Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0007/00070.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 21KB | 339 lines

$Unique_ID{bob00070}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Makers Of History Queen Elizabeth
Chapter IV. The Spanish Match.}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Abbott, Jacob}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{mary
queen
philip
england
london
spain
wyatt
english
match
sent
see
pictures
see
figures
}
$Date{1876}
$Log{See Execution Of Lady Jane*0007001.scf
}
Title:       Makers Of History Queen Elizabeth
Book:        Queen Elizabeth
Author:      Abbott, Jacob
Date:        1876

Chapter IV. The Spanish Match.

     When Queen Mary ascended the throne, she was a maiden lady not far from
thirty-five years of age.  She was cold, austere, and forbidding in her
appearance and manners, though probably conscientious and honest in her
convictions of duty.  She was a very firm and decided Catholic, or, rather,
she evinced a certain strict adherence to the principles of her religious
faith, which we generally call firmness when it is exhibited by those whose
opinions agree with our own, though we are very apt to name it bigotry in
those who differ from us.

     For instance, when the body of young Edward, her brother, after his
death, was to be deposited in the last home of the English kings in
Westminster Abbey, which is a very magnificent cathedral a little way up the
river from London, the services were, of course, conducted according to the
ritual of the English Church, which was then Protestant.  Mary, however, could
not conscientiously countenance such services even by being present at them.
She accordingly assembled her immediate attendants and personal friends in her
own private chapel, and celebrated the interment there, with Catholic priests,
by a service conformed to the Catholic ritual.  Was it a bigoted, or only a
firm and proper, attachment to her own faith, which forbade her joining in the
national commemoration?  The reader must decide; but, in deciding, he is bound
to render the same verdict that he would have given if it had been a case of a
Protestant withdrawing thus from Catholic forms.

     At all events, whether bigoted or not, Mary was doubtless sincere; but
she was so cold, and stern, and austere in her character, that she was very
little likely to be loved.  There were a great many persons who wished to
become her husband, but their motives were to share her grandeur and power.
Among these persons, the most prominent one, and the one apparently most
likely to succeed, was a prince of Spain His name was Philip.

     It was his father's plan, and not his own, that he should marry Queen
Mary.  His father was at this time the most wealthy and powerful monarch in
Europe.  His name was Charles.  He is commonly called in history Charles V of
Spain.  He was not only King of Spain, but Emperor of Germany.  He resided
sometimes at Madrid, and sometimes at Brussels in Flanders.  His son Philip
had been married to a Portuguese princess, but his wife had died, and thus
Philip was a widower.  Still, he was only twenty-seven years of age, but he
was as stern, severe, and repulsive in his manners as Mary.  His personal
appearance, too, corresponded with his character.  He was a very decided
Catholic also, and in his natural spirit, haughty, ambitious, and domineering.

     The Emperor Charles, as soon as he heard of young Edward's death and of
Mary's accession to the English throne, conceived the plan of proposing to her
his son Philip for a husband.  He sent over a wise and sagacious statesman
from his court to make the proposition, and to urge it by such reasons as
would be most likely to influence Mary's mind, and the minds of the great
officers of her government.  The embassador managed the affair well.  In fact,
it was probably easy to manage it.  Mary would naturally be pleased with the
idea of such a young husband, who, besides being young and accomplished, was
the son of the greatest potentate in Europe, and likely one day to take his
father's place on that lofty elevation.  Besides, Mary Queen of Scots, who had
rival claims to Queen Mary's throne, had married, or was about to marry, the
son of the King of France, and there was a little glory in outshining her, by
having for a husband a son of the King of Spain.  It might, however, perhaps,
be a question which was the greatest match; for, though the court of Paris was
the most brilliant, Spain, being at that time possessed of the gold and silver
mines of its American colonies, was at least the richest country in the world.

     Mary's ministers, when they found that Mary herself liked the plan, fell
in with it too.  Mary had been beginning, very quietly indeed, but very
efficiently, her measures for bringing back the English government and nation
to the Catholic faith.  Her ministers told her now, however, that if she
wished to succeed in effecting this match, she must suspend all these plans
until the match was consummated.  The people of England were generally of the
Protestant faith.  They had been very uneasy and restless under the progress
which the queen had been making in silencing Protestant preachers, and
bringing back Catholic rites and ceremonies; and now, if they found that their
queen was going to marry so rigid and uncompromising a Catholic as Philip of
Spain, they would be doubly alarmed.  She must suspend, therefore, for a time,
her measures for restoring papacy, unless she was willing to give up her
husband.  The queen saw that this was the alternative, and she decided on
following her ministers' advice.  She did all in her power to quiet and calm
the public mind, in order to prepare the way for announcing the proposed
connection.

