Signifying Rappers

Purchase at [Link]
( 4.6/5.0 ★ | 364 downloads )
-- Click the link to download --

[Link]
539780316225830&type=15&murl=http%3A%2F%[Link]%2Fsearch%2
Fbooks%2Fisbn%2F9780316225830
Signifying Rappers

ISBN: 9780316225830
Category: Media > Books
File Fomat: PDF, EPUB, DOC...
File Details: 4.2 MB
Language: English
Website: [Link]
Short description: The item shows wear from consistent use but it
remains in good condition and works perfectly. All pages and cover are
intact including the dust cover if applicable. Spine may show signs of
wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. May NOT
include discs access code or other supplemental materials.

DOWNLOAD: [Link]
offerid=1494105.26539780316225830&type=15&murl=http%3A%2F%2F
[Link]%2Fsearch%2Fbooks%2Fisbn%2F9780316225830
 Signifying Rappers

• Click the link: [Link]

0&type=15&murl=http%3A%2F%[Link]%2Fsearch%2Fbooks%2Fisbn%2F9780316225830 to do
latest version of Signifying Rappers in multiple formats such as PDF, EPUB, and more.

• Don’t miss the chance to explore our extensive collection of high-quality resources, books, and guides on
our website. Visit us regularly to stay updated with new titles and gain access to even more valuable
materials.
.
also renewed his efforts to draw the countries closer together, for
reasons which will presently be stated. A great delivery of Catholics
from prison was made mainly at his instance, and drew upon him
remonstrances and attacks, both on the part of some of the Bishops
themselves, in a guarded fashion, and more violently from the
Puritans, now openly patronised by Leicester. Arising out of this, a
great conspiracy was said to have been discovered against the lives
of Archbishop Parker and Lord Burghley, on the part of one
Undertree. The depositions of the accused, which are in the Hatfield
Papers, are, as usual in such cases, full to the extent of diffuseness;
but though Parker was much alarmed, and the affair gave Burghley
an infinity of trouble, there does not appear to have been much
importance really attached to it.
The key to Burghley’s milder attitude towards the Catholics—apart
from the disappearance of Mary Stuart’s party in Scotland—was the
position of affairs in France. The talk of Elizabeth’s marriage with
Alençon had continued uninterruptedly, drawn out with a thousand
banalities as to the possibility of secret meetings between the lovers,
the depth and number of pock holes on the suitor’s face, his
personal qualities, his religious elasticity, and the like. His brother,
Charles IX., was only twenty-four, but it was known that he could not
live long; the heir, Anjou, now King of Poland, was a furious and
fanatical Catholic. With the knowledge of Elizabeth and her minister,
all France was enveloped in a vast conspiracy, in which the
Montmorencis and the “politicians” were making common cause with
the Huguenots, of which combination Alençon was the figurehead.
But Catharine de Medici was fully aware of the fact, and was
determined to frustrate it. With Anjou for King she might still be
supreme in France; whereas the rise of Alençon, under the tutelage
of the Huguenots and the Queen of England, would have meant
extinction for her. Several times before Charles died, Alençon and
the Princes of Navarre and Condé had tried to escape to England,
but Catharine held them tight, and never left them. Montgomerie
was waiting for the signal, with a strong fleet in the Channel, to
swoop down upon Normandy, and all the Protestants and anti-
Guisans in France were under arms. The mine was to burst in April,
the Princes were to be rescued forcibly from Catharine, and St.
Bartholomew was to be avenged. But the Queen-mother was on the
alert. Just before the day fixed she hurried away from St. Germains
to Catholic Paris, clapped Alençon and Navarre, Montmorenci, De
Cossé, and all the chiefs into prison, and then crushed the Protestant
armies piecemeal, for they were leaderless and far apart. When,
therefore, Charles IX. died (30th May 1574), Catharine was mistress
of the situation, and held France in her hand until the new King,
Henry III., arrived, to take possession of the throne. With such a
sovereign as this in France, led by Catharine, who had her grudge to
satisfy against Elizabeth for the encouragement she had given to the
Princes, it was natural that Burghley should again smile somewhat
upon the Catholics, and say civil words to Spain; especially as panic-
stricken rumours came—though they were untrue—that Philip was
fitting out a great navy to send with a powerful force to Flanders.
[382] Catholic Flanders, moreover, had mostly been brought back to
Spanish allegiance by the mildness of Requesens; and Elizabeth was
growing less willing to continue to provide large sums of money to
uphold Orange in what now appeared to be a well-nigh desperate
cause, if it had to be supported entirely from England. So when
Requesens’ envoys came to see her about the regulation of trade,
and the exclusion of the privateers from her ports, she was all
smiles; and although upon being appealed to, to allow English
mercenaries to serve the Spaniards in Flanders as they served
Orange, she refused, though not very firmly, she expressed her
desire to bring Orange to submit to the King of Spain. Once more,
therefore, an unrestrained Catholic regime in France inevitably drew
England and Spain closer together. It was only when the Huguenots
were paramount, who would not join Philip against England, or help
the Catholics of Scotland, that Elizabeth and Burghley could afford to
disregard the friendship of the King of Spain.
