Mr. Dalton. CHAP X print calling the Infant of Scotland Prince of England, 1566 Scotland, and Ireland? Prince of England, Scotland, and November Ireland! What enemy to the peace and quietness of the Speech of realm of England-what traitor to the crown of this realm hath devised, set forth, and published this dishonour against the Queen's most excellent Majesty and the crown of England? Prince of England, and Queen Elizabeth as yet having no child!-Prince of England, and the Scottish Queen's child!-Prince of Scotland and England, and Scotland before England! who ever heard or read that before this time? What true English heart may sustain to hear of this villany and reproach against the Queen's highness and this her realm? It is so that it hath pleased her highness at this time to bar our speech; but if our mouths shall be stopped, and in the mean time such despite shall happen and pass without revenge, it will make the heart of a true Englishman break within his breast.' Arrest of 'With the indignity of the matter being,' as he afterwards said, 'set on fire,' Dalton went on to touch on dangerous matters, and entered on the forbidden subject of the Scottish title. The Speaker gently checked him, but not before he had uttered words which called out the whole sympathy of the Commons, and gave them an opportunity of showing how few friends in that house Mary Stuart as yet could count upon.1 The story was carried to the Queen: she chose to believe that the House of Commons intended to defy her; she ordered Dalton into arrest and had him examined before the Star Chamber; she construed her own orders into 1 Mr. Dalton's Speech, according to the Report.-Domestic MSS., ELIZ., vol. xli. a law, and seemed determined to govern the House of CHAP X Commons as if it was a debating society of riotous boys. 1566 November Commons conference. The Commons behaved with great forbearance: they replied to the seizure of the offending member by requesting to have leave to confer upon the liberties of the House.' The original question of the succession was lost in the larger one of privilege, and the address which they had previously drawn seemed no longer distinct enough for the occasion. The Council implored Elizabeth to consider what she was doing. As soon as her anger cooled she felt herself that she had gone too far, The and not caring to face a conference, 'foreseeing that demand a thereof must needs have ensued more inconvenience than were meet,' she drew back with temper not too ruffled to save her dignity in giving way. Her intention had been to extort or demand the sanction of the House for the prosecution of Dalton. Discovering in time that if they The Queen refused she had no means of compelling them, she would not risk an open rupture. The prisoner was released 'without further question or trial,' and on the 25th she sent orders to the Speaker 'to relieve the House of the burden of her commandment.' She had been assured, she said, that they had no intention of molesting her, and that they had been much perplexed' by the receipt of her order; she did not mean to prejudice any part of the laudable liberties heretofore granted to them;' she would therefore content herself with their obedient behaviour, and she trusted only that if any person should begin again to discuss any particular title, the Speaker would compel him to be silent.' The Commons were prudent enough to make the 1 Note of the words of the Queen to the Speaker of the House of Commons. -Domestic MSS., ELIZ., vol. xli. Leicester to Cecil, November 27.-MS. Ibid. gives way. November CHAP X Queen's retreat an easy one. Having succeeded in re1566 sisting a dangerous encroachment of the crown they did not press their victory. The message sent through the Speaker was received by the House' most joyfully, with most hearty prayers and thanks for the same," and with the consent of all parties the question of Parliamentary privilege was allowed to drop. Yet while ready to waive their right of discussing further the particular pretensions of the claimants of the crown, the Commons would not let the Queen believe that they acquiesced in being left in uncertainty. Two months had passed since the beginning of the session, and the subsidy had not been so much as discussed. The succession quarrel had commenced with the first motion for a grant of money, and had lasted with scarcely an interval ever since. It was evident that although Elizabeth's objection to name a successor was rested on general grounds, it applied as strongly to Lady Catherine as to the Queen of Scots, and had arisen professedly from the Queen's own experience in the lifetime of her sister; yet the Commons either suspected that she was secretly working in the Scottish interest, or they thought at all events that her procrastination served only to strengthen that interest, and' that Mary Stuart's friends every day grew more numerous. The Money Bill was reintroduced on the 27th. The House was anxious to compensate by its liberality for the trouble which it had given on other subjects, and the Queen was privately informed that the grant would' be made unusually large. Elizabeth determined not to be outdone, replied that although for the public servic she might require all which they were ready to offer 1 Commons' Journals, 8 ELIZ. November Bill. 'she counted her subjects in respect of their hearty good CHAP X will her best treasurers;' and 'she therefore would move 1566 them to forbear at that time extending their gift as they proposed.' The manner as well as the matter of the The Subsidy message was pointedly gracious, yet the Commons would have preferred her taking the money and listening to their opinions; and the bribe was as unsuccessful as the menace, in keeping them silent. They voted freely the sum which she would consent to take. It amounted in a rough estimate to an income tax of seven per cent. for two years; but an attempt was made to attach a preamble to the Bill which would commit the Queen in accepting it to what she was straining every nerve to avoid. Referring to the promise which she had made to the Committee, the Commons humbly and earnestly besought her, with the assistance of God's grace, having resolved to marry, to accelerate without more loss of time all her honourable actions tending thereto;' while submitting themselves to the will of Almighty God in whose hands all power and counsel did consist, they would at the same time beseech Him to give her Majesty wisdom well to foresee, opportunity speedily to consult, and power with assent of the realm sufficiently to fulfil without unnecessary delay, all that should be needful to her subjects and their posterity in the stablishing the succession of the crown, first in her own person and progeny, and next in such persons as law and justice should peaceably direct-according to the answer of Moses: "The Lord God of the spirit of all flesh set one over this great multitude which may go out and in before them, and lead them out and in, that the Lord's people may not be as sheep without a shepherd." 1 Preamble for the Subsidy Bill.-Domestic MSS., vol. xli. Rolls House. CHAP X 1566 The meaning of language such as this could not be mistaken. All the political advantages of the Scottish December succession would not compensate to the Lord's people' for such a shepherd as the person into whose hands they seemed to be visibly drifting. It was a grave misfortune for the Protestants that they could produce no better candidate than Lady Catherine Grey, who had professed herself a Catholic when Catholicism seemed likely to serve her turn; and to whom, notwithstanding her legal claim through the provisions of the will of Henry the Eighth, there were so many and so serious objections. The friends of the Queen of Scots had set in circulation a list of difficulties in the way of her acknowledgment, the weight of which fanaticism itself could not refuse to admit.' It is uncertain whether the preamble was ever forced 1 Whatever be said, it is notorious that when Sir Charles Brandon married the French Queen he had a wife already living. hath earnestly acknowledged the same. A divorce was procured by the Earl of Pembroke, in Queen Mary's The Lady Katherine is therefore reign, against their wills, so that it illegitimate. cannot be legal. Even if this were not so, yet such hath been her life and behaviour, and so much hath she stained herself and her issue, as she is to be thought unworthy of the crown. For she was married, as you know, to the Lord Herbert; the marriage was performed and perfected by all necessary circumstances; there was consent of parties, consent of parents, open solemnizing, continuance till lawful years of consent, and in the meantime, carnal copulation; all which, save the last, are commonly known, and the last, which might be most doubtful, is known by confession of them both. She herself Afterwards, she by dalliance fell to carnal company with the Earl of Hertford, which was not descried till the bigness of her belly bewrayed her ill hap. The marriage between them was declared unlawful by the bishop who examined it. The mother wicked and lascivious; the issue bastarded. If she were next in the blood royal, her fault is so much the more to have so foully spotted the same. She can have no lawful children. Deut. xiii. 23:-It is written, “a bastard and unlawful-born person may not bear rule in the church and commonweal;" a law devised to punish |