A Child's History of England

by Dickens, Charles

and that he died within a year, shrieking and yelling and raving to

  that degree, that if all the Popes who had ever lived had been

  rolled into one, they would not have afforded His guilty Majesty

  the slightest consolation.

  When the terrible news of the massacre arrived in England, it made

  a powerful impression indeed upon the people. If they began to run

  a little wild against the Catholics at about this time, this

  fearful reason for it, coming so soon after the days of bloody

  Queen Mary, must be remembered in their excuse. The Court was not

  quite so honest as the people - but perhaps it sometimes is not.

  It received the French ambassador, with all the lords and ladies

  dressed in deep mourning, and keeping a profound silence.

  Nevertheless, a proposal of marriage which he had made to Elizabeth

  only two days before the eve of Saint Bartholomew, on behalf of the

  Duke of Alen‡on, the French King's brother, a boy of seventeen,

  still went on; while on the other hand, in her usual crafty way,

  the Queen secretly supplied the Huguenots with money and weapons.

  I must say that for a Queen who made all those fine speeches, of

  which I have confessed myself to be rather tired, about living and

  dying a Maiden Queen, Elizabeth was 'going' to be married pretty

  often. Besides always having some English favourite or other whom

  she by turns encouraged and swore at and knocked about - for the

  maiden Queen was very free with her fists - she held this French

  Duke off and on through several years. When he at last came over

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  to England, the marriage articles were actually drawn up, and it

  was settled that the wedding should take place in six weeks. The

  Queen was then so bent upon it, that she prosecuted a poor Puritan

  named STUBBS, and a poor bookseller named PAGE, for writing and

  publishing a pamphlet against it. Their right hands were chopped

  off for this crime; and poor Stubbs - more loyal than I should have

  been myself under the circumstances - immediately pulled off his

  hat with his left hand, and cried, 'God save the Queen!' Stubbs

  was cruelly treated; for the marriage never took place after all,

  though the Queen pledged herself to the Duke with a ring from her

  own finger. He went away, no better than he came, when the

  courtship had lasted some ten years altogether; and he died a

  couple of years afterwards, mourned by Elizabeth, who appears to

  have been really fond of him. It is not much to her credit, for he

  was a bad enough member of a bad family.

  To return to the Catholics. There arose two orders of priests, who

  were very busy in England, and who were much dreaded. These were

  the JESUITS (who were everywhere in all sorts of disguises), and

  the SEMINARY PRIESTS. The people had a great horror of the first,

  because they were known to have taught that murder was lawful if it

  were done with an object of which they approved; and they had a

  great horror of the second, because they came to teach the old

  religion, and to be the successors of 'Queen Mary's priests,' as

  those yet lingering in England were called, when they should die

  out. The severest laws were made against them, and were most

  unmercifully executed. Those who sheltered them in their houses

  often suffered heavily for what was an act of humanity; and the

  rack, that cruel torture which tore men's limbs asunder, was

  constantly kept going. What these unhappy men confessed, or what

  was ever confessed by any one under that agony, must always be

  received with great doubt, as it is certain that people have

  frequently owned to the most absurd and impossible crimes to escape

  such dreadful suffering. But I cannot doubt it to have been proved

  by papers, that there were many plots, both among the Jesuits, and

  with France, and with Scotland, and with Spain, for the destruction

  of Queen Elizabeth, for the placing of Mary on the throne, and for

  the revival of the old religion.

  If the English people were too ready to believe in plots, there

  were, as I have said, good reasons for it. When the massacre of

  Saint Bartholomew was yet fresh in their recollection, a great

  Protestant Dutch hero, the PRINCE OF ORANGE, was shot by an

  assassin, who confessed that he had been kept and trained for the

  purpose in a college of Jesuits. The Dutch, in this surprise and

  distress, offered to make Elizabeth their sovereign, but she

  declined the honour, and sent them a small army instead, under the

  command of the Earl of Leicester, who, although a capital Court

  favourite, was not much of a general. He did so little in Holland,

  that his campaign there would probably have been forgotten, but for

  its occasioning the death of one of the best writers, the best

  knights, and the best gentlemen, of that or any age. This was SIR

  PHILIP SIDNEY, who was wounded by a musket ball in the thigh as he

  mounted a fresh horse, after having had his own killed under him.

  He had to ride back wounded, a long distance, and was very faint

  with fatigue and loss of blood, when some water, for which he had

  eagerly asked, was handed to him. But he was so good and gentle

  even then, that seeing a poor badly wounded common soldier lying on

  the ground, looking at the water with longing eyes, he said, 'Thy

  necessity is greater than mine,' and gave it up to him. This

  touching action of a noble heart is perhaps as well known as any

  incident in history - is as famous far and wide as the bloodstained

  Tower of London, with its axe, and block, and murders out

  of number. So delightful is an act of true humanity, and so glad

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  are mankind to remember it.

