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my naturally led him to make in the diet and accommodations of Mary, were complained of by the French ambassador, Shrewsbury received a letter from court, expressing the displeasure of his queen in strong terms, but containing no intimation that his former allowances would be restored.* Other circumstances concurred to make Shrewsbury dissatisfied with his charge. As his whole time and attention were occupied in watching over his prisoner, his private affairs were neglected; and his tenants, in various parts of the country, taking advantage of his situation, contrived to evade his claims, by involving him in troublesome lawsuits. If he ventured on an excursion from the residence of Mary, he was sure to be reminded, by a severe reprimand, of his duty.§ If a friend happened to pay him a visit, a letter full of insinuations showed him that the jealousy of his sovereign was roused. At length, by a strange excess of severity, his very children were not permitted to visit him; and he was almost reduced to despair, when his earnest entreaties, seconded by the friendship of Cecil, and some of the other ministers, procured his release from an intolerable bondage.||

To sir Amias Paulet, one of the gentlemen to whom the royal prisoner was afterwards committed, Elizabeth seems to have given a much more explicit intimation of her wishes. Paulet had entered into the royal association for bringing to punishment all pretenders to the throne who should attempt her life; and she seemed to expect that he would rid her of her enemy, without subjecting her to the necessity, which she so earnestly wished to avoid, of actually signing the death warrant.¶ This gentleman refused to be her instrument in so base a deed, which she would have both disavowed and punished; and no other course remained but to authorise the execution of the sentence against Mary: but Elizabeth affected the utmost reluctance to a step which her parliament and people, who heartily hated and dreaded the queen of Scots, so earnestly pressed. To such a length were her hopes of deceiving mankind by this duplicity carried, that, even after having deliberately signed the warrant, and delivered it to Davison, her secretary of state, she pretended, on hearing that it was actually executed, the utmost astonishment, grief, and indignation. Loudly accusing the secretary of having surreptitiously sent off the warrant, in direct opposition to her inclination, she caused the unfortunate man to be subjected, on this charge, to a heavy fine, which she levied, to his utter ruin.

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Letter from Leicester to Shrewsbury, ibid., vol.
253.

Letter from the earl of Shrewsbury, ibid, p. 275.
Ibid.

Letter from Shrewsbury to the queen, ibid. p. 246. Letter from Shrewsbury to lord Burghley, ibid. vol. ii. p. 247. Letter from the same, p. 248.

¶ Secretary Davison's Apology, in Camden's Annals, p. 545.

If the part which Cecil bore in these transactions has brought censure on his memory, it brought no less unhappiness on his mind. His opinion respecting the queen of Scots, and the manner of her treatment, coincided with those of his colleagues in office. While he looked on her as the most dangerous enemy of his sovereign and his religion, he considered her liberty, and even her life, as scarcely compatible with the safety of either. Yet her confinement freed him neither from anxiety nor danger; his vigilance was incessantly occupied in counteracting the plots of her partisans, which aimed to involve himself and queen in one destruction. Mary even proved a source of disquietude to him, in a way which he could least have expected. Having, from motives of humanity obtained Elizabeth's reluctant consent that the captive queen, whose health had suffered much from confinement, should be carried to Buxton Wells for her recovery*, he happened, during her stay there, to visit the same place for the relief of his own complaints. His jealous sovereign, connecting this accidental meeting with his frequent applications to mitigate the severities practised against Mary (for he was averse to all unnecessary harshness), conceived the strange suspicion that he had a private understanding with the queen of Scots, and had repaired to Buxton for the purpose of maturing some treacherous project. Nor was this chimerical surmise the transient apprehension of a moment. On his return to court, he was charged by Elizabeth with this imaginary intrigue, in terms most injurious to his tried fidelity; and he found it prudent to decline a match between his daughter and the son of the earl of Shrewsbury, the keeper of Mary, and the supposed agent in their secret negotiations.‡

But while thus strangely suspected by Elizabeth, Cecil was, above all others, obnoxious to the partisans of Mary. Having been the chief means of discovering and overthrowing the conspiracies of Norfolk, he was reproached as the cause of that popular nobleman's death; though the repetition of the duke's treasonable attempts, after he had once been pardoned, seemed to render him no fit object of royal clemency. To consider Cecil as his private enemy seems altogether unfair. He was instrumental in procuring the pardon of Norfolk after his first offence; he endeavoured, by salutary counsels, to dissuade him from the prosecution of his pernicious schemes; and, in some of his writings, which still remain, he laments the infatuation of his grace, which rendered all good subjects his public enemies, however they might respect his private virtues.§ Yet the whole odium of Norfolk's death was thrown on him; and the *Letter from Cecil to Shrewsbury, in Lodge, vol.

