Augustus Jessopp

“ Nothing in Elizabeth's life is more dreadful than the pilous savagery which she permitted, and more than permitted, in the slaughter and pillage that followed the northern rebellion. She heard of it all, and did as her father would have done in the fury of his wrath.
Then there rose a cry that if the pope had but supported the rebellion and boldly ex-communicated the queen the catholics would have answered to the call as one man. Rome has always moved slowly, but Rome was preparing to move now. ”

“ He had a high idea of what was expected from the prime minister of the queen of England. All this splendour and profuseness could not be kept up through life and any large accumulation of wealth be left behind him. In truth Cecil did not die as rich a man as might have been expected, and there is good reason for believing that if his father had not left him an ample patrimony he would have died as poor a man as many another of Elizabeth's ablest and most faithful servants. ”

“ Her immense force of will, the masculine vigour of her intellect, her instinct of command, her very duplicity, her restlessness, her insatiable desire to be kept informed of everything that was going on, her pretence of omniscience, her resolve to initiate, or seem to initiate, every movement in church and state, at home and abroad, were each and all factors that had to be taken into account by her ministers, and had already displayed themselves too evidently to allow of their escaping the notice of her council. ”

“ Already the horizon was clearing on all sides, a feeling of security was growing among all classes, except indeed among the turbulent minority in church and state, the politicians whose hopes lay in some change from the things that were to the things that might be. They had begun to feel that at last the queen was a veritable ruler, her council were her servants, she was no puppet in their hands. ”

“ It is small wonder if this man of thirty-five, watching the queen growing old and knowing himself to be unloved, should at times have been oppressed by a sense of loneliness, and should have written in a cynical tone to Sir John Harrington: ‘Good knight, rest content, and give heed to one that hath sorrowed in the bright lustre of a court, and gone heavily even on the best-seeming fair ground. ”

“ But as time went on the catholic exiles began to feel that they were getting less and less in touch with the great mass of the catholics at home, and that as the old priests of Queen Mary's days, who had been schooled in the old faith, and ritual, died off, the rising generation would gradually become habituated to the new worship and acquiesce in the new theology. It seemed to them of vital importance that England should be supplied with catholic priests who should fill the places of those who died off, and if possible that their numbers should be increased. ”

“ Once more during this parliament, and only a few days after it assembled, the faithful commons had presented a humble petition to Elizabeth 'to take to yourself some honourable husband whom it shall please you to join unto in marriage.' They were deeply in earnest this time, for the country had had a serious scare in the previous October, when the queen had been dangerously ill with the small-pox, and her life for some hours had seemed to be trembling in the balance. ”

“ When Philip II embarked upon the ambitious enterprise of the conquest of England, he had been engaged for thirty years in a vain attempt at making himself absolute ruler of the Netherlands, and as far as the seven northern provinces were concerned he was no nearer than he had ever been to success. The cost of this protracted war had got beyond the power of calculation. Spain had become the poorest country in Europe, and her people the most heavily taxed people in the world. ”

“ The treacherous capture of John Storey and his execution this year is an instance of her relentless severity where only a single person had to suffer; and the fate of the Duke of Norfolk seems to be best explained by looking upon it as an easy way of getting rid of a timid imbecile who could be sacrificed without any inconveniences being likely to follow, while, if he were allowed to live, he might prove troublesome as an instrument in abler hands. ”

“ But it was when Parsons and Campion, the first two Jesuits who had ever set foot in England, landed in June 1580, that the queen, or at any rate her council, began to be seriously alarmed. There was no question of sedition, no thought of a rebellion, but there was a very great question as to who was to be obeyed in England in religious matters, the pope or the queen. The priests ordained abroad, and persisting in saying mass at home, were guilty of high treason according to the act. They defied the act, and must take the consequences of their temerity. ”

“ Writers who are prone to draw hasty inferences from scraps of information, and readers who are always ready to accept the worst rather than the simplest interpretation of a stray anecdote, require to be warned that Elizabeth, lady Derby, was Cecil's niece, his own sister's child! ”

