to mention the ladies) most unhandsomely forsook Elizabeth, when they had the least reason to have done it;" and wrung from the sick and dying queen the complaint: "They have now got me in a yoke! I have nobody left me that I can trust! My condition is the perfect reverse of what it was!" And when the helpless and hopeless condition of the queen was perceived, we are told that it was "hardly credible with how froward a zeal all ranks and conditions of men- puritans, papists and others - hasted away, at all times and hours, by sea and land, into Scotland, to pay their adorations to the rising sun, the young king."*

It was this heartless abandonment of her by courtiers and pretended friends, together with the death of the Earl of Essex, for whom she cherished almost a mother's love, added to the violence of her disease, which produced the morbid melancholy which shrouded the last days of the great queen of England.†

* In Kennet's Hist. Eng., 11. 652–53.

According to Sir John Harington's account, Cary, with all his professions of love to Elizabeth, was the first to reach Scotland with the intelligence of the queen's death, and to secure a reward from her successor. Nuga Antiquæ, 1. 337. And even Sir John himself, godson of the queen though he was, sought to win the royal pedant's favor before her death, by sending him, as a New Year's present, a wonderful dark lantern, made of four metalsgold, silver, brass and steel-curiously wrought- and containing significant inscriptions. - Nuga, 1. 325.

+ Mrs. Hutchinson doubtless gives the current belief of the puritans of that day, when she says of James, that "by bribes and

Elizabeth's greatest statesman and most trusted and confidential adviser, William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, had preceded her, by a few years, into the spirit world. He died August 4th, 1598, at the advanced age of 78 years. "As to his end, it was conformable to his life, easy, natural, in the midst of his family, full of years as of glory." For forty years he had served his royal mistress with an honest, earnest zeal, a self-sacrificing, unswerving fidelity and ability, which had greatly endeared him even to her capricious heart. On the first day of her accession to the throne, she called on Cecil for advice, and her first appointment made him Secretary of State, a position which he had held under her brother Edward. After twelve years of faithful service, she raised him to the peerage, as Baron Burleigh. In 1572 she made him Lord High

greater promises, he managed a faction in the court of the declining queen, which prevailed on her dotage to destroy the earl of Essex, the only person who would have had the courage to keep out him they thought it dangerous to let in."-Mems. Col. Hutchinson, p. 76. Bohn's edition.

Sir John Harington gives a vivid picture of the queen's wrath against Essex, at his sudden return from his ill-managed expedition in Ireland: "When I did come into her presence she chafed much, walked fastly to and fro, looked with discomposure in her visage; and I remember she catched my girdle when I kneeled to her, and swore, 'By God's Son, I am no queen: that man is above me! Who gave him command to come here so soon? I did send him on other business.'"-Nuga Antiquæ, vol. 1. p. 355. Harington was an officer in the Irish expedition, and a confidential friend of Essex, who sent him to smooth his way to the queen.

Treasurer, the highest office in the State; and in this office retained him to the day of his death, though he repeatedly solicited permission to resign the responsible and difficult trust. When he was called away, she wept tears of sincere sorrow, separating herself from all company for a time; and for years afterwards always speaking of him with tears. Though a moderate, Burleigh was a steady friend of the puritans, and even of the hated Separatists. The latter trusted him as they did no other courtier, and confided petitions to his hands which they dared not commit to any other man about the queen; and he interposed for them at many different times, as we know, and doubtless at many other times, of which we have no record. And though he did not shield them effectually from the persecuting zeal of the bishops and the ignorant wrath of his royal mistress and probably could not yet it is no small compliment to this great man, that he retained the confidence of the suffering Separatists to the end of his life.

Burleigh's letter to archbishop Whitgift, dated July 15th, 1584, in relation to his persecuting measures against the puritans, and particularly about the twenty-four articles which the archbishop had prepared for the use of the high commissioners, in their inquisitorial examinations of the nonconformists presents a very fair view of his opinions on these points, and deserves to be given entire: “I

* See Francis Johnson's letter to Burleigh, ante, p. 218.

am sorry," he says, "to trouble you so often as I do, but I am more troubled myself, not only with many private petitions of sundry ministers, recommended for persons of credit, and peaceable in their ministry, who are greatly troubled by your grace and your colleagues in commission; but I am also daily charged by councillors and public persons, with neglect of my duty, in not staying your grace's vehement proceedings against ministers, whereby papists are greatly encouraged and the queen's safety endangered.

"I have read over your twenty-four articles, found in a Romish style, of great length and curiosity, to examine all manner of ministers in this time, without distinction of persons, to be executed ex officio And I find them so curiously penned, so full of branches and circumstances, that I think the Inquisition of Spain used not so many questions to comprehend and to trap their priests. I know your canonists can defend these with all their particles; but surely, under correction, this judicial and canonical sifting poor ministers is not to edify or reform. And in charity I think they ought not to answer to all these nice points, except they were notorious papists or heretics.

"I write with the testimony of a good conscience. I desire the peace and unity of the church. I favor no sensual and wilful recusant; but I conclude, according to my simple judgment, this kind of proceeding is too much savoring of the Romish Inquisition, and is a device rather to seek for offenders

than to reform any. It is not charitable to send men to your common Register, to answer upon so many articles at one instant, without a copy of the articles, or their answers. I pray your grace this one (perchance) fault, that I have willed the ministers not to answer these articles except their consciences may suffer them."

Naturally slow and cautious, Burleigh's position rendered him doubly careful. Envied and hated by the old nobility, because of the honors and distinctions conferred on him by the queen; surrounded by enemies, who were ever ready to take advantage of any mistake which he might make, and who repeatedly plotted his ruin it became him to walk cautiously. And being often almost alone in his moderate views among the councillors of State, we may readily believe what he once told a puritan divine, who sought his aid to carry forward church reform: that though he thought well of it himself, yet he could not do 'the good he would, or that others thought he could.†

*Neal's Puritans, 1. 416-19.

↑ Burleigh's domestic biographer tells us, that a plan was laid by the lords, as early as 1560, to cut him off. He was called before the council without the queen's knowledge, and it was resolved to send him to the Tower; hoping when they had once got him there, to be able to destroy him. But the queen, on learning what was doing, interposed and saved him. "So the fire was covered, but not quenched."- Compleat Statesman, p. 12. In 1568-69, another plot was formed to ruin him. The duke of Norfolk, the marquis of Winchester, the earls of Northumberland, Westmoreland, Arundel, Pembroke, Leicester and others, were in it; and their plan was, to get him into the Tower, if possible.