111.

.ibid.

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Camden, p. 255. Lloyd's State Worthies, p. 540. Burleigh's Meditation on the Reign of Elizabeth, &c.

general reproach was countenanced by the unblushing duplicity of Elizabeth. That princess, though she had authorized the execution without any reluctance, was anxious to have it believed that she had only yielded to the importunities of Cecil. The minister was, for some time after, treated as a person who had deluded her into an act repugnant to her nature; and he was not received again into her presence and favour until she thought that appearances were sufficiently satisfied. But he had yet to connect a private and deeper affliction with the fate of Norfolk. One of Cecil's daughters was unfortunately married to a profligate husband, the earl of Oxford: that young nobleman, much attached to Norfolk, threatened his father-in-law, that unless he would undertake to procure the duke's pardon, he would do all in his power to ruin his daughter. This threat he executed with inhuman punctuality: and after having deserted her bed, and squandered his fortune in the most abandoned courses, he brought, by a train of barbarous usage, his innocent victim to an untimely grave.*

The selfish Elizabeth felt no remorse in attempting to load Cecil with the odium of the execution of Mary, as well as of Norfolk. He appears to have had no greater share in advising it than the other ministers: but as he was accounted a principal enemy of the queen of Scots, Elizabeth judged that an imputation against him would be most readily received; and, with this ungenerous view, she banished him from her presence, and treated him with all the harshness due to an unfaithful counsellor. Cecil appears, on this occasion, to have been seriously alarmed; ministers were not, in that age, protected against the crown, and the misfortunes of secretary Davison, then passing before his eyes, proved to him that, if Elizabeth should account a further sacrifice necessary for her purposes, little was to be expected either from her justice or gratitude. But, as the sincerity of her indignation had been testified sufficiently for political purposes by the ruin of Davison, and as the services of Cecil were too useful to be dispensed with, she suffered herself to be at length mollified, and received him again into favour.f

We have now taken a survey of the part acted by Cecil in regard to religion, to domestic and to foreign policy. A striking characteristic, and one hardly ever possessed to an equal degree by other statesmen, was a uniformity in his plans, the result of a mind always cool and deliberate, seldom blinded by prejudice, and never precipitated by passion. On some occasions we may dissent from his opinion, and in a few we may suspect the qualities of his heart; but, in general, we must allow that the measures which Elizabeth pursued in opposition to his sentiments were the

*Dugdale's Baronage, vol. ii. p. 169. Strype's Annals, vol. iii. p. 370.

chief defects of her government; while those which she adopted in conformity to his counsels produced the boasted prosperity and glory of her reign.

It has long since been observed, that the most successful statesman is scarcely an object of envy; that his pre-eminence is dearly purchased by unceasing disquietudes, and that his honours are an inadequate compensation for his mortifications and dangers. While nations, like individuals, are liable to be agitated by violent passions, and misled by false views of interest, the advocate of moderation and peace is often the object of popular reproach. Such was not unfre quently the case of Cecil. So wildly were the minds of men possessed with the prospect of military glory and Mexican gold, that his opposition to the continuance of the Spanish war subjected him even to personal danger from the populace. The more violent among the clergy, because he attempted to restrain their persecuting spirit, reviled him as a puritan in disguise, as a secret enemy to the church; while the more zcalous dissenters were no less suspicious of his endeavours to persuade them into conformity. From his supposed influence in public affairs, the ene mies of government were also his personal ene mies. The friends of Mary queen of Scots, and the partisans of the popish religion, regarded him as their capital foe; and not satisfied with incessantly defaming him by libels, they attempted more than once to take him off by assassination. In one of these attempts, for which two assassins were executed, the Spanish ambassador was suspected to have been concerned, and was, in consequence, ordered to depart the kingdom.

