Edward Spencer Beesly

“ What, however, he desired in her case, was marriage. A more sensible man would have foreseen that marriage would mean certain ruin for himself and the Queen. But he was accustomed to despise all difficulties in his path, being intellectually incapable of measuring them, and believing in nothing but audacity and brute force. Husband of the Queen, why should he not be master of the kingdom? Why not King? When such an idea had once occurred to Bothwell, Darnley’s expectancy of life would be much the same as that of a calf in the presence of the butcher. ”

“ When once we have realised that union with Ireland is not so valuable to us as to be worth any considerable sacrifice, from that moment it becomes possible to establish it on a solid and permanent basis. For the truth is that Ireland has vastly more to gain by union than we have. Oddly enough this important truth is being constantly asserted by English politicians who yet have not the good sense and courage to act upon it. It is a truth which hitherto has been somewhat obscured from the perception of the Irish, because they have never yet had occasion to give it a thought. ”

“ As representing the crown, he had every man’s hand against him. To subsidise such a man was perfectly useless. If Elizabeth was to make his cause her own, she might just as well undertake the conquest of Scotland at once.
The essence of the good understanding between England and France was that both countries should keep their hands off Scotland. Elizabeth, knowing that if worst came to worst, she could always be beforehand with France in the northern kingdom, could afford to respect this arrangement, and she did mean to respect it. ”

“ When once John Bull has tasted the blessing of freedom from the Irish yoke, nothing will induce him to run his neck into it again.
As for the ancient parties, the certainty that they will have to get along together somehow, and settle their differences without the intervention of Lord Randolph Churchill, is the one thing needed to make them drop their weapons. Material interests will assert themselves. It is not the well-to-do people who have anything to fear. They will manage in the long run to hold their own in Ireland, as they have done everywhere else from the beginning of history ”

“ If Elizabeth had been free to marry or not, as she pleased, it seems to me in the highest degree improbable that she would ever have thought of taking Dudley. But believing that a husband was inevitable, and expecting that she would be forced to take some one who was either unknown to her or positively distasteful, it was most natural that she should ask herself whether it was not the least of evils to put this cruel persecution to an end by choosing a man whom at least she admired and liked, who loved her, as she thought, for her own sake, and would be as obedient “as her lap-dog.” ”

“ What was wanting in discipline would have been to some extent made up by the spontaneous cohesion of a force organised under its natural leaders, the nobles and gentry of each locality, not a few of whom had seen service abroad. But, after all, the greatest element of strength was the free spirit of the people. England was, and had long been, a nation of freemen. There were a few peers, and a great many knights and gentlemen. But there was no noble caste, as on the Continent, separated by an impassable barrier of birth and privilege from the mass of the people. ”

“ Where could an Irish joint stock company be floated except in London? Irishmen in our army or navy or civil service, Irish clergymen, doctors and lawyers residing in England, would they like to be called on to opt between English and Irish nationality? How would Irishmen get on abroad without the protection of English ambassadors and consuls? Would they, the poorest nation in Europe, like to go to the expense of setting up a separate army, navy, and diplomatic service? If Ireland undervalues these advantages now, it is because she has to set against them the denial of Home Rule. ”

“ For a pair of determined enemies, Elizabeth and Philip were just now upon most amicable, not to say affectionate, terms. She knew well that he had incited assassins to take her life, and that nothing would at any time give him greater pleasure than to hear that one of them had succeeded. But she bore him no malice for that. She took it all in the way of business, and intended, for her part, to go on robbing and damaging him in every way she could short of going to war. Philip bore it all meekly. Alva himself insisted that he could not afford to quarrel with her. ”

“ I have no doubt he sees clearly what I have endeavoured to point out, that in the well-proved absence of a determination on the part of the English people to trample out Irish patriotism by brute force, there is only one guarantee for the maintenance of the Union which is of any efficacy; and that is a readiness to throw up the Union. "He that loveth his life shall lose it, but he that hateth it shall keep it unto life eternal." Let Mr. Gladstone plant a firm foot on reality. ”

“ The defeat of the Great Armada was the deserved and crowning triumph of thirty years of good government at home and wise policy abroad; of careful provision for defence and sober abstinence from adventure and aggression.
Of the land preparations it is impossible to speak with equal confidence, as they were never put to the test. If the Spaniards had landed, Leicester’s militia would no doubt have experienced a bloody defeat. London might have been taken and plundered. But Parma himself never expected to become master of the country without the aid of a great Catholic rising. ”