“ Her nearest blood relation was Henry Carey, afterwards Lord Hunsdon, the only child of her mother's sister. The next heir to the throne was Mary Stuart, nine years her junior, now queen of Scotland, and soon to be queen-consort of France. England had just suffered the deepest humiliation which she had known for centuries. She no longer possessed a yard of land upon the continent: the finances of the country were in a condition which might almost be described as desperate. War and famine and pestilence had brought the people to the lowest point of shame and despondency. ”

“ But Coryate was not the man to be discouraged or to be easily turned from his purpose. He applied to every person of eminence whom he knew, and many whom he can scarcely have known at all, to write commendatory verses upon himself, his book, and his travels, and by his unwearied pertinacity and unblushing importunity contrived to get together the most extraordinary collection of testimonials which have ever been gathered in a single sheaf. ”

“ Perhaps there is no European statesman who has occupied so prominent and so commanding a position in history during the last three centuries with whose public life and political administration we are so familiar in all its details, and of whose private life we know so little, as Lord Salisbury. ”

“ He knew nothing of England's real resources, nothing of that mighty reserve of power which the queen of England could always full back upon.
A standing army was a thing unknown in England. But the musters constituted a militia ready at any moment to take the field fully armed; while the liability to furnish ships for the defence of the coast, assessed by no means exclusively upon the seaports and the counties most exposed to invasion, guaranteed to the nation at large that a national fleet could be provided at the expense of all in the hour of need, and by the simplest financial machinery. ”

“ Carleton was of too cool and calculating a nature to be capable of strong hatred. Life to him, and especially political life, was a game to be played without passion; the men upon the board were but pawns or counters; and in playing with the States General at this time, when everybody in Holland was more or less mad with a theological mania, it was idle to speak or act as if they were sane. ”

“ From this time till the end of his life Carleton grew to be more and more esteemed as the most sagacious and successful diplomatist in Europe, and a history of the negotiations in which he was engaged would be a history of the foreign affairs of England during more than half of the reigns of James I and his unhappy successor. ”

“ Heath, archbishop of York, as chancellor, announced that 'our late sovereign lady Queen Mary' had passed away, and that the lords had determined to proclaim the Lady Elizabeth queen 'without further tract of time.' The thing was done with all due form and ceremony, Sir William Cecil having already prepared the draft of the proclamation which was usual on such occasions. At last it had come!
The nation breathed once more the breath of hope and life. But the outlook and the retrospect as men looked back upon the last six years were enough to fill them with dismay. ”

“ All this prodigal display was slowly but surely tending to weaken the aristocracy. The wealth of the merchants was rapidly growing, the moneyed class was steadily gaining power. Elizabeth saw what was coming, but she did not love the commons; she was always averse to summon a parliament, and never did so until she was compelled.
Parliament, indeed, was called together only thirteen times in more than forty-four years. During the last thirteen years of her reign it assembled thrice, viz. in 1592, 1597, and 1601. When the house had voted supplies, the sooner it was dissolved the better. ”

“ On the 23rd the queen commenced her progress to London. On the way the bishops met her, and were permitted to kiss hands, all except Bonner — from him she turned away as if there had been blood upon his lips. On the 28th she took possession of the Tower; on 5 Dec. she removed to Somerset House, where she attended the sittings of her council from day to day. Meanwhile the two religious parties were watching; her every movement, look, and word with feverish excitement. On the 14th Queen Mary was buried at Westminster according to the Roman ritual. ”

“ Sir William Catesby, in common with the great majority of the country gentry throughout England who were resident upon their estates and unconnected with the oligarchy who ruled in the queen's name at court, threw in his lot with the catholic party and suffered the consequences of his conscientious adherence to the old creed. He was a recusant, and for the crime of not attending at his parish church and taking part in a form of worship which he regarded as worse than a mockery, he suffered severely in person and substance during the latter half of Queen Elizabeth's reign. ”

“ Scotland was making eager overtures for an alliance with England; the English catholics were dispirited; the commons voted a sufficient subsidy; the outlook everywhere grew clearer. In February Cecil had been elected chancellor of the university of Cambridge; in June he was at the head of the commission for a visitation of the two universities. Just at this time Lord Robert Dudley appears upon the scene as the rising favourite. For a time it seemed as if he had stepped between the queen and the secretary, and there were rumours that Cecil's influence had received a check. ”