     Rumors, however, began to be spread abroad that such a design was
entertained before Mary was fully prepared to promulgate it.  These rumors
produced great excitement, and awakened strong opposition.  The people knew
Philip's ambitious and overbearing character, and they believed that if he
were to come to England as the husband of the queen, the whole government
would pass into his hands, and, as he would naturally be very much under the
influence of his father, the connection was likely to result in making England
a mere appendage to the already vast dominions of the emperor.  The House of
Commons appointed a committee of twenty members, and sent them to the queen,
with a humble petition that she would not marry a foreigner.  The queen was
much displeased at receiving such a petition, and she dissolved the
Parliament.  The members dispersed, carrying with them every where expressions
of their dissatisfaction and fear.  England, they said, was about to become a
province of Spain, and the prospect of such a consummation, wherever the
tidings went, filled the people of the country with great alarm.

     Queen Mary's principal minister of state at this time was a crafty
politician, whose name was Gardiner.  Gardiner sent word to the emperor that
there was great opposition to his son's marriage in England, and that he
feared that he should not be able to accomplish it, unless the terms of the
contract of marriage were made very favorable to the queen and to England, and
unless the emperor could furnish him with a large sum of money to use as a
means of bringing influential persons of the realm to favor it.  Charles
decided to send the money.  He borrowed it of some of the rich cities of
Germany, making his son Philip give his bond to repay it as soon as he should
get possession of his bride, and of the rich and powerful country over which
she reigned.  The amount thus remitted to England is said by the historians of
those days to have been a sum equal to two millions of dollars.  The bribery
was certainly on a very respectable scale.

     The emperor also sent a very magnificent embassy to London, with a
distinguished nobleman at its head, to arrange the terms and contracts of the
marriage.  This embassy came in great state, and, during their residence in
London, were the objects of great attention and parade.  The eclat of their
reception, and the influence of the bribes, seemed to silence opposition to
the scheme.  Open opposition ceased to be expressed, though a strong and
inveterate determination against the measure was secretly extending itself
throughout the realm.  This, however, did not prevent the negotiations from
going on.  The terms were probably all fully understood and agreed upon before
the embassy came, so that nothing remained but the formalities of writing and
signing the articles.

     Some of the principal stipulations of these articles were, that Philip
was to have the title of King of England jointly with Mary's title of queen.
Mary was also to share with him, in the same way, his titles in Spain.  It was
agreed that Mary should have the exclusive power of the appointment of
officers of government in England, and that no Spaniards should be eligible at
all.  Particular provisions were made in respect to the children which might
result from the marriage, as to how they should inherit rights of government
in the two countries.  Philip had one son already, by his former wife.  This
son was to succeed his father in the kingdom of Spain, but the other dominions
of Philip on the Continent were to descend to the offspring of this new
marriage, in modes minutely specified to fit all possible cases which might
occur.  The making of all these specifications, however, turned out to be
labor lost, as Mary never had children.

     It was also specially agreed that Philip should not bring Spanish or
foreign domestics into the realm, to give uneasiness to the English people;
that he would never take the queen out of England, nor carry any of the
children away, without the consent of the English nobility; and that, if the
queen were to die before him, all his rights and claims of every sort, in
respect to England, should forever cease.  He also agreed that he would never
carry away any of the jewels or other property of the crown, nor suffer any
other person to do so.

     These stipulations, guarding so carefully the rights of Mary and of
England, were intended to satisfy the English people, and remove their
objections to the match.  They produced some effect, but the hostility was too
deeply seated to be so easily allayed.  It grew, on the contrary, more and
more threatening, until at length a conspiracy was formed by a number of
influential and powerful men, and a plan of open rebellion organized.

