The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (310 page)

He executed this enterprize with his usual abilities and success; and, for the present, frustrated all the projects of Henry and Elizabeth. This princess, who kept still in view the interests of her own kingdom in all her foreign transactions, was impatient, under these disappointments, blamed Henry for his negligence in the execution of treaties, and complained, that the English forces were thrust foremost in every hazardous

enterprize.g
It is probable, however, that their own ardent courage, and their desire of distinguishing themselves in so celebrated a theatre of war, were the causes why they so often enjoyed this perilous honour.

Notwithstanding the indifferent success of former enterprizes, the queen was sensible how necessary it was to support Henry against the league and the Spaniards; and she formed a new treaty with him, in which they agreed never to make peace with Philip, but by common consent;
she
promised to send him a new supply of four thousand men; and
he
stipulated to repay her charges in a twelvemonth, to employ these forces, joined to a body of French troops, in an expedition against Britanny, and to consign into her hands a sea-port town of that province, for a retreat to the English.
h
Henry knew the impossibility of executing some of these articles, and the imprudence of fulfilling others; but finding them rigidly insisted on by Elizabeth, he accepted of her succours, and trusted that he might easily, on some pretence, be able to excuse his failure in executing his part of the treaty. This campaign was the least successful of all those which he had yet carried on against the league.

During these military operations in France, Elizabeth employed Naval enterprizes

her naval power against Philip, and endeavoured to intercept his against Spain.

West-Indian treasures, the source of that greatness, which rendered him so formidable to all his neighbours. She sent a squadron of seven ships, under the command of lord Thomas Howard, for this service; but the king of Spain, informed of her purpose, fitted out a great force, of fifty-five sail, and dispatched them to escort the Indian fleet. They fell in with the English squadron; and by the PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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courageous obstinacy of Sir Richard Greenville, the vice-admiral, who refused to make his escape by flight, they took one vessel, the first English ship of war that had yet fallen into the hands of the Spaniards.
NOTE [DD]
The rest of the squadron returned safely into England; frustrated of their expectations, but pleasing themselves with the idea that their attempt had not been altogether fruitless in hurting the enemy.

The Indian fleet had been so long detained in the Havanna, from the fear of the English, that they were obliged at last to set sail in an improper season, and most of them perished by shipwreck, ere they reached the Spanish harbours.
k
The earl of Cumberland made a like unsuccessful enterprize against the Spanish trade. He carried out one ship of the queen’s, and seven others, equipped at his own expence; but the

prizes, which he made, did not compensate the charges.l

The spirit of these expensive and hazardous adventures was very prevalent in England. Sir Walter Raleigh, who had enjoyed great favour with the queen, finding his interest to decline, determined to recover her good graces by some important undertaking; and as his reputation was high among his countrymen, he persuaded great numbers to engage with him as volunteers, in an attempt on the West-Indies.

The fleet was detained so long in the Channel by contrary winds, 1592.

that the season was lost: Raleigh was recalled by the queen: Sir Martin Frobisher succeeded to the command, and made a privateering voyage against the Spaniards. He took one rich Carrack near the Island of Flores, and destroyed

another.m
About the same time, Thomas White, a Londoner, took two Spanish ships, which, besides fourteen hundred chests of quicksilver, contained above two millions of bulls for indulgences; a commodity useless to the English, but which had cost the king of Spain three hundred thousand florins, and would have been sold by him in the Indies for five millions.

This war did great damage to Spain; but it was attended with considerable expence to England; and Elizabeth’s ministers computed, that since the commencement of it, she had spent in Flanders and France, and on her naval expeditions, above one million

two hundred thousand pounds;n
a charge which, notwithstanding her extreme frugality, was too burthensome for her narrow revenues to support.

She summoned, therefore, a parliament, in order to obtain 1593. Feb. 19. A

supply: But she either thought her authority so established, that parliament.

she needed to make them no concessions in return, or she rated her power and prerogative above money: For there never was any parliament, whom she treated in a more haughty manner, whom she made more sensible of their own weakness, or whose privileges she more openly violated. When the speaker, Sir Edward Coke, made the three usual requests, of freedom from arrests, of access to her person, and of liberty of speech; she replied to him, by the mouth of Puckering, lord keeper, that liberty of speech was granted to the commons, but they must know what liberty they were entitled to; not a liberty for every one to speak what he listeth, or what cometh in his brain to utter; their privilege extended no farther than a liberty of Aye or No: That she enjoined the speaker, if he perceived any idle heads so negligent of their own safety, as to attempt reforming the church, or innovating in the commonwealth, that he should refuse the bills exhibited for that purpose, till they were examined by such as were fitter to consider of these things, and could better judge of them: That she would not impeach the freedom of their persons; but they PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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must beware, lest, under colour of this privilege, they imagined, that any neglect of their duty could be covered or protected: And that she would not refuse them access to her person; provided it were upon urgent and weighty causes, and at times convenient, and when she might have leisure from other important affairs of the

realm.o

Notwithstanding the menacing and contemptuous air of this speech, the intrepid and indefatigable Peter Wentworth, not discouraged by his former ill success, ventured to transgress the imperial orders of Elizabeth. He presented to the lord keeper a petition, in which he desired the upper house to join with the lower in a supplication to her majesty, for entailing the succession of the crown; and he declared, that he had a bill ready prepared for that purpose. This method of proceeding was sufficiently respectful and cautious; but the subject was always extremely disagreeable to the queen, and what she had expressly prohibited any one from meddling with: She sent Wentworth immediately to the Tower; committed Sir Thomas Bromley, who had seconded him, to the Fleet prison, together with Stevens, and Welsh, two members, to

whom Sir Thomas had communicated his intention.p
About a fortnight after, a motion was made in the house, to petition the queen, for the release of these members; but it was answered by all the privy counsellors there present, that her majesty had committed them for causes best known to herself, and that to press her on that head would only tend to the prejudice of the gentlemen, whom they meant to serve: She would release them whenever she thought proper, and would be better pleased to do it of her own proper motion, than from their suggestion.
q
The house willingly acquiesced in this reasoning.

