my selfe most true. And as for the traitor Wiat, he migth peraventur writ me a lettor; but, on my faithe, I never receved any from him. And as for the copie of my lettar sent to the French Kinge, I pray God confound me eternally, if ever I sent him word, message, token, or lettar by any menes; and to this my truith I will stand in to my dethe. Your Highness most faithful subject 'I humbly crave but only one worde of answer from your selfe.'-vol. ii., 255—7. ELIZABETH.' This letter Mr. Ellis has appropriately introduced with a narrative of Elizabeth's committal to the tower, of which we take only the last passage. 'The landing at the Traitor's Gate she at first refused: but one of the lords stepped back into the barge to urge her coming out; " and because it did then rain," says Holinshed," he offered to her his cloak, which she (putting it back with her hand with a good dash) refused." Then coming out, with one foot upon the stair, she said, "Here landeth as true a subject, being prisoner, as ever landed at these stairs: and before thee, O God, I speak it, having none other friends but thee alone." an To her prison-chamber, it is stated, she was brought with great reluctance; and the locking and bolting of the doors upon her caused dismay. She was, moreover, for some time denied even the liberty of exercise. Early in the following May, the Lord Chandos, who was then the constable of the Tower, was discharged of his office, and Sir Henry Bedingfield appointed in his room. "He brought with him," says the historian, hundred souldiers, in blue coats, wherewith the princess was marvellously discomfited, and demanded of such as were about her, whether the Lady Jane's scaffold were taken away or no, fearing, by reason of their coming, least she should have played her part." Warton says, she asked this question" with her usual liveliness;" but there was probably less in it of vivacity than he supposed. Sixty years before, upon the same spot, Sir James Tirell had been suddenly substituted for Sir Robert Brakenbury, preparatory to the disappearance of the princes of the house of York. Happily for Elizabeth, her fears were groundless; Sir Henry Bedingfield accompanied her to a less gloomy prison in the palace of Woodstock.'p. 258. Adversity and affliction are usually said to be the searching correctors of the human heart: but royal hearts would seem to be formed of more impenetrable materials than are taken into the account in this ordinary estimate of our nature. A far more bitter measure of suffering did Elizabeth afterwards inexorably inflict upon Mary Stuart-her kinswoman and a queen,-than her sister had meted out to her. Elizabeth sprang from a bad stock: her character displayed habitually the arbitrary spirit of the Tudors; and in sternness and obduracy of purpose, she could, upon occasions, betray all her father's implacable cruelty, though she ordinarily, with more prudence than he had possessed, set a better curb upon the violence of an imperious temper. In her execution of the Queen of Scots, reasons of state might be pleaded as some extenuation, however unsatisfactory, of the act: but another transaction, rather less celebrated, and of a more private nature, to which several of these letters relate, places the stern vindictive character of Elizabeth in the most odious and inexcusable point of view. The circumstances of this story are as well told in the words of Mr. Ellis, as in any other. 'The reader has been already made aware, that after the exclusion given by the will of Henry the Eighth to the posterity of Margaret of Scotland, after the acts of parliament which he left unrepealed, and the publication of Edward the Sixth's will, the right of the Crown of England was very generally considered to have devolved upon the House of Suffolk, of which the Lady Catherine, the sister of Lady Jane Gray, was the heir. This lady had been married to Lord Herbert, the son of the Earl of Pembroke, whose father apprehending danger from an intermarriage with royal blood, obtained an immediate divorce. The Lady Catherine then entered into a secret contract with the Earl of Hertford, whose sister, the Lady Jane Seymour, resided with her in the court; both, seemingly, as maids of honour to the queen. 'The queen went one morning to Eltham to hunt, when Lady Jane and Lady Catherine, according to previous concert, leaving the palace at Westminster by the stairs at the orchard, went along by the sands to the earl's house in Chanon Row; Lady Jane then went for a priest, and the parties were married. The earl accompanied them back to the water-stairs of his house, put them into a boat, and they returned to the Court time enough for dinner in master comptroller's chamber. Having consummated his marriage, Lord Hertford travelled into France. The pregnancy of Lady Catherine became apparent, and was soon whispered through the court. She first confessed it privately to Mrs. Sentlowe, and afterwards sought Lord Robert Dudley's chamber, to break out to him that she was married, in the hope of softening the anger of the queen; but Elizabeth committed her to the Tower, where she was afterwards delivered of a son. Lord Hertford was summoned home to answer for his misdemeanour; when, confessing the marriage, he also was committed to the Tower. 