hour, can alter the fact that for at least twenty years of Elizabeth's reign torture of the most revolting kind was habitually employed upon wretched men and women, who one after another declared that they prayed for her as their queen, but they could not, they dared not, accept the creed she attempted to impose upon them. During all these years there is no sign that Elizabeth ever felt one throb of pity or ever hesitated to sign a warrant for execution or to deliver over a miserable wretch to be dealt with by the 'rack master.' Campion was brought into her presence for a private interview from a dark and loathsome dungeon; the very next day he was subjected to inhuman torture. Fifteen years later the monster Topcliffe wrote a long letter to the queen setting forth his claim upon her regard, the ground of that claim being that he had helped more catholics to execution than any man in England. The justice of that claim was allowed, and for some years longer he continued at the old trade of vivisection and butchery.
Exactly a month after the death of Alençon William of Orange fell by the hand of an assassin (10 July 1584). In the Netherlands Parma made steady way against the insurgents, and the Dutch provinces seemed to be on the verge of despair. In July 1685 deputies from the States came to England, throwing themselves upon Elizabeth, prepared to make any conditions she might impose as the price of her help. The conditions were very hard ones. The queen was to furnish and pay four thousand men. Flushing, Brill, Ostend, and Rammekins, all coast towns, were to be delivered into her hands till the expenses which the war might cost should be repaid. As usual, the army arrived too late to save Antwerp, and was sent off without stores or a responsible commander. No sooner had the troops gone than Elizabeth wished they had never started, and Leicester was not allowed to leave England to commence operations till more than two months had elapsed. It may be true that he was incompetent; but hampered and thwarted as he was at every turn success was impossible. It may be true that his acceptance of the dignity of governor-general of the provinces (24 Jan. 1586) was an act of revolt against Elizabeth's authority; but her despatching a special envoy to flout him publicly before the States was an outrage without excuse, without precedent. There could be but one end to a campaign under such a commander, left without moral or material support from the queen at home. Leicester returned to England in September. The soldiers were left without pay, they were disbanded by their officers, and returned next year literally in rags and begging their bread, a miserable remnant of the host that had gone forth with hopes of conquest two years before.
The presence of Mary Stuart in England had from the first been embarrassing to Elizabeth. During the first five years of her captivity the Queen of Scots had been a source of unceasing disquiet. She had given no rest to her friends in Scotland and France, she had written to the pope imploring and claiming his intervention, she had laid plans for her escape, she had engaged in, or been believed to be at the bottom of, every treasonable plot; Elizabeth suspected that her coolest statesmen would succumb to her fascinations; but with the death of the Earl of Mar and the storming of Edinburgh Castle all hope of her ever being able to keep a party together in Scotland was at an end. Mary continued to live in somewhat luxurious captivity under the care of Lord Shrewsbury; but she could not live without intriguing; she had nothing else to do. It was by her means that a secret marriage was arranged in 1574 between Lord Charles Stuart, Darnley's brother, and Elizabeth Cavendish, Lady Shrewsbury's daughter by her first husband; the issue of that marriage was the Lady Arabella Stuart [see Arabella]. In 1576 the news came that Bothwell had died at Copenhagen — it was uncertain whether in prison or in a madhouse. Then came the trial of Morton, his confession that he had been cognisant of the murder of Darnley and privy to Bothwell's carrying off the queen; and his death upon the scaffold (2 June 1581). Close upon this followed the plot of Parsons and Creighton, the jesuits, the raid of Ruthven, and the wild project of the Duke of Guise for an invasion of the south, while James was to lead an army from the north, and a general rising was to be organised of Mary's supporters in England. Meanwhile the persecution of the wretched catholics waxed hot and increased in cruelty. They who were moved with pity for the sufferers passed from pity to sympathy; there was a growing party of enthusiasts prepared to make sacrifices for the beautiful captive. Her long captivity was spoken of among those who knew little about the facts as a martyrdom for the true faith, her stubborn constancy was declared to be christian heroism. At last the great Guise conspiracy — a stupid vague piece of vapouring talk about what might be — became public property. Francis Throckmorton, after enduring the horrible tortures of the rack twice without betraying his friends, broke down at the sight of the