His influence with Elizabeth exposed him to equal hatred from the majority of the courtiers. The earl of Leicester was at the head of all the intrigues against him, and made, on one occasion, a bold effort to accomplish his ruin. In concert with the principal courtiers, he planned that Cecil should be unexpectedly accused before the privy council, arrested without the knowledge of the queen, and immediately sent to the Tower. When thus removed from the queen's presence, abundance of accusations, it was imagined, might be procured to elicit her consent to his trial and condemnation.* This plot had nearly reached its accomplishment, and Cecil was resisting his accusers in the privy council with very little effect, when Elizabeth, who had been privately informed of the design, suddenly entered the room, and addressed, to the astonished counsellors, one of those appalling reprimands which were more distinguished for vigour than delicacy.t

As a compensation for these disquietudes, and a recompense for his services, we should not be surprised to find Cecil loaded with the favours of

*Life of William Lord Burghley, p. 19. † Camden's Annals Eliz.

his sovereign. But that princess was proverbially frugal of her rewards. Her love of economy was frequently carried to a blameable excess, and her confidential ministers abridged of the means to serve her with advantage. There remain various letters of sir Francis Walsingham, complaining of his being wholly unable, on his scanty appointments, to support his establishment, though very inadequate to his quality of his ambassador in France. Other ministers had equal reason for complaint; and there were many more fortunes spent than made in her service. In the distribution of honours her frugality was no less conspicuous, and could be ascribed only to sound policy, uninfluenced by meaner motives. Aware that titles, unless accounted indicative of real merit in those on whom they were bestowed, would cease to confer distinction, she distributed them with a careful and sparing hand; and the honours of the earl of Leicester afford perhaps a solitary instance, in her reign, of a title acquired without desert. A title from Elizabeth was consequently a real reward, and was deemed an adequate retribution for the most important services.

If Cecil was better rewarded than the other ministers, we must own that his claims were greater; and we shall find that the favours which he received were neither hastily bestowed, nor carried beyond his merits. In consequence of his efforts in repressing the rebellion which attended the duke of Norfolk's first conspiracy, he was created a baron, the highest title he ever attained. The other favours which he received, consisting in official situations, could hardly be denominated rewards, since they brought him additional business, which he executed with punctuality and diligence. After concluding the treaty of Edinburgh, he was appointed master of the wards, an office in virtue of which he had to preside in the court of wards, and to determine a variety of questions between the sovereign and the subject. Eleven years afterwards, lord Burleigh (such was his new title) was raised to the office of lord high treasurer, which, along with great dignity, brought him an immense addition of complicated business. An accumulation of offices in the hands of one man naturally led to much envy, and was certainly a very blameable precedent; but the fidelity and ability with which he executed their duties must, in his case, alleviate the censure of posterity.

Lord Burleigh continued minister during a period of unexampled length, and in an age when men in office were exposed to the rudest assaults of faction and intrigue. To investigate the means by which he maintained his station cannot fail to be instructive, devoid as they were of the craft and subtlety so frequently connected with the name of politician. The arts to which he owed his success were not less honourable than skilful, and would Į Harleian MSS. in British Museum, No. 260.

have raised him to influence and reputation in the the walks of private life. For nothing was he more remarkable than for his unremitting diligence and scrupulous punctuality. Whatever the engagements of others, whether the pursuit of pleasure or the cabals of the court, Burleigh was always found at his post, intensely occupied with the duties of office and the cares of government. A young courtier of those times, while describing the intrigues with which all around him were busied, observes, "My lord treasurer, even after the old manner, dealeth with matters of state only, and beareth himself very uprightly." The degree of his industry may be estimated from its effects, which were altogether wonderful. As principal secretary of state, and for a considerable time as sole secretary, he managed a great proportion of the public business, both foreign and domestic: he conducted negotiations, planned expeditions, watched over the machinations of internal enemies, employed private sources of intelligence, assisted at the deliberations of the privy council and parliament, and wrote many tracts on the state of affairs. When created lord high treasurer, his concern with the general affairs of government continued, while he had, moreover, to attend to the receipts and disbursements of the nation, to devise means for replenishing the treasury, and to sit occasionally in the court of Exchequer, as judge between the people and the officers of the revenue. As master of the court of wards, he had much judicial occupation during term; for his equitable decisions brought before him an unusual accumulation of suits. Nor did he neglect those numerous petitions with which he was perpetually importuned, some demanding the reward of services, others imploring the redress of injuries; and, amidst all these avocations, his private affairs were managed with the same precision as those of the state.

All this load of business he was enabled, by assiduous application and exact method, to despatch without either hurry or confusion. In conformity to his favourite maxim, that "the shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once," he finished each branch of business before he proceeded to another, and never left a thing undone with the view of recurring to it at a period of more leisure. In the courts where he presided, he despatched as many causes in one term as his predecessors in a twelvemonth. When pressed with an accumulation of affairs, which frequently happened, he rather chose to encroach on the moderate intervals usually allowed to his meals and his sleep, than to omit any part of his task. Even when labouring under pain, and in danger of increasing his malady, he frequently caused himself to be carried to his office for the despatch of busiAn eye-witness assures us that, during a

ness.