'A commission of inquiry was next issued, at the head of which were Archbishop Parker, Bishop Grindal, and Sir William Petre; when the parties being unable, within a time prescribed, to produce witnesses of the marriage, a definitive sentence was pronounced against them; and their imprisonment ordered to be continued during the queen's pleasure. By bribing their keepers, however, they found means to have further intercourse; the fruit of which was another child. The queen's vexation was now increased, and Lord Hertford was fined fifteen thousand pounds in the Star Chamber for a triple crime: five thousand for deflowering a virgin of the blood-royal in the queen's house; five thousand for breaking his prison; and five thousand for repeating his vicious act.'-pp. 272, 273. The persecutions which the young Countess of Hertford continued after this to endure at the queen's hands, a prisoner sometimes in the tower, sometimes in the private custody of her relatives, but always separated from her captive husband, brought her life to a premature close; and worn out with suffering and anguish, she breathed her last only seven years after her fatal marriage. The following touching account of the manner of her departing,' has been copied by Mr. Ellis from a Harleian MS. All the night she continued in prayer, saying of psalms and hearing them read of others, sometimes saying them after others, and as soon as one psalm was done, she would call for another to be said; divers times she would rehearse the prayers appointed for the Visitation of the Sick, and five or six times the same night she said the prayers appointed to be said at the hours of death, and when she was comforted by those about her, saying, "Madam be of good comfort, with God's help you shall live and do well many years," she would answer, No, no, no life in this worlde, but in the world to come I hope to live for ever; for here is nothing but care and misery, and there is life everlasting:" and then seeing herself faint, she said, "Lord be merciful unto me, for now I begin to faint," and all the time of her fainting, when any about her would chafe or rub her, to comfort her, she would lift up her hands and eyes unto heaven, and say, "Father of heaven, for thy Son Christ's sake, have mercy upon me." Then said the Lady Hopton unto her, "Madam be of good comfort; for with God his favour you shall live and escape this; for Mrs. Cousen saith you have escaped many dangers, when you were as like to die as you be nowe." No, no my ladie, my time is come, and it is not God's will that I should live any longer, and his will be done, and not mine;" then, looking upon those that were about her, "As I am, so shall you be, behold the picture of yourselves." And about vi. or vij. of the clocke in the morning, she desired those that were about her to cause Sir Owen Hoptone to come unto her; and when he came, he said unto her, "Good Madam, how do you," and she said, "Even now going to God, Sir Owen, even as fast as I can; and I pray you, and the rest that be about me, to bear witness with me, that I die a true Christian, and that I believe to be saved by the death of Christ, and that I am one that he hath shed his most precious blood for; and I ask God and all the world forgiveness, and I forgive all the world." Then she said unto Sir Owen Hoptone, "I beseech you, promise me one thing, that you yourself, with your own mouth, will make this request unto the queen's majesty, which shall be the last suit and request that ever I shall make unto her highness, even from the mouth of a dead woman; that she would forgive her displeasure towards me, as my hope is she hath done; I must needs confess I have greatly offended her, in that I made my choice without her knowledge, otherwise I take God to witness I had never the heart to think any evil against her majesty; and that she would be good unto my children, and not to impute my fault unto them, whom I give wholly unto her majesty: for in my life they have had few friends, and fewer shall they have when I am dead, except her majesty be gracious unto them; and I desire her highness to be good unto my lord, for I know this my death will be heavy news unto him, that her grace will be so good as to send liberty to glad his sorrowful heart withall." Then she said unto Sir Owen, "I shall further desire you to deliver from me certain commendations and tokens unto my lord," and calling unto her woman, she said, "Give me the box wherein my wedding ring is," and when she had it, she opened it, and took out a ring, with a pointed diamond in it, and said, "Here Sir Owen, No, deliver this unto my lord, this is the ring that I received of him when I gave myself unto him, and gave him my faith." "What say you, Madam," said Sir Owen, "was this your wedding ring?" Sir Owen," she said, "this was the ring of my assurance unto my lord, and there is my wedding ring," taking another ring all of gold out of the box, saying, "Deliver this also unto my lord,* and pray him even as I have been to him, as I take God to witness I have been, a true and faithful wife, that he would be a loving and a natural father unto my children, unto whom I give the same blessing that God gave unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.' And then took she out another ring, with a death's head, and said, "This shall be the last token unto my lord that ever I shall send him; it is the picture of myself." The words about the death's head were these, "While I lyve yours," and so, looking down upon her hands, and perceiving the nails to look purple, she said, " Lo! here