The behaviour of the young sovereign of France—no longer a
king, but a besotted monk, sunk into the deepest abyss of
debauchery and superstition—kept alive the discontent of the
Huguenots and “politicians,” who had regarded his accession with
horror. Alençon and the King held rival courts in Paris, the one
surrounded by reformers, the other by all that was retrograde and
vicious. Cardinal Lorraine was dead, and the King’s advisers were no
longer statesmen, but mendicant friars and the Italian time-servers
of the Queen-mother: Henry of Guise was just entering into the
arena, and was already a popular idol; and all seemed to portend a
renewal of French activity in favour of Mary Stuart.[383] Elizabeth
therefore went out of her way to dazzle poor foolish De Guaras
again. Seeing him walking in Richmond Park, she called him to her,
and exerted all her witchery upon him (March 1575). “You
understand,” she said, “full well, old wine, old bread, and old friends
should be prized the most, and if only for the sake of showing these
Frenchmen who are wrangling as to whether our friendship is firm or
not, there is good reason to prove outwardly the kind feeling which
inwardly exists.”[384] She accused the poor man, quite coquettishly,
of having received a token from the Queen of Scots—which he had
not—but ended by quite winning him over by her prattle. Almost
simultaneously with this, strict orders were given to the Warden of
the Cinque Ports “to prevent the landing of the Prince of Orange, or
any of his aiders or abettors in the conspiracy against the King of
Spain, and also to prevent their receiving any aid, succour, or relief,
in men, armour, or victuals.”[385]
Considering that the revolt in Holland had been mainly kept up
from England, this was indeed a complete change of policy; but
more was behind it even than appeared. Many of the Catholic
refugees on the Continent were spies in the service of Lord Burghley,
to whom nearly all of them appealed as their only hope and
protector, and one of them particularly, named Woodshaw,[386] who
was deep in the confidence of La Motte, the Spanish Governor of
Gravelines. The latter suggested that, as war between France and
England was in the air, it would be a good plan for the English to
seize Calais or Boulogne, with the aid of the Spaniards, and come to
terms with Philip to prevent any aid or food reaching the French
from Flanders or Artois. This was conveyed to Burghley, and soon Sir
William Drury, Colonel Chester, and several of the officers who had
come from Holland, were in close conference daily with him and the
other Councillors remaining in London when the Queen went upon
her summer progress. De Guaras, whilst reporting their movements,
was in the dark as to their object. “During the last three days,” he
says, “at night or at unsuspected hours, they have taken from the
Tower sixty waggons and gun carriages, which have been shipped to
Dover.” Guns, battery-trains, culverins, fieldpieces, and ammunition
were being shipped on four of the Queen’s ships at Rochester.
Mariners were being pressed, commanders were leaving secretly for
the coast, Burghley’s son-in-law the Earl of Oxford, with Ralph
Hopton and young Montmorenci, hurried off to Germany, and the
Huguenot agents were closeted with Burghley almost day and night.
We know now what it all meant, by a letter from the Earl of Sussex
to Lord Burghley,[387] in which he deplores the projected war with
Catholic France, which, he says, is only brought about by those who
wish to prevent the Queen’s marriage with Alençon. “It will bring her
into war with all Europe, and she and the realm will smart for the
pleasing of these men’s humours.” The cost of the war, he says, was
to be defrayed equally by the King of Navarre (Henry), the German
princes, and the Queen; “but he fears her Majesty in the end must
pay for all, or let all fall when she hath put her foot in.”
Wilkes, the Clerk of the Council, was sent with a large sum of
money to young Montmorenci (Meru) in Strasbourg, and then over
the Rhine to the Duke Hans Casimir, the great mercenary; and Meru
was able to write to Burghley in October, “Thanks to the Queen’s
favour by your means, we are now on the point of succeeding. One
of the finest armies that for twenty years hath issued from Germany,
ready to march, is coming just in time to succour the King’s
brother.”[388] All through the summer De Guaras was at fault as to
the meaning of the preparations, which he thought might be a joint
expedition against the Spaniards in Flanders. As we have seen, the
very opposite really was the case. Some of the principal English
officers, indeed, who had been with Orange were full of plots with
De Guaras for poisoning the Prince, for betraying Flushing into
Spanish hands, and so forth. For the moment there were certainly
no smiles from Elizabeth for the Netherlanders; for Orange had
taken a masterly step, such as she herself might have conceived.
When he saw that English help was slackening, he boldly made
approaches to France for help. So long as it was Huguenot help
under her control, Elizabeth did not mind; but when it was a
question of marrying Orange’s daughter to Alençon or some other
French prince, and obtaining French national patronage, it was quite
another matter—that Elizabeth would never allow. So England and
Spain grew closer and closer. Sir Henry Cobham was sent as an
envoy to Philip, ostensibly on the question of the English prisoners of
the Inquisition, but really to propose a friendship between the two
countries, and inform the King of the Prince of Orange’s intrigues
with the French.[389] A Spanish flotilla on its way to the Netherlands,
under Don Pedro de Valdés, was, moreover, welcomed in the English
ports, and an envoy from Requesens took part, as the Queen’s
guest, in the memorable festivities at Kenilworth.
