Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/538

524 replies, 'On the receipt of a letter from Mr. Paulet on such cause, as she best knoweth, she uttered such a speech as that she could have matters otherwise done—the particulars whereof I leave to her best remembrance.'"

Davison was fined £10,000 for his pretended offence, and committed to prison during her majesty's pleasure. The treasury seized the whole of his property to pay the fine. His sufferings during years of poverty, imprisonment, and palsy—the consequence of it—were great; and to the last day of her reign—seventeen years—she still refused, even at the petition of the Earl of Essex in the height of his favour with her, to pardon him. Yet still another mystery in this affair has come to light. Mr. Frederick Devon, keeper of the Chapter-House, Westminster, gave evidence before the House of Lords on the 10th of May, 1839, on the sale of exchequer records, that he discovered, in a vault of the Chapter-House, a book of warrants of 1587—the very year of Davison's imprisonment, in March; that in October of that year he received £500, and immediately afterwards £1,000, and that his pension of £100 a year was granted, for, says Mr. Devon, "I have seen it regularly entered on the rolls." Thus, whilst Elizabeth was publicly punishing and fining Davison, she was privately feeing him. This is probably the reason which warrants the assertion of Dr. Lingard, that "she thought by this severity to convince the world that she did not dissemble, yet, certainly, she effected one important object: she closed the mouth of her prisoner, whom the spirit of resentment or the hope of vindicating his innocence might have urged to reveal the secret history of the proceedings against Mary, and the unworthy artifices and guilty designs of his sovereign."

Elizabeth allowed some weeks to elapse before she sent an official message of his mother's execution to James of Scotland. Probably she felt quite secure of him, being her pensioner, though he is said to have burst into tears and vowed terrible vengeance on first hearing of it. In about a month Elizabeth dispatched Sir Robert Carey, the son of Lord Hunsdon, with a letter to this contemptible monarch. She therein lamented deeply the occurrence of "the unhappy accident" by which his mother's head had been cut off, totally without her knowledge or consent. She called God to witness her innocence and her indignant grief; protested that she abhorred of all things dissimulation, and above all things loved and admired a sincere and open conduct, than which nothing was more worthy of a prince. She declared that she would punish those who had occasioned the unfortunate "accident;" and as for himself, she loved him dearly, and would be a mother to him. She concluded by stopping his mouth with a present of £4,000, and her agents, duly instructed, backed up the bribe by liberal ones also to the Scottish nobility, who in return warned James to be prudent, to remember that he was now immediate heir to the English throne, and not to endanger his magnificent inheritance by any rash act. To give him a hint, indeed, that there might be danger on that head, Elizabeth sent for to Court, and showed as her successor, Arabella Stuart, the descendant of Henry VIII.'s sister Mary, and Brandon Duke of Suffolk. This little girl was then only twelve years of age, and though Elizabeth had never taken the slightest notice of her before, she now sent for her to Court, gave her precedence over all the ladies, made her dine in public with her, and—what she never did in any other instance, and never would in this case, had she been sincere—pointed her out as her probable successor. She particularly drew the attention of Madame Chasteaunouf, the wife of the French ambassador, to her, saying:—"Look well at her, for one day she will be exactly what I am, she will be the lady-mistress. But I shall have been that before her. She is a maiden of fine talent, and speaks Latin, Italian, and French exceedingly well."

This was quite bugbear enough for the young Scottish Solomon; but it did not prevent the people of Scotland from expressing their honest resentment for the murder of their queen. They called Elizabeth "the English Jezebel," and would have torn her messenger, Sir Robert Carey, to pieces, but James sent a guard and rescued him.

To the King of France Elizabeth was more earnest and assiduous in her attempts at excuse and pacification. Though she had accused the French embassy, and especially the secretary of it, Destrappes, of having been concerned in a plot to murder her, she now sent for L'Aubespine to dine with her at the palace of the Archbishop of Canterbury, at Croydon, on Saturday, the 6th of March. After dinner the ambassador endeavoured to get away, but she would not let him escape, but introduced him to her ministers, taking him by the hand, saying playfully, "Here is the man who wanted to get me murdered!" She then freely confessed that she had never believed a word of it, that she knew it was the scheme of two miserable knaves of her own kingdom, and that as she had written to the King of France against him, she would now write as much in his favour, for she had always known him to be a man of honour, whom she could trust with her life, and that she now loved him better than ever. Even poor Destrappes, whom, she had so expressly accused, she now fully exonerated. Thus could this extraordinary woman, having effected her object, and got rid of the Scottish queen, now shamelessly avow her tricks and calumnies. But as regarded the dead queen, her assertions wore the most astounding. As we find the account in Egerton, they were these. She told the ambassador that since their last interview the greatest of all calamities had befallen her in the death of the Queen of Scots. Of that death, she swore with abundance of oaths that she was innocent. She had determined never to execute the warrant, except in case of invasion or rebellion. Four of her council—they were there in the room—had played her a trick, which she should never forget. They had grown old in her service, and had acted from the best of motives, or by they should have lost their heads. But that which troubled her most was the displeasure of the King of France, whom she honoured above all men, whoso interest she preferred to her own, and whom she was ready to supply with men, money, ships, and German mercenaries against his enemies.

This was so diametrically opposed to all that she had ever done towards the King of France, that L'Aubespine could not help remarking that he wished the queen would show her regard for his master by her deeds. To send men and ammunition to those who were in arms against him, to hire Germans to fight their battles, to capture French ships, and to treat a French ambassador as she