“ The re-casting of our constitution, the redistribution of taxation, the substitution of a system of education for a state church, the limitation of proprietary rights in land, poor law reform, sanitary reform, legal reform, in a word the subordination of private interests to public utility—these are questions that cannot be dealt with even by public opinion while our energies and attention are wasted on the management of two hundred millions of people who do not belong to us. ”

“ Ireland then has practically got her way already. The supremacy of the Imperial Parliament is nominally intact. Only, the Queen's writ does not run; and Mr. Chamberlain, to save appearances, will make a law that it shall not run.
But if the English yoke on Ireland has come in these days of Carnarvon and Morley to be easy, and its burden practically light, the Irish yoke on England is a reality of the sternest kind. We have a string of reforms waiting to be carried, and a huge Liberal majority of ninety-six (excluding all Irish members) prepared to carry them. ”

“ Anjou could not be allowed to have a private mass; and when, in its eagerness, the French court seemed disposed to give way on this point, Elizabeth began to talk about a restitution of Calais. Ruefully did poor Cecil watch the vanishing of his dream. It was to no purpose that he tried to frighten Elizabeth by representing that a jilted prince would be converted into an angry enemy. ”

“ It is a habit so valuable, so indispensable to continued success, that in practice it largely compensates for some inferiority in conception and design. Elizabeth’s irresolution and vacillation were therefore a consequence of her position—that of an extremely able and well-informed woman called upon to conduct a government in which so much had to be decided by the sovereign at her own discretion. The abler she was, the more disposed to make her will felt, the less steadiness and consistency in action were to be expected from her. ”

“ The Irish are at present masters of the situation, because we are afraid of separation and they are not, or rather think they are not. But the moment we make up our minds that it will be better for us to separate than to be governed by Ireland—which is virtually our fate now—we are in a position to offer them independence on either the colonial or federal model, subject to all such conditions as we can reasonably desire to impose. At present, Mr. Gladstone is challenged to prove that the guarantees he has devised will be of any avail against the bad faith or ill will of the Irish people. ”

“ It was the custom for the husbands of heiresses to step into the property of their wives and stand in the shoes, so to speak, of the last male proprietor, in order to perform those duties which could not be efficiently performed by a woman. Elizabeth’s sister, while a subject, had no thought of marrying. But her accession was considered by herself and every one else to involve marriage. If the nobles of England could have foreseen that Elizabeth would elude this obligation, she would probably never have been allowed to mount the throne. ”

“ The mass of the people abhorred their doctrines, and protested against any concession to their pretensions. Charles and his mother were absolutely careless about religion. Their feud with the Guises and their designs on the Netherlands had led them to invite the Huguenot chiefs to court, and so to give them a momentary influence in shaping the policy of France. It was with nothing more solid to lean on than this ricketty and short-lived combination that Burghley and Walsingham were eager to launch England into a war with the most powerful monarchy in Europe. ”

“ When we have Home Rule for England there will be some chance that workmen's questions will come to the front. Workmen and non-workmen will have to be brought face to face in comparatively small governmental areas if the former are to have anything like a fair chance of getting their interests attended to. Home Rule for Ireland is the first and most obviously practical step in this direction.
Mr. Chamberlain says he is against the Bill because the tendency of modern Europe is to unification rather than separation. It is a thousand pities that so able a man should be so imperfectly informed. ”

“ Scotland was in a state of anarchy, from which it could only be rescued by an able and courageous king. The nobles, instead of becoming weaker, as elsewhere, had acquired a strength and independence greater even than their fathers had enjoyed. Thirty years earlier, the Church had possessed quite half the land of the country, and had steadily supported the crown. Almost the whole of this wealth had been seized in one form or another by the nobles. And though, as compared with English noblemen, they were still poor in money, they were much bigger men relatively to their sovereign. ”

“ As a matter of fact, England was carried safely through unparalleled difficulties; and, when all is said, Elizabeth is entitled to be judged by the general result of her long reign.
Mary’s arrival was unwelcome to Elizabeth, because it seemed likely to force her hand. To do nothing would be no longer possible. The Catholic nobles and gentry of the north flocked to Carlisle to pay court to the heiress of the English crown. It was not that they believed her innocent of her husband’s murder. The suspicion of her complicity was at that time universal. ”

“ It appeals to the small but powerful class of Englishmen who own land or hold mortgages in Ireland, or whose relations do; or who, being English landlords, look on Irish landlords as an outpost of landlordism to be defended as long as possible. Our workmen have heard something of the Irish landlord, and there is no being so hateful to them. But they could hardly be expected to feel much enthusiasm for Home Rule if it really menaced the safety and welfare of their own country. ”