A renewed appeal was made to the Council by Orange in August,
through Colonel Chester. He offered the island of Zeeland to
Elizabeth, if she would hold it, and begged permission to raise two
thousand fresh men in England. The reply given by Burghley was to
the effect that “if the Queen allowed such a thing, the King of Spain
would have a good cause for introducing schism and fire into her
country through Ireland. If Orange carried out his threat to hand
over the territory to the French, the Queen would oppose it.” Every
day some fresh proof of friendship with Spain was given. Frobisher
proposed to place his fleet at the disposal of the King of Spain,
proclamations were issued forbidding all British subjects from taking
service with Orange, and offers of mediation were frequent. In
September 1575, Alençon managed to escape the vigilance of his
brother and his mother, fled to Dreux, adopted the Huguenot cause,
and headed the revolt with Henry of Navarre. This was the
eventuality in which the English preparations were to have been
employed. But, again, Catharine de Medici was too clever to be
caught. She suddenly released Montmorenci and the rest of the
“politicians” from the Bastile, attached them to the King’s cause, and
through them patched up a six months’ truce between the two
brothers (November). The terms were hard for Henry. Alençon was
bribed with 100,000 livres, and the three rich duchies of Anjou,
Berri, and Touraine; Hans Casimir got 300,000 crowns, and a
pension of 40,000 livres; the German mercenaries were handsomely
paid to go home; Condé was promised the governorship of Picardy;
the Montmorencis, De Cossé, the Chatillons, and the rest of the
malcontents were bought; the crown jewels of France were pawned,
and the country plunged deeply in debt to pay for the famous truce.
Then Elizabeth and her advisers found themselves confronted with
increased difficulties, as they usually did when the Catholics in
France had a free hand. Catharine and the King saw that France was
not big enough to hold at the same time the sovereign and the heir
presumptive, and cast about for means to get rid of him profitably.
The best suggestion for them came from the Walloon nobles in
favour of Spain. Why should not Alençon marry a daughter of the
Spanish King and be made Viceroy of Spanish Flanders? The mere
whisper of such an arrangement drove Elizabeth into a new course.
She might hint, as she did pretty broadly many times, at the
marriage of the young Prince with herself, but Alençon thought he
saw more advantage elsewhere. For the next three years he was
held tightly in the leading-strings of his mother and brother—no
longer a Huguenot, but an ostentatiously devout Catholic, hating the
King and his surroundings bitterly; jealous, vengeful, and turbulent,
but looking for his future to the Catholics and the League rather than
to the Queen of England, with whom he kept up just a sufficient
pretence of love-making to prevent her from opposing him in
Flanders. It was doubly necessary now for Elizabeth to be friendly
with Spain; but she could not afford to see Orange utterly crushed,
for with the Huguenots and Protestant Holland both subdued, there
was no barrier between her and Catholic vengeance. The position
was a perplexing one for her. Orange sent over prayers almost daily
for help, or he must abandon the struggle. At one time, in
December, when the Queen learned that a great deputation of Dutch
Protestant nobles were on the way to offer her Holland and Zeeland
in exchange for English support,[390] “she entered her chamber
alone, slamming the door after her, and crying out that they were
ruining her over this business. She declared loudly that she would
have no forces sent openly to Holland. She was in such grief that her
ladies threatened to burst her door open if she would not admit
them, as they could not bear her to be alone in such trouble.”[391]
But loudly as she might protest, especially in the hearing of the
friends of Spain, and roughly as she might use St. Aldegonde, Paul
Buiz, and the rest of the Netherlanders who prayed for aid, she took
care, with Burghley’s help, to look fixedly in another direction when
men and arms, munitions and money, were sent over to Orange in
violation of her own orders.
What Lord Burghley’s action in the matter was is seen by his
letters. Beale, one of the clerks of the Council, was sent over to
Zeeland to report on Orange’s position, and to insist upon the
suppression of piracy. Burghley thus writes to Walsingham (16th
April 1576): “I have perused all the letters and memorandum of Mr.
Beale’s concerning his voyage into Zeeland, and so well allow of the
whole course therein taken by the Lords, that both with heart and
hand I sign them.”[392] The Flushing pirates appear to have offered
some insult to the Earl of Oxford, Burghley’s son-in-law, on his way
to England, at which the Treasurer was extremely angry,[393] an
unusual thing with him. In the same letter he writes: “I find it hard
to make a good distinction between anger and judgment for Lord
Oxford’s misusage, and especially when I look into the universal
barbarism of the Prince’s (Orange) force of Flushingers, who are only
a rabble of common pirates, or worse, who make no difference
whom they outrage, I mistrust any good issue of the cause, though
of itself it should be favoured.” He almost violently urges that Beale
should ask the Prince of Orange to avenge such an insult “by
hanging some of the principals.” “Such an outrage cannot be
condoned without five or six of such thieves being hanged. If the
Prince were rid of a hundred of them it would be better for the
cause. You see my anger leadeth my judgment. But I am not truly
more moved hereto for particular causes than for the public.”[394]
The same day a very strong remonstrance from the English Council
was written to Orange, saying that the piracy of the Flushing men
was rendering his cause odious to all Christendom, and would ruin
his enterprise.