“ Sir Henry was a courtier and a gentleman, but he had to obey his stern mistress, and though Elizabeth was under surveillance, and her health suffered from her confinement and the irritation which her captivity occasioned, her daily life was made as tolerable as under the circumstances it could be, and she spent her time pursuing her favourite studies, and in all outward observances of religion she scrupulously conformed to the Roman ritual. ”

“ LYHERT, otherwise LYART, LE HERT, or LE HART, WALTER (d. 1473) , bishop of Norwich, is said to have been descended from a family of Norwich citizens, and this may perhaps have some truth in it, for the anniversary of one John Lyhert was certainly kept by the monks of Norwich priory in the first half of the fifteenth century, as appears by entries in the ‘Sacrist's Rolls.’ Gascoigne, however, who must have known him personally, says he was de Cornubia, and this seems the more probable, as he was for some time a fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. ”

“ When Donne passed into Lincoln's Inn he left his brother Henry behind him at Thavies Inn, and just a year after the separation of the two a tragical event happened which cannot but have produced a profound impression upon the elder brother. The seminary priests and Jesuit fathers in and about London had of late been showing great activity, and their zeal and devotion had resulted in a very remarkable success in the way of gaining converts to the Roman creed and ritual. The government was much provoked, and a relentless persecution was organised against the proselytisers. ”

“ Sir Thomas Parry, and Ambrose Carr, who probably was also akin to him (for he too was a Stafford man) , were made members of the council; so too were Francis, earl Russell, whose father had been lord-admiral in Queen Mary's time, and William, marquis of Northampton, brother of queen Catherine Parr, and others, whose sentiments favoured the reformers. The queen's utterances on this memorable day have been preserved; they may be authentic, and they may have been strictly her own. The gift of speech she always had, and she always rose to an occasion. ”

“ In the parliament which met in January 1558 Cecil had no seat. He probably held himself aloof advisedly, and there is reason to believe that he regarded with something like horror the detestable cruelties of the persecution which disgraced Queen Mary's reign. Watching the current of events, he seems to have warily put himself into communication with the Princess Elizabeth; certainly he had won her confidence, and when Mary died on 17 Nov. 1558 he was the first to receive an unqualified expression of esteem from the new queen. Elizabeth at once appointed him chief secretary of state. ”

“ She put forth plans of her own, she wrote outrageous letters; and when at last Sidney's brilliant campaign had been carried through with complete success, and was followed in the summer of 1567 by the utter discomfiture of O'Neil, and by his savage murder in a characteristic Irish brawl and massacre, she grudgingly wrote to thank Sidney for his services, as if the acknowledgment had been wrung from her at the last moment. ”

“ Thomas Campion, the musician, was probably educated at home and on the continent, and his M.D. degree was obtained in some foreign university. It was by no means unusual at this time for young men who abhorred the new oath of supremacy to give themselves to the study of medicine. Campion does not appear to have practised as a physician till somewhat late in his life. He appealed first to the public as a poet in 1595, when he printed a small volume entitled 'Thomæ Campiani Poemata,' containing Latin elegiacs and epigrams, which were issued from the press of Richard Field in octavo. ”

“ We have seen that very early in her reign Elizabeth had prohibited under the severest penalties the saving of the mass in public or private, and had made it compulsory for all her subjects to attend the English service in the churches. The Statute of Uniformity came into force on 24 June 1559, but it was allowed to remain for the most part inoperative. The immediate effect, however, was to drive a large number of men of learning and ability into exile, and to strip the university of Oxford of its most brilliant scholars. ”

“ The Romanists refused to take the oath of supremacy, and refused to conform to the ritual by law established, on the ground that in spiritual matters they owed allegiance to the pope of Rome, at whose dictation they withdrew from all communion with the schismatical church of England and its excommunicated 'supreme head;' that is, they set up the authority of a foreign power as antagonistic to the power of the queen of England. ”