Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/547

] the world," to be exposed to danger; but that she might, if she pleased, draw to her house of Havering Bower; and he added, "To comfort this army and people of these counties, you may, if it please you, spend two or three days to see both the camps and forts. And thus far, but no farther, can I consent to adventure your person." Accordingly, Elizabeth lay still whilst the danger continued; but, on the 9th of August—the Armada at the time being in full flight, and the English fleet returned to port the day before—she rode through the camp on a white palfrey, with a light cuirass on her back and a marshal's truncheon in her hand, whilst the army of raw recruits rent the air with acclamations, and expressed their sorrow that the Spaniards had not allowed them an opportunity of beating them.

At Tilbury the scene was still more dramatic. Leicester and the new stripling favourite, Essex, led her bridle rein, whilst she is said to have delivered this harangue: "My loving people! we have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear! I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and, therefore, I am come amongst you at this time not as for my recreation and sport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all—to lay down for my God, for my kingdom, and for my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust. I know that I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart of a king, and a King of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma, or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm: to which, rather than any dishonour should grow by me, I myself will take up arms—I myself will be your general—the judge and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I already know by your forwardness that you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we do assure you, on the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid to you. In the meantime my lieutenant-general shall be in my stead—than whom never prince commanded a more noble or more worthy subject; nor will I suffer myself to doubt that, by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and my people."

Lingard, however, does not even insert the speech in his history, observing that he does not believe that it ever was delivered, for that "she certainly could not exhort the soldiers to fight after the enemy was gone, and when she had resolved to disband the army directly."

On Lord Howard, as admiral of the fleet, rewards and favours were conferred; but neither he, nor the other heroes of his immortal contest at sea, received a tithe of the honour of Leicester, who had done nothing but write a love-letter to the queen from Tilbury camp. Nothing that she had done or could do appeared adequate to his incomprehensible merits. She determined to create a new and most invidious office in his favour; and the warrant for his creation of Lord Lieutenant of England and Ireland lay ready for the royal signature, when the remonstrances of Burleigh and Hatton delayed, and the sudden death of the favourite put an end to it. In ten days after the queen's visit to the camp he had disbanded the army, and was on his way to his castle of Kenilworth, when he was seized with sickness at Cornbury Park, in Oxfordshire, and died on the 4th of September, with every symptom of being poisoned. He had discovered or suspected a criminal connection betwixt his wife, the Countess of Essex, and Sir Christopher Blount. He had attempted to assassinate Blount, but failed; and his countess, profiting by his own instructions in getting rid of her former husband, is supposed to have administered the fatal dose.

Leicester appears to have been the most thorough and accomplished scoundrel of that age—by no means famous for moral principle. His fine person and courtier-like manners placed him above all his rivals in the affections of Elizabeth. The contemporary authorities detail the extraordinary scandals of their intercourse. There is no doubt of Elizabeth having promised him marriage; and the dispatches of the Bishop of Aquila, still preserved in the archives of Salamanca, testify to the fact that both Leicester and Elizabeth, whilst he was ambassador in England, importuned him to obtain the approbation of Philip of this marriage; and Aquila finally informs that sovereign that they had been privately contracted at the house of the Earl of Pembroke. The world at the time gave them credit for having several children.

In his written correspondence Leicester affected a religious style. Naunton, in his "Fragmenta Regalia," says, "I never yet saw a style or phrase more seemingly religious, or fuller of the strains of devotion;" and his letters remaining bear out the assertion; but in his life he was one of the most haughty, rapacious, and cold-blooded villains existing. His murder of his first wife, Amy Robsart; his desertion of the second; his poisoning of the Earl of Essex, and adultery with his wife before; his recommendation of dispatching the Queen of Scots with poison; and his ready use of poison or steel where any one stood in the way of his ambition, sufficiently stamp him as a scoundrel of the first magnitude. Only two of the ladies about the Court, married or single, are said to have remained uncorrupted by him: and this could only be through his person and address; for, as a general or a statesman, he was contemptible. Elizabeth showed violent sorrow for his loss; but she soon recovered sufficiently to look after money which, she said, he owed her, and for which she ordered a sale of his effects. Besides, the youthful Robert Devereaux, the Earl of Essex, was fast seizing on the matronly queen's imagination, and greatly curtailed the period of her bereavement.

The first use which Elizabeth made of her victory was to take vengeance on the Papists—not because they had done anything disloyal, but because they were of the same religion as the detested Spaniards. All their demonstrations of devotion to the cause of their country and their queen during the attempted invasion went for nothing. A commission was appointed to try those already in prison; and six priests, three laymen, and a lady of the name of Ward, for having harboured priests, four other laymen, for having been reconciled to the Roman Catholic Church, and fifteen persons, all charged