The Netherlanders, especially Paul Buiz, who lodged with
Burghley’s servant, Herll, in Redcross Street, did their best to excuse
the Flushingers, and begged that “these rough men be not roughly
dealt with.” It is evident that they looked upon Leicester and the
Puritans as their champions rather than moderate Burghley, whose
approaches to Spain at the time were, of course, well known. Herll
writes (14th March 1576): “It is given out by those of good sort who
profess the religion, that your Lordship has been the only obstacle to
this Holland service, by dissuading her Majesty from the enterprise,
when the Earl of Leicester and several earnest friends were
furtherers thereof. They complain that these poor men who were
sent to the Queen have been, contrary to promise, kept by indirect
dealing so long here, to their utter undoing at home and abroad.
They say that Sir F. Walsingham dealt honestly with them from the
first. He said they would get nothing, and lose their time. They say
these unworthy proceedings with foreign nations make the English
the most hated men in the world, and to be contemned for mere
abusers, as those who put on religion and piety and justice for a
cloak to serve humours withal. Your Lordship’s enemies, however,
are compelled to say that you are more subject to evil judgment for
your good service than for evil itself.” When Herll spoke to Paul Buiz
about Burghley’s anger at the outrage on Lord Oxford, the
Netherlander “struck his breast, and said your Lordship was the only
man who had dealt sincerely with them, and truly favoured their
cause, and yet was forced to give them hard words, according to the
alterations of the time, parties, and occasion, which kind of free
proceeding he preferred of all others.”[395]
 A few months later (August) Herll was made the means of
conveying to Colonel Chester, then with Orange, Lord Burghley’s
view of the situation. “Her Majesty,” he says, “is so moved by those
insolent delinges of the Prynce and his Zeelanders, as none dare
move her to ani consideratyon towards theme, butt all is sett uppon
revenge of their lewd acts and worse speche, and to extermynate
them owt of the world, rather than endure it ani longer. And where
the Prynce pretends aid owt of France, he dawnceth in a nett. If he
se not that, her Majesty knows the contrary, and that herein he is
greatly abused, or seeketh to abuse others, with small credit to
hymselfe and less assurans to his estate when this maske is taken
away.”[396] The great indignation about the pirates may or may not
have been sincere; but it is unquestionable that it was the fear
expressed of an arrangement between Orange and the French that
really caused the disquietude.[397] The remedy to be proposed to
Orange by Chester was simply that he, Orange, should prevent any
repetition of the piratical outrages of the Flushing men, and
apologise for them, and his friends in England will move the Queen
“to help him underhand; but to say that her Majesty will be forced to
do anything, maugre her will, is a great absurdity.” But if Orange will
open his eyes and see things as they are, “somewhat (yea, some
round portion) will be voluntarily given to the assistance of the
cause, and to aid both Zeeland and Holland, especially the latter, to
which country the Queen and her Council are greatly inclined.”
Orange was a diplomatist as keen as Burghley himself, and he well
knew that, as a last resource, he could always force the hands of the
English Government by negotiating for aid from France. Elizabeth
might swear at his envoys, make friends with his enemies the
Spaniards, threaten to expend the last man and the last shilling she
had to turn the French out of Flanders, if ever they entered; but she
always ended in sending aid “underhand” to Orange to prevent his
union with the French; unless, as happened later, the French were
Huguenots disowned by their own King, and going as her humble
servants.
 Leicester was for ever clamouring for open help to be sent to
Orange; the Puritans, who took their cue from him, were more
aggressive than ever in the country;[398] but ready as the Queen
might be to dally Leicester, she took care to make no serious move
in the knotty question of the Netherlands without the advice of her
“spirit,” as she nicknamed the great Lord Treasurer.[399] In spite of
his almost continual illness, she summoned him to her, wherever she
might be; and at about the period when the letters just quoted were
written, the Earl of Sussex writes saying that the Queen has just
received intelligence from beyond the seas which she must discuss
with him at once. When Burghley had seen the Queen, either on
that occasion or soon after, and returned home, Sussex writes thus:
“Her Majesty spoke honourably of your Lordship’s deserts, and of her
affection for you, and of your sound, deep judgment and counsel;
using these words, ‘that no prince in Europe had such a councillor as
she had of him.’ If your Lordship had heard her speeches, they must
needs have been to your great contentment. The end of her
Majesty’s speeches was that she prayed your Lordship to come to
Nonsuch, as soon as you conveniently might.”
Burghley, indeed, was the only one of her ministers whom she
treated with anything approaching respect, for he always respected
himself. Walsingham, especially, was the object of her vulgar abuse.
