mind." After a few evasive generalities she withdrew, and the Lords declared themselves contented.* CHAP. Jan. 2. session. The subject was renewed at the close of the session, when the Queen having come in her barge from Whitehall, and 1567. being placed on the throne, the Lord Keeper standing by at the close Ceremony the rail a little behind her on the right, Onslow, the first of the Speaker of that name, appearing at the bar, was marched through the House of Lords, making his obeisances, to the rail near the Lord Keeper, and delivered a tremendously long address to her Majesty, which he thus concluded: "God grant us that as your Majesty hath defended the faith of Abraham, you may have the like desire of issue; and for that purpose that you would shortly embrace the holy state of matrimony, when and with whom God shall appoint and best like your Majesty; and so the issue of your own body by your example rule over our posterity." Speech of House of answer. stops him, and herself addresses the Com mons. The Lord Keeper returned an answer, but in such a very Lord unsatisfactory manner, that the Queen stopped him and her- Keeper's self took the word, saying that, "as a periphrasis, she had a Queen few words farther to add, notwithstanding she had not been used to speak, nor loved to do it in such open assemblies." She then gave them a good scolding. "I have in this assembly found so much dissimulation where I always professed plainness, that I marvel thereat; yea, two faces under one hood and the body rotten, being covered with two vizors, SUCCESSION and LIBERTY. But, alas, they began to pierce the vessel before the wine was fined. Do you think I am unmindful of your surety by succession, wherein is all my care, considering I know myself to be mortal? No, I warrant you. Or that I went about to break your liberties? No, it was never my meaning- but to stay you before you fell into the ditch. All things have their time. Although perhaps after me you may have one better learned or wiser, yet none more careful over you, and however that be, beware you prove that Prince's patience as you have mine."† She was in such dudgeon that she ordered the Lord Parliament dissolved. CHAP. Keeper instantly to dissolve the parliament, which he did, and no other was called for a period of five years. XLIII. Controversy respecting right of succession to the throne. Pamphlet House of Suffolk. But in the mean time the nation was in a state of great excitement on the question of the succession, and various pamphlets were published in support of the rights of the different claimants. Among these was one that came out under the name of "John Hales, Clerk of the Hanaper in the Court of Chancery,"--strongly espousing the cause of the in favour of House of Suffolk, which rested on the will of Henry VIII., alleged to be duly executed under the authority of an act of parliament, —violently disparaging the Stuart line, whose pretensions were denounced as inconsistent with the religion and independence of England,—and calling loudly for a parDiscovery liamentary declaration of the right of the true heir. On was written the complaint of the Scottish ambassador, Hales was comby the Lord mitted to prison; but upon his examination great was the astonishment deep the indignation of the Queen, when the truth came out that the real author of this pamphlet, pretending to be written by a subordinate officer in the Court of Chancery, was no less a person than the chief of the Court himself, whose religious zeal, fortified by the threats of the Catholics that they would revoke all the grants of Church property, for once had overcome his prudence. that this Keeper. Lord Keeper dismissed Council, Elizabeth, although restrained by jealousy of a rival Queen she had concealed her real sentiments, had secretly deterfrom Privy mined that the Stuarts should succeed, and she had an exand ordered treme antipathy to the Hertford blood. The Lord Keeper would at once have been deprived of the Great Seal, and to business sent to the Tower, had there not been a very serious diffiof Court of culty about appointing a successor to him; but his name was to confine himself Chancery. Lord Keeper restored to Privy Council and Queen's confidence. immediately struck out of the list of Privy Councillors, and he was strictly enjoined to meddle with no business whatever except that of the Court of Chancery. It seems strange to us that the first Judge of the land should be so far disgraced, and still permitted to retain his office. Leicester, whose aspiring project to share the throne he had thwarted, attempted to incense the Queen further against him; but Cecil, who was suspected of sharing his sentiments on the succession question, and even of having contributed to the obnoxious .XLIII. pamphlet, steadily supported him, and in little more than a CHAP. twelvemonth, he was again sworn of the Privy Council, and entirely restored to Elizabeth's favour. A. D. 1568. Queen of The next affair of importance, in which Lord Keeper Bacon was engaged, was the inquiry into the conduct of the Mary, Queen of Scots, respecting the murder of her husband. The Scots. unhappy Mary, after the battle of Langside, having sought refuge in England from her rebellious subjects, was now a prisoner in Bolton Castle, under the care of Lord Scrope; and Elizabeth, with a view to make herself arbitress of the affairs of Scotland, having refused to see her till she had proved her innocence of the great crime imputed to her, both parties had submitted themselves to the judgment of the English Queen. A commission passed under the Great Seal, Lord appointing the Lord Keeper and others to act for Elizabeth Keeper a in this investigation. The conferences took place at Hampton missioner Court,-Murray, the Regent of