  At home, intelligence of plots began to thicken every day. I

  suppose the people never did live under such continual terrors as

  those by which they were possessed now, of Catholic risings, and

  burnings, and poisonings, and I don't know what. Still, we must

  always remember that they lived near and close to awful realities

  of that kind, and that with their experience it was not difficult

  to believe in any enormity. The government had the same fear, and

  did not take the best means of discovering the truth - for, besides

  torturing the suspected, it employed paid spies, who will always

  lie for their own profit. It even made some of the conspiracies it

  brought to light, by sending false letters to disaffected people,

  inviting them to join in pretended plots, which they too readily

  did.

  But, one great real plot was at length discovered, and it ended the

  career of Mary, Queen of Scots. A seminary priest named BALLARD,

  and a Spanish soldier named SAVAGE, set on and encouraged by

  certain French priests, imparted a design to one ANTONY BABINGTON -

  a gentleman of fortune in Derbyshire, who had been for some time a

  secret agent of Mary's - for murdering the Queen. Babington then

  confided the scheme to some other Catholic gentlemen who were his

  friends, a
nd they joined in it heartily. They were vain, weakheaded

  young men, ridiculously confident, and preposterously proud

  of their plan; for they got a gimcrack painting made, of the six

  choice spirits who were to murder Elizabeth, with Babington in an

  attitude for the centre figure. Two of their number, however, one

  of whom was a priest, kept Elizabeth's wisest minister, SIR FRANCIS

  WALSINGHAM, acquainted with the whole project from the first. The

  conspirators were completely deceived to the final point, when

  Babington gave Savage, because he was shabby, a ring from his

  finger, and some money from his purse, wherewith to buy himself new

  clothes in which to kill the Queen. Walsingham, having then full

  evidence against the whole band, and two letters of Mary's besides,

  resolved to seize them. Suspecting something wrong, they stole out

  of the city, one by one, and hid themselves in St. John's Wood, and

  other places which really were hiding places then; but they were

  all taken, and all executed. When they were seized, a gentleman

  was sent from Court to inform Mary of the fact, and of her being

  involved in the discovery. Her friends have complained that she

  was kept in very hard and severe custody. It does not appear very

  likely, for she was going out a hunting that very morning.

  Queen Elizabeth had been warned long ago, by one in France who had

  good information of what was secretly doing, that in holding Mary

  alive, she held 'the wolf who would devour her.' The Bishop of

  London had, more lately, given the Queen's favourite minister the

  advice in writing, 'forthwith to cut off the Scottish Queen's

  head.' The question now was, what to do with her? The Earl of

  Leicester wrote a little note home from Holland, recommending that

  she should be quietly poisoned; that noble favourite having

  accustomed his mind, it is possible, to remedies of that nature.

  His black advice, however, was disregarded, and she was brought to

  trial at Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire, before a tribunal

  of forty, composed of both religions. There, and in the Star

  Chamber at Westminster, the trial lasted a fortnight. She defended

  herself with great ability, but could only deny the confessions

  that had been made by Babington and others; could only call her own

  letters, produced against her by her own secretaries, forgeries;

  and, in short, could only deny everything. She was found guilty,

  and declared to have incurred the penalty of death. The Parliament

  met, approved the sentence, and prayed the Queen to have it

  executed. The Queen replied that she requested them to consider

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  whether no means could be found of saving Mary's life without

  endangering her own. The Parliament rejoined, No; and the citizens

  illuminated their houses and lighted bonfires, in token of their

  joy that all these plots and troubles were to be ended by the death

  of the Queen of Scots.

  She, feeling sure that her time was now come, wrote a letter to the

  Queen of England, making three entreaties; first, that she might be

  buried in France; secondly, that she might not be executed in

  secret, but before her servants and some others; thirdly, that

  after her death, her servants should not be molested, but should be

  suffered to go home with the legacies she left them. It was an

  affecting letter, and Elizabeth shed tears over it, but sent no

  answer. Then came a special ambassador from France, and another

  from Scotland, to intercede for Mary's life; and then the nation

  began to clamour, more and more, for her death.