“Scurvy knave” and “rogue” were the terms she frequently applied to
him; and it was apparently not at all an uncommon thing for her, in
moments of impatience with him, to pluck off her high-heeled shoe
and fling it in his face. Leicester she alternately petted and insulted.
After a squabble he used to sulk at Wanstead for a few days, till she
softened and commanded him to return, and then the comedy
recommenced. Hatton and Heneage were treated in similar fashion,
but with even less consideration. Only towards the Lord Treasurer,
except for occasional fits of distrust caused by his enemies, the
Queen usually behaved with decorum. How careful he was to avoid
all cause for doubt is seen by his answer to Lord Shrewsbury’s offer
of his son as a husband for one of Burghley’s daughters.[400] It will
be recollected that Lord Shrewsbury had the custody of the Queen
of Scots, and that Burghley had fallen into semi-disgrace shortly
before, because he had visited Buxton at the same time as Mary and
her keeper. The match proposed was a good one, and the Lord
Treasurer—a new noble—was flattered and pleased at the offer, but
declined it, mainly because his enemies had put into the Queen’s
head that he had gone to Buxton at the instance of the
Shrewsburys, to plot in favour of Mary; “and hereof at my return to
her Majesty’s presence, I had very sharp reproofs … with plain
charging of me for favouring the Queen of Scots, and that in so
earnest sort, as I never looked for, knowing my integrity to her
Majesty, but specially knowing how contrariously the Queen of Scots
conceived of me for many things.” He continues his letter with an
evidently sincere protest of his loyalty and disinterestedness, and the
absence in him of any personal feeling against Mary, but declares his
determination to do his best, at all costs, to frustrate any attempted
injury against his mistress or her realm.
Notwithstanding this small cloud, Burghley went again to Buxton
in 1577. A somewhat curious letter from Leicester, who went to
Buxton before him in June, shows that the Lord Treasurer’s mode of
life was not always prudent. Leicester says that he and his brother
are benefiting greatly from the water. “We observe our physician’s
orders diligently, and find great pleasure both in drinking and
bathing in the water. I think it would be good for your Lordship, but
not if you do as we hear your Lordship did last time: taking great
journeys abroad ten or twelve miles a day, and using liberal diet with
company dinners and suppers. We take another way, dining two or
three together, having but one dish of meat at most, and taking the
air afoot or on horseback moderately.”[401] In July (1577) Burghley
started from Theobalds for his Lincolnshire estates, and thence to
Buxton. Leicester wrote to him there that the Queen was desirous of
receiving a “tun of Buxton water in hogsheads;” but when in due
time the water arrived, “her Majesty seemeth not to make any great
account of it. And yet she more than twice or thrice commanded me
earnestly to write to you for it, and … asked me sundry times
whether I had remembered it or not: but it seems her Majesty doth
mistrust it will not be of the goodness here it is there; besides,
somebody told her there was some bruit of it about, as though her
Majesty had had some sore leg. Such like devices made her half
angry with me now for sending to you for it.”[402] This hint of her
sore leg was enough to make Elizabeth sacrifice a river of Buxton
water if necessary. She, like her father before her, really had an issue
in one of her legs, and there was no point upon which she was more
sensitive.
 CHAPTER XII
1576-1580

We have seen that from the accession of Henry III. of France in

the autumn of 1574 it suited English policy to draw closer to Spain.
An event happened, however, late in 1576 which once more changed
the entire position. Requesens, the Spanish Viceroy of Flanders, had
died in March 1576, before his mission of pacification was complete.
It is true that Catholic Flanders and Brabant had been won back
again, but Holland and Zeeland still stood out. The fierce Spanish
infantry cared for no distinction between Fleming and Hollander,
Catholic or Protestant, and were openly discontented at the
conciliatory policy which Philip’s penury rendered needful. They were
unpaid, for there was no money in the treasury to pay them, and
soon mutiny, pillage, and murder became the order of the day. Philip
was in despair, and ordered his brother Don Juan to hurry to
Flanders from Italy to pacify and withdraw the troops, and to
conciliate the indignant Catholic Flemings at any cost. Don Juan
scorned and hated the task—which he said a woman could do better
than a soldier. He was full of a secret plan to dash over to England
with the Spanish infantry from Flanders; and instead of obeying
orders and going direct to his new government, he hurried to Spain
for the purpose of persuading his brother to allow him to have his
way.
The time thus wasted was fatal. Peace with England was
absolutely necessary for Philip, and he refused to countenance Don
Juan’s plans. But Orange had spies everywhere; Burghley’s
secretary, Herll, was in Flanders, and long before Don Juan arrived
on the Flemish frontier the hopes of the murderous rabble of
soldiery that the young Prince would lead them to England were well
known to the Lord Treasurer and his mistress. Early in November
1576 the Spanish fury burst upon Antwerp. The Council of Regency
consisted mostly of Flemish Catholic nobles, and they fought as well
as they might against the blood lust of the King’s soldiers. When all
hope was gone, and the fairest cities of Flanders had been
devastated and ruined, and their populations massacred, without
distinction of age, sex, or creed, then Catholic Flanders turned
against the wreckers of their homes, and shoulder to shoulder with
Orange and his Protestants, stood at bay. When Don Juan arrived at
Luxemburg he was informed that the States would only allow him to
take up his governorship on terms to be dictated by them in union
with Orange; the first condition of which was that the Spanish troops
must leave the Netherlands forthwith, and by land, in order that they
might not invade England. Don Juan was mad with fury and
disappointment; but chafe as he might, he had to give way, and in
the end was forced to enter Brussels only as Governor on sufferance
of the States in the spring of 1577.
