In the morning of the execution Mary dressed herself in her best clothes; and at eight o'clock, when the sheriff came for her, she went downstairs, carrying a Bible in one hand and a crucifix in the other. In the hall a low scaffold, only two feet from the ground, was erected and covered with black, and where the executor 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. When the executors uncovered her head and neck, 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 thy hand, О Lord, I commend my spirit!"
When they held up her head, streaming with blood, the real hair beneath the false hair she had long worn turned out to be as grey as that of woman of seventy, and she was only in her forty-sixth year. All her beauty was gone.
Comprehension questions
1.What was Elizabeth like? How was she greeted by the people?
2.What petition was she presented with? What were her religious policies?
3.Why was Mary a source of anxiety for Elizabeth?
4.Queen Mary of Scots. Did she like it in Scotland after France?
5.Why was Mary imprisoned in Scotland?
6.Execution of Mary.
50.QUEEN ELIZABETH I. PART 2
Elizabeth and the Parliament. Although delivered from foreign enemies after the death of the Spanish Armada, Elizabeth had still to face serious trouble at home. The Puritans were not satisfied with the religious settlement, and in 1593, after issuing several tracts, directed mainly against the bishops, there were acts against both Puritans and Catholics. The Parliament also required skilful management in the matter of monopolies (1597-1602), and the social distress occasioned by the confiscation of Church lands and the consequent enclosures were met by a new Poor Law (1602).
Elizabeth had always had some personal favourite, and in her old age she was fond of the Earl of Essex. In 1596 the Earl had destroyed the Spanish fleet in Cadiz6, and had become so popular and arrogant that he presumed on the queen's indulgence. But Elizabeth's resentment was soon appeased, and when affairs in Ireland came to crisis, Essex was appointed Lord Deputy.
Catholics and Puritans. The Roman Church had itself undergone a reformation, largely owing to the foundation of the Society of Jesus. The special mission of the Jesuits was to win back Protestant countries to the Church of Rome, and they were especially anxious to win back England. In 1580 a Jesuit mission to this country under Parsons (1546-1610) and Campion (1540-1581) gave the government an excuse for persecuting Catholics. They were fined for not going regularly to church or for attending the forbidden service of the Mass. The truth was that many Catholics had listened to the disloyal teaching of Parsons, and the government could hardly help itself. That Spain took part in all the plots was proved in 1583, when it became clear that the Spanish ambassador was very active in the question of English matters. On the other hand, Catholics as such were not much worse treated than the Puritans,
6In 1596 Cadiz was captured by an English fleet under the Earl of Essex and Sir Charles Howard. 32 Spanish ships were destroyed and the city was captured, looted and occupied for almost a month. Finally, when the royal authorities refused to pay a ransom demanded by the English for returning the city intact, they burned much of it before leaving with their booty.
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whom the Archbishop was trying to keep in the Established Church. But in the case of the Puritans there was no question of foreign intervention.
The concept of English imperialism. During Elizabeth I's reign the postulates of English imperialism were first clearly formulated be John Dee, an English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer and consultant to the Queen. From 1570 Dee advocated a policy of political and economic strengthening of England and imperial expansion into the New World. In his manuscript, Brytannicae reipublicae synopsis (1570), he outlined the current state of the Elizabethan Realm and was concerned with trade and national strength.
His 1576 General and rare memorials pertaining to the Perfect Arte of Navigation, was the first volume in an unfinished series planned to advocate the rise of imperial expansion. In the highly symbolic frontispiece, Dee included a figure of Britannia kneeling by the shore beseeching Elizabeth I, to protect her empire by strengthening her navy. Dee used Geoffrey of Monmouth's inclusion of Ireland in Arthur's imperial conquests to argue that King Arthur had established a ‘British empire’ abroad. He further argued that England exploit new lands through colonization and that this vision could become reality through maritime supremacy. Dee has been credited with the coining of the term British Empire.
