Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/218

 month Dudley's brother, Ambrose, earl of Warwick [q.v.], took the command at Havre. Then followed the bloody battle of Dreux on 19 Dec, and the peace of Amboise on 25 March 1563. The civil war was at an end. But Elizabeth refused to surrender Havre. She could not bear to part with it, she could not bring herself to pay the price of keeping it, money she never could be persuaded to spend, and a war with France meant enormous cost. But Havre was surrendered at last on 27 July, only after the garrison had suffered frightfully from plague and famine: and Warwick brought back the remnant of his force to England, and with it the pestilence which spread far and wide through the land. There was the less excuse for the parsimony which Elizabeth showed at this juncture, for the parliament which assembled on 12 Jan. had again been liberal, and had voted one subsidy besides two fifteenths and tenths to replenish the exchequer. But one act of this parliament marked an epoch in the history of the reign, and another act of convocation was no less important in its bearing upon the ecclesiastical history of England. The first was the act for forcing the oath of supremacy upon a much larger class than had been compelled to take it heretofore, and visiting persistent refusal with the penalty of death as in cases of treason. The second was the promulgation of the Thirty-nine Articles as formulating the recognised doctrines of the English church. The latter measure concerned the clergy, the former was a sword of Damocles that was suspended over the heads of all classes of the leity, but it is to the credit of the queen that she was averse to putting it in action. The time had not come for using the awful power that this act placed in her hands. 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. As before to this petition an evasive answer was returned. About this time the marriage of the Queen of Scots became a subject of debate among the politicians. Elizabeth suggested that her favourite Dudley should become Mary Stuart's husband. It ended by the marriage to Darnley on 29 July 1565. On the wearisome intrigues which had as their object the marriage of Elizabeth herself it is not worth while to dwell. In 1564 the famous visit to Cambridge took place, and it was on this occasion that Elizabeth made her Latin speech, which there is every reason to believe she delivered without any careful preparation. A month later Dudley at last received his patent of nobility, and on 29 Sept. was created Earl of Leicester, with the gift of the manor of Kenilworth. Was Cecil chancellor of Cambridge? Then Leicester should be chancellor of Oxford, and two years after Elizabeth had visited the one university she was received with the same pomp and magnificence at the other. It was during this visit that on 3 Sept. she listened to Edmund Campion and Richard Bristow disputing in the schools, few thinking then that the two would become hereafter the great champions of the catholic party. In Scotland, meanwhile, all was turbulence, violence, and misrule. Rizzio was murdered on 9 March with every circumstance of brutal ferocity, and on 19 June Mary Stuart brought forth a son, and there was an heir male to the throne at last. The parliament met again on 30 Sept. Again there was a petition from the lords that the queen would name her successor, and would consent to take to herself a husband, this time with more earnestness than ever (, p. 105). Elizabeth's answer was as it had always been, that she was averse to marriage in itself, and she would never marry if she could avoid it. But once more the archduke Charles made serious advances, and once more he was encouraged to proceed.

Meanwhile Sir Henry Sidney, Leicester's brother-in-law, had been eating his heart out in Ireland, forced to go there, and forced to stay against his wish and better judgement; and though the commons had again been bountiful, Elizabeth could by no means be persuaded to do the one thing needful, namely to supply men and money and supplies to the deputy, and thus enable him to bring Shaeu O'Neil to his senses. She behaved in all this miserable business as meanly as a sovereign of a great nation could behave. She set herself stubbornly against her council even when they were unanimous. 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. While Sidney was doing his work so well in Ireland,