Scotland, assisted by Buchanan, the famous poet and historian, appearing as accuser, and Mary being represented by Lord Herries, and Lesley, Bishop of Ross. Bacon is said to have conducted himself, on this occasion, with dignity and propriety. He gained the friendship of the Bishop of Ross, who ever after spoke of him in terms of respect and esteem, -and of Buchanan, who recorded his high admiration of him in a Latin epitaph, inscribed on his tomb in St. Paul's Cathedral. But the casket being produced containing Mary's letters and sonnets, addressed to Bothwell, which, if genuine, clearly established her guilt, and proof being offered that they were in her handwriting, by comparing them with letters addressed by her to Elizabeth, her commissioners refused to give in any answer, and the conferences were broken off without any judgment being pronounced,― Mary still protesting her innocence, and desiring to be permitted to justify herself before Elizabeth in person. In about two years after, the negotiations were renewed at York House, the residence of the Lord Keeper. The English commissioners now demanded, as the price of Mary's liberty, that some of the chief nobility, and several of the principal fortresses of Scotland, should be placed in Elizabeth's hands. commis to examine into the charge of her having murdered her hus band. CHAP. A. D. 1570. Queen Elizabeth goes to The pride of the Scotsmen was much wounded by this pro- The next occasion of the Lord Keeper appearing before the public in his political capacity, was at the meeting of parliament, on the 2d of April, 1571. On that day the parliament in a coach. Queen went to Westminster Abbey, for the first time in a coach, which was drawn by two palfries, covered with crimson velvet, embossed, and embroidered very richly; but this was the only carriage in the procession, the Lord Keeper, and the Lords spiritual and temporal, attending her on horseback. Lord Keeper's speech to the two Houses. Her Majesty being seated on the throne, and the Commons attending,—after a few complimentary words from her own lips, "looking on the right side of her, towards Sir Nicholas Bacon, Knight, Lord Keeper, standing a little beside the cloth of estate, and somewhat back, and lower from the same, she willed him to show the cause of the parliament.” His most eloquent flight was in celebrating the Queen's economy. "What need I to remember unto you how the gorgeous, sumptuous, superfluous buildings of time past be, for the realm's good, by her Majesty in this time turned into necessary buildings and upholdings?—the chargeable, glittering, glorious triumphs, into delectable pastimes and shows? -ambassades of charge into such as be void of excess, and yet honourable and comely? These imperfections have been commonly Princes' peculiars, especially young. One free from these was anointed rara avis, &c., and yet, (God be thanked!) a phoenix, a blessed bird of this kind God hath blessed us with." He concluded, by truly supposing they were all heartily sick of his tediousness. "Here I make an end, doubting that I have tarried you longer than I promised, or meant, or perchance needed."+ * This speech may well account for the great enmity afterwards entertained against him in Scotland, and the libels published against him at Edinburgh, which, being imported into England, the Queen by proclamation ordered to be burnt. 1 Parl. Hist. 724. In the course of his speech he cites the maxim, "Frustra XLIII. He delivered another speech a few days after, approving of CHAP. the choice of Speaker; in which he told the Commons, by the Queen's command, that "they should do well to meddle with no matters of state, but such as should be propounded unto Speaker. them." Choice of Keeper This injunction, however, was by no means universally Lord obeyed; and several members brought forward motions about proceeds in the abuse of the prerogative in granting monopolies, and the Council against necessity for settling the succession to the Crown. They members of were called before the Council, when the Lord Keeper repri- the House manded them for their temerity; and one refractory member mons. was committed to prison. of Com May 29. 1571. At the close of the session the Lord Keeper highly extolled the discretion and orderly proceedings of the Upper House, which redounded much to their honour and much to Keeper the comfort and consolation of her Majesty; but he inveighed the Comreprimands heavily against the popular party in the Commons "for their mons. audacious, arrogant, and presumptuous folly, thus by superfluous speech spending much time in meddling with matters neither pertaining to them nor within the capacity of their understanding."* The importance of the Commons was now rapidly rising, and that of the Lords sinking in the same proportion. There was a session of parliament the following year, in which some proceedings disagreeable to the Queen were taken by both Houses respecting the succession to the Crown, and to which the Lord Keeper put a stop by an abrupt prorogation. † Solicitation of the Speaker of the Commons thin her advanced House of The last notice we have of his appearance in public was at the close of the session of parliament in the beginning of the year 1576, when a scene took place which must have caused a good deal of internal tittering among the by-standers, if all due external gravity was preserved in the royal presence. Her Majesty had reached an age at which according to the common course of nature she could hardly be expected to bear children: yet the Speaker of the House of Commons have chil fit per plura quod fieri potest per pauciora," which he never much regarded, for he is a very very verbose and vapid orator. to Elizabeth years to marry and dren. 1 Parl. Hist. 766. † Ibid. 772. |