* Letter from Gilbert Talbot to the Earl of Shrewebury, in Lodge, vol. ii. p. 100.

† Life of William Lord Burghley, p. 21.

period of twenty-four years, he never saw him idle for half an hour together*; and if he had no particular task to execute, which rarely happened, he would still busy himself in reading, writing, or meditating. By incessant practice, he acquired a facility and despatch which seemed altogether wonderful to idle courtiers; it proved of incalculable advantage to government, and to himself it gave a decided superiority over his less industrious nvals.

Next to his unequalled diligence and punctuality we are to rank his invincible reserve, whenever reserve was necessary. While he avoided that system of deception by which statesmen have so often undertaken to gain their ends, he succeeded in concealing his real views, by the mere maintenance of a guarded secrecy. Perfectly impenetrable to the dexterous agents who were employed to sound him, his unaltered countenance and unembarrassed motions afforded no means to divine the impressions produced on him by any communications. Equally hopeless was the attempt to arrive at his political secrets by procuring access to his most intimate friends; for he had no confidants. "Attempts," he said, "are most likely to succeed when planned deliberately, carried secretly, and executed speedily."§

The resolution with which he could persevere in his reserve was remarkably exemplified in his silence with respect to the succession to the throne. Three rival families at that time claimed this splendid inheritance,-the houses of Suffolk and Hastings, and the royal line of Scotland: the title of either might have been rendered preferable by an act of parliament. But Burleigh saw the danger of declaring in favour of one or other. All were at present restrained from improper attempts by their expectations; but if the intentions of the queen were once known, the disappointed families might be apt to embrace those violent measures from which alone they could then hope for success. He determined, therefore, to maintain a profound silence on this delicate question; and the queen, probably in consequence of his counsels, adopted and persevered in the same resolution, in spite of all the remonstrances with which she was assailed. The parliament often attempted to force a disclosure of her sentiments, and she and her minister found much difficulty in eluding their importunities; yet Burleigh carried his opinion with him to the grave, and Elizabeth disclosed hers only on her death-bed.

No statesman was ever more distinguished for self-command and moderation. Collected, calm, and energetic in the most critical emergencies, he bore adversity without any signs of dejection, and prosperity without any apparent elevation.|| Yet his coolness had in it nothing repulsive; and his

Life of William Lord Burghley, p. 24.
Ibid. p. 65.

§ Ibid. p. 69.

Ibid. p. 30.

Ibid. p. 64.

self-command was chiefly exerted in repressing angry emotions. In council, he was always the strenuous advocate of moderate and conciliating measures*; and it was his particular boast that, notwithstanding the extent of his private as well as his public transactions, he had never sued nor been sued by any man. He bore the attacks of his opponents without any appearance of resentment; and, in due season, embraced opportunities to promote their interest. When the earl of Leicester, who had always thwarted his measures, and often calumniated his character, at length fell under the queen's displeasure, Burleigh successfully exerted himself to prevent his total loss of favour. Nor did he hesitate to form a cordial reconciliation with sir Nicholas Throgmorton, who had long been one of his most dangerous enemies, and who had desisted from his practices only when he found Burleigh's power too firmly established to be shaken. Although Essex was his avowed and turbulent opponent, yet, when Elizabeth refused some just claim of that nobleman, the lord treasurer supported his cause with so much firmness, that the enraged queen at length bestowed on him some of those vehement epithets by which she made her courtiers feel her displeasure.§ It was observed that he never spoke harshly of his enemies, nor embraced any opportunity of revenge; and as he was no less on his guard to avoid every undue bias from affection, it became a general remark that he was a better enemy than a friend.|| "I entertain," he said, "malice against no individual whatever; and I thank God that I never retired to rest out of charity with any man."¶

Burleigh possessed great discernment in selecting, and great zeal in recommending, men of talent for public employments. He seemed resolved that England should be distinguished above all nations for the integrity of her judges, the piety of her divines, and the sagacity of her ambassadors.** It was he who discovered and brought into office sir Francis Walsingham, so much distinguished among the ministers of Elizabeth for acuteness of penetration, extensive knowledge of public affairs, and profound acquaintance with human nature. The department of foreign affairs was long almost exclusively under the management of Burleigh; and there is perhaps no period in the History of England in which her intercourse with other countries was committed to such able hands, and in which her ambassadors confessedly excelled those of other nations in diplomatic talents. By this attention to merit and neglect of interest, the

* "Win hearts," he was accustomed to say to the queen, "and you have their hands and purses." Rushworth's Collections, vol. i. P. 469.

† Bacon's Works, vol. iv. p. 372.