  What the real feelings or intentions of Elizabeth were, can never

  be known now; but I strongly suspect her of only wishing one thing

  more than Mary's death, and that was to keep free of the blame of

  it. On the first of February, one thousand five hundred and

  eighty-seven, Lord Burleigh having drawn out the warrant for the

  execution, the Queen sent to the secretary DAVISON to bring it to

  her, that she might sign it: which she did. Next day, when

  Davison told her it was sealed, she angrily asked him why such

  haste was necessary? Next day but one, she joked about it, and

  swore a little. Again, next day but one, she seemed to complain

  that it was not yet done, but still she would not be plain with

  those about her. So, on the seventh, the Earls of Kent and

  Shrewsbury, with the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, came with the

  warrant to Fotheringay, to tell the Queen of Scots to prepare for

  death.

  When those messengers of ill omen were gone, Mary made a frugal

  supper, drank to her servants, read over her will, went to bed,

  slept for some hours, and then arose and passed the remainder of

  the night saying prayers. In the morning she dressed herself in

  her best clothes; and, at eight o'clock when the sheriff came for

  her to her chapel, took leave of her servants who were there

  assembled praying with her, and went down-stairs, carrying a Bible

  in one hand and a crucifix in the other. Two of her women and four

  of her men were allowed to be present in the hall; where a low

  scaffold, only two feet from the ground, was erected and covered

  with black; and where the executioner from the Tower, and his

  assistant, stood, dressed in black velvet. The hall was full of

  people. While the sentence was being read she sat upon a stool;

  and, when it was finished, she again denied her guilt, as she had

  done before. The Earl of Kent and the Dean of Peterborough, in

  their Protestant zeal, made some very unnecessary speeches to her;

  to which she replied that she died in the Catholic religion, and

  they need not trouble themselves about that matter. When her head

  and neck were uncovered by the executioners, she said that she had

  not been used to be undressed by such hands, or before so much

  company. Finally, one of her women fastened a cloth over her face,

  and she laid her neck upon the block, and repeated more than once

  in Latin, 'Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit!' Some say

  her head was struck off in two blows, some say in three. However

  that be, when it was held up, streaming with blood, the real hair

  beneath the false hair she had long worn was seen to be as grey as

  that of a woman of seventy, though she was at that time only in her

  forty-sixth year. All her beauty was gone.

  But she was beautiful enough to her little dog, who cowered under

  her dress, frightened, when she went upon the scaffold, and who lay

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  down beside her headless body when all her earthly sorrows were

  over.

  THIRD PART

  ON its being formally made known to Elizabeth that the sentence had

  been executed on the Queen of Scots, she showed the utmost grief

  and rage, drove her favourites from her with violent indignation,

  and sent Davison to the Tower; from which place he was only

  released in the end by paying an immense fine which completely

  ruined him. Eliza
beth not only over-acted her part in making these

  pretences, but most basely reduced to poverty one of her faithful

  servants for no other fault than obeying her commands.

  James, King of Scotland, Mary's son, made a show likewise of being

  very angry on the occasion; but he was a pensioner of England to

  the amount of five thousand pounds a year, and he had known very

  little of his mother, and he possibly regarded her as the murderer

  of his father, and he soon took it quietly.

  Philip, King of Spain, however, threatened to do greater things

  than ever had been done yet, to set up the Catholic religion and

  punish Protestant England. Elizabeth, hearing that he and the

  Prince of Parma were making great preparations for this purpose, in

  order to be beforehand with them sent out ADMIRAL DRAKE (a famous

  navigator, who had sailed about the world, and had already brought

  great plunder from Spain) to the port of Cadiz, where he burnt a

  hundred vessels full of stores. This great loss obliged the

  Spaniards to put off the invasion for a year; but it was none the

  less formidable for that, amounting to one hundred and thirty

  ships, nineteen thousand soldiers, eight thousand sailors, two

  thousand slaves, and between two and three thousand great guns.

  England was not idle in making ready to resist this great force.

  All the men between sixteen years old and sixty, were trained and

  drilled; the national fleet of ships (in number only thirty-four at

  first) was enlarged by public contributions and by private ships,

  fitted out by noblemen; the city of London, of its own accord,

  furnished double the number of ships and men that it was required

  to provide; and, if ever the national spirit was up in England, it

  was up all through the country to resist the Spaniards. Some of

  the Queen's advisers were for seizing the principal English

  Catholics, and putting them to death; but the Queen - who, to her

  honour, used to say, that she would never believe any ill of her

  subjects, which a parent would not believe of her own children -

  rejected the advice, and only confined a few of those who were the

  most suspected, in the fens in Lincolnshire. The great body of

  Catholics deserved this confidence; for they behaved most loyally,

  nobly, and bravely.

  So, with all England firing up like one strong, angry man, and with

  both sides of the Thames fortified, and with the soldiers under