To England there came now to beg for aid and support, not rough
Zeelanders alone, not beggars of the sea, not boorish burghers, but
the very nobles who had often come before as Philip’s
representatives—De Croys, Montmorencis, De Granvelles,
Zweveghems, and the like; Catholics of bluest blood, but ready to
claim any help against the Spanish oppressor. Dr. Wilson was sent as
English envoy to the States, and Sir John Smith went to Madrid with
a formal offer from Elizabeth to mediate.[403] Philip’s only course
was to accept any terms which left him even a nominal sovereignty
of his Netherlands dominions, and this he did, rather than allow
Elizabeth to pose as mediatrix between him and his subjects. But the
altered position in Flanders completely changed the attitude of
England towards Spain, especially when in the summer of 1577 Don
Juan lost patience, broke faith with the Flemings, threw himself into
the fortress of Namur, and defied the States. England’s traditional
alliance had not been with the crown of Spain, but with the House of
Burgundy as possessor of the Netherlands; and now that Flanders
and Brabant were at one with Holland and Zeeland in upholding their
rights against Spain, England was naturally on their side against the
foreigner, quite independently of the question of creed. There was
no longer any concealment about it.[404] The Duke of Arschot’s
brother was at the English court in September with the acquiescence
of Orange, planning an arrangement which seemed to offer a means
by which all parties might be satisfied. The young Austrian Archduke
Mathias, Philip’s nephew, was suddenly spirited away from Vienna
and installed by the Flemings as sovereign of Flanders, with Orange
as his guide and mentor. An English army under Leicester or his
brother was to be raised to support him against Don Juan, who was
rallying a Catholic force, crying to the Duke of Guise for help, and
making a last appeal to his brother to save his honour, if not his
sovereignty. The outbreak of the Protestants in Ghent, encouraged
by the proximity of Orange, the capture and imprisonment of
Arschot and the Catholic nobles, and the desecration of Catholic
shrines (end of October), forced Philip’s hands. The Archduke
Mathias as a tributary sovereign, with the Catholic Flemings
paramount over Orange, might have been tolerated; but if the
Protestants and Orange were going to predominate, Spain must fight
to the end. So with a heavy heart Philip bent to the inevitable, and
sent Alexander Farnese and a Spanish army from Italy once more to
reconquer the Netherlands.
The invariable excuse given by Elizabeth for her help to the States
was, that it was to keep the French out of Flanders; Don Juan’s
appeal to the Guises being especially distasteful to her. “The present
support desired of her,” she declared, “is only in consideration of the
extreme necessity of the States by reason of the great preparations
in France and elsewhere to overrun them, and bring utter ruin upon
them; and it not disagreeing with the ancient treaties between the
crown of England and the House of Burgundy … the purpose of the
States being no other than by these succours to keep themselves in
due obedience to the King their sovereign, her Majesty is content to
grant the aid desired.”[405] The plausible reasons advanced,
however, made no difference to Philip. It was only evident to him
that the Queen of England was subsidising rebellion against him,
and that her subjects held fortresses in his dominions as a pledge for
the money she had advanced. He could not afford to declare war
with England at the time, but he did what he could. The Irish
malcontents were encouraged with the aid of Papal money; and
Catholic plots, with Spanish and Guisan aid, for the rescue of Mary
Stuart, the assassination of Elizabeth, and the like, kept the English
court in alarm,[406] and pointed the moral for ever on the lips of
Philip’s many paid agents and friends in Elizabeth’s counsels.
During most of the period when the arrangements with the States
were being concluded in 1577, Burghley was absent from court, and
it may be fairly assumed that the less cautious attitude adopted
towards Spain was owing to the unchecked influence of Leicester;
but with Burghley’s return late in the autumn the astute balancing
diplomacy of the master-hand becomes once more apparent, both in
the declaration quoted above, and the letter drafted by the Treasurer
taken by Wilkes, Clerk of the Council, to Madrid. In it Elizabeth prays
Philip to have compassion upon his Flemish subjects and to grant
their just demands, and again explains her support of them.
Moderate and deferential, however, as the tone of the letter was, it
did not alter prior facts, and Philip was indignant and wrathful at
what he called an attempt of Elizabeth to lay down the law for him.
“Send this man off,” he says, “before his fortnight is up, and before
he commits some impertinence which will oblige us to burn him.”