Letter of Lord Burghley in the Earl of Hardwicke's Miscellaneous State Papers, vol. i. p. 329. Birch's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 147.

Life of William Lord Burghley, p. 59.
Ibid.

** 1bid. p. 46, 55.

:

treasurer naturally incurred much obloquy from those whom his penetration caused him to neglect the nobility, in particular, expressed high displeasure at the preference so often given to commons, and seemed to think that offices which they could not execute, like honours which they had not earned, should be entailed on them and their descendants.

Cecil was never the advocate of compulsory or arbitrary measures. Open discussion, far from being attended with danger, was, in his opinion, the most effectual and innocent means of expending the fury of faction: a forced silence seemed to him only to concentre and aggravate popular resentment. In the courts where he presided, he never gave a judgment without explaining the grounds on which he proceeded * : in matters of state, he refused to give his opinion, unless where he might bring forward and debate the reasons on which it was founded. His influence was thus increased by all the weight of reason, and he omitted no precaution to give it the sanction of impartiality. The solicitations of those who presumed most on his favour, from the ties of kindred or familiar acquaintance, he received with such coldness that they were carefully avoided by those who knew him best, and never by any one repeated. If the cause of his friends were tried before him, he gave them rigid justice; if they sought preferment in the state, he did not obstruct their claims of merit: but he would listen to no application where partiality might blind his judgment, or blemish his integrity.

In that age, the eyes of mankind were more strongly dazzled than at present by the splendour of rank; and a statesman was more likely to promote his views by attentions to the great. Yet, with Burleigh, the poor received equal measure with the wealthy, and had their suits as patiently heard, and as speedily determined. Each day in term, it was customary for him to receive from fifty to sixty petitions, all of which he commonly perused and weighed in the course of the evening or night, and was prepared to return an answer next morning, on his way to Westminister Hall. As soon as the petitioner mentioned his name, Burleigh found no difficulty in recollecting his business, and in delivering a reply. When at length confined to his bed by age and infirmi ties, and no longer able to attend at the courts, he directed that all petitions should be sent to him under seal; and as all were opened in the order in which they arrived, and answers immediately dictated, the lowest petitioner received his reply with the same despatch as the highest.§

The early and complete intelligence which Burleigh possessed with regard to secret transactions, both at home and abroad, was spoken of

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with wonder by his contemporaries, and enabled him to adopt the promptest measures for counteracting all hostile attempts. At a period when invasion from abroad, and conspiracy at home, agitated by artful intriguers and desperate bigots, it was no season to await, in careless slumber, the development of events: but while we admire the extent and happy effects of his intelligence, we must hesitate to applaud the methods by which it was occasionally procured, and consider them as excusable only from the necessity of his situation. Obliged to maintain a number of spies, to reward informers, and to bribe accomplices to betray their associates, he might be condemned for resorting to nefarious arts, had they not been indispensable to the public safety, at a period when assassinations were so common, and when the doctrines of mental reservation, and of keeping no faith with heretics, were general tenets among the enemies of the government.

Burleigh, by adhering inflexibly to the rule of living within his means, escaped those pecuniary embarrassments which often beset his less considerate colleagues. His income, considerable at an early age, became progressively increased by additional offices, and occasionally by the mercantile adventures which in these days were usual among men of rank and fortune. It is a curious fact, that he invested large sums in the purchase of lead, for the purpose of re-sale.* Still he was exempt not only from corruption, but from selfishness for an avaricious man would have made more by his offices in seven years than he made in forty; and the splendour of his expenses was fully proportioned to his wealth and station. So far, indeed, did he carry his disinterestedness, as never to raise his rents nor displace his tenants. As the lands were let when he bought them, so they still remained; and some of his tenants continued to enjoy for 201. a year what might have been leased for 2001.

The magnificence of his mode of life is to be ascribed partly to policy, but more to the manners of the age, which, as we have seen in the case of the modest and unambitious More, made the expense of the great consist chiefly in a number of retainers. Burleigh had four places of residence, at each of which he maintained an establishment, his family and suite amounting to nearly a hundred persons. His domestic expenses at his house in London were calculated at forty or fifty pounds a week when he was present, and about thirty in his absence; princely allowances, when we consider the value of money at that period. His stables cost him a thousand marks a year; his servants were remarked for the richness of their liveries. Retaining an appendage of ancient magnificence, which had now been given up, unless by

*Letter from Gilbert Talbot to the Earl of Shrewsbury, in Lodge, vol. ii. p. 211.

Life of William Lord Burghley, p. 43.
Ibid. p. 54.55.

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