     The leader in this plan was Sir Thomas Wyatt, and the outbreak which
followed is known in history as Wyatt's rebellion.  Another of the leaders was
the Duke of Suffolk, who, it will be recollected, was the father of Lady Jane
Grey.  This led people to suppose that the plan of the conspirators was not
merely to prevent the consummation of the Spanish match, but to depose Queen
Mary entirely, and to raise the Lady Jane to the throne.  However this may be,
an extensive and formidable conspiracy was formed.  There were to have been
several risings in different parts of the kingdom.  They all failed except the
one which Wyatt himself was to head, which was in Kent, in the southeastern
part of the country.  This succeeded so far, at least, that a considerable
force was collected, and began to advance toward London from the southern
side.

     Queen Mary was very much alarmed.  She had no armed force in readiness to
encounter this danger.  She sent messengers across the Thames and down the
river to meet Wyatt, who was advancing at the head of four thousand men, to
ask what it was that he demanded.  He replied that the queen must be delivered
up as his prisoner, and also the Tower of London be surrendered to him.  This
showed that his plan was to depose the queen.  Mary rejected these proposals
at once, and, having no forces to meet this new enemy, she had to retreat from
Westminster into the city of London and here she took refuge in the city hall,
called the Guildhall, and put herself under the protection of the city
authorities.  Some of her friends urged her to take shelter in the Tower; but
she had more confidence, she said, in the faithfulness and loyalty of her
subjects than in castle walls.

     Wyatt continued to advance.  He was still upon the south side of the
river.  There was but one bridge across the Thames, at London, in those days,
though there are half a dozen now, and this one was so strongly barricaded and
guarded that Wyatt did not dare to attempt to cross it.  He went up the river,
therefore, to cross at a higher point; and this circuit, and several
accidental circumstances which occurred, detained him so long that a
considerable force had been got together to receive him when he was ready to
enter the city.  He pushed boldly on into the narrow streets, which received
him like a trap or a snare.  The city troops hemmed up his way after he had
entered.  They barricaded the streets, they shut the gates, and armed men
poured in to take possession of all the avenues.  Wyatt depended upon finding
the people of London on his side.  They turned, instead, against him.  All
hope of success in his enterprise, and all possibility of escape from his own
awful danger, disappeared together.  A herald came from the queen's officer
calling upon him to surrender himself quietly, and save the effusion of blood.
He surrendered in an agony of terror and despair.

     The Duke of Suffolk learned these facts in another county, where he was
endeavoring to raise a force to aid Wyatt.  He immediately fled, and hid
himself in the house of one of his domestics.  He was betrayed, however,
seized, and sent to the Tower.  Many other prominent actors in the
insurrection were arrested and the others fled in all directions, wherever
they could find concealment or safety.

     Lady Jane's life had been spared thus far, although she had been, in
fact, guilty of treason against Mary by the former attempt to take the crown.
She now, however, two days after the capture of Wyatt, received word that she
must prepare to die.  She was, of course, surprised and shocked at the
suddenness of this announcement; but she soon regained her composure, and
passed through the awful scenes preceding her death with a fortitude amounting
to heroism, which was very astonishing in one so young.  Her husband was to
die too.  He was beheaded first, and she saw the headless body, as it was
brought back from the place of execution, before her turn came.  She
acknowledged her guilt in having attempted to seize her cousin's crown.  As
the attempt to seize this crown failed, mankind consider her technically
guilty.  If it had succeeded, Mary, instead of Jane, would have been the
traitor who would have died for attempting criminally to usurp a throne.

[See Execution Of Lady Jane: She passed through the awful scenes preceding her
death with a fortitude amounting to heroism.]

     In the mean time Wyatt and Suffolk remained prisoners in the Tower.
Suffolk was overwhelmed with remorse and sorrow at having been the means, by
his selfish ambition, of the cruel death of so innocent and lovely a child. He
did not suffer this anguish long, however, for five days after his son and
Lady Jane were executed, his head fell too from the block.  Wyatt was reserved
a little longer.