he is come," and then, as it were, with a joyful countenance she said, "welcome death," and embracing hersel fwith her arms, and lifting up her eyes and hands unto heaven, knocking her hands upor her breast, she brake forth and said, "O Lord! for thy manifold mercies, blot out of thy book all mine offenses!" Whereby Sir Owen perceiving her to draw towards her end, said to Mr. Bockeham, "were it not best to send to the church that the bell+ may be rung," and she herself hearing him, "Good Sir Owen let it be so." Then immediately perceiving her end to be near, she entered into prayer, and said, “O Lord! into thy hands I commend my soul, Lord Jesus receive my spirit:" and so putting down her eyes with her own hands, she yielded unto God her meek spirit at nine of the clock in the morning the 27th of January, 1567.'-pp. 288-290. It only remains to be added, as the climax to the implacable hardness of Elizabeth's heart, that, notwithstanding the dying appeal of the poor Countess to her compassion for Lord Hertford, she detained that nobleman in the tower for nine years afterwards! As we descend into the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the matter of the letters before us becomes more interesting in some respects, because infinitely more various in its nature. Öne from Charles I. to Bishop Juxon, putting to him what his majesty, and Mr. Ellis after him, is pleased to call 'a case of conscience,' is of a very singular tenor. The king was at the time a prisoner with the Scots' army, and had received their demand for the abolition of episcopacy, as the price of his restoration to freedom and his throne. *This ring had been exhibited by Lady Catherine to the commission of inquiry. It consisted of five links, the four inner ones containing the following posie of the Earl's making: "As circles five by art compact shewe but one ring in sight, So trust uniteth faithfull mindes with knott of secret might; Whose force to breake but greedie death noe wight possesseth power, As time and sequels well shall prove. My ringe can say no more.' The Passing Bell. It was rung at the passing from life to death, with the intention that those who heard it should pray for the person dying.' "MY LORD, Newcastle, 30th Sept. 1646. My knowledge of your worth and learning, and particularly in resolving cases of conscience, makes me at this time (I confess) put to you a hard and bold task, nor would I do it, but that I am confident you know not what fear is in a good cause. Yet I hope you believe that I shall be loath to expose you to a needless danger, assuring you that I will yield to none of your friends in my care of your preservation. I need not tell you the many persuasions and threatenings that hath been used to me for making me change episcopal into presbiterial government, which absolutely to do, is so directly against my conscience, that, by the grace of God no misery shall ever make me: but I hold myself obliged by all honest means to eschew the mischief of this too visible storm, and I think some kind of compliance with the iniquity of the times may be fit, as my case is, which at another time were unlawful. These are the grounds that have made me think of this inclosed proposition, the which as one way it looks handsome to us, so in another I am fearful least I cannot make it with a safe conscience; of which I command you to give me your opinion upon your allegiance. Conjuring you, that you will deal plainly and freely with me, as you will answer it at the dreadful day of judgement. 'I conceive the question to be, whether I may with a safe conscience give way to this proposed temporary compliance, with a resolution to recover and maintain that doctrine and discipline wherein I have been bred. The duty of my oath is herein chiefly to be considered; I flattering myself that this way I better comply with it, than being constant to a flat denial, considering how unable I am by force to obtain that which this way there wants not probability to recover, if accepted, (otherwise there is no harm done), for my royal authority once settled, I make no question of recovering episcopal government, and God is my witness my chiefest end in regaining my power, is, to do the church service. So expecting your reasons to strengthen your opinion, whatever it be, I rest Your most assured, reall, faithful, CHARLES R.'- -vol. iii., pp. 325—7. Upon this letter, Mr. Ellis, whose political feelings seem all enlisted with the royal cause in the great rebellion,' as he is sometimes pleased to call it, observes that, to use Clarendon's words, Charles was too conscientious to buy his peace at so profane and sacrilegious a price, as the suppression of episcopacy. It is strange that our worthy editor has not seen that, conscientious as he is declared to have been, the king here begs the question, whether he may not be guilty of the duplicity of a temporary compliance, with the secret resolution to maintain and recover the episcopal doctrine and discipline; and that his 'case of conscience' sought only the consolation of authority from his ghostly counsellor, for practising a breach of faith for which he was already prepared. The whole letter is very remarkable, and quite characteristic. It expresses all the irresolution in which Charles was so often lost; and it declares unequivocally, his inclination to pursue that insincere and faithless course of policy which, more than any other circumstance, |