Dee posited a formal claim to North America on the back of a map drawn in 1577-80; he noted that England's claim to the New World was stronger than that of Spain. He further asserted that Brutus of Britain and King Arthur as well as Madog had conquered lands in the Americas and therefore their heir Elizabeth I of England had a priority claim there. We may well say that it was he who introduced the tradition of treachery and espionage into the English politics, as well as ruthless pursuit of one’s interests and not shunning any means to gain one’s ends, the practice which passed through the centuries.
The Sea-dogs. Britain derived the maximum benefit from its safe geographical position, not coming directly in contact with hostile nations. On the other hand, it frequently resorted to intriguing, weakening European states, pitting them against each other and deftly using the European mess.
The English seamen had been harassing the Spaniards in the New World, capturing treasure ships. The armed private vessels were given special “letters of marque”, the sovereign's tacit consent to raid shipping of other nations. The pirates, flying the English nest, later became admirals and national heroes. One can only imagine what furious spirit of adventure and avarice pushed them to conquer the world. Such was the case of Francis Drake, who regularly attacked Spanish shipping, of which Elizabeth I (despite protestations of innocence) took a share. Drake looted rich Spanish depots and attacked their treasure-ships at sea. In 1577 he began his famous three years' voyage round the world, from which he returned laden with the wealth he had taken from Spanish possessions.
Other adventurers, like Sir Martin Frobisher, wished to reap wealth and honour by holding to find a passage to India, the world's treasure house, by the north-west. Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Richard Orenville decided to found a colony in North America, but the attempt in Virginia was a failure.
Elizabeth's foreign policy. Spain was then the strongest European country. For many years Philip II of Spain, an austere and intelligent man, the husband of the late sister of Elizabeth, maintained peace with England, and had even defended Elizabeth from the Pope's threat of excommunication. This was a measure taken to preserve a European balance of power. Ultimately, Elizabeth allied England with the Protestant rebels in the Netherlands (importantly, Philip was ruler of the Netherlands as well as of Spain). Further, English ships began a policy of piracy against Spanish trade and threatened to plunder the great Spanish treasure ships coming from the new world. English ships went so far as to attack a Spanish port: Elizabeth sent out Admiral Drake (a famous pirate) to the port of Cadiz, where he burnt a hundred vessels full of stores. The last straw for Philip was theTreaty of Nonsuch signed by Elizabeth in 1585 — promising troops and supplies to the rebels. Although it can be argued
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this English action was the result of Philip's Treaty of Joinville with the Catholic League of France, Philip considered it an act of war by England.
The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1587 ended Philip's hopes of placing a Catholic on the English throne. He turned instead to more direct plans to invade England, with vague plans to return the country to Catholicism. In 1588, he sent a fleet, theSpanish Armada, to rendezvous with theDuke of Parma's army and convey it across the English Channel. However, the operation had little chance of success from the beginning, because of lengthy delays, lack of communication between Philip II and his two commanders and the lack of a deep bay for the fleet. At the point of attack, a storm struck theEnglish Channel, already known for its harsh currents and choppy waters, which devastated large numbers of the Spanish fleet. There was a tightly fought battle against the English navy. Drake sent eight blazing fire-ships right into the middle of the Armada. The Spaniards tried to get out to sea and so became dispersed. The storm drove them among rocks and shoals; and the end of the Invincible fleet was swift.7
England had undermined the Spanish influence in Holland, had been subverting its colonies, had engaged in buccaneeringand plunder, Cadiz had been destroyed by the AngloDutch force after a failed attempt to seize the treasure fleet. And, although in later years attempts to seize territories in the Caribbean were defeated by Spain's rebuilt navy and their improved intelligence networks, Spain lost its importance on the world arena.
France too had its religious difficulties. War between the Catholics and Huguenots had been raging more or less continuously since 1567. In 1572 there was a lull, and the head of the Huguenots, the King of Navarre, married the French king's sister. The queen-mother, Catharine de Medici, seized the opportunity to arrange for a wholesale massacre of the Reformers on the morning of St. Bartholomew's day.
The English people were anxious that Elizabeth should marry and thus give them an heir to the throne, but the queen preferred playing off her suitors against one another to giving England over to a foreign prince. Her great object was to gain time in order that when the
7 A measure of the character of Philip can be gathered by the fact that he personally saw to it that the wounded men of the Armada were treated and received pensions, and that the families of those who died were compensated for their loss, which was highly unusual for the time.
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inevitable contest with Spain arrived, England might be ready to meet it. That contest was hastened by two things: the zeal of the Romanists and the enterprise of the English seamen.
Charles Dickens writes that the Maiden Queen, being rather wise herself, also had very clever and distinguished assistance, and among them Sir Walter Raleigh, who was an English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, explorer. In his early life he came to Ireland as part of the army sent to put down the Desmond Rebellion.8 Later he became a landlord of properties confiscated from the Irish, 42,000 acres were granted to him. There he made an acquaintance of Edmund Spenser, who also participated in the seizure and distribution of the Irish lands. He rose rapidly in Queen Elizabeth I's favour, and was knighted in 1585. He was involved in the early English colonisation of Virginia under a royal patent. In 1591 he secretly married Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting, without the Queen's permission for which he and his wife were sent to the Tower of London. After his release, they retired to his estate at Sherborne, Dorset. In 1594 Raleigh heard of a "City of Gold" in South America and sailed to find it, publishing an exaggerated account of his experiences in a book that contributed to the legend of "El Dorado". Raleigh is also well known for popularising tobacco in England.
Ireland. For generations the two chief men in Ireland have been the Earl of Kildare, the head of the Geraldines, and the Earl of Tyrone, the head of the O'Neills. Both houses raised their own armed forces and imposed their own law, independent of the English government of Ireland. Beginning in the 1530s, successive English administrations in Ireland tried to expand English control over the entire island. An attempt to introduce English colonies in King's County and Queen's County was met with resistance. The Irish revolted, but the rebellion of Shane O'Neill (1530-1567) was suppressed in 1567. Twelve years later (1579), the Geraldines rose against the Queen's government, and were put down by Lord Grey only with a great difficulty. After three years of scorched earth warfare, famine hit Ireland. In April1582, the provost marshal of Munster, Sir Warham St Leger, estimated that 30,000 people had died of famine in the previous six months. Plague broke out in Cork city, where the country people fled to avoid the fighting. People continued to die of famine and plague long after the war had ended, and it is estimated that by1589one third of the province's population had died. Grey was recalled by Elizabeth I for his excessive brutality.
In 1598 Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, Shane's nephew, headed a general Irish revolt, and Earl of Essex, a favourite of Elizabeth I, was appointed Lord Deputy to meet this difficulty. He failed in the campaign and was recalled in disgrace; his haughty temper led him to violence, and he was eventually executed for treason, although it is probable that his real object was merely to compel the queen to dismiss her ministers. After his death Lord Mountjoy crushed Tyrone's rebellion in the last year of Elizabeth's reign (1603).
The first and most important result of the conquest was the disarmament of the native Irish lordships and the establishment of central government control for the first time over the whole island; Irish culture, law and language were replaced; and many Irish lords lost their lands and hereditary authority. Thousands of English, Scottish and Welsh settlers were “planted” into the country and the administration of justice was enforced according to English common law and statutes of the Irish parliament. Race hatred was still further accentuated: the settlers ruthlessly evicted the indigents from their land and treated them like dirt.
8 They were rebellions by the Earl of Desmond – head of the FitzGerald dynasty in Munster – and his followers, the Geraldines and their allies against the threat of the extension of Elizabethan English government over the province. The rebellions were motivated primarily by the desire to maintain the independence of feudal lords from their monarch, but also had an element of religious antagonism between Catholic Geraldines and the Protestant English state. The result was the destruction of the Desmond dynasty and the subsequent plantation or colonisation of Munster with English settlers. 'Desmond' is the Anglicisation given to the Irish Deasmumhain, which translates to 'South Munster'. Also see the section on Ireland.
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