     He was more formally tried, and in his examination he asserted that the
Princess Elizabeth was involved in the conspiracy.  Officers were immediately
sent to arrest Elizabeth.  She was taken to a royal palace at Westminster,
just above London, called Whitehall, and shut up there in close confinement,
and no one was allowed to visit her or speak to her.  The particulars of this
imprisonment will be described more fully in the next chapter.  Fifty or sixty
common conspirators, not worthy of being beheaded with an ax, were hanged, and
a company of six hundred more were brought, their hands tied, and halters
about their necks, a miserable gang, into Mary's presence, before her palace,
to be pardoned.  Wyatt was then executed.  When he came to die, however, he
retracted what he had alleged of Elizabeth.  He declared that she was entirely
innocent of any participation in the scheme of rebellion. Elizabeth's friends
believe that he accused her because he supposed that such a charge would be
agreeable to Mary, and that he should himself be more leniently treated in
consequence of it, but that when at last he found that sacrificing her would
not save him, his guilty conscience scourged him into doing her justice in his
last hours.

     All obstacles to the wedding were now apparently removed; for, after the
failure of Wyatt's rebellion, nobody dared to make any open opposition to the
plans of the queen, though there was still abundance of secret
dissatisfaction.  Mary was now very impatient to have the marriage carried
into effect.  A new Parliament was called, and its concurrence in the plan
obtained.  Mary ordered a squadron of ships to be fitted out and sent to
Spain, to convey the bridegroom to England.  The admiral who had command of
this fleet wrote to her that the sailors were so hostile to Philip that he did
not think it was safe for her to intrust him to their hands.  Mary then
commanded this force to be dismissed, in order to arrange some other way to
bring Philip over.  She was then full of anxiety and apprehension lest some
accident might befall him.  His ship might be wrecked, or he might fall into
the hands of the French, who were not at all well disposed toward the match.
Her thoughts and her conversation were running upon this topic all the time.
She was restless by day and sleepless by night, until her health was at last
seriously impaired, and her friends began really to fear that she might lose
her reason.  She was very anxious, too, lest Philip should find her beauty so
impaired by her years, and by the state of her health, that the should fail,
when he arrived, of becoming she object of his love.

     In fact, she complained already that Philip neglected her.  He did not
write to her, or express in any way the interest and affection which she
thought ought to be awakened in his mind by a bride who, as she expressed it,
was going to bring a kingdom for a dowry.  This sort of cold and haughty
demeanor was, however, in keeping with the self-importance and the pride which
then often marked the Spanish character, and which, in Philip particularly,
always seemed to be extreme.

     At length the time arrived for his embarkation.  He sailed across the Bay
of Biscay, and up the English Channel until he reached Southampton, a famous
port on the southern coast of England.  There he landed with great pomp and
parade.  He assumed a very proud and stately bearing, which made a very
unfavorable impression upon the English people who had been sent by Queen Mary
to receive him.  He drew his sword when he landed, and walked about with it,
for a time, in a very pompous manner, holding the sword unsheathed in his
hand, the crowd of by-standers that had collected to witness the spectacle of
the landing looking on all the time, and wondering what such an action could
be intended to intimate.  It was probably intended simply to make them wonder.
The authorities of Southampton had arranged it to come in procession to meet
Philip, and present him with the keys of the gates, an emblem of an honorable
reception into the city.  Philip received the keys, but did not deign a word
of reply.  The distance and reserve which it had been customary to maintain
between the English sovereigns and their people was always pretty strongly
marked, but Philip's loftiness and grandeur seemed to surpass all bounds.

     Mary went two thirds of the way from London to the coast to meet the
bridegroom.  Here the marriage ceremony was performed, and the whole party
came, with great parade and rejoicings, back to London, and Mary, satisfied
and happy, took up her abode with her new lord in Windsor Castle.

     The poor queen was, however, in the end sadly disappointed in her
husband.  He felt no love for her; he was probably, in fact, incapable of
love.  He remained in England a year, and then growing weary of his wife and
of his adopted country, he went back to Spain again, greatly to Queen Mary's
vexation and chagrin.  They were both extremely disappointed in not having
children.  Philip's motive for marrying Mary was ambition wholly, and not
love; and when he found that an heir to inherit the two kingdoms was not to be
expected, he treated his unhappy wife with great neglect and cruelty and
finally went away from her altogether.  He came back again, it is true, a year
afterward but it was only to compel Mary to join with him in a war against
France.  He told her that if she would not do this, he would go away from
England and never see her again.  Mary yielded; but at length, harrassed and
worn down with useless regrets and repinings, her mental sufferings are
supposed to have shortened her days.  She died miserably a few years after her
marriage, and thus the Spanish match turned out to be a very unfortunate match
indeed.