Philip might well be angry, for he was impotent: he had to reconquer
his own Flemings, Catholics and Protestants too, thanks to the aid
they had obtained from Elizabeth. To make matters more galling,
Antonio de Guaras had suddenly been arrested at dead of night, all
his papers captured, his property sequestrated, and the poor man
himself accused of consorting and plotting with the Queen’s
enemies.[407] Lord Burghley, his former friend, was daily threatening
him with the rack in the Tower; and for eighteen months he was
treated with calculating contumely and harshness, only at last to be
released, old, broken, and penniless, and sent to Spain scornfully to
die.
 In January 1578, Don Juan and Farnese defeated the States
troops at Gemblours, and it seemed as if once more Flanders and
Brabant would fall a prey to Spanish soldiery. Elizabeth’s aid had
become less liberal with the return of Burghley, who had no
objection at all to Spanish predominance in Catholic Flanders; his
only interest there was to keep the French out.[408] But the Flemings
naturally regarded the position from another point of view. What
they wanted was to preserve their autonomous rights against Spain.
Mathias had turned out a broken reed: he had no money, no
followers, no friends, and no ability; and the really dominant man in
the Government was Protestant Orange. This did not please the
Catholic nobles, and they cast about for another prince with a
greater following than Mathias, who should at once be a Catholic
and yet acceptable to Orange and the Protestants. Catharine had for
some time past anticipated the position, and had been busy, but
secretly, pushing the claims of her son Alençon; but for her purpose
it was necessary to manage warily, in order to avoid giving Philip
open offence. Alençon, however, was bound by no such
considerations. Nothing would have suited him better than to draw
France into war with Spain. He was under arrest and strictly
guarded, but he contrived, on the 14th February 1578, to escape out
of a second-floor window in the Louvre. All France was in a turmoil.
Huguenots and malcontents flocked to the Flemish frontier, and
Catharine raced half over France to beg her errant son to return.
Henry III. assured Mendoza, the new Spanish Ambassador on his
way to England, that his brother was obedient, and he was sure he
would do nothing against Philip in Flanders. But all the world knew
that he would if he could; and that whatever he might do with a
French force there would be against English as well as Spanish
interests. Once more, therefore, it was necessary for Elizabeth to
change her policy somewhat, and Lord Burghley resumed his
favourite character of a friend to the ancient Spanish alliance.
The new Spanish Ambassador saw Elizabeth on the 16th March
1578, and gave her all sorts of reassuring messages from Philip. He
was the most clement of sovereigns. A successor to Don Juan should
be appointed who should please everybody, and all would soon be
settled. A few days afterwards Mendoza had a long conversation
with Burghley, in the presence of other Councillors. As Philip had,
said the Treasurer, practically accepted the various concessions to
the Flemings recommended by the Queen; “if the terms offered
were not accepted by the States, she herself would take up arms
against them.” This was probably too strong for Leicester and
Walsingham, Puritans both, and Mendoza says they seemed to be
urging something upon Burghley very forcibly, which he thought was
the question of the withdrawal of the Spanish troops from Flanders;
but it ended in Burghley again pointedly offering the Queen’s
mediation.
A few days later the Duke of Arschot’s brother, the Marquis
d’Havrey, Leicester’s great friend, arrived in England to counteract
Mendoza’s efforts, and to beg that the troops that had been
promised should be sent to the States. He was made much of by the
English nobles and the Queen, who was now greatly influenced by
Leicester, and Burghley at the moment seems to have stood almost
alone in his resistance of open aid being sent to the States.[409] It
did not take Mendoza many days to discover how things really lay. “I
have found the Queen,” he writes, “much opposed to your Majesty’s
interests, and most of her ministers are quite alienated from us,
particularly those who are most important, as although there are
seventeen Councillors … the bulk of the business really depends
upon the Queen, Leicester, Walsingham, and Cecil, the latter of
whom, although by virtue of his office he takes part in the
resolutions, absents himself from the Council on many occasions, as
he is opposed to the Queen’s helping the rebels so effectively, and
thus weakening her own position. He does not wish, however, to
break with Leicester and Walsingham on the matter, they being very
much wedded to the States and extremely self-seeking. I am
assured that they are keeping the interest of the money lent to the
States, besides the presents they have received out of the principal.
They urge the business under the cloak of religion, which Cecil
cannot well oppose.”[410]
 This, indeed, was one of the periods when Burghley’s moderating
influence was overborne by Leicester, Walsingham, and the Puritans.
The Lord Treasurer still did his best—constantly ill though he was—to
stem the violence of the tide, befriending the bishops who were
being bitterly attacked,[411] and counselling caution in aiding the
Flemings against Spain; but, as we have seen, he was somewhat in
the background, and absented himself from court as much as
possible. It is curious, however, to see, even under these
circumstances, how he was still appealed to by all parties. He was
very ill in April at Theobalds, and the Queen happened to be
suffering from toothache. Of course Hatton must write to the Lord
Treasurer, begging him to come to court and give his advice as to
what should be done. The reply is very characteristic.
Notwithstanding his own pain he would come up at once, he wrote,
if by so doing he could relieve the Queen; but as the physicians
advised that the tooth should be extracted, though they dared not
tell the Queen so, all he could do would be to urge her Majesty to
have it done.[412] Hatton did not care to incur the responsibility of
saying so himself, and simply showed the Queen Burghley’s letter.