So arbitrary an act, at the commencement of the session, might well repress all farther attempts for freedom: But the religious zeal of the puritans, was not so easily restrained; and it inspired a courage, which no human motive was able to surmount.

Morrice, chancellor of the dutchy, and attorney of the court of wards, made a motion for redressing the abuses in the bishops’ courts, but above all, in the high commission; where subscriptions, he said, were exacted to articles at the pleasure of the prelates; where oaths were imposed, obliging persons to answer to all questions without distinction, even though they should tend to their own condemnation; and where every one, who refused entire satisfaction to the commissioners, was imprisoned, without relief or remedy.
r
This motion was seconded by some members; but the ministers and privy counsellors opposed it; and foretold the consequences which ensued. The queen sent for the speaker; and after requiring him to deliver to her Morrice’s bill, she told him, that it was in her power to call parliaments, in her power to dissolve them, in her power to give assent or dissent to any determination, which they should form: That her purpose in summoning this parliament was twofold, to have laws enacted for the farther enforcement of uniformity in religion, and to provide for the defence of the nation, against the exorbitant power of Spain: That these two points ought, therefore, to be the object of their deliberations: She had enjoined them already, by the mouth of the lord keeper, to meddle neither with matters of state nor of religion; and she wondered how any one could be so assuming, as to attempt a subject so expressly contrary to her prohibition: That she was highly offended with this presumption; and took the present opportunity to reiterate the commands given by the keeper, and to require, that no bill, regarding either state affairs, or reformation in PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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causes ecclesiastical, be exhibited in the house: And that in particular she charged the speaker upon his allegiance, if any such bills were offered, absolutely to refuse them a reading, and not so much as permit them to be debated by the members.
s
This command from the queen was submitted to, without farther question. Morrice was seized in the house itself by a serjeant at arms, discharged from his office of chancellor of the dutchy, incapacitated from any practice in his profession as a common lawyer, and kept some years prisoner in Tilbury castle.
t

The queen having thus expressly pointed out, both what the house should and should not do, the commons were as obsequious to the one as to the other of her injunctions.

They passed a law against recusants; such a law as was suited to the severe character of Elizabeth and to the persecuting spirit of the age. It was intitled,
An act to retain
her majesty’s subjects in their due obedience;
and was meant, as the preamble declares, to obviate such inconveniences and perils as might grow from the wicked practices of seditious sectaries and disloyal persons: For these two species of criminals were always, at that time, confounded together, as equally dangerous to the peace of society. It was enacted, that any person, above sixteen years of age, who obstinately refused, during the space of a month, to attend public worship, should be committed to prison; that, if, after being condemned for this offence, he persist three months in his refusal, he must abjure the realm; and that, if he either refuse this condition, or return after banishment, he should suffer capitally as a felon, without

benefit of clergy.u
This law bore equally hard upon the puritans and upon the catholics; and had it not been imposed by the queen’s authority, was certainly, in that respect, much contrary to the private sentiments and inclinations of the majority in the house of commons. Very little opposition, however, appears there to have been openly made to it.
w

The expences of the war with Spain, having reduced the queen to great difficulties, the grant of subsidies seems to have been the most important business of this parliament; and it was a signal proof of the high spirit of Elizabeth, that, while conscious of a present dependance on the commons, she opened the session with the most haughty treatment of them, and covered her weakness under such a lofty appearance of superiority. The commons readily voted two subsidies and four fifteenths; but this sum not appearing sufficient to the court, an unusual expedient was fallen upon to induce them to make an enlargement in their concessions. The peers informed the commons in a conference, that they could not give their assent to the supply voted, thinking it too small for the queen’s occasions: They therefore proposed a grant of three subsidies and six fifteenths, and desired a farther conference, in order to persuade the commons to agree to this measure. The commons, who had acquired the privilege of beginning bills of subsidy, took offence at this procedure of the lords, and at first absolutely rejected the proposal: But being afraid, on reflection, that they had, by this refusal, given offence to their superiors, they both agreed to the conference, and afterwards voted the additional subsidy.
x

The queen, notwithstanding this unusual concession of the commons, ended the session with a speech, containing some reprimands to them, and full of the same high pretensions, which she had assumed at the opening of the parliament. She took notice, by the mouth of the keeper, that certain members spent more time than was necessary, PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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by indulging themselves in harangues and reasonings: And she expressed her displeasure on account of their not paying due reverence to privy counsellors, “who,”

she told them, “were not to be accounted as common knights and burgesses of the house, who are counsellors but during the parliament: Whereas the others are standing counsellors, and for their wisdom and great service are called to the council of the

state.”y
The queen also, in her own person, made the parliament a spirited harangue; in which she spoke of the justice and moderation of her government, expressed the small ambition she had ever entertained of making conquests, displayed the just grounds of her quarrel with the king of Spain, and discovered how little she apprehended the power of that monarch, even though he should make a greater effort against her than that of his Invincible Armada. “But I am informed,” added she, “that when he attempted this last invasion, some upon the sea-coast forsook their towns, fled up higher into the country, and left all naked and exposed to his entrance: But I swear unto you, by God, if I knew those persons, or may know of any that shall do so hereafter, I will make them feel what it is to be so fearful in so urgent a cause.”
z
By this menace, she probably gave the people to understand, that she would execute martial law upon such cowards: For there was no statute, by which a man could be punished for changing his place of abode.