive the absurd idea of placing
his daughter on the English throne. But the Earl
of Essex, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Thomas
Howard, and some other distinguished leaders,
put to sea from Plymouth, entered the port of
Cadiz once more, obtained a complete victory
over the shipping assembled there, and got pos-
session of the town. In obedience to the Queen's
express instructions, they behaved with great
humanity ; and the principal loss of the Spaniards
was a vast sum of money which they had to pay
for ransom. This was one of many gallant
THE SPANISH ARMADA.
achievements on the sea, effected in this reign.
Sir Walter Raleigh himself, after marrying a
maid of honour and giving offence to the Maiden
Queen thereby, had already sailed to South
America in search of gold.
The Earl of Leicester was now dead, and so
was Sir Thomas Walsingham, whom Lord Bur-
leigh was soon to follow. The principal favourite
was the Earl of Essex, a spirited and hand-
some man, a favourite with the people too as
well as with the Queen, and possessed of many
admirable qualities. It was much debated at
Court whether there should be peace with Spain
or no, and he was very urgent for war. He also
tried hard to have his own way in the appoint-
ment of a deputy to govern in Ireland. One day,
while this question was in dispute, he hastily
took offence, and turned his back upon the
Queen ; as a gentle reminder of which impro-
priety, the Queen gave him a tremendous box
on the ear, and told him to go to the devil. He
went home instead, and did not reappear at
142
A CHILD 'S HISTOR Y OF ENGLAND.
Court for half a year or so, when he and the
Queen were reconciled, though never (as some
suppose) thoroughly.
From this time the fate of the Earl of Essex
and that of the Queen seemed to be blended
together. The Irish were still perpetually quar-
relling and fighting among themselves, and he
went over to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant, to the
great joy of his enemies (Sir Walter Raleigh
among the rest), who were glad to have so dan-
gerous a rival far off. Not being by any means
successful there, and knowing that his enemies
would take advantage of that circumstance to
injure him with the Queen, he came home again,
though against her orders. The Queen being
taken by surprise when he appeared before her,
gave him her hand to kiss, and he was overjoyed
— though it was not a very lovely hand by this
time — but in the course of the same day she
ordered him to confine himself to his room, and
two or three days afterwards had him taken into
custody. With the same sort of caprice — and
as capricious an old woman she now was, as ever
wore a crown or a head either — she sent him
broth from her own table on his falling ill from
anxiety, and cried about him.
He was a man who could find comfort and
occupation in his books, and he did so for a
time ; not the least happy time, I dare say, of
Ins life. But it happened unfortunately for him,
that he held a monopoly in sweet wines : which
means that nobody could sell them without pur-
chasing his permission. This right, which was
only for a term, expiring, he applied to have it
renewed. The Queen refused, with the rather
strong observation — but she did make strong
observations — that an unruly beast must be
stinted in his food. Upon this, the angry Karl,
who had been already deprived of many offices,
thought himself in danger of complete ruin, and
turned against the Queen, whom he called a vain
old woman who had grown as crooked in her
mind as she had in her figure. These uncom-
plimentary expressions the ladies of the Court
immediately snapped up and carried to the
Queen, whom they did not put in a better
temper, you may believe. The same Court
ladies, when they had beautiful dark hair of
their own, used to wear false red hair, to be like
the Queen. So they were not very high-spirited
ladies, however high in rank.
The worst object of the Earl of Essex, and