1586. SHOULD ELIZABETH ACCEPT THE SOVEREIGNTY ? 61 CHAPTER X. Should Elizabeth accept the Sovereignty? - The Effects of her Anger Quarrels between the Earl and the States - The Earl's three Counsellors Leicester's Finance-Chamber Discontent of the Mercantile Classes Paul Buys and the Opposition - Keen Insight of Paul Buys - Truchsess becomes a Spy upon him- Intrigues of Buys with Denmark — His Imprisonment - The Earl's Unpopularity - His Quarrels with the States And with the Norrises-His Counsellors Wilkes and Clerke - Letter from the Queen to Leicester - A Supper Party at Hohenlo's — A drunken Quarrel-Hohenlo's Assault upon Edward Norris-Ill Effects of the Riot. THE brief period of sunshine had been swiftly followed by storms. The Governor Absolute had, from the outset, been placed in a false position. Before he came to the Netherlands the Queen had refused the sovereignty. Perhaps it was wise in her to decline so magnificent an offer; yet certainly her acceptance would have been perfectly honourable. The constituted authorities of the Provinces formally made the proposition. There is no doubt whatever that the whole population ardently desired to become her subjects. So far as the Netherlands were concerned, then, she would have been fully justified in extending her sceptre over a free people, who, under no compulsion and without any diplomatic chicane, had selected her for their hereditary chief. So far as regarded England, the annexation to that country of a continental cluster of states, inhabited by a race closely allied to it by blood, religion, and the instinct for political freedom, seemed, on the whole, desirable. In a financial point of view, England would certainly lose nothing by the union. The resources of the Provinces were at least equal to her own. We have seen the astonishment which the wealth and strength of the Netherlands excited in their English visitors. They were amazed by the evidences of commercial and manufacturing prosperity, by the spectacle of luxury and advanced culture, which met them on every side. Had the Queen-as it had been generally supposeddesired to learn whether the Provinces were able and willing to pay the expenses of their own defence before she should definitely decide on their offer of sovereignty, she was soon thoroughly enlightened upon the subject.1 Her confidential agents all held one language. If she would only accept the sovereignty, the amount which the Provinces would pay was in a manner boundless. She was assured that the revenue of her own hereditary realm was much inferior to that of the possessions thus offered to her sway.2 In regard to constitutional polity, the condition of the Netherlands was at least as satisfactory as that of England. The great amount of civil freedom enjoyed by those countries -although perhaps an objection in the eyes of Elizabeth Tudor-should certainly have been a recommendation to her liberty-loving subjects. The question of defence had been satisfactorily answered. The Provinces, if an integral part of the English empire, could protect themselves, and would become an additional element of strength, not a troublesome encumbrance. The difference of language was far less than that which already existed between the English and their Irish fellowsubjects, while it was counterbalanced by sympathy, instead what a contribution they will all bring forth." Leicester to Burghley, 18 June, 1586. (S. P. Office MS.) "I may safely say to your Majesty," said he at about the same period, "that if your aid had been in such apparent sort to the countries that they might assure themselves of any certain time of continuance of the same, and that you had taken their cause indeed to heart, I am verily persuaded that they would have given very good testimonies by their very large contributions to maintain their wars for such certain number of years to be set down as your Majesty should appoint, and no prince nor practice of any person living able to draw them from you." Leicester to the Queen, 27 June, 1586. (S. P. Office MS.) 1586. SHOULD ELIZABETH ACCEPT THE SOVEREIGNTY? 63 of being aggravated by mutual hostility in the matter of religion. With regard to the great question of abstract sovereignty, it was certainly impolitic for an absolute monarch to recognize the right of a nation to repudiate its natural allegiance. But Elizabeth had already countenanced that step by assisting the rebellion against Philip. To allow the rebels to transfer their obedience from the King of Spain to herself was only another step in the same direction. The Queen, should she annex the Provinces, would certainly be accused by the world of ambition; but the ambition was a noble one, if, by thus consenting to the urgent solicitations of a free people, she extended the region of civil and religious liberty, and raised up a permanent bulwark against sacerdotal and royal absolutism. A war between herself and Spain was inevitable if she accepted the sovereignty, but peace had been already rendered impossible by the treaty of alliance. It is true that the Queen imagined the possibility of combining her engagements towards the States with a conciliatory attitude towards their ancient master, but it was here that she committed the gravest error. The negotiations of Parma and his sovereign with the English court were a masterpiece of deceit on the part of Spain. We have shown, by the secret correspondence, and we shall in the sequel