Doubtless Elizabeth took the good advice tendered; for it was only a
day or two afterwards that young Gilbert Talbot, Lord Shrewsbury’s
son, was walking in the Tilt Yard, Whitehall, one morning, under the
Queen’s windows, when her maiden Majesty herself came to the
casement in her night-dress, in full view of Talbot, who wrote: “My
eye fell towards her, and she showed to be greatly ashamed thereof,
for that she was unready and in her night-stuff; so when she saw
me after dinner as she went to walk, she gave me a great fillip on
the forehead, and told the Lord Chamberlain how I had seen her
that morning, and how ashamed she was.” Talbot, in writing this to
his father (1st May 1578) ends his letter by saying that the Queen
was that week to stay three or four days with Burghley at
Theobalds. It is plain to see that the renewed severity against the
Catholics in England, and the almost ostentatious aiding of the
States against Spain, did not meet with the approval of Burghley. He
was much more concerned for the moment at the large levies of
French troops being collected on the Flemish frontier; and his
ordinary policy would have been either to side with the Spaniards
against them, or to have disarmed their figurehead Alençon (or
Anjou as he was now called) by holding out hopes of his marriage
with the Queen, if the earnest attempts of the English to mediate
between the States and Don Juan were fruitless. But he had to
reckon with Leicester and Walsingham, and the Queen’s policy
wavered almost daily between her two sets of counsellors.[413]
To the Queen’s visit to Theobalds is doubtless due the entry in
Burghley’s diary of 15th May, recording the despatch of Edward
Stafford to inspect and report upon the French forces on the Flemish
frontier. Alençon himself used every effort to convince the Queen of
his desire to look to her, rather than to his brother, as his guide and
support. On the 19th May he sent her a letter by one of his friends,
informing her of his intention of relieving the Netherlands; “of which
intention,” he says, “she already knows so much that he will not tire
her by explaining it further.” On the 7th July he crossed the frontier,
and threw himself into Mons for the purpose, as he declared, “of
helping this oppressed people, and humiliating the pride of Spain;”
and at the same time he sent his chamberlain to offer marriage to
Elizabeth, and assure her of his complete dependence upon her. It
was unwelcome news for Elizabeth, for she could never trust the
French. Alençon, after all, was a Catholic, and she was uncertain
whether Henry III. was not really behind his brother. Gondi, one of
the leaders of Catharine’s counsels, had recently come to England
with a request to be allowed to see Mary Stuart;[414] Catholic
intrigues in Scotland had succeeded in putting an end to Morton’s
regency (March 1578); and on all sides there were indications that, if
Elizabeth could only be dragged into open hostility to Spain, and so
rendered powerless, an attempt would be made on the part of
France to recover its lost influence over Scotland. Mendoza carefully
fanned the flame of Elizabeth’s distrust against the French; and the
effect of Walsingham’s absence in Flanders, whilst Leicester was
away at Buxton, is noticeable at once. “The Queen,” writes Mendoza
(19th July), “is now turning her eyes more to your Majesty; and her
ministers have begun to get friendly with me. If your Majesty wishes
to retain them, I see a way of doing it.”[415]
Alençon’s agents in the meanwhile were not idle. One after the
other came to assure her of their master’s desire to marry her, and
look to her alone for guidance. He had quarrelled with his brother,
he said, and had no other mistress than the Queen of England. They
quite convinced Sussex, apparently, for he entered warmly into their
marriage plans, which gave him another chance of revenge upon
Leicester. Elizabeth’s desire to be amiable to Alençon’s envoys at
Long Melford during her progress (August) led her to insult Sussex,
as Lord Steward, about the amount of plate on the sideboard. This
gave an opportunity for Lord North, a creature of Leicester, to give
Sussex the lie, and led to a further feud which continued for months.
[416]

But though Elizabeth was somewhat tranquillised with regard to

the French King’s connivance in Alençon’s proceedings, she was cool
about the marriage business. “If the Prince liked to come, she told
De Bacqueville, he might do so; but he must not take offence if she
did not like him when she saw him;” whereupon Burghley told the
envoy that if he were in his place he would not bring his master over
on such a message. All the charming of Alençon’s attractive agents
was unsuccessful in opening the Queen’s money bags, and the loan
of 300,000 crowns they prayed for was refused. If he wanted her aid
or affection, she said, he must first obey her and retire from
Flanders, and she would then consider what she should do. Pressure
was put upon Alençon by his brother, by the Pope and the Catholics,
on the other hand, to desist from his enterprise. Splendid Catholic
alliances were proposed to him, and dire threats of punishment held
out if he did not retire. When the Protestant Hollanders discovered
that Alençon could count neither upon England nor France to
support him, they began to cry off. The only temptation they had in
welcoming a Catholic prince was the hope of national aid. If he did
not bring that, he was as useless to them as poor Mathias had been.
And so all through the autumn of 1578 the fate of Flanders hung on