Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/408

394 immediately entered on the duties of her secretary of state, and submitted to her a programme of what was immediately necessary to be done, which she accepted; and thus began that union betwixt Elizabeth and her great minister, which only terminated with his life.

On the 23rd the new queen commenced her progress towards the metropolis, attended by a magnificent throng of nobles, ladies and gentlemen, and a vast concourse of people from London and from the country round. At Highgate she was met by the bishops, who kneeled by the wayside, and offered their allegiance. She received them graciously, and gave them all her hand to kiss, except to Bonner, whom she treated with a marked coldness, on account of his atrocious cruelties: an intimation of her own intentions on the score of religion which must have given great satisfaction to the people. At the foot of Highgate Hill, the lord mayor and his aldermanic brethren, in their scarlet gowns, were waiting to receive her, who conducted her to the Charter House, then the residence of Lord North, where Heath, the chancellor, and the Earls of Derby and Shrewsbury received her. There she remained five days to give time for the necessary preparations, when she proceeded to take up her residence in the Tower, prior to her coronation.

Her procession to the Tower marked at once her popularity and her sense of royal dignity. Vast crowds had assembled to see and to cheer her; and she was surrounded by a prodigious throng of nobles, and gentlemen, and ladies. She rode in a chariot along the Barbican to Cripplegate, where the lord mayor and the civic dignitaries were waiting to receive her. There she mounted a horse, being already attired in a rich riding-dress of purple velvet, with a scarf tied over her shoulder, and attended by the sergeant-at-arms. The lord mayor went before her bearing her sceptre, at his side the garter king-at-arms, and followed by Lord Pembroke, who bore the sword of state before the queen. Next to her majesty rode Lord Robert Dudley, who had already so won her fancy that, though one of those who had endeavoured to thrust her sister and herself from the throne, she had appointed him master of the horse. The Tower guns announced her approach, and on entering that old fortress, she said to those about her, "Some have fallen from being princes of this land to be prisoners in this place; I am raised from being prisoner in this place to be prince of this land. That dejection was a work of God's justice, this advancement is a work of his mercy: as they were to yield patience for the one, so I must bear myself to God thankful, and to men merciful, for the other."

Elizabeth continued at the Tower till the 5th of December. It was necessary to ascertain how many of the existing Council would go along with her in the changes which she meditated. She soon found that she could not calculate on many of them, and a sort of lesser or confidential council was formed of Cecil, Sadler, Parr, the Marquis of Northampton, Russell, and the Dudleys. Of the old councillors she retained thirteen, who were all professed Papists, though some had only conformed for convenience under the late reign of bigot terror, and she added seven new ones, who all openly professed themselves Protestants. As yet, however, she had not announced those changes which were most likely to try the principles of her councillors; for she kept a show of Popery, and had not touched on the question of the supremacy. Elizabeth had learned caution in her own trials, and she had now at her elbow the very spirit of circumspection itself in Cecil. For the present she continued to attend mass, and witness all the ceremonies of the old religion. She had her sister, the late queen, interred with the solemnities of the Roman ritual; she had mass performed at the funeral of Cardinal Pole, and a solemn dirge and requiem mass for the soul of Charles V.

Yet these things did not deceive the people, and they were made the less doubtful by all prisoners on account of religion being discharged on their own recognisances, and the exiles for the same cause boldly flocking home, and appearing openly at Court. The Papal dignitaries, by their gross want of good policy, soon forced on a more open demonstration of Elizabeth's real feelings. The Pope himself acted the part of a most shallow diplomatist. Instead of waiting to see whether he could not induce the Queen of England to follow in the steps of her sister, he insulted her in a manner which was sure to drive a high-spirited woman to extremities. The conduct of Paul IV., who was now upwards of eighty, can only be regarded as proceeding from ecclesiastical pique, acting on a failing intellect. Elizabeth had sent announcement to all foreign courts of her accession "by hereditary right and the consent of her nation." She assured the Emperor Ferdinand and Philip of Spain that she was desirous to maintain the alliance betwixt the house of Austria and England; to the German princes, and the King of Denmark she owned her attachment to the Reformed faith, and her earnest wish to form a league of union with all Protestant powers. At Rome, her ambassador, Carne, informed the Pope that his new sovereign was resolved to allow liberty of conscience to all her subjects, of whatever creed. This, however, was by no means palatable to his Holiness, for this toleration was, in fact, an avowal of heresy; and he replied that he could not comprehend the hereditary right of one who was not born in lawful wedlock; that the Queen of Scots was the true legitimate descendant of Henry VII.; but that if Elizabeth would submit her claims to his judgment, he would do her all the justice he could.

At home, and to her very face, the same egregious folly and insult were shown. Dr. White, Bishop of Winchester, preached the funeral sermon of the late queen. Elizabeth was present, and it may be supposed that her astonishment and indignation were great to hear one of her subjects haranguing in this style. The sermon was in Latin, but that language was perfectly familiar to the queen. The bishop gave a highly-coloured history of the reign of Queen Mary, and amongst other subjects of eulogium, was especially loud in his praises of her renunciation of Church supremacy. This was a palpable blow at the new queen, who was about to put the oath of supremacy to the prelates, in order to test them; but this was only a beginning. He declared that Paul had forbidden women to speak in the church, and that, therefore, it was not fitting for the church to have a dumb head. He admitted that the present queen was a worthy person, whom they were bound to obey, on the principle that "a living dog was better than a dead lion;" yet qualifying even this left-handed praise by assorting that the dead