make it still clearer, that Philip only intended to amuse his antagonists; that he had already prepared his plan for the conquest of England, down to the minutest details; that the idea of tolerating religious liberty had never entered his mind; and that his fixed purpose was not only thoroughly to chastise the Dutch rebels, but to deprive the heretic Queen who had fostered their rebellion both of throne and life. So far as regarded the Spanish King, then, the quarrel between him and Elizabeth was already mortal; while, in a religious, moral, political, and financial point of view, it would be difficult to show that it was wrong or imprudent for England to accept the sovereignty over his ancient subjects. The cause of human freedom seemed likely to gain by the step, for the States did not consider themselves strong enough to maintain the independent republic which had already risen. It might be a question whether, on the whole, Elizabeth made a mistake in declining the sovereignty. She was certainly wrong, however, in wishing the lieutenant-general of her six thousand auxiliary troops to be clothed, as such, with viceregal powers. The States-General, in a moment of enthusiasm, appointed him governor absolute, and placed in his hands, not only the command of the forces, but the entire control of their revenues, imposts, and customs, together with the appointment of civil and military officers. amount of power could only be delegated by the sovereign. Elizabeth had refused the sovereignty: it then rested with the States. They only, therefore, were competent to confer the power which Elizabeth wished her favourite to exercise simply as her lieutenant-general. Such an Her wrathful and vituperative language damaged her cause and that of the Netherlands more severely than can now be accurately estimated. The Earl was placed at once in a false, a humiliating, almost a ridiculous position. The authority which the States had thus a second time offered to England was a second time and most scornfully thrust back upon them. Elizabeth was indignant that "her own man" should clothe himself in the supreme attributes which she had refused. The States were forced by the violence of the Queen to take the authority into their own hands again, and Leicester was looked upon as a disgraced man. Then came the neglect with which the Earl was treated by her Majesty and her ill-timed parsimony towards the cause. No letters to him in four months, no remittances for the English troops, not a penny of salary for him. The whole expense of the war was thrown for the time upon their hands, and the English soldiers seemed only a few thousand starving, naked, dying vagrants, an incumbrance instead of an aid.1 1 "I find the most part of the bands that came over in August and Sep tember," said Quartermaster Digges, more than half wasted, dead and 1586. THE EFFECTS OF HER ANGER. 65 The The States, in their turn, drew the purse-strings. two hundred thousand florins monthly were paid. The four hundred thousand florins which had been voted as an additional supply were for a time held back, as Leicester expressly stated, because of the discredit which had been thrown upon him from home.1 The military operations were crippled for want of funds, but more fatal than everything else were the secret negotiations for peace. Subordinate individuals, like Grafigni and De Loo, went up and down, bringing presents out of England for Alexander Farnese,2 and bragging that Parma and themselves could have peace whenever they liked to make it, and affirming that Leicester's opinions were of no account whatElizabeth's coldness to the Earl and to the Netherlands was affirmed to be the Prince of Parma's sheet-anchor; while meantime a house was ostentatiously3 prepared in ever. gone, and many of the remainder sick, Office MS.) 3 13 1 Strangely enough, Elizabeth was under the impression that the extra grant of 400,000 florins (40,000%.) for four months was four hundred thousand pounds sterling! ..... "The rest that was granted by the States, as extraordinary to levy an army, which was 400,000 florins, not pounds, as I hear your Majesty taketh it. It is forty thousand pounds, and to be paid in March, April, May, and June last," &c. Leicester to the Queen, 11 Oct. 1586. (S. P. Office MS.) She had certainly formed already an exalted idea of the capacity of the VOL. II.-F Provinces to protect themselves. She had in a year paid but seventy thou sand pounds herself, and believed the States able, over and above their regular contributions, to furnish an extraordinary supply of one hundred thousand pounds a month. 2 Leicester to the Queen, 6 June, 1586. (S. P. Office MS.) "Amongst all the enemy's means to persuade his discontented and ill-fed companions," said Cavendish, "this seemeth to be his sheet-anchor, namely, that where the only comfort of this people dependeth wholly upon her Maj.'s most gracious relief and support, now is the disposition thereof in her so cooled, as she very faintly stretcheth forth her hand thereunto, which evidently appears, as well by the many disgraces which here my Lord hath received from her Maj., to the great blemish of his authority, as also by the slack payment of her troops and so long as my Lord shall be unable to front him in the field, so long will this people be without hope, and the enemy inflamed with assured hope of victory." Cavendish to Burghley, 15 June, 1